Samurai Summer (3 page)

I heard them put on “Let’s Twist Again,” and that was about the only song I knew. It was good. I had heard it on the radio. It had nothing to do with bags of Twist. Then, thinking about that, I got the idea that I’d sneak downstairs
and take back my bag of Twist. I’d do it tonight! I knew where they kept the candy—if there was any left. Maybe they’d eaten it all.

I looked at the counselors. Just then, one of them looked up at me and pointed. In a flash I pulled my head inside and shut the window. It sounded like they were laughing even louder down there. I didn’t like it when grown-ups laughed at me. It was somehow worse than when kids did.

I lay in bed and listened until the night had really set in. It was quiet out there now. The counselors had all left in a couple of cars that had been waiting for them with their engines running. They hadn’t come back yet.

Everyone in the dormitory was asleep. I got out of bed and tiptoed across the floor. Someone was snoring. I thought it was Sausage, but it wasn’t because then he spoke.

“Where are you going, Kenny?” he whispered sitting up. It sounded like he was talking in his sleep.

“I’m just going downstairs to slit Matron’s throat,” I whispered back.

He let out a snicker.

“Go to sleep, Sausage.”

I pushed the door open slowly. It was darker in the hall than inside the dormitory. It was the darkest time of night,
but soon it would be daybreak again. Everything was still.

I crept along the wall to the stairs where I stopped and listened. I carried my
wakizashi
with me—a samurai never went anywhere without his short sword. You only carried your long sword when you went outside, and I was just going to the kitchen. At night, the samurai always kept both his swords under his pillow, but mostly I had to keep mine hidden under a floorboard in the dormitory.

I went down the stairs. A few of the steps creaked, but I knew which ones they were—I was a regular at this. I knew every corner of the whole place. It wasn’t the first time I’d snuck around at night. That was the best time. If you knew how to do it right, it was like being invisible.

I stood downstairs between the girls’ dormitories. In front of me was the mess hall. The curtains were drawn across the big windows, but you could see the trees swaying gently outside. I liked the big trees. They were larger than anything else around here and they always seemed to take it easy, even when they were swaying in a storm. They never showed any emotion, that they were angry or sad or happy. The trees were real samurai.

The kitchen was on my right. The door was open slightly and I tiptoed across the high threshold that was easy to trip over. Once last summer the cook had tripped over it with a pot of stew.

I stole quickly through the kitchen. The floor glowed in the moonlight that shone through the window like the beam from a flashlight. There was a cabinet at the very back where I suspected they kept the candy. I pulled at the handle, but the door was locked. I saw the keyhole, but no key.

“What are you doing here?”

In the silent kitchen, the voice felt like a karate kick. I hadn’t heard anyone enter. I turned around and there was Matron. She had also tiptoed over the threshold. Maybe she had been spying on me the whole time. Maybe she snuck around like a ghost all night long.

“Children are not allowed in the kitchen,” said Matron, “especially at night.”

If you weren’t allowed to be here, what difference did it make whether it was night or day?

“I lost my way,” I said.

“You live upstairs,” said Matron. “How could you end up down here?”

I don’t live here at all,
I thought to myself.
I’m imprisoned
.

“Tommy?”

Matron refused to say my samurai name.

“Answer me, Tommy.”

“I think I was sleepwalking,” I said.

“I’ve never noticed you doing that before.”

“I’ve done it up in the dorm.” I pointed upward as though
she didn’t know where the dormitory was. “A few times.”

“Nobody’s said anything to me about it.”

“I guess they didn’t notice either.”

“How did you notice it then, might I ask?” Matron bared her razor-sharp teeth in a smile of sorts. “If you were sleepwalking you’d hardly know about it, now would you?”

“I woke up once when I was on my way out of the dorm.”

“But this time you didn’t wake up until you were down here? Is that what you’re trying to say?” She smiled again. “Or are you still asleep, Tommy?”

“I’m awake,” I said and looked around. “I woke up in here.”

“I see.”

She didn’t believe me, of course. She took a step forward. Her vampire face darkened when she moved out of the moonlight.

I felt my sword beneath my pajama top.

“What were you doing over by the cabinet?” she asked.

“What cabinet?” I turned back toward the cabinet instinctively.

“I’m sure you know what’s in there,” she said.

I didn’t answer. The cabinet was no secret here at the camp.

“Then you also know that you only get candy at certain times,” she said.

“It’s… mine,” I said.

“What did you say?” She took another step closer. I was
about to put up my arm to protect myself. I knew that she could hit you. “Repeat that.”

“It’s my candy,” I said.

“Who said it wasn’t?”

“I haven’t gotten any of it.”

“What? Any of
what
?”

“My bag of Twist.”

“What is he talking about?” said Matron seeming to speak to somebody else.

“My mother brought me a bag of Twist.”

“So?”

“I haven’t had a single piece of it.”

“What are you saying, Tommy? Are you standing there accusing us of stealing your bag of Twist?”

“I haven’t had a single piece of it,” I said again.

“I’ve never heard the like,” said Matron. “Are you implying that we would steal from children?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” said Matron as she took another step forward. “Out of my way!”

I jumped aside before she could put her hands on me. She stuck her hand down into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a key.

“We’ll just see about this,” she said, and she unlocked the cabinet door. It creaked as she opened it. She bent
forward. “You can’t see anything in here.”

Matron walked over to one of the tables and turned on a lamp. When she went back to the cabinet, she looked even more horrible than before. The shadows made her look twice as tall and twice as fat.

She rummaged around among all the things inside there. I didn’t want to look. There was the sound of rustling papers.

“Ha!” said Matron straightening up and peering down at me. “There’s no bag of Twist in here!”

That’s because you took it
, I thought. But I didn’t dare say it.

“How do you explain that, Tommy?”

“I know my mother had it with her,” I said.

“Then maybe we should call your mother and check with her.”

“We don’t have a telephone,” I said.

It was true. We’d never had one. Everybody had started getting telephones that year, but not us. They cost money.

“Maybe we should go there and ask her?”

“She’s not home.”

“Admit that you made the whole thing up, Tommy!”

There was no point in answering. There was no justice in this place—not at this camp. There was never any justice for children.

“Can I go now?” I asked.

“You mean continue walking in your sleep?” She laughed. “Can you find your way back up the stairs?”

I started to leave.

Quickly, she grabbed my shoulder. It hurt. I tried to twist free. Matron wasn’t laughing anymore.

“I’m starting to get tired of you, Tommy,” she said.

When I’d broken free of her grasp, she took hold of me again. With her other hand she twisted my ear. It hurt so much I thought she had twisted it clear off. It hurt all the way out to the ends of my hair. It hurt inside my head.

“Maybe we should send you home.” She let go of my ear. “You don’t seem to like it here anyway.”

“I… like it here,” I said as I tried to feel if my ear was still there.

I had to say that I liked it here. Not just because she was in the process of twisting my ear off, but because I had a plan. Only without the camp there was no plan.

“Really? You like it here? That’s news to me.”

I yawned, wider than I needed to.

“Can I go to sleep now?” I asked.

“Going to dream about the missing bag of Twist?”

I nodded.

“Go on up then. But don’t let me catch you down here again after bedtime.”

What was she doing down here herself in the middle of
the night? Stealing candy? Or drinking liquor? I thought she smelled of alcohol when she bent down over me. But that could have been something from the kitchen. The kitchen smelled strange.

I walked back through the mess hall and up the stairs. A seagull screeched from the lake. It sounded like a screech of terror.

“Where have you been?”

It was Sausage. He sat up in his bed when I entered the dorm.

“Shhh! You’ll wake everyone,” I whispered.

“I thought I heard someone say something down there.”

“It was nobody,” I said.

“So you didn’t chop Matron’s head off?” Sausage snickered.

“Not this time.”

Sausage waved his hand. It was a small hand—about three times smaller than mine and three thousand times smaller than Matron’s.

“Can’t you sit here and talk for a while?” he whispered. “I can’t sleep.”

“We mustn’t wake the others,” I whispered back.

“Just for a little while, Kenny.”

“Lie down and count sheep.”

“I did that already. I managed seven hundred sheep heads.”

“Like a real samurai,” I whispered.

“Do you think I can become a real samurai, Kenny?”

“Tomorrow we can start working on your sword,” I answered.

I moved closer to his bed. I didn’t want the whole dormitory to wake up and cause Matron to come rushing up here and start shouting.

“Is it really true that the samurai preferred a wooden sword to a real sword, Kenny?”

“Some did.”

“Why’s that?”

“I already told you, Sausage.”

“Tell me again.”

“We can do it tomorrow. When we start making your sword.”

“Does it take long? To make a sword?”

“We’ll have to see. I don’t know.”

“Can’t you tell me about that duel with the wooden sword? Or the wooden oar?”

“I’ve already told you, Sausage. Twice.”

“Tell me again. I think I’ll be able to sleep after that.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep anyway until Sausage was asleep.

“It was a fight to the death,” I began.

I told Sausage about the most famous duel between two samurais. In 1612, Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro, the
two greatest warriors in Japan, faced each other. Musashi’s mother died when she gave birth to him. When he was seven years old his father died too. His uncle, who was a priest, took care of him and raised him to be a samurai. When he was thirteen years old he killed his first adversary in a duel. It was a grown man, an experienced warrior. Three years later he defeated a real samurai. After that he left home for good. He roamed the country looking for other samurai to duel with. He had become a wave man.

“Why were they called wave men?” asked Sausage.

“Because they drifted around the countryside,” I answered.

“And they fought with wooden swords?” asked Sausage.

“Most didn’t,” I said, “but Musashi did.”

“What was it called again?”

“The wooden sword? It was called a
bokken
.”

“That’s what we’re going to make for me, right?”

“Yes.”

“The ones who had wooden swords used to beat the ones with steel swords, right?”

“Sometimes.”

“Musashi preferred a wooden sword, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Sausage smiled. He acted like he was Musashi already just because he was going to get a wooden sword. He was childish, Sausage. He was ten years old, but sometimes he
acted like he was four. Like now, when I sat here like his old man telling him a bedtime story.

“Keep going, Kenny!”

“No samurai in all of Japan had survived as many duels as Musashi,” I said, “and when he met Kojiro he was twenty-eight years old.”

“That’s pretty old,” said Sausage.

“No, no, he was still young.”

“Okay.”

“Kojiro came from one of the best sword-fighting schools,” I continued, “and he had also defeated everyone he had ever faced in a duel.”

“Otherwise he wouldn’t have still been alive, right?” asked Sausage.

“That’s right. Kojiro was considered the most formidable of all samurai. He almost seemed super-human. He was a master of the sword. Of course, it was a steel sword. His specialty was something they called “the Swallow” where he brought the sword down with such lightning speed that it was like a diving swallow.”

“Wow!” said Sausage. You’d think he was hearing the story for the first time.

“He regarded Musashi as his greatest foe.”

Sausage nodded. I could see him there in his bed almost as clearly as during the day. It got light quickly at the camp.
Soon it would be morning. Dragon Morning.

“It had been decided that the duel would be fought at the Hour of the Dragon,” I continued. “That meant at eight o’clock in the morning. And when it was just a little before eight, Kojiro’s men rowed him out to a narrow sandbank that lay between the two biggest islands of southern Japan. And there he waited for Musashi. There was a cold wind blowing. Minutes passed. Hours passed. But Musashi didn’t show.”

“I know what happened,” said Sausage. “Musashi overslept.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He barely had time to wash himself before he was driven down to the shore and rowed out to the sandbank. He was still sleepy and dozed off in the boat. He woke up with just enough time to carve himself a sword out of one of the oars.”

“Neat!” said Sausage.

“Then he jumped ashore. Kojiro mocked him about the oar. But Musashi just pointed the oar at Kojiro’s neck, and that was the signal that the duel had begun. They circled around each other. Both of them knew that one little mistake would mean death. And it was deathly silent too. The only sound you could hear was the waves washing against the shore and the screech of a few birds.”