At the end of the dais is a large ceremonial drum. Led by Number One, the priests begin to beat it with large sticks. An ominous rhythm.
Suddenly, the drum stops. The goldfish in my stomach flop once and die of fright.
“Choose your weapon,” instructs Number One.
The Dragon Master unsheathes his katana. The blade glitters, cruel like the eyes of a snake. This master’s sword doesn’t sing; it screams for blood.
“Bring me my staff,” Sensei calls. Yoshi passes the long, thick bamboo pole Sensei carries everywhere. It’s not much of a weapon. He pokes it in the mud when walking and waves it in our faces when we are not listening.
“You’re going to fight with that?” sneers the Dragon Master.
“A true samurai doesn’t need a sword,” Sensei says.
The Dragon Master laughs, and the crowd explodes in noisy guffaws.
“The Dragon will snap Ki-Yaga like that piece of old, useless bamboo,” says the Wolf Master with a smirk.
Only the Eagle Master shakes his head. “Cockroaches are very hard to kill, and bamboo is very strong,” he says.
Sensei smiles. He knows where to chop, even with a bamboo pole.
The drum beats again. Loud and slow. The countdown begins. Three long pounding stokes. Boom. Boom. Boom.
On the third boom, Sensei twirls. His long staff swings around and around. At first the Dragon Master is amused. Then frustrated. He can’t touch Sensei. If he uses his sword, it will fly out of his hands. Sensei is a human hurricane.
Abruptly, he stops. We wait in the silence before the storm. The eye of the hurricane enfolds us all.
“Banzai!” Sensei whoops as he brandishes his staff.
“Ai-yah!” The Dragon Master roars as he raises his sword.
They collide with a clash of wood against steel. The ground rumbles, but there’s no earthquake this time. Sensei holds his staff strong against the sword. A stalemate. The two men break apart, their eyes still locked.
The drumbeat begins again. A steady, threatening rhythm as the Dragon attempts to hypnotize its prey. Sensei sways inside the golden gaze. Then he shuts his eyes, raises one leg, and tucks his left arm behind his back. He doesn’t see the Dragon smirk. He doesn’t see his enemy’s eyes glitter with anticipation as he moves closer.
Beside me I feel Mikko touch his sword. Kyoko’s lashes flutter, and Yoshi growls. Taji stands perfectly still, and Nezume stares with bright black eyes. The White Crane calls to its brothers and sister. Our hearts join Sensei, and together we stand against the Dragon.
Sensei moves faster than a striking snake. He wraps his raised leg around the Dragon Master, who falls hard to the ground. In triumph, Sensei raises his bamboo staff, poised to crush his opponent’s skull.
The drum is silent, the crowd hushed. Sensei is a samurai of the old ways. The loser must die. Accepting defeat, the Dragon Master folds his arms across his chest and closes his eyes. I expect him to scream or beg for mercy, but he doesn’t. The Dragon Master is a samurai. In the end, he knows how to die.
“Some old ways need to change.” Sensei throws his staff down. “Words are not important enough to demand a life.”
The crowd sighs with relief. The Dragon Master has few friends, but no one wishes him dead. Baskets bobbing, the Komusu nod approval. Words have no value to priests who rarely speak. Sensei’s wisdom, like their own, is beyond words.
The Dragon Master opens his eyes. I’ve seen that look before. In the eyes of Black Tusk, the wild boar. It’s hate. Pure hate.
Standing up, the Dragon Master barely bows. “You silly old fool. I would not have done the same for you. Don’t expect such weakness from me next year.” His words spit. No thank-you. No gratitude. Just hate.
Sensei doesn’t care. He bows politely.
“I look forward to it. If the Dragon Master wishes to rub his scales in the dirt again, I will be honored to assist.”
The Dragon Master sheathes his katana and wrenches his cape from an outstretched hand in the crowd.
“Next year I will crush you like the insect you are.” With a flourish of red silk, he storms away. His students quickly follow.
Number One hands Sensei our trophy. The Komusu take their shakuhachi from under their basket-covered heads and begin to play. The Samurai Games have ended. We’ve won!
Nezume runs over and hugs Sensei. For once the old man is caught off balance. Except for Kyoko, we don’t hug each other at the ryu. But Sensei is right as always:sometimes old ways need to change. I lead the charge to drown Sensei with our hugs. The Dragon Master couldn’t knock him over, but we can. Sensei is lost under a sea of arms and legs.
When all the limbs are untangled, we sit waiting for our master to speak.
“I am very proud. You showed great honor and wisdom. You are truly a team. And next year Nezume will compete with us. But first I must ask Nezume an important question.” His eyes dance. “What have you learned that you need to forget?”
“I know NOTHING.” Nezume hangs his head in shame.
I grin. I’ve found a Zen friend.
Sensei claps his hands with pleasure. “Wonderful. You are way ahead on your lessons. It took me a year to teach my students nothing. Now we must pack and hurry home. We have much to do.”
Dismayed, I look at Sensei, hoping he’ll change his mind. For the first time ever, we’re winners, ready to bask in our glory. We want to strut and show off, to party and stuff our faces with rice cakes. “What could be so important that we need to rush away?” I ask.
“It does not matter if you do not know where you are going, as long as you know where you have been,” Sensei says.
I know where we’ve been, but I still I want to know what comes next.
“More practice!” Sensei yells, jumping up and waving his staff in the air. “Come. There is much to learn, and it cannot wait. I am a good teacher, but I am not a wizard or a magician. I cannot work miracles.”
I look around at my friends’ proud smiling faces and the trophy Mikko clutches tight against his chest. I remember the day we came to the ryu. Armless, legless, sightless, sad, and different. We’re not like that anymore. We’re Dragon slayers. Sensei can’t fool me. He’s a wizard, all right. And a magician, too. I know a miracle when I see one.
To my terrific boys, Jackson and Cassidy; to my mentor and valued friend Di Bates; to my partners in writing crimes — Bill Condon, Ann Whitehead, Vicki Stanton, Mo Johnson, DC Green, and Sally Hall; to my sister, Neridah; to my first fan (and critic) Barbara Brown; to my wonderful editor Sue Whiting; and to two extraordinary high-school teachers, Robyn Sankey and Vic Playford. Thanks. You are all a part of this book.
“Someone’s coming!” Taji yells.
I reach Taji first. Not because I’m the fastest. I’m good at many things, but running isn’t one of them. It’s hard to sprint with just one leg. I get there fast because I’m practicing sword thrusts only a hop away.
I peer into the valley and see a short, stocky figure making his way up the mountain path.
“Who is it?” Kyoko flops onto the grass.
Mikko, Nezume, and Yoshi arrive, pushing and shoving one another out of the way. Like an upended bowl of rice noodles, they land in a tangled mess beside me.
I’ve got really good eyes because in my heart I am the White Crane, able to spot a beetle on the ground from the air. My sight takes wing, soaring deep into the valley. But I don’t know how Taji does it. How can a blind kid see at all? When I asked him, he laughed at me. “You have to listen, Niya. You are much too noisy to see with your ears.”
It’s true. I like to laugh and jump and yell. Aeeeyagh! Aeeeyagh! When I am practicing, the White Crane screeches out across the ryu. Even when I’m sleeping, Mikko has to poke me in the ribs because I snore louder than a pondful of frogs.
“It’s Master Onaku,” I announce.
“Why is the swordsmith coming?” Yoshi voices the question we all want to ask.
Master Onaku is Sensei Ki-Yaga’s ol
dest friend, and it’s always a special occasion when he visits. We usually spend days preparing the food. Sensei says a samurai kid must be able to wield his sword on the battlefield and a sharp knife in the kitchen. But we don’t fall for that. The cooking isn’t really about training. It’s about Onaku’s big, round stomach. The Sword Master loves to eat.
Last time, we prepared fish soup, three-egg omelette, and honey rice pudding, the finest dessert in all of Japan. My nose follows the imaginary smell as it curls into a smoke ring and drifts skyward.
“We should tell Sensei,” says Nezume.
Puff. The smell disappears, but my mouth is still watering.
“I’ll go,” I volunteer. Maybe our teacher is in the kitchen.
But I can’t even get up onto my foot before Sensei’s voice meets me. “Tell Master Onaku I am waiting in the tearoom.”
Sensei always handles important business there. My friends and I don’t like the tea ceremony. Too many rules. Most days, Ki-Yaga slurps his pudding and sucks the splatters from his long white beard, but during the tea ceremony, he doesn’t make a sound and he doesn’t spill a drop.
By the time Onaku is almost to the top of the mountain, we have made up many stories to explain his visit.
“He’s bringing us extra swords,” suggests Mikko.
Not likely. Last year, at our Coming-of-Age Ceremony, we were given new swords — the long katana and the short wakizashi, dual weapons of the warrior samurai. Onaku is a master craftsman. One of his swords would last two lifetimes, so it can’t be that.
Kyoko looks concerned. “Maybe Mrs. Onaku is sick.” Sensei is a great healer, and Onaku wouldn’t trust anyone else to care for his wife. We hope that’s not the reason.
“Perhaps he has run out of wine,” says Yoshi.
It’s the most likely explanation of all. Sensei’s dokudami wine smells like rotten fish, but Onaku would walk up the mountain and back at the promise of a bottle.
“Hello, young Cockroaches,” he calls as he draws closer. “How goes the studying and the practicing? And how is Niya’s nose?”
It’s an old joke. When I first came to the Cockroach Ryu, I fell over many times during training. Twice I broke my nose. Then twice more Taji caught me unaware with the flat blade of his wooden practice sword and broke it for me.
“Our master is waiting in the tearoom,” says Yoshi.
Onaku nods and hurries off to find Sensei. Something is wrong. Usually, the Sword Master will chat and joke for hours, telling us stories of the days when he was a boy listening at Ki-Yaga’s feet. Sensei was old, even then.
Across the valley, a drumbeat echoes. Thum. Thum.
“What’s that?” Nezume asks.
Ta-thum. Ta-thum. Thum.
Yoshi shakes his head. We all do. No one knows what it means, but we don’t like it. It kicks hard against my chest and makes me nervous.
Yoshi puts his finger to his lips and gestures for us to follow. Yoshi is our leader, and I’d follow him anywhere. He has the spirit of a tiger — big and strong. When an earthquake rolled me off the mountain, he climbed through the darkness to my rescue.
Yoshi pads noiselessly to the tearoom. Crouching low behind Sensei’s row of potted bonsai trees, he places his ear against the wall. We copy him, one by one. The wall is made of thin rice paper, so it’s easy to hear every word.
“You were right, Ki-Yaga,” Onaku says with a sigh. “It has happened just as you said it would.”
I can see his blurred shadow, head bowed and shoulders slumped. Onaku looks old and beaten. The Sword Master is strong, and his spirit is tougher than twice-folded steel. What could make him clutch his head in his hands?
“Yes. Sometimes I really wish to be wrong.” Sensei sounds sad. He places his arm around his friend.
Uneasiness surrounds us all. Things that were once solid are now wavering, hard to grasp. It’s worse than when the mountain trembles, but that same air of foreboding hangs low over our heads.
SANDY FUSSELL lives in Australia. She majored in mathematics, is intensely interested in history, and now works in information technology. She is the author of the Samurai Kids series, which includes White Crane and Owl Ninja.
RHIAN NEST JAMES started working as a freelance illustrator in 1987 and has since illustrated more than sixty children’s books. Rhian moved to Sydney, Australia, from her native Wales in 2002.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2008 by Sandy Fussell
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Rhian Nest James
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2011
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Fussell, Sandy.
White crane / by Sandy Fussell; illustrated by Rhian Nest James. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Samurai kids)
Summary: Even though he has only one leg, Niya Moto is studying to be a samurai, and his five fellow-students are similarly burdened, but sensei Ki-Yaga, an ancient but legendary warrior, teaches them not only physical skills but mental and spiritual ones as well, so that they are well-equipped to face their most formidable opponents at the annual Samurai Games.
ISBN 978-0-7636-4503-8 (hardcover)
[1. Samurai — Fiction. 2. People with disabilities — Fiction. 3. Contests — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction. 5. Japan — Fiction.]
I. James, Rhian Nest, date, ill. II. Title. III. Series.
PZ7.F96669Wh 2010
[Fic] — dc22 2009037863
ISBN 978-0-7636-5346-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5440-5 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
White Crane Page 12