White Crane

by Sandy Fussell

  “I know.” He bows low. “I am the Small Shrike. It was a great honor to battle with one of Ki-Yaga’s pupils.”

  “Thank you. The Eagle Ryu’s acrobatics are beyond comparison. It was a privilege to see such skill,” I respond.

  Samurai study how to be polite. It’s part of the Bushido code.

  “It is important to show good manners,” Sensei teaches. “You should always say please and thank you when chopping off an opponent’s body parts.”

  My newfound friend and I turn and bow to the Komusu judges, who award a point to the Eagle Ryu.

  “Did you see that?” I say when I join the others. “He didn’t laugh at me.”

  “Those Eagle kids are okay,” agrees Yoshi. “They weren’t making rude noises.”

  “You were great,” Kyoko adds.

  Taji slaps me on the back, and Mikko punches me in the arm.

  “Thanks,” I say, but in my heart the White Crane wishes it had won.

  “You are a winner,” the wizard Ki-Yaga says, reading my mind. “It is much harder to win an opponent’s friendship than to score a point at sword fighting.”

  “My turn next,” says Mikko. “I don’t think I’ll be making any friends.” He slashes his sword through the air. “I’ve got a Wolf to skin.”

  Because he only has one arm, Mikko has a big advantage. The Wolf boy thinks he’s going to win easily, but before he can thrust forward, Mikko has already pierced his leather chest plate. It’s all over.

  “No-o-o-o!” the Wolf boy howls in frustration.

  Mikko’s win scores our first point, but it doesn’t last long. Yoshi refuses to fight and forfeits his match, so a penalty is deducted. By the end of the sword fighting events, we’ve struggled our way up to zero.

  The wrestling events are next. Kyoko is matched against an enormous Dragon boy. All the Dragons have come to laugh at the freak girl.

  “Hey, white monkey monster, where’s that extra finger?” they call.

  Kyoko lets them know. She sticks it in the air with a rude gesture. If you ask me, the Dragon boy is the strange-looking one. He is square like a piece of sushi, with beady, black eyes, and a nasty smile. He smells fishy, as if someone left him out in the sun.

  Admiring glances follow the Dragon Master as he struts around the wrestling ring, his red silk cape billowing behind him. No one pays attention to Sensei waiting patiently. When he notices Nezume standing with us, the Dragon Master stops and glares.

  “What’s he doing here?” the Dragon Master thunders. “He belongs to the Dragon Ryu.” The thunder drops to a low rumble. “Come and stand with me, boy.”

  Shaking his head, Nezume hides behind Sensei.

  “Three years ago the boy was a Dragon. But now, he belongs to the Cockroach Ryu.” Sensei’s tone is cold and threatening, like a sword hanging over the Dragon Master’s head. No one says anything. No one moves. We hold our breath and wait to see if the sword drops.

  When the Dragon Master laughs, we all breathe again. “You always did pick up what everyone else threw away, Ki-Yaga. If you want him, he’s yours. He has the heart of a cockroach anyway.”

  I put my arm around Nezume, to show my support and to make sure I don’t fall over in anger.

  Sensei bows politely to the Dragon Master. “The heart of a cockroach beats even after its head has been cut off, but the poor dragon has no heart at all. Your compliment is accepted.”

  Before the Dragon Master can reply, the gong booms. Boom, boom. The Dragon Master’s retort will have to wait.

  Kyoko’s not afraid of her big opponent. Her Snow Monkey spirit knows every wrestling trick. The two lock arms and drop to the ground. Kyoko presses the Dragon boy’s face into the dust. Spluttering, he whispers something into her ear. Pink eyes blaze with anger.

  “What did he say?” I ask Taji. A whisper is like a yell in Taji’s ear. I know. I once whispered to Yoshi where I hid a bowl of honey pudding. When I went to get it, Taji had eaten it.

  “The Dragon boy said, ‘If you think an extra finger helps, try wrestling with none.’”

  “What does that mean?” Mikko asks.

  The Dragon boy answers Mikko’s question. Rolling his shoulder onto Kyoko’s hand, he grinds it into the ground. Kyoko turns as white as her hair, and pain streaks her face. The Komusu judges rise to their feet, basket heads bobbing fast. Number Two bangs the gong to signal that a penalty will be deducted if it happens again. But the damage is done. Cradling her hand in pain, Kyoko is unable to continue. The Dragon boy stands over her, ready to claim his victory.

  Beside me, the Tiger roars. Yoshi leaps to his feet.

  “Let me wrestle!” he shouts.

  The Dragon boy shakes his head. “You can’t. It’s against the rules,” he sneers.

  “What rule is above Bushido?” Sensei asks the Komusu. “What is more important than honor, courage, and duty to a friend?”

  “A samurai must fight his own battles,” the Dragon Master insists.

  Sensei bows his head. “Sometimes one battle begins halfway through another. I understand that the Dragon Master is afraid of the wrestling skills of the mighty Cockroach and is worried his student will lose. Perhaps he worries the Cockroaches will laugh at him.”

  The Dragon Master’s eyes simmer. “Dragons are not afraid of bugs. My student will fight the Cockroach. Your boy is big, but he has no skill. I hear he is afraid of fighting and doesn’t even practice. Let him make a fool of himself for this ugly girl.”

  Yoshi leaps into the ring. When the gong sounds, the two boys rush at each other. The Dragon boy is big, but Yoshi is strong with rage. He doesn’t bother to wrestle. He picks up his opponent and tosses him out of the ring. Ka-thump. The Dragon boy lands at the feet of his master.

  “Sometimes skill is not necessary,” Sensei says loudly as he guides us away from the wrestling arena. “Let us attend to Kyoko’s hand.” Sensei does not look back, but I do. The Dragon Master is breathing fire.

  “You’re not ugly,” I whisper to Kyoko. “You’re the most beautiful girl here.”

  She looks sad. “I’m the only girl here.”

  “A samurai girl is rare and beautiful,” Sensei says. “Even with six fingers and a swollen hand.”

  Kyoko’s smile outshines the sun.

  The Komusu award a point to Yoshi but don’t penalize Kyoko for not completing the match. Mikko loses, but Taji wins his wrestling bout. We’ve got two points! The most points we’ve ever had! I’m so excited, I can hardly eat my lunch.

  Sensei has no problem scoffing three bowls of rice and egg. For a skinny old man, he eats a lot. His stick-thin arms and legs are hollow like bamboo.

  “How do the Komusu see?” I ask. “They have huge thick baskets covering their heads, but they never bump into anything. Without eyes, they knew the Dragon boy cheated. Is it magic?”

  “I don’t believe in magic,” says Yoshi. “I believe in things I can see and hear.”

  I believe. Especially after this morning. Scoring two points at the Games is magic to my eyes and ears.

  Sensei puts his chopsticks down. A lesson is coming. Nothing else would stop him mid-meal. “Anything that is not understood is magic. Are there things you do not understand, Yoshi?”

  “Yes, Sensei. There are many things.”

  “Then there is much magic. If you cannot see or hear something, that does not mean it is not there.”

  It’s true. I fall over things in the dark all the time. I never see them, but they’re always there.

  “If only the things I can see exist, then it’s a pretty empty world!” adds Taji. “The Komusu are like me. They see with their ears.”

  Our teacher nods. The lesson has been learned, and Sensei returns to his bowl.

  Number One pounds the gong to signal the end of lunch. I groan so loud, I’m sure Number Three looks right at me through his basket. It’s poetry time. The next event is haiku.

  The topic is something I know a lot about — NOTHING. Even that can’t rescue me. I’
d rather fall on my face in the sword-fighting ring than write a poem. But Sensei says haiku is important.

  “A samurai must be able to write his own epitaph in the middle of battle. In case of sudden death. It is not worth dying if no one knows about it.”

  It doesn’t matter to me. Writing the poem is more likely to kill me than any sword thrust. I’ll die of boredom.

  I quickly scrawl some words on the page to make sure I don’t get a point deducted. Then I help Kyoko. She’s our best poet, but her swollen hand can’t hold the brush.

  “You tell me what to write,” I say.

  Taji is struggling, too. It’s hard to know where to start when you can’t see the page. He puts his brush down. Even though he’s written nothing, he’s smiling like the bat that swallowed the beetle.

  Dong-g-g. Time is up. We all put our brushes down. Number Two walks around the room, reading the poems through his basket. When he reaches Taji, he gasps out loud. Poor kid. Now everyone will laugh. It’s not his fault he can’t see the page. He did his best.

  Number Two calls over Number One, and Three and Four. They all gasp. It’s a rare moment, when four Komusu priests open their mouths at the same time.

  “Perfect,” Number One says. “This is the greatest poem ever written at a Games.”

  I sneak a look. Maybe Taji wrote something after all. No. His poem is an empty page.

  The Dragon Master is not impressed. One of his students is Taji’s opponent. Even though the Dragons are not skilled poets, they expected to beat a blind kid.

  “That’s not a poem,” the Dragon Master protests. “Where is the required format? The first line must have five syllables, the second seven, and the third five. How can a poem with none of these win?”

  The Komusu crowd around Taji’s page. They nod to each other excitedly. Even more than usual.

  “The judges’ decision is unanimous. It is beyond question,” announces Number One. “The poem is found to have the correct lines and syllables, each containing NOTHING. The poem is without flaw. We have decided to award the Cockroach Ryu an additional point for extreme excellence.”

  It’s probably the longest speech a Komusu ever made. No one dares argue with that.

  My poem doesn’t score a point, but I helped Kyoko win. We’re up to five points! We’ve won a point in every event so far. The last event before dinner is ikebana, flower arranging. I’m the only hope we’ve got. Kyoko’s injured hand can’t hold a flower, and I’m not allowed to place them for her. Mikko’s arrangements always turn out lopsided. Yoshi’s look like he just jams them in — which he does. Taji is good with shape, but he can’t hear colors.

  On the ikebana table are three cherry blossom sprays, a lotus flower, and some greenery, representing earth, sky, and nature. A world of beauty. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Om. Om. Om.

  “To arrange flowers, you must first find beauty within yourself,” Sensei teaches. “And if you cannot find it there, look around you.”

  The White Crane can see for miles.

  There are two beautiful things in my life. Mrs. Onaku is a cherry blossom woman, and Kyoko is a lotus flower girl. Perfectly balanced, neither is more beautiful than the other. I place the woman and child between the green of heaven and earth and step back to survey my opponent’s effort. A Bear boy is a follower of Yoshi’s “shove them in” approach. Samurai warriors are champion ikebana artists, but samurai kids don’t like flower arranging at all.

  The judges admire my work. I know because they nod a lot.

  Sensei translates the nodding. “The judges see sky mother and earth child. They see great beauty.” He grins. “But all I can see are Mrs. Onaku and Kyoko.” The wizard sees everything.

  On the board at the temple entrance, the scores are posted. The Dragons are in the lead, but we have six points. Yah-yah! We’re not coming last.

  At dinner, the Eagle boy finds me. He’s brought a friend with him.

  “Can we join you?” he says. “This is Inu. He’s our haiku specialist. He wants to meet Taji.” Inu sits next to Taji, and they are soon chattering like a pair of bats. Taji likes Inu. I know because he’s telling him his favorite joke.

  “‘I see’, said the blind man, who didn’t see at all.” A good joke lets you laugh at yourself and it doesn’t hurt when other people do, too. Inu’s warm laughter is contagious, and catches us all.

  The Dragons are listening, but they don’t think Taji’s joke is funny.

  “You should know, Mole Man,” jeers the big kid Yoshi wrestled.

  Beside me, Nezume gnashes his teeth and Mikko’s glare cuts like his sword.

  Yoshi rises to stand in front of the big kid, ready to defend his team’s honor. “Pick on someone your own size,” he says.

  From nowhere, Sensei appears beside Yoshi. Not even Taji heard him approach.

  “Is there a problem?” he asks.

  “None of your business, old man,” the Dragon boy sneers.

  “My students are my business. I am not like your master.” Sensei places his fingers on the Dragon boy’s neck. I know that feeling. It’s scary when you can’t move a muscle. The Dragon boy’s eyes are bulging, and his face is fright white.

  Sensei removes his hand and waves his staff in the air. “Be gone. Quickly, before I turn you into stone.”

  Intrigued, the White Crane turns its beady eye to watch. Can he really do that? I wonder.

  The Dragons don’t wait to find out.

  After breakfast the next morning, we head for the archery area. It’s my turn first. Maybe I’ll win. Before, I couldn’t complete the riding session of the archery event because Uma wasn’t interested in victory. All he wanted to do was throw me off and join in the laughter. But Uma is on our team now that my pockets are full of honey pudding.

  Sensei leads Uma over. Our horse sniffs my jacket and smiles.

  My opponent is a Dragon on a sleek black steed. Uma snorts rudely at them. In his hand, the Dragon boy holds a bow carved from expensive wood. His arrows are silver tipped, with bright feathers tied to the ends. I made my own bow, carving it carefully from one of Sensei’s cherry trees. The wooden stave is slightly crooked, but strung with arrow in place, it sings like a sword.

  “It is right for a bow to be made of cherry wood. As the cherry is among flowers, the samurai is among men,” Sensei says.

  It’s an old traditional saying. The life of a samurai is one of sacrifice, sometimes as short as the three days of the cherry blossom.

  Th-twang. I test the string on my bow. I don’t intend to sacrifice anything on the archery field — not points, not pride. Looking at the White Crane feather on the end of each shaft, I know my arrows will fly true.

  Double points are scored every time an arrow hits a moving target. Waving to my friends, I climb onto Uma’s back. He races like a horse possessed. Uma has always been crazy, but today he runs with the bloodlust of battle in his flaring nostrils. He wants to win. When the targets are counted, Uma and I have six and the Dragon boy has two. Holding his head high, Uma sneezes in the Dragon boy’s direction.

  “Yuck,” the boy yells as thick globs of mucus land on his head and his horse. The Dragon horse grunts at Uma. Samurai are very polite, but their horses are not.

  Sensei is quick to apologize and offers his dirty white handkerchief.

  Doubly disgusted, the boy backs away.

  “You did that on purpose, you old wizard,” the Dragon Master accuses.

  The Dragon boy spits at Sensei’s feet.

  Sensei shakes his head.

  “I am not a magician. I do not control horses. And you are not a teacher if you cannot control your students,” he says, turning his back on the fuming Dragon.

  Still targets are next. I shoot a perfect score, and the Dragon boy misses when Sensei blows his nose. I’ve won!

  My friends crowd around to congratulate me, offering Uma palms smeared with honey pudding. Uma likes Kyoko’s hands best. They’re soft, and you can fit more honey pudding on six finge
rs.

  “Well done.” Yoshi slaps me on the back. “You won a point and defended Sensei’s honor. Maybe with Uma’s help, we’ll all win a point at archery.”

  “It was as if Uma had wings,” Nezume says.

  Uma does, with the White Crane perched on his back.

  When I reach the calligraphy room, my confidence drops to the bottom of Mount Tsurugidake. First we have to write the kanji symbol for a word from the Bushido code. Even though we practice the words with Sensei every day, I still make a mess.

  I’m glad the days of war are over, but some samurai peacetime skills are deadly boring. Almost as dangerous as being in a real battle. When I am Sensei of the Frog Ryu, I will invent a new practice. Instead of the Komusu’s wisdom without words, I will teach wisdom without writing.

  “But what about the students who cannot hear?” the wizard asks inside my head.

  “I will show them,” the future Sensei of the Frog Ryu answers.

  “Aaaah,” my teacher sighs, pleased.

  Today’s word is chi, wisdom. There’s more ink on my hands than on the page, but the black smudge is enough to ensure that I don’t lose a point. Sitting next to me, a Snake boy knows how to wield a brush. The ink on his page runs like water into wisdom.

  He notices me staring at his work. “You’re not allowed to copy,” he hisses, hiding the kanji with his hands.

  “I’m not. I’ve finished. I was admiring your lettering. Mine looks like bird feet.” The White Crane looks guilty as I show the Snake boy my page. He smiles at the blotches.

  Number Two announces the second task, a string of kanji that forms a saying. Now my memory gives me an advantage and compensates for my sloppy brushwork. There are over 800,000 kanji, and I have crammed more in my brain than any other samurai kid. I’ll do better this time.

  “The past must be visited to learn the future,” Number Three reads.

  A brushstroke of luck! All the Cockroaches know that one. It’s one of Sensei’s favorites. Sensei trains us in the traditional ways, but he also teaches that a samurai must be able to take the old ways and adjust them to the new. But not with flashy red silk coats, cheating tricks, and lack of honor — not like the Dragons. He means by applying Bushido. Chi, jin, yu. Wisdom, benevolence, and courage. Like we did with Nezume. Like I did at the Opening Ceremony.