Toda-san walked the first Jet Ski—I’m sorry, personal water craft—into the surf and started it up. Jake, Lukas, Gabe, and Tetsu held onto the banana boat as it slid over the waves, and Toda-san towed it out into the deep blue sea.
“Why don’t you put on this T-shirt, hon?”
Kerri’s voice, so near, made me turn and look behind me. She was walking beside Keiko, whose bikini was neon orange. Nothing like the bright color to call attention to how little of it there was.
“No, thank you.” Keiko had her hair in pigtails, which looked so cute.
I looked back to the ocean and grinned.
“Hai hai, Pensa-chan.” Keiko stopped beside me and slid her hand along my waist, reaching up under the back of my T-shirt until her fingers reached the life vest.
I froze as if a bird had landed on me and I was afraid that any movement might send it flying away. “Hey,” I managed to say, then dug for deeper words. “Nani kata?”
She shot me an amused glance. “Nanika atta. I am fine.” She moved her hand from my back and held up a red and black life vest. “Can you help?”
Yes. Yes I could. I took the vest from her and unzipped it, then helped her put it on. I caught sight of Mary scowling at me. Grace, thankfully, had her back to me, getting towed out on the third banana boat.
Girls, anyway.
“My dad has houseboat,” Keiko said. “You wanna see?”
“Where?”
“Another day. Is good place to be alone.”
The words made me all hot inside.
We watched the banana boats get towed around and the riders get dumped into the ocean. It was making me nervous. I didn’t want my head to go under the water. But I didn’t want to look like I was afraid, either. Somehow, Tetsu managed to stay on every time. I couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.
Finally Toda-san steered the banana boat back to land and Gabe, Lukas, Tetsu, and Jake climbed off, laughing. All but Tetsu were soaked.
“Supensa-san, Keiko, ikou!” Jun waved us over to the boat.
“Did you see Tetsu stay on?” Lukas asked.
“Tetsu is a ninja,” Jake said.
Instead of striking a ninja pose, Tetsu started doing the running man, staring at Beth as if she might be impressed with his 90s dance moves.
Yeah, nice try, buddy.
Kozue climbed on the front of the banana boat, then Jun. I offered to let Keiko go next, but she shooed me on first. I climbed onto the squishy, wet rubber boat behind Jun. There were plastic handles on the sides, so I grabbed those rather than Jun. Keiko got on behind me. And when she slid her arms around my waist and snuggled up against my back, I decided she’d made the right choice in regard to seating arrangements.
Toda-san started the Jet Ski and revved the engine. The banana boat pulled away from the sand and bounced over the ocean waves.
We rode for a long while before Toda-san made his first attempt to tip us. He sped up, then took a sharp turn. When he didn’t knock us off, he kept at it. One time, the banana boat went up on one side. The girls shrieked. My stomach slid around inside me. Keiko squeezed tight. But the boat slapped back down against the waves. I couldn’t stop laughing.
The next time we tipped precariously, Toda-san gunned the motor and pulled us over.
I tried to go ninja like Tetsu and hold onto the handles, but the banana boat flipped upside down. My body plunged into the shockingly warm water, Keiko still gripping my waist. I panicked, I admit. Terror rose in my chest, convincing me I was going to drown. I kicked and flailed my arms, slapping at the inflated clump of rubber overhead, trying to find the surface.
The life vests did good work, though, and pulled me and Keiko to the surface. When my face broke through and I sucked in that blessed air, I also swallowed a half gallon of salty water. This left me coughing and hacking and probably looking like an idiot, again, but Keiko was laughing so hard she didn’t seem to notice.
Life vests were an amazing invention.
Keiko swam toward the banana boat then, and I realized that this was the moment I’d dreamed about again and again. It usually felt good when one of my visions came to pass. But this time I was just confused. Why would I dream about this particular moment? What was God trying to tell me?
After all my research on how God had used prophecies in the Bible, I still had no clue how to interpret my own. Arianna had said to pray about it, and while I still wasn’t convinced that God was even listening, I gave it yet another try.
Okay, God, I’m listening. Keiko in the ocean. Prière said my prophecies are usually warnings. So … is she going to drown? Are there sharks in the water? Should I not go swimming with her? Am I going to drown if I go swimming with her?
But the life jackets were doing a great job, so it couldn’t be that. At least not now. In fact, once I’d figured out that I wasn’t going to drown, I got the hang of the falling into the ocean thing. We all took turns riding the banana boats for the next few hours until that short woman who brought us lunch on Wednesdays showed up with a bunch of bags. We all sat on our beach towels while she passed out little box lunches.
Keiko put her towel so close to mine that they overlapped. She leaned against me and whispered in my ear. “Meet me behind boathouse, five minutes.” Then she jumped up, said, “Toire!” and ran off toward the warehouse.
Uhm … oh-kay. Like me getting up in five minutes and heading off after her wouldn’t be noticed by anyone. I watched her until she disappeared into the warehouse. Then I kept staring at the open garage door. By “boathouse” had she meant the warehouse? And she had said behind not inside, right?
The woman came over to where me and Jun and Gabe had our stuff, blocking my view of the warehouse. “O-noriben ga tabetai desuka o-tori bento desuka?” she asked me.
“Wakarimasen,” I said, peeking around her side to get another look at the warehouse.
She pulled out two boxes from a paper sack, one in each hand. She shook the one in her right hand. “This-su one … chicken.” She shook the left one. “This-su one … seaweed.”
“Chicken,” I said, snatching the box out of her right hand.
“Is tori bento,” she said.
I pulled off the lid. “Tori bento.”
She nodded and moved to Gabe, who also took a tori bento. Jun took a seaweed one.
“Tori means chicken in Japanese,” Jun said, once the woman was gone.
Now, that was something I wasn’t going to forget. If we ever ended up at a restaurant, I was ordering the tori.
The little box had four containers filled with chicken, rice, some kind of coleslaw, a square of Japanese omelet, and orange slices. The chicken was cold, but really good. As usual, there wasn’t nearly enough food. Before I started nibbling grains of rice, I decided that five minutes must have passed. I got my feet under me to stand, then froze when the idea crossed my mind that Keiko might kiss me.
Nah.
But what if she did? I’d just eaten a bunch of chicken. I faked a cough and put my hand over my mouth, trying to smell my breath. Couldn’t tell. I inspected my lunch tray. No mint. Then I remembered that I had the remains of a homemade field ops kits in my wallet, collected from things I had in my suitcase. I grabbed my wallet and found the stick of Big Red. I shoved it in my mouth. It was as hard as rock, but there was still some good flavor in it.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” I jogged away. I heard Gabe yell something, but I didn’t look back, hoping he’d think I hadn’t heard him.
Sadly, Gabe ran up beside me. “I’m coming with you.”
Oh, great. I gnawed on the gum and didn’t answer.
We reached the warehouse. Gabe headed straight for the garage door. I slowed my steps, uncertain how I was going to lose him or which way Keiko had gone.
Before I had to make a choice, someone yelled, “Ne, Gojira!”
I looked out at the parking lot. Two Japanese teenagers were standing beside a pair of motor scooters. They both had the flat-topped hairstyle
s of Kimura-san’s karate students.
Gabe came back out of the warehouse to stand beside me. “He called you Godzilla.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did. Gojira is how Japanese people say—”
A girl’s scream made us both jump. Keiko!
I ran around the back of the warehouse. At the opposite corner, some guy was holding Keiko up against the wall.
“Hey! Get your hands off her!” I ran toward them. The guy looked at me.
Bushi Kogawa.
He dragged Keiko toward a motorcycle. She shook her head and tried to pull away, but Bushi forced her to get on the bike. Just before I reached him, he started the bike and drove in a wide U-turn, spraying sand in an arc, laughing and taunting me. “Come and catch me, Amerikan,” he yelled, coasting to a stop. I reached out, and my fingertips swiped the back of his T-shirt just as the motorcycle shot forward again. I sprinted after him, but he kept just out of my reach.
He drove up onto the asphalt of the parking lot and stopped again. I could hear Keiko sobbing and spouting Japanese, and I poured on the speed. “You want her? Come on!” Bushi shot off toward the end of the lot. I chased him, then slowed and cut through the middle to head him off. The asphalt was smoother than wet sand under my bare feet.
“Spencer!” Gabe ran up beside me, panting. “What are you doing?”
“We have to help her.”
“So let’s go tell my dad.”
“Good idea,” I said. “Go tell him.”
Bushi drove around the end of the lot and circled back toward me. The engine revved to full throttle.
“He’s going to run you over!” Gabe said.
I didn’t think he would because then he’d crash. But if he swerved at the last second, Keiko might get hurt. I heard Bushi’s friends laughing and ran toward them. I pushed the first guy into the second guy’s scooter. All three went down like Dominoes. I straddled the first guy’s scooter, kicked back the stand with my heel, and flipped switches until I managed to start it.
Gabe ran up beside me. “What are you doing?”
“Tell Mr. S what’s happened.”
Bushi sailed by, and I accelerated the scooter after him. It was small and black and had a flat area in the middle for me to put my feet on. The whole thing felt small beneath me, but it kept up with Bushi’s just fine.
Bushi glanced over his shoulder, saw that I was behind him, and increased his speed.
I cranked the throttle on my bike, and the motor trilled higher.
Bushi turned left on the narrow road between the beach and the driving school parking lots. Long swaths of green grass, tropical bushes, and sand filled the ditches beside the road. It ran straight ahead for a long shot, and Bushi stretched the distance between us. There was no way my scooter could keep up with his motorcycle, but for some reason, Bushi slowed down until I caught up. He was toying with me. What was this guy’s problem?
I got close enough to almost ram my front wheel into his back one. Keiko screamed again. Then Bushi sped on ahead.
I cussed him out, knowing no one was here to report me.
We passed what looked like some apartment buildings. A freeway rose suddenly on our left. We sped beside it for a while, then Bushi turned right down a narrow, curvy street with hedges and palm trees on both sides.
I followed, but it occurred to me now that I was in trouble. If the police decided to grab me, I had no passport or wallet. Sure, Mr. S would find me eventually, but he’d be ticked. And for all I knew, Bushi was leading me into a trap.
Duh. Of course he was. But I couldn’t leave Keiko with him.
The road T’d off at an intersection. Keiko yelled and slapped at Bushi, but before I could stop to get off my scooter, he rolled out into the main road and jetted across the busy street. Horns honked, and one pedestrian yelled after him.
Figs and jam. What now? I inched out into the intersection and almost got hit by a bus. I squeezed the brakes so hard I swallowed my gum. Gross. So much for kissing Keiko.
The bus stopped for me, though, and I was able to cross. I chased Bushi down another side street and into a busy street with two lanes of cars going each direction. I had to slow down behind a car, which was more like a ladybug on wheels. Bushi was three cars ahead, and as I watched, he surged around another. Though it freaked me out, I steered out from behind the ladybug and accelerated between the two rows of cars.
I recognized the Okinawa store with the 3D cat and Buzz Lightyear. We were in the shopping area near the movie theater. A few blocks later, Bushi took a sharp left into an alley. When I reached it, I saw that it wasn’t an alley, but that covered Heiwa Street with all the shops. I stopped and turned slowly into the shopping area. People yelled at me, and I caught sight of a black sedan on the street behind me.
Mr. Sloan. Of course he’d be following me as always. Good. At least I’d be safe if Bushi was leading me to his mafia pals. But Mr. Sloan couldn’t drive the car in here like I could the scooter. I hoped he could keep up on foot.
I moved easily down the wake Bushi had parted in the crowd. I passed shops and kiosks and vending machines, racks of clothing, hat and shoe stands, ladies pushing strollers, and all kinds of people.
Bushi slowed to swerve though a large mob of shoppers, then sped to the right where the street divided. It took me a bit to get through the mob—I heard Keiko scream—and when I turned to the right, I saw that Bushi had crashed into a flower stand. Fresh flowers covered the street. The motorcycle lay on its side, and Bushi was picking it up. Keiko lay a few yards from him in a pile of reddish orange flowers that matched the color of her bikini. She wasn’t moving.
I accelerated down the street and stopped at Keiko’s side. Bushi took off down the street. I let him go.
I put down the kickstand and climbed off the bike. “Keiko?” I crouched at her side.
A woman came at me with a broom, pointing after Bushi. “Kare wa kanojo wo nagutta!”
“Wakarimasen,” I said, hoping I sounded polite. “I’m American.” I tapped my chest. “Amerika.”
“Oh, si. That-o boeeu.” She pointed after Bushi. “He … how you say, nagutta! Panchi.” She tapped her fist to her cheek.
He punched her? I tipped Keiko’s face toward mine. The skin around her left eye was bluish and had already puffed up so much that her left eye was merely a black slash of eyelashes. That mother pus …
I shook her shoulder. “Keiko?”
She groaned then and opened her eyes, though the left one barely cracked a quarter of an inch. She cried out and pushed herself up, touched her eye. Tears dripped down her cheeks. “Bushi?” She looked over my shoulder, down the street.
“He’s gone,” I said.
She started bawling then, pushed up onto her knees, and hugged my neck. I pulled her close and held her, not knowing what else to do. I was very aware that my hands were flat against her bare back. An idea came to me then. I closed my eyes and willed a vision to come, hoping I could see something that would help me help her.
But nothing happened.
I tried it again, this time praying for God to show me. But He didn’t.
I really wasn’t surprised. I did not understand how this stuff worked. I wondered if I understood God at all.
“Spencer!” Mr. Sloan crouched beside us. “You’re okay?”
His European accent seemed stronger than usual, but I never had heard the guy talk all that much. “Bushi hit her.”
The police arrived then. I explained as best I could, but Keiko and the florist took over and did most of the talking. Mr. Sloan spoke fluent Japanese too, and he got involved, showed one of the officers his badge. I wondered what kind of a badge it was. Probably an INTERPOL one, since they funded the Mission League.
Some medical people showed up to check out Keiko. Mr. Sloan was still talking with the police. So I gathered up the flowers on the street and set them in a pile inside the door of the woman’s flower shop. She seemed like a nice lady. I felt bad that
Bushi had messed up her place.
A cop drove away the scooter I’d stolen. Another cop escorted Keiko out of the shopping area. Mr. Sloan and I followed them.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked him.
“They’re going to take her to the hospital to make sure she’s okay. Then they’ll question her.”
“And me?”
“I took care of it. You’re coming with me.”
Oh-kay. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but I’d much rather be with Mr. Sloan than hauled off to some Japanese jail. But when we got out of the shopping area, Toda-san’s little white gumdrop was parked behind Mr. Sloan’s black sedan, and Mr. S was standing beside it.
Yeah … I was definitely in trouble.
● ● ●
“But Mr. S,” I said, “he would have gotten away if I hadn’t chased him.”
“Can you prove that, Spencer?”
I was riding in the back of Toda-san’s car. Mr. S was in the passenger’s seat and Toda-san was driving. Mr. S had put me on probation. That meant if I got in trouble again, he’d send me home. I’d asked him to define trouble, but he’d just glared at me.
“I didn’t have time to think,” I said. “I just had to get her away from him. He’s beat her up before, Jun said. I think God wants me to track her so that she can get into the Mission League where her prophecies can do some good.”
“Kimura-san’s daughters rejected Mishion Ligu,” Toda-san said. “And Keiko … she tells many lie.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You didn’t see what he did to her eye. And don’t forget he tried to break my arm. Why won’t someone arrest him?”
“The police are looking for him,” Mr. S said. “They told me he’s one of the leaders of a dangerous gang and that they’ve been after him for a while. Leave it to them, please.”
“I wasn’t going after him.” I looked out the car window. It was nighttime now. Bright lights everywhere. “I was just trying to help Keiko.”
Project Gemini (Mission 2 Page 16