“That Mikko’s one arm is his weakness,” answers Taji.
“Yes. Foolish Dragon, even blinder than my Golden Bat.”
Taji beams. He’s proud of his spirit totem. Rare and clever, the Golden Bat doesn’t need to see where it’s going. It knows.
“A weakness is not always obvious. Find Uma’s weakness and you will ride,” instructs Sensei. “Until then . . . more practice!”
Waving his staff in Uma’s direction, our teacher wanders off to sit under the large, shady maple tree, where he can watch us from his sleep.
Catching Uma is never easy. Facing away from us, he doesn’t need to see what we are doing. He knows. Uma is like the Golden Bat.
“Let’s get this over and done with,” I sigh.
“You go first,” Kyoko suggests. “He likes you best.”
Probably because I only have one knee. It makes him half as grumpy.
Uma has his head down in the grass, pretending not to listen.
“Easy, boy,” I say, holding out my hand. He lets me strap on the saddle and climb onto his back. Ky-yaa! Raising my arm triumphantly, I am a legendary samurai rider.
But Uma is not in the mood for even one knee, no matter how legendary. I land with a thump. A cold splash soaks through my layers of clothing — through the jacket, the baggy pants, and the kimono. My fingers sink into a wet sticky mess. Oh, no! I forgot about my pudding.
Uma’s nose twitches as he bends to sniff my hand. Scooping the remainder out of my pocket, I offer it to him. His tongue is rough and tickles my palm while he slurps down my leftover dessert. A warm, sticky muzzle rubs against my neck. Uma’s weakness is the same as mine — honey pudding!
“He likes honey pudding!” I call, leading my new friend back to the others.
Kyoko doesn’t look convinced.
“Go on. You try.” I scrape the remaining sticky mess from my pocket and smear it on her hand.
Uma licks his lips as Kyoko climbs into the saddle. She reaches around to offer her hand. He slurps happily.
“Let’s go, boy.” Kyoko nudges gently with her knee.
Uma is on our side now and is happy to let Kyoko ride him to the cherry tree and back. As long as we’ve got enough pudding.
“At least now we won’t fall off our horse at the Games. One less thing for the other teams to laugh at,” says Mikko.
I try not to think about the Games, but it must be hardest for Mikko. Once he was a mighty Dragon, a winner. Now he is one of us.
“Do you miss the Dragon Ryu?” I ask him.
“Never.” Mikko shakes his head.
“It must have felt good to win sometimes.” Kyoko sounds wistful.
Mikko shakes his head even harder. “When a Dragon makes a mistake, the Master strikes him hard across the head with his fist. When a Cockroach gets it wrong, Sensei cares. He says, ‘More practice!’”
“More practice!” Sensei yells from his sleep.
Suddenly it feels good to be a loser Cockroach. It feels safe.
Uma bares his teeth. A big toothy grin speckled with pudding. Drab and cockroach brown like our kimonos, he’s one of us, too. Sensei says brown is good. A samurai must earn attention from his skill with weapons and words, not the bright colors he wears.
“Students who want people to notice what they are wearing should wear nothing. Everyone looks then,” Sensei told us.
Still, I wish I had a magnificent red and gold silk cloak like the Dragon Master. Sensei has a long dark brown cotton cloak, stained with cherry juice and torn at the corner Taji accidentally stood on. I don’t want one like that.
After horseback riding, it’s lunch. Even eating backward, lunch is still in the middle. We rush through it and stuff our faces with plums.
The afternoon lesson is archery. I’m good at it, because I am the White Crane, expert at standing still. Even on one leg. Archery is about balance.
A samurai bow is taller than a man and my bow is a head taller than me. Sensei helps us carve our bows from the ryu trees. We make bamboo arrows and tie a feather to the end. When I nock my arrow and send it flying skyward in an arc, the White Crane opens its wings and flies with it.
In the old days, when Ki-Yaga was a hero, samurai archers rode horses. I want to be a hero this afternoon, but Uma is nowhere to be seen. A handful of pudding loyalty doesn’t last all day.
Our practice area is a large clearing in the middle of the forest, behind the classroom where Sensei is meditating. The hardest thing about archery is ignoring the rustling noises. It’s especially hard for me because I have a vivid imagination.
There really is a monster out there. Black Tusk, the most fearsome wild pig in Japan, lives in our forest. None of us have ever seen him, but Sensei has.
“What should we do if we see the boar?” Yoshi asked.
“Run. Run fast to the tallest cherry tree,” Sensei said.
Behind me, the undergrowth crackles and rustles.
“Face this way.” Mikko points Taji in the direction of the target. Taji places an arrow in the bow, pulls the string back, and lets the bamboo fly. Twang. Phlock! It pierces the outermost edge, but Taji can’t see it almost missed, and we always say the same thing.
“Well done,” Yoshi calls. Kyoko claps.
The snuffling sounds are loud and close. His bow and arrows forgotten, Taji is listening hard.
Black Tusk charges from the undergrowth.
“Eeeeee!” Kyoko’s high-pitched shriek claws at my eardrum.
“Run!” yells Yoshi, dragging me along with him. I can’t run fast enough. The boar’s hot breath burns the back of my leg. My wooden crutch is not made for racing wild pigs. I imagine my skin beginning to rip. I imagine a warm trickle of blood.
Yoshi sweeps me onto his back, like an empty harness package. The boar runs faster. Wild animals can smell the weakest member of a pack. The boar smells me. Clinging to Yoshi’s back, the White Crane shivers in fear.
Kyoko reaches the cherry tree first, with Taji close behind. They help pull Mikko out of danger. It’s easy to run with one arm, but it’s hard to climb. Yoshi pushes me upward, and my friends haul me onto a large branch. Yoshi scrambles up after me. Five samurai kids safely perched in a tree.
“Thanks,” I say when I can breathe again. “You’re a hero, Yosh.”
“Now what?” says Mikko.
Yoshi shrugs. “We wait.”
“Shoo, shoo!” Kyoko yells and waves her fists.
Black Tusk claws at the tree. Staring into its big, hairy face, I see eyes filled with hate. What it hates is us.
“We’re stuck here,” moans Kyoko.
“At least we won’t be missing dinner. We’ve already had that,” Mikko jokes.
“Sensei said we choose how we look at things. Maybe we should enjoy the view,” suggests Taji.
That’s a pretty smart idea, considering Taji can’t see. Sensei would be pleased.
From the top of the cherry tree, I can see for miles. The ryu buildings are old and dilapidated — the kitchen, Sensei’s room beside the teahouse rubble, our sleeping quarters and classroom. In the center of the buildings, the practice ring is surrounded by even older trees.
“There are a lot of cherry and plum trees,” Yoshi comments.
Kyoko hugs her branch. “I’m glad this one’s here.”
“Maybe Sensei put it here for harmony,” says Taji. “To provide balance with the buildings.”
When you put things in certain places to create harmony, good things happen. Water brings peace and purity, so my mother puts fishbowls everywhere, even in doorways. It’s not easy to hop around fishbowls on the floor, but it’s even harder to jump flopping goldfish.
“Let’s ask Sensei, after he rescues us.” Mikko points to the edge of field.
Sensei sits astride Uma. A skinny old man on a crazy old horse. The boar looks up but sees nothing to be afraid of. Silly pig.
“Zaa! Zaa!” Sensei screeches, charging toward us, his beard flapping wildly. The terrified boar doesn�
�t look again. It rushes, squealing, into the forest. Everything runs when Sensei yells. Not just us.
“I see you have been practicing sprinting. Excellent,” Sensei says. “Breakfast is ready. Rice pancakes and syrup.” He digs his pointy crow feet into Uma’s flank, and they gallop toward the ryu.
We climb down and follow, racing through the sunset toward the kitchen. As if a wild boar is chasing us.
“People are coming! People are coming!” Yoshi shouts from his meditation stone. Yoshi’s stone juts way out over the valley. He likes to sit right out on the end and watch the sunrise.
It makes me dizzy to look at him, but he says it helps him think. I know he thinks about that day on the path when he saved my life and that other day long ago when his friend died. He’s balancing more than his body out on the edge of the rock.
“Who is it?” Kyoko is faster than the rest of us and reaches the stone first. Even with my crutch, I’m last, of course.
Four of us strain to see into the valley. We don’t get many visitors. Sometimes old friends come to visit Sensei, like Master Onaku, the swordsmith. And once my mother and father came to check on me.
“He is a good boy. He listens well and eats everything on his plate,” Sensei said. My teacher knows exactly what to say to parents. Mother and Father were proud. I could imagine them repeating Sensei’s words in tearooms across Japan, to their friends and anyone who would listen. Little Niya, praised so highly by the great Ki-Yaga.
I peer down the valley path. “There are a lot of them, at least ten.” With excellent eyesight, the White Crane can spot a beetle from the air.
Yoshi leans so far over the edge, he makes us all nervous. “They’re carrying something. Someone on a stretcher,” he reports.
“I’ll go and get Sensei.” Taji sprints back toward the classroom, where our master is preparing the afternoon lessons.
By the time Taji returns with Sensei, the band of villagers has almost reached the ryu.
“Mikko, Niya. Go and greet our visitors. Yoshi, help with the stretcher. Kyoko, come with me to ready the healing table.” Sensei’s arms wave wildly, like a squid kite in the wind.
Yoshi rushes ahead to meet the stretcher, with Mikko and I hurrying behind him. The front bearer is a small woman, her expression blank with worry and exhaustion. She nods gratefully when Yoshi takes her corner.
“What can we do to help you?” I ask.
“My son needs Master Ki-Yaga’s aid.” She points to the young boy lying on the stretcher, his face white with pain. “Not much longer, Riaze,” his mother comforts him. “The Master will make it right.”
Riaze’s face is familiar. It’s the boy Yoshi and I spoke to in the village. He made fun of me then, but he’s not laughing now. His leg lies askew, and I can see it’s badly broken.
“Don’t worry,” I say to his mother. “Ki-Yaga is a master of healing medicine. He set my broken arm, and now it is stronger than the other one.”
The boy recognizes me, too. “Sorry,” he whispers.
“It doesn’t matter.” I touch his shoulder gently to let him know I mean it.
He tries to smile, but it hurts too much.
“You’re safe now,” Mikko says. “Sensei is a wizard with broken bones. Soon your leg will be so strong, you’ll think it was magic.”
“That’s right. Sensei is so good, I trust him with my leg and I haven’t got a spare one like you,” I joke.
Laughter between friends is the best medicine. Sensei teaches us to brew herbs and set bones, but he also teaches us that humor heals the spirit. A samurai needs to be able to mend wounds of the body and mind. That’s why a samurai does calligraphy and writes haiku as well as practices sword fighting and wrestling. The spirit needs exercise to stay healthy and happy.
Yoshi guides the stretcher bearers into the Healing Room. It’s the same room where Sensei sleeps at night. In the middle is the healing table, crafted from the wood of the ryu’s first cherry tree. Bunches of herbs hang drying from the roof. Against the west wall is Sensei’s hard bed with its thin cotton blanket.
“If my bed is too comfortable, I might never wake up,” Sensei says. “I prefer to nap under a tree surrounded by the noise of practice. There, if I do not wake up in time, Niya will trip over me.”
It’s true. I fall over Sensei’s long spidery legs all the time. They’re more lethal than my mother’s goldfish bowls.
Kyoko and Sensei have dragged the table into the sun. Sensei believes in the healing power of sunlight. I do too. When the sun is warm against my back, my spirit soars and I am the White Crane, flying through summer.
The three villagers and Yoshi place the stretcher on the table. Riaze closes his eyes against the sun. He looks more peaceful already.
Sensei motions for everyone to leave, except the five of us and the boy’s mother. He moves his hand gently along the broken leg, searching for fractures. His hands pause twice — two breaks need mending. The boy moans beneath the gentle pressure.
Taji sings a song about brave villagers defending their families from a dragon. Yoshi joins in, his deep, hypnotic voice weaving through the melody. Sensei hums. Om. Om. Om.
Riaze’s whimpering softens, then stops. Kyoko takes a bamboo shakuhachi, a kind of flute, from her pocket and starts to play. Her notes pour over us in a cool waterfall of sound. Music takes you somewhere else, and it takes Riaze away from his pain. On outstretched wings, Kyoko’s Zen flute flies where only Riaze and the White Crane can follow.
I know what my friends are doing. They’re creating a distraction because the next bit is going to hurt, a lot. When I broke my arm, Sensei had to straighten it first. I can still hear myself scream. I wish I could find a way to help ease Riaze’s pain, but I can’t play the flute and my singing would ruin the song.
“If you can’t find something, look in your heart. Many things get lost in there. It can take years for a memory to find its way out,” Sensei says.
Looking inward, I see my sword. Taking Izuru from my belt, I place the hilt between Riaze’s teeth.
“Here, bite on this. It will help.”
Riaze gently bites into the leather as he slips his hand into mine. Sensei moves quickly. Suddenly, Riaze’s sharp teeth clamp down hard, crushing the crane engraved on Izuru’s handle. The White Crane cries inside my head as the teeth pierce his wing. Even with my sword in his mouth, Riaze screams. His body shakes as if an earthquake is rolling from head to toe.
“It’s over now,” I whisper, holding him still.
Sensei binds the leg firmly. Now the bone will heal properly and Riaze will walk and run through the village again. But first he must hop like me. That won’t be easy for a two-legged boy.
Pling, pling! An idea blinks inside my brain. “Mikko, will you go and get the spare crutch from under my bed?”
Mikko nods and runs off. My extra crutch is special. Sensei helped me carve it from one of his favorite plum trees. He said he would not miss one tree when he has so many.
“I think you planted all these trees on purpose so you could spend your days sleeping and pretending to teach,” I said.
Sensei raised one eyebrow. “Do you think I walked around as a young man planting trees for when I became old?”
I’m sure he did. One day I think I would like to be Sensei, sleeping in the sun.
“Maybe you will.” The wizard’s blazing blue eyes burrow into my head.
Mikko returns with the crutch, and I hand it to Riaze.
“Thank you. Now I am like you,” he says.
“Another little frog hopper.” Laughing at myself, I try to make him smile.
But Riaze doesn’t laugh. “I am proud to be like you.” He clutches my sword against his chest.
“You were very brave,” Taji says.
Upset, the boy turns his face away. “I cried.”
I understand how he feels. “Everyone cries. I cried louder than you did.”
“You are kind. I am ashamed I made fun of you. Thank you for the crutch
and the use of your sword.”
“The sword is yours to keep.” The words tumble out before I can stop them. I just gave away my best friend!
“No, no. I can’t take it. I am not a samurai.”
Sensei takes Riaze’s hand. “Some samurai are born; others are made. This sword, Izuru, has your mark on it now. It distinguishes you as a samurai, because it was given from the heart of a samurai warrior. Next year, when your leg is strong, I will call for you, and your parents will decide if you can come to study with me.”
Riaze is crying again but this time he is happy. Already I miss my sword, but I know it’s time for me to say good-bye and let go of childhood weapons. Tomorrow I will have my katana and wakizashi.
Handing Riaze’s mother two bags of herbs and a sac of dokudami wine, Sensei explains how to blend them to ease the pain. Poor Riaze. The cure is almost as bad as the broken leg. If he survives Sensei’s wine, he’s brave enough to be a samurai kid.
Riaze’s mother gives Sensei a small sack of rice. She gives me an embarrassing hug. I smile politely and grit my teeth. She is so happy, she hugs us all. Even Sensei, who grits his teeth, too.
Sensei calls the villagers to take the boy home. Riaze is asleep now, my sword and crutch beside him. Despite her exhaustion, his mother lifts the stretcher’s left corner. Love gives her great strength.
From Yoshi’s rock, we watch them carefully track down the mountain.
“Why did you take her payment when we have plenty of rice?” Taji asks Sensei. “She is a poor woman.” Taji doesn’t miss anything. The soft sound of worn sandals and grains of rice rubbing together echoes like thunder in his ears.
“She needed to give it to me.”
“Huh?” says Mikko.
“Sensei gave her dignity by accepting her payment for the service he provided,” explains Kyoko.
Sensei nods. “It is important to serve. A samurai lives to serve. Sometimes what is right does not make immediate sense.”
“Was it right for me to give him my sword?” I ask. It feels strange to be swordless. Without Izuru there is an empty space in my heart that even the White Crane cannot fill.
White Crane Page 5