Penguin Highway

by Tomihiko Morimi

“Like we’ve gone back in time,” Uchida said, breaking his silence.

  “But the shopping mall’s just over there,” I said, pointing past the bamboo grove. We could just catch a glimpse of the huge mall we sometimes went to on weekends.

  We walked through the paddies. The humidity had us sweating.

  Along the way, we found a strange path branching off from the paved road into the paddies. There were pine trees on either side. At the end of the road was a Shinto shrine on the verge of being swallowed by the bamboo grove. Uchida and I made a base on the stone stairs under the shrine’s traditional-looking gate, drank some cold tea, and wiped away our sweat. The thermos sparkled like a device used for experiments in outer space. We made a note of the shrine on the new map we’d started.

  “See, this one’s already more detailed than the one Suzuki stole.”

  “Yeah,” Uchida said happily.

  “They won’t find this shrine looking at that map.”

  Our break finished, we started walking through the paddies again. Beyond the paddies and the bamboo groves, we could see a road. We saw big trucks and family sedans passing by.

  “Aoyama, you should defeat Suzuki once and for all,” Uchida said. “And then establish a new Aoyama Empire.”

  “I won’t create an empire. I don’t want to be an emperor. And if there was an Aoyama Empire, the two of us wouldn’t be able to explore freely.”

  “True,” Uchida said after thinking this over. “Maybe we’re better off the way things are.”

  The road had two lanes for traffic in each direction, and there were a lot of cars on it. This was the national highway. The drainage canal went through a tunnel under the highway and out the other side. The tunnel was very dark, so we were very careful going through, but thankfully, the walking path continued the entire distance.

  We came out the other side of the tunnel and discovered that the drain hit a parking lot and made a hard turn to the right. We stopped and made some observations about the abandoned parking lot. There was a large broken-down car still sitting there. It looked like this lot once belonged to a restaurant built along the side of the highway, but the restaurant had gone out of business. This place may have been here long before our neighborhood was started. The building had an impressive roof, like a Japanese castle, and it was covered in crows.

  “We’ve come a long way,” Uchida said, looking nervous.

  The drain kept going past the parking lot and restaurant. There were plants growing thick on both sides. Every time the crows squawked, Uchida tugged at my clothes.

  “I wonder how far the drain goes,” I murmured. “Maybe to the ends of the earth.”

  “That far?”

  “I always feel like that’s the case. When I’m in the car with my father, I feel like if we follow this road, it would take us all the way to the ends of the earth.”

  “I wonder what that’s like.”

  “I don’t know. But I bet there’s absolutely nothing there. Maybe a little research laboratory dedicated to observing the ends of the earth. Beyond that point, none shall pass. That’s how I imagine it anyway.”

  “Sounds scary.”

  “I don’t really think so. I’d really like to visit a place like that.”

  When we first moved to this town, I was still only seven.

  Now I’d done a lot of exploring with Uchida and driving with my father, and I knew more about the world. But back then, my world had still been very small. My house had been built in the middle of a huge vacant lot, and to my eyes, it was like my house was a laboratory observing the ends of the earth. To seven-year-old me, it had felt like we’d come a very long way from the town in the next prefecture I’d grown up in. We were at the edges of the world, and if we crossed that next hill, there’d be no more world left. I felt like I had a duty to explore the world’s furthest reaches.

  So as often as I could, I woke up early on Sunday and went out exploring the town. Even now that I knew the ends of the earth were a lot farther away, I was still exploring with Uchida.

  “Aoyama, do you really think this water is flowing from the ends of the earth?”

  “I don’t really think so,” I said. “I just think it would be nice if it was.”

  “The earth is round, after all,” Uchida said. “There isn’t any end to it.”

  “True. The real end of the world is at the far reaches of the universe.”

  But there was another version of me deep inside that didn’t feel that way. Even though I knew the earth was round, I felt like there was an end to the world that I could walk to. I don’t know why. Uchida and I knew each other well, so it’s a shame I couldn’t explain this properly.

  We fell silent again, following the drain.

  Suddenly, we came to a clearing where the trees overhanging the drain peeled back, and it got very bright. There was a new green fence built along the drain. The forest there had been cut away and cleaned up recently, leaving vacant lots ready for new houses. Just like our neighborhood looked before it filled up. The most surprising thing was that the back of the mall we always went to was quite close by. It felt like we’d arrived back in civilization after a long journey in the wilderness.

  Uchida and I went to the mall’s food court. We sat down on a bench and drank some soft drinks. Buying a can of soda after a big expedition made us feel really grown-up.

  While he drank, Uchida was thinking.

  “Aoyama,” he said. Then for a long time, he didn’t say anything else. When he did this, I never tried to rush him. I didn’t like having anyone rush me when I was trying to think, and if I didn’t like something, I wouldn’t do it to anyone else.

  At last, Uchida said, “Mm, okay, I’m gonna say it.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been researching penguins in secret. Like you do.”

  “Oh? You have?”

  “And I’ve discovered something very odd. I’ve been keeping it a secret, but my research isn’t getting anywhere with just me. I didn’t want to ask for help, but I’ve decided I don’t mind if it’s you, Aoyama.”

  “What research have you been doing?”

  Uchida lowered his voice and said quite proudly, “I’ve been keeping a penguin.”

  Uchida had moved from the other side of the prefecture line this year, in March.

  Every day, his father got on a train that passed through tunnels running underneath a mountain on the prefecture border to get to work. The place Uchida’s dad worked was on a small island between two canals. Like my father, he waited at the bus stop early in the morning and got back home after it was dark. I thought it would be neat if our fathers rode the same bus.

  When I moved to this town, the apartment complex Uchida lived in hadn’t been built yet. The town had developed at a fearsome pace after I moved here. Back when I used to go out searching for the ends of the world every Sunday, I might have seen Uchida’s apartment complex being built against the side of that hill.

  I went over to Uchida’s apartment.

  So he could show me his secret.

  On the roof of the apartment building, the wind smelled like rain. There was a tall fence all around the roof to stop people from falling off, but through it, I could see the entire neighborhood. The sky was a patchy gray, with glimpses of blue through the gaps in the clouds. I could see my house and Kamonohashi Park and the hill with the water tower.

  While I was admiring the view, Uchida went somewhere and came back walking very slowly. A little penguin was following after him, as if it had mistaken Uchida for its mother. The penguin stopped along the way, as if it had just remembered something. Uchida turned around and wriggled his body at it, and the penguin wriggled back. It clearly liked Uchida.

  After a little while, the penguin started walking again. It stood next to me and puffed out its chest.

  “I found it in the building parking lot and hid it up here,” Uchida said, clearly very proud of himself.

  “I’m surprised nobody found it.”
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  “It hides if people come.”

  “What a smart penguin.”

  “Yes. It is my penguin, after all.”

  Uchida knelt down, facing the penguin.

  Even when he touched its belly, the penguin just moved its beak a little. It didn’t cry out or purr like a cat. Only stared into the distance. Maybe it was thinking about Antarctica. This must be a very strange place to a penguin. If I found myself all alone on Antarctica surrounded by penguins, I’d be pretty lonely. Also, I doubt I could survive the cold.

  But then I remembered that this penguin had once been a Coke can. This penguin had never been to Antarctica. Their mother was the lady, and this was their only home.

  “So the thing I’m worried about…,” Uchida said, staring down at it. “…is this penguin doesn’t eat anything. It hasn’t eaten a single thing since it came here.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Yeah. The book in the library said they eat fish, but I gave it fish, and it didn’t eat them. I tried ham and cucumbers and onigiri, but it didn’t eat any of them. No matter what I put in front of it, it just stares off in the distance.”

  “But it seems pretty plump and healthy.”

  “What should I do…? Aoyama, do you know?”

  Uchida’s experiment flew in the face of expectations. The penguins the lady made flapped their wings and waddled all round. They definitely needed some form of energy to keep that up. If the penguins didn’t eat food, then we had to assume they were deriving energy from some other source. Some unknown energy source. E = Penguin Energy. I took out my notebook and wrote Penguin Energy in it.

  Soon the penguin started waddling around us. In a big circle, like it was orbiting Uchida. Uchida looked happy. “It’s a mystery, right?”

  “Penguin Energy. A very curious mystery. I’ll have to research it.”

  “You think it has something to do with the theory of relativity?”

  “Too soon to say.”

  Uchida put his hand on the penguin’s head. “Promise not to tell anyone there’s a penguin here?”

  “I promise. I can keep a secret.”

  Saturday evening, I went to Seaside Café.

  At night, the lights of the café spilled out through the windows. There were no other customers, only the lady sitting in the window, resting her face on her hand. I could tell she’d already finished her studying.

  I went in the café, but the lady’s eyes stayed closed. The café lights shone on her cheek. She seemed even paler than usual. On the table was a book called Through the Looking-Glass. This was the book the Jabberwock appeared in. Until she woke up, I sat and read. I saw the picture of a boy with a sword fighting the Jabberwock for the first time. If something like this was really living in the forest like the lady had suggested, even I would be at my wit’s end. I could see no path to victory. I opened my notebook and copied the drawing of the Jabberwock. I think I did a pretty good job.

  At last, the lady’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Sorry, kiddo. Guess I nodded off.”

  “Are you still sleepy?”

  “I definitely need more sleep at night. Keep having scary dreams.”

  “What sort of dreams?”

  The lady’s dreams are detailed below.

  She was sitting on the couch in the dentist’s waiting room, like always. There was a light on at the reception desk, but no one was there. The waiting room was dimly lit, only the pale-blue light of dawn streaming in through the window. There was something wrong with the potted plants in the corner of the room. It was like a plastic tube was growing out of the pot. The end of the tube widened like a trumpet. For some reason, the lady knew this was a plant that had long ago gone extinct. There was someone else sitting with her on the couch. At first, the lady thought it was me. But the person sitting there was taller, like a grown-up. Their body was pale, wet, and glistening. She couldn’t make out their face. The lady said it was a Jabberwock. The Jabberwock was muttering something. It sounded like tiny bubbles popping, and she couldn’t work out any words. The lady thought she wanted to leave the waiting room, but she couldn’t because no one would call for her.

  “Dreams like that. Nasty, right?”

  “What are you waiting for, there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I remembered dreaming about the lady. The dream where she was standing by the Cambrian-period sea, where she turned a stone into a blue whale.

  “You’ve got some weird dreams, too. I can’t make blue whales.”

  She fell silent for a while, eyes focused on nothing.

  “You look sleepy,” I said.

  “Mm. I am.”

  Then we played chess. I talked about what I’d read in Through the Looking-Glass.

  “It’s a world all about chess.”

  “That’s why I thought you should read it. Alice starts out as a pawn but ends up as a queen.”

  “I’d rather be a knight.”

  “Scheming to leapfrog yourself into adulthood?”

  The lady was the one teaching me to play chess, but she was also unfortunately prone to making wrong moves. Whenever she picked up a piece, I had to watch carefully. For the sake of her honor, let me state for the record that she was not trying to cheat like Suzuki did. She could just be careless sometimes.

  The lady did not seem to be in great shape tonight, so I was concerned. I wondered if her state of mind was connected to the penguin emergence. One potential hypothesis was that producing penguins made the lady’s well-being deteriorate. Especially considering the question of the Penguin Energy discovered through Uchida’s experiment. The exact process was a mystery, but perhaps the penguins were living off the lady’s energy.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t make any more penguins,” I said softly.

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe that’s making you feel like this.”

  “Oh? I dunno. But I really like making penguins.” She smiled. “What was it you wanted me to make?”

  “Bats. Blue whales would be too big.”

  “They’d crush us.”

  “But I’m serious. I’m worried about you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Just then, the lights in the Seaside Café went out, plunging us into darkness. I didn’t know what was happening. The lady whispered, “What’s going on?” It was dark in the street outside. Yamaguchi had been behind the counter, cleaning up, and I heard him say, “Power outage?”

  “Are you scared, Aoyama?” the lady asked. Her voice in the darkness felt extremely comforting.

  “I’m not scared of power outages. But they do make me sleepy.”

  “Humans can’t handle darkness.”

  “If I were a bat, I’d be fine. I would be able to see with sonar.”

  I tried to make out the lady’s face through the darkness, but no matter how hard I strained my eyes, I saw nothing. I peered patiently into the darkness, not moving, and felt a faint breeze brushing against my face. I slowly looked up. The wind appeared to be originating from above the chessboard.

  “There’s a strange phenomenon occurring,” I said.

  “I noticed that myself.”

  The wind from above the chessboard was getting stronger. Eventually, there was a popping sound, like a bunch of large bubbles bursting. This made the wind get even stronger, and something came out of the chessboard, flapping its wings. The lady yelped and bent over backward, and Yamaguchi yelled, “What the…?!” I just sat there stunned, feeling one black gale after another fly out of the chessboard.

  The power outage ended, and the lights turned on. There was not a single piece left on the chessboard. But there were a ton of bats on the ceiling around the model of the blue whale. “How’d they get in here?” Yamaguchi exclaimed.

  The lady seemed equally surprised. “I did it!” she whispered.

  “How did that happen?”

  “I don’t know! It’s your job to figure this out!” she said.

  “I see.”

 
She reached out and hooked her pinkie in mine.

  That was the first time I’d ever touched her fingers. They felt totally different from when her fingers were in my mouth at the dentist’s office. They felt so thin and fragile, like they could break at any moment, and as cold as glass.

  On Sunday, my whole family went to the mall.

  The shopping mall was built after we moved here. On weekends, it filled with people from all over the neighborhood, like an amusement park. It was always shiny, like LEGOs. And it was very large. There were cafés, restaurants, boutiques, electronics stores, bookstores, even a movie theater. It was like an entire town in one building. I bet future space stations will be like this.

  We split into two pairs, my sister with my mother and me with my father. We agreed to meet at the restaurant on the top floor in one hour. My sister was excited about getting some new clothes.

  My father and I went to the stationery store.

  I liked stationery supplies. We came here about once a month. I’d stare at compasses and rulers, notebooks in all colors, and completely lose track of time. My father always had a large notebook at hand, in which he wrote all manner of things. Sometimes he just doodled. My father really liked that notebook and would even look through it in the living room at home. He always took it with him when he went to Seaside Café. If I wanted to be like my father, I should always have a notebook with me. That’s why I was so happy when he first bought me a grid-lined notebook and taught me how to use it. I was sure this meant I would one day be as important as he is.

  I used a spiral-bound notebook with a grid printed in light-gray lines. It was smaller than the one my father used, which made it easier to carry everywhere. The paper was slightly thicker than average and very smooth. I could write a lot of words in ballpoint pen without my hands getting tired. It was a lot of fun to write things in a good notebook. That’s why I took notes on everything. This notebook is the reason I’m so much smarter than your average elementary school student.

  “Which do you want?”

  My father always bought the same notebook. So I did, too.

  We checked the bookstores, then went to the restaurant on the top floor. While we waited for my mother and sister to arrive, I took the new notebook out of the bag and flipped through the empty pages. These pages would soon fill up with discoveries and research and ideas. I was excited thinking of all the research results that would soon be recorded here, in my handwriting. I wanted to write something in it right away.