I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011

by Lauren Tarshis

  “Thank you, Nya,” he gasped.

  Crazy kid, talking to a cat again.

  Ben clung to the tree as the water rushed back to the ocean.

  It was shocking how quickly the water went away, as if it was draining from a gigantic bathtub. It had to be more than twenty feet deep in places. But within minutes, it was all gone.

  In its place was a sea of mud — knee-deep, black, and oily. There was a terrible smell — a rotten, poisonous stench — that burned Ben’s nose.

  Ben and Nya climbed down from the tree. Ben stared at the heaps of wreckage piled everywhere. There was so much wood and metal, crushed roof tiles, and bits of houses and buildings that had been chewed up by the wave. And there were things, clothes and books and magazines, an armless doll and a crushed baseball cap, a smashed laptop computer.

  What about the people who had bought these things, who had worn the clothes and turned those pages, who had played with the doll and looked up basketball scores on that computer?

  Where were those people?

  Was Ben the only person left?

  A dark feeling came over him, blacker than the wave.

  Ben had never felt more tired, or more cold. His muddy clothes were frozen to his body. His bones had turned to icicles. His body was raked with gashes and cuts.

  His strength was gone. He was out of ideas. He wanted to curl up in the mud. Yes, that’s what he needed to do. Close his eyes. Forget all this.

  But suddenly Dad flashed into his mind.

  He remembered what Dad had told him about his last night in the cave in Afghanistan.

  “I was in bad shape,” Dad had said.

  He was freezing cold, starving, and exhausted. His ankle throbbed, and was swollen to the size of a melon. The cave was crawling with rats, and Dad had hardly slept. He’d eaten some leaves that made his lips swell and his throat burn. He had no water. His radio was out of battery power. He’d been trying to send a signal all week, and had heard some crackling voices on the other end. But he had no idea who those voices belonged to, whether help was on the way or not.

  “Things did not look good,” Dad had said. “They did not look good at all. But here’s one thing they don’t teach you in training, that you just have to know in your heart. You have to know that no matter how scared you are, no matter how hopeless things seem, you simply cannot give up hope.”

  And Dad didn’t.

  He killed a rat and cooked it for dinner. He kept his mind clear by thinking of Mom and Ben, and the happy times ahead of them. He swung his arms in circles to keep blood flowing through his fingers.

  On the morning of the seventh day, Dad woke up to the sound of a helicopter thundering overhead. He was too weak to walk. So he crawled out of the cave.

  He made it out just in time to see the helicopter overhead, just in time to fire his signal gun.

  Just in time to be saved.

  Ben closed his eyes and took deep breaths until his mind felt calmer. He scanned the wreckage for something — anything — that would be useful. He finally glimpsed a can of some kind. It was fruit juice. He cleaned off the top and guzzled down half of it. He poured the rest into one of his dirty hands so Nya could lap it up.

  He was still thirsty, but the juice gave him a flicker of strength.

  Ben lifted Nya. He held her up so he could look into her cloudy blue eyes.

  For the first time he wondered how she had survived the wave, how she’d gotten herself onto that mattress, how she’d made sure someone found her.

  Harry had been right about Nya. She was as tough as a Jedi warrior.

  “We’re going to find them, right?” he said to her, not caring anymore that it was crazy to talk to a cat.

  “Eee, eee,” Nya said.

  Ben decided that meant yes.

  Ben carefully draped Nya around his neck.

  He turned away from the ocean, and pointed himself toward the mountains.

  And he walked.

  Ben lay wrapped in blankets on the floor of a school gym. Nya slept on his stomach. They both shivered. There was no power at the school, and it was dark except for the glow of a few flashlights. Ben made out the shapes of people around him: at least fifty of them, laid out on straw mats or blankets. There were very old people, older than Ojisan, and young people, mothers with babies, men by themselves. People spoke in whispers and murmurs. Some were crying softly.

  This was where Ben and Nya had ended up last night after their endless trudge through the ruins — to this school on a hill. They’d walked for hours. Ben hoped that one day he’d forget the terrible things he’d seen as he walked: the arm sticking out from under a pile of wreckage, the old man carrying a lifeless-looking woman on his back. He passed a young man sitting motionless in front of a ruined house. Ben went up to him, to see if he needed help. But the man just stared straight ahead, barely blinking, like a statue. Ben waited, kneeling in front of him, but the man refused to speak, or even to look at Ben.

  And so Ben walked on, until he finally reached the end of the wave’s path of destruction. He saw the school up on the hill, but getting there was the hardest part of the journey. By then, he was so freezing cold that he was completely numb. His feet were bricks of ice. In Health class last year, he’d learned about what happens to a person when their body gets too cold. Their muscles stop working right. Their mind gets all confused. Their heart slows down so there’s not enough blood flowing.

  That’s what must have happened to Ben. By the time he made it to the lobby of the school, he could no longer walk. He’d staggered in, a frozen ghost with a shivering cat around his neck.

  He collapsed onto the floor.

  After that, Ben’s memories were blurry.

  There were strong arms that picked him up, soft voices speaking to him, a warm blanket wrapped tight around him. Gentle hands cleaned the mud from his face. Someone put a cup of water to his mouth and Ben drank. He drifted in and out of a kind of shadowy sleep.

  The next thing he knew he was here, on the floor of the gym. His muddy clothes were gone, and he was wearing a worn sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. Nya had been cleaned off, too, the oil wiped from her fur. There was a bandage on Ben’s hand, and more on the cuts and gashes that covered his legs.

  People had taken care of him, but he had no idea who.

  Without any power, the school was very cold. He shivered under his blankets, glad for the extra bit of heat from Nya’s skinny body curled up on his stomach.

  Lying next to Ben were a little girl and her mother. The mother was asleep, but the girl was awake, staring at Ben with steady, thoughtful eyes. Ben guessed she was around Harry’s age. She had a Hello Kitty doll clutched in her arms. The girl sat up. She reached for a bottle of water, and slid it over to Ben.

  He couldn’t remember ever being this thirsty. The bitter metal taste of the wave coated his tongue like glue.

  He managed to smile a little, but he shook his head, No thank you.

  He couldn’t take any water from the little girl.

  She woke up her mother, and spoke to her in a high whisper.

  The woman sat up. Even in the dim light, Ben could see the sadness and worry on her face. Ben wondered where the girl’s father was.

  The woman gave Ben a kind smile.

  She even spoke a bit of English.

  “Please,” she said. “Take. You need.”

  She pushed the bottle of water to Ben. Then she reached into her bag and took out a bag of chips.

  “Please,” she said again.

  He still had the feeling he should say no, that the woman hardly had enough for herself and her daughter. But he couldn’t resist.

  At least he knew the Japanese word for thank you.

  “Arigato,” he said. “Arigato.”

  Ben drank half the water and shared some with Nya. He made himself save some for later.

  Then he closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep, into his dreams.

  He dreamed of Dad, and this time they
were together in Shogahama, walking through the pine forest, running along the beach. And somewhere in the dream, a man’s voice called out to Ben.

  But it wasn’t Dad’s voice, or Ojisan’s.

  Ben opened his eyes.

  There was a man kneeling next to him.

  “Hello, old friend,” he said. “I was hoping we’d see each other again.”

  It was Dr. Sato.

  They sat together in an empty classroom. Dr. Sato had given Ben an apple and a cup of water. Ben devoured them both.

  He told Dr. Sato the story about what had happened in the tsunami, how Mom and Harry and Ojisan had been swept away from him.

  “They’re gone,” Ben said.

  “No, they are not gone,” Dr. Sato said, reaching over and grabbing Ben’s hand. “People are scattered everywhere. Have patience. You are safe here. And we will wait.”

  Dr. Sato had a look in his eye. And for a flickering second, it reminded Ben of the way Dad would look, when Ben would glimpse him in the stands during a basketball game. It didn’t matter if the team was winning or losing, or if Ben was on fire or all thumbs. Dad always looked so sure. And that look never wavered.

  Dr. Sato told Ben his own story — how he’d just gotten to his house when the quake happened. His house was high in the hills, above the school. He’d stood on his porch as the wave hit.

  “I watched the waves destroy Shogahama,” he said, his face darkening.

  It was no use trying to get to the hospital, and so he came to the school.

  “I knew people would need help,” he said.

  People like Ben.

  It had been Dr. Sato who lifted him up when he collapsed in the school hallway. Two teachers had helped the doctor clean Ben’s cuts and bruises, find him clothes, and carry him to the gym to sleep.

  “I hated to leave you,” he said. “But some of us went out into the night, to see if we could find survivors.”

  Dr. Sato looked away for a moment, and Ben could tell that there hadn’t been any survivors to find.

  Before Ben could think too hard about this, two women came in to speak to Dr. Sato.

  They were both sensei — teachers at the school.

  The teachers and Dr. Sato spoke, and in the swirl of Japanese words, Ben heard his name. When they finished talking, the women smiled at Ben and left.

  “We have lots of work to do,” Dr. Sato said. “It could be days before help gets to us. The village is completely cut off. And so it’s up to us to figure out how to find food and water. We have ten children whose parents have not arrived. We have to look out for them.”

  It took Ben a few seconds to realize that the “we” and “us” meant Ben, too.

  Dr. Sato explained that the two teachers he’d just met had been here through the night. “They need to go check on their families,” he said.

  Ben nodded.

  “And so I’ve told them that you will watch over some of the younger children while they are gone.”

  Ben stared at Dr. Sato.

  He was asking Ben to take care of children?

  How could Ben take care of anyone right now? How could he do anything when he was so worried about Mom and Harry and Ojisan?

  But before he could speak, one of the teachers was back. She had three little kids with her. They looked to be maybe five or six years old. All boys.

  The teacher introduced them to Ben: Kazu, Hidecki, and Akira.

  The boys looked shy and scared. But then Nya stepped forward.

  “Eee, eee,” she said.

  The boys giggled.

  Dr. Sato said a few words to the boys in Japanese.

  “I’ve said that you are their sensei,” he told Ben. “I’ve told them that you are in charge.”

  He patted Ben on the back.

  “I’m heading out with some others to see if we can find some supplies,” Dr. Sato added. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  And in a flash, he and the teacher were gone.

  The boys looked at Ben expectantly. He opened his mouth to say something, but remembered they didn’t speak English. He wondered what he could do to keep them busy. There was no power, no TV, no video games.

  Ben looked out the window at the playground.

  And then he saw the hoop, behind the slide.

  He’d seen a net bag of basketballs in the corner of the gym.

  He led the boys outside, and they all shivered in the cold.

  But soon they were running around. Ben’s aching muscles loosened up. The sun got brighter in the sky, and they had stripped off their coats. The boys worked hard. Soon the air was filled with the sound of bouncing balls and laughing boys.

  After lunch, the boys took a break to climb on the jungle gym. Ben decided to practice his own shots. He worked through his free throws and threes. He was surprised by how good it felt, how much he’d missed playing.

  At one point he stood at the back of the blacktop, as far away from the hoop as he could get. He and Dad used to have contests, to see who could shoot from farthest away. The boys stopped their climbing and watched Ben.

  Bounce.

  Bounce.

  Bounce.

  Ben shot the ball.

  And as it sailed through the air, someone screamed out his name.

  “Ben!”

  “Ben!”

  He turned, and there was Harry, running at him at full speed, his arms and legs pumping, tears streaming down his smiling face.

  Behind him were Ojisan and Mom.

  Swish.

  Ben sat between Mom and Harry on the airplane. Soon they would take off.

  It was two weeks after the wave, and they were heading home.

  The stewardess came by for the third time and asked Mom to please turn off her phone. Mom was talking to Dr. Sato. They’d been working together nonstop these past two weeks, trying to get supplies to Shogahama. Mom’s friends in the air force were helping.

  Finally, Mom said good-bye to Dr. Sato and turned off her phone. She smiled at Ben, put her head back, and closed her eyes.

  None of them had slept much lately.

  Harry had Nya’s cage on his lap. He was giving the old cat one last scratch on the head before he’d have to put her under the seat.

  Ojisan had asked them to take Nya home with them, to keep an eye on her. Of course they were happy about that.

  Ben looked at the scar on Harry’s arm.

  “Your scar is cooler than Darth Vader’s,” Ben said.

  “Way cooler,” Harry said with a grin.

  It amazed Ben that Harry had come through the disaster with no other injuries. By some miracle, Mom and Harry and Ojisan had managed to stay together after they fell out of the car. The water had swept them into the parking garage of Shogahama’s only apartment building. They’d rushed up the stairway, just steps ahead of the wave. They’d made it to the roof, waiting there with dozens of other people until the water subsided.

  Like all of them, Harry had seen some terrible things. He was having nightmares almost every night. Loud noises made him jump.

  Ben, too.

  Ben knew how lucky they were to be together, that they were safe.

  But it was hard to feel happy when there was so much sadness all around. The quake had been the strongest ever to hit Japan, the fourth-strongest ever recorded in the world. The tsunami had destroyed towns and cities up and down the Japanese coast for hundreds of miles. Thousands and thousands of people had died, and thousands more were still missing. There had been some happy moments at the school, like when Akira’s parents finally came, and then Hidecki’s. But many people couldn’t find their relatives. In the end, it was Kazu’s aunt from Tokyo who came to pick him up.

  And just when it seemed the news couldn’t get scarier, there was another disaster. The quake and wave had damaged a nuclear power station in a place called Fukushima, about forty miles up the coast from Shogahama. Radioactive particles were leaking out of the power plant. Even small amounts of radiation can make people ve
ry sick, especially children. People living close to the plant had to flee their homes. For a while, people worried that the radioactive cloud could spread to Shogahama — or beyond.

  These past few days, the news from Fukushima had been a little bit better — the winds had shifted, blowing the poisonous clouds out to sea. And life in Shogahama had improved, too. Some of the roads to the village were finally clear, so food and water were coming into the town. Ben was keeping a close eye on Harry. And of course, they had their Jedi cat to protect them.

  What worried them all was what would happen to Ojisan.

  His house was gone.

  Many of his friends were gone, too.

  They’d begged him to come back to California with them.

  “At least for a few months,” Mom had said.

  But Ojisan refused, and Ben came to understand why.

  Two days ago, he and Ojisan finally took a walk together. They’d made their way into the hills above the school. They looked over at the village below. Ben could see the tears in Ojisan’s eyes as he stared at the sea of mud and wreckage. But he also heard the determination in his uncle’s voice.

  “We will clean up,” he’d said. “We will build new houses.”

  Already there was talk about building on higher ground.

  Ojisan had turned to Ben. “The people here will rebuild Shogahama,” he said. “We will work together. And we will go on.”

  We will go on.

  Ojisan promised he’d come to visit this summer. Dr. Sato was coming, too. He had a medical conference in California, and was staying an extra week to visit with them.

  The plane backed away from the gate and taxied over to the runway. Ben used to love flying with Dad, how he’d explain every detail of the plane, the meaning of every rattle and hum. Ben could hear Dad’s voice now, as though he was right there with him.

  And suddenly it hit him, a crazy idea: that Harry’s wish had come true.

  Maybe that cherry tree at Ojisan’s had been magical after all.

  Because, in a way, Dad had come back to Ben.

  It was Dad who got Ben through his moments of panic in the quake, who helped him escape from that drowning car. It was Dad’s wisdom that echoed through Ben’s mind in those dark moments when he was alone in the ruins.