The emperor of the Suzuki Empire was always watching.
Without thinking, I started to argue, but before I could, Hamamoto spun around.
“Yes, we’re in love. You got a problem with that?” she yelled. The entire class got very quiet. Nobody had ever responded like this before, and Suzuki’s eyes got really wide. He stood there for a minute but couldn’t think of anything to say, so he finally left the room, muttering, “They’re in love…”
Hamamoto turned back to me. “That wasn’t true,” she said. “He was just getting obnoxious.”
I was impressed.
On the way home, Uchida asked, “Are you really in love?”
“No.”
“Then why did Hamamoto say you were?”
“If we insist we’re not in love, Suzuki will just keep making fun of us. So she said we were in love, and now Suzuki can’t say anything else. It was all part of her cunning plan.”
“Oh. I thought the two of you were actually in love. I was so surprised!”
“We are not in love.”
Uchida thought about this for a while. “But thinking about it, if you tell a lie like that, won’t Suzuki just be even angrier later?”
“Why?”
“Because Suzuki’s in love with Hamamoto.”
I stopped in my tracks, surprised. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s done nothing but be mean to her this whole time. If he was actually in love with her, it isn’t logical to do things she wouldn’t like.”
“I don’t get it, either. But he’s definitely in love with her.”
“How are you so sure?”
“I’ve been observing him. But I think everyone else knows. They’re just too scared of Suzuki to say anything.”
I was impressed by Uchida’s observation skills. Weirdly enough, this knowledge gave me a happy sort of ticklish feeling. I even felt like maybe I could be friends with Suzuki soon.
“Oh. So Suzuki’s in love with Hamamoto. I had no idea. If he felt that way, he should have just told me.”
“Suzuki would never do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s embarrassed.”
“Why would Suzuki be embarrassed about being in love with Hamamoto? Falling in love with people is totally normal. My mother and father got married because they fell in love. If my father didn’t fall in love with my mother, I’d never have been born.”
“That’s true,” Uchida said, laughing. “But you just don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get?”
As we passed the dentist’s office, a warm wind was blowing across the vacant lot next door. The cumulonimbus in the sky looked like the soft-serve ice cream you eat at the pool. The cicadas on the row of trees were quite loud. The end of the asphalt road we were following was wavering like it was covered in hot water.
Only when Uchida and I split up did it really sink in that summer vacation was starting tomorrow. “Uchida! Tomorrow is summer vacation. What do you make of this delightful fact?”
“It makes me very happy.”
“Me too! There’s so much we can do! I have all sorts of plans.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to the summer festival?”
“I am.”
“So am I. And so is Hamamoto. Going to the summer festival really makes it feel like summer vacation has started. I think that’s what it means when people say you can feel it in your bones.”
The summer festivals in our town were held by the different neighborhood associations. They’d hang red paper lanterns around the park clearing, and people from the neighborhoods would pitch tents and open stalls. When we first moved in, the summer festival was really small, not very summerlike at all. But as the vacant lots filled in, more people joined the festival, and it became quite bustling.
That Saturday morning, the festival hadn’t started yet, but my sister wanted to put her yukata on already and wouldn’t stop bugging my mother about it. “Wait just a little longer,” she kept saying. My sister got really sulky and blew raspberries at her.
“You’re so selfish,” I said.
“Mind your own business.”
She’d learned this phrase somewhere recently and was using it at the slightest opportunity. I was getting extremely sick of it.
After lunch, we started hearing noise from the park, so my father and I went to take a look.
They were putting up a stage for the traditional Bon Festival dance in the soccer field and hanging paper lanterns from the electric lines. My father was talking to Yoshida, the head of the neighborhood association, and Yamaguchi from Seaside Café. Yamaguchi had closed up shop and had been helping with the festival preparations all day. My father started helping put tents up, so I went back home and started organizing my research. Then I took a nap so I wouldn’t get sleepy too early that evening.
When the sun started going down, I went to the festival with my mother and sister.
Walking through the neighborhood, we could hear children’s voices everywhere. Lots of people were strolling in the same direction we were. The summer festival was the only time you ever heard people’s voices late into the night. My sister had finally been allowed to put her yukata on and was quite pleased with it. Trotting along in her outfit, she looked like a silly little goldfish. She met some kids from her class on the way, and they were laughing together.
The park at night was like another world entirely. It was shaped like a hexagon and all lit up; lights glowed from stalls like the one where my father and a few neighbors were cooking yakisoba, and lanterns were hanging all over the dance stage. Like a pool of light at the bottom of the night.
I went around the different stalls with my mother. We watched my father make yakisoba for a while. We tried to catch some goldfish. Some neighbors taught my sister how to do the festival dance, so she was dancing a lot.
Some girls from my class passed by. They were all in yukata. Hamamoto was with them. She said, “Look! Yukata!” and spun around. “How’s it look?”
“Not silly,” I said. My honest opinion, but Hamamoto seemed miffed. “It looks great,” my mother said, and Hamamoto smiled happily. Then she went to dance with the other children.
“Was that Hamamoto?” my mother asked.
“Yes. She knows about the theory of relativity.”
“She’s so cute! Like a little doll.”
You meet all kinds of people at festivals.
While I was watching the Bon Festival dance with my mother, the lady came pushing through the crowd. She was with the dentist and the receptionist. My mother said “Good evening,” and they bowed their heads and said “Good evening,” too. She’d been helping out at the raffle stall earlier but said they were taking turns enjoying the festival.
“You like festivals, too, Aoyama?” she asked, giggling. “Are you researching them?”
“I’m taking a break from that tonight.”
“I see. Taking breaks sometimes is important. You aren’t getting sleepy?”
“Not today,” I said.
For a while, we stood and watched my sister dance.
“You aren’t dancing, kiddo?” the lady asked.
“I don’t dance.”
“Why not?”
“If I dance, it looks like a robot dancing. I think I approach it too logically.”
“Well, you are a child of science,” the dentist said very seriously. Everyone else laughed.
“See you around,” the lady said. They moved on.
At last, I found Uchida. He was walking around with his mother and father. I ran over and said, “Good evening.” Uchida’s father was very thin, and his mother not so thin.
Uchida and I decided to look around the festival together.
We ate some shaved ice in a corner of the park, under the light of the red paper lanterns. The shaved ice was as cold as Antarctica, and my brain froze.
Uchida kept looking warily around.
“Is Suzuki here?”
“I’
m sure he is.”
“I really don’t want to run into him.”
“I also don’t want to run into him and get into a fight. But he has no right to curtail our freedom. We are free to come to this festival and to go out exploring.”
Hamamoto, my sister, and the other girls were still dancing. They all loved dancing. Hamamoto waved at us while she danced. I waved back.
“Aaaoooyaaamaaa!” a voice said behind me.
As it did, someone grabbed my pants and pulled them up. My lower half was squeezed uncomfortably, forcing me onto my toes like a ballerina. Suzuki’s minions, Kobayashi and Nagasaki, were on either side of me with a firm grip on my pants.
Suzuki came up in front of me. His face illuminated by the lantern, he was holding a bunch of cotton candy, sticky from drool, like a weapon. It glittered in the lights.
“Don’t you move, Uchida,” Suzuki said, pointing the cotton candy at him. Even without the threat, Uchida was too surprised to move a muscle. I was stuck on my tiptoes and couldn’t move, either. Suzuki took a bite of the cotton candy, grumbling insults.
I took a bite of shaved ice.
“Stop eating that!” he yelled.
“Why? I have the right to eat as much shaved ice as I like.”
“You piss me off! Always talking crap!”
“I know why you’re so angry, Suzuki.”
“What?”
“If you’re in love with Hamamoto, you should really just tell her. I had no idea! And I feel I should apologize. Hamamoto and I are not in love. So if you’re in love with Hamamoto, I really think it would be best if you tell her how you feel soon. And stop being mean to her instead.”
“Th-th-th-th-th…,” Suzuki stuttered. “That’s not true! Don’t make things up!”
“I don’t think you should be embarrassed about being in love.”
“I’m not!”
Suzuki had turned bright red. I have no idea why he was so angry. He spit in my shaved ice. It was a shame to ruin that much shaved ice. Since I couldn’t eat the shaved ice anymore, I grabbed Kobayashi’s T-shirt and dumped it down the inside.
Kobayashi shrieked.
I had successfully freed myself from Kobayashi, but Nagasaki had both hands on my pants like a sumo wrestler wrangling their opponent’s loincloth. Nagasaki was very strong, so I couldn’t free myself. While I was trying, Suzuki stuck his sticky cotton candy in my hair.
“Stop that, Suzuki—my hair will be a fright!”
“You little,” he said, grinding the cotton candy against me.
“Suzuki, stop!” Uchida yelled.
While we tussled, the lady’s voice came. “Yo there, rug rats. What’s all this?”
Suzuki and his gang went super-quiet. The lady from the dentist’s office was their greatest weakness.
“Kiddo, you appear to have something sticking out of your hair,” the lady said, looking it over.
“It’s cotton candy.”
“You’re supposed to eat cotton candy. You shouldn’t play with your food.”
“Suzuki ground it into my hair.”
“Ah! Don’t tattle!” Suzuki said.
“I will if I want!” I said.
The lady’s eyes narrowed, and she gave Suzuki a terrifying look. “If you keep doing stuff like this, I might just pull all your teeth out. With no anesthetic.”
“That would be extremely painful. There would be a lot of blood,” I said.
Suzuki turned white as a sheet.
The lady put her hand on her hip. “Now, then,” she said. “Suzuki, you’re a good boy, so you’re gonna apologize to Aoyama, right?”
Suzuki looked at the lady, then at me, and back at the lady. His mouth twisted sideways. Like he wasn’t giving in. “Why should I?” he said. “I don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“Oh, look at the big strong boy. Even though you cried like a baby at the dentist’s office.” The lady laughed.
“I didn’t cry!” Suzuki yelled. “You’re a liar!”
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked.
“I hate you because I hate you!”
“He can be a bit cocky sometimes,” the lady said, taking Suzuki’s side. He looked quite pleased by this.
“Yeah! He’s cocky! Always saying weird stuff I don’t understand. And lying!”
“Oh, Suzuki, you’ve got a bug on your back,” the lady said, stepping around behind him. Then she put him in a half nelson.
“What? Where?” Suzuki screamed. “Grown-ups aren’t supposed to lie!”
“Grown-ups lie all the time,” the lady said. “Come on, kiddo! Eye for an eye! Sticky hair for sticky hair!”
I rubbed my head on Suzuki’s face. “Stop!” he yelled, struggling. But the lady held him still. Suzuki was a little pudgy, so his cheek was all wobbly. My hair was all sticky from the cotton candy and Suzuki’s drool, so naturally, Suzuki’s cheek was now all sticky because of the same two things. It glittered in the light.
Finally, the lady let him go. “Now that Suzuki’s all sticky, too, that’s enough for today.”
“It’s not fair!” Suzuki said, rubbing his cheek. “You always take Aoyama’s side. Even though you’re a grown-up!”
“Who said grown-ups don’t take sides?”
“Ugh, you’re so mean!”
The lady snorted, puffing up her chest. Her breasts shook. “If you’re so mad, then you’d better try to get me back. But you can’t, because you’re just a kid!”
After Suzuki’s group ran away, Uchida and I went with the lady to the water fountain in the corner of the park. I tried washing my hair in it, but a little water wasn’t going to be enough to get my hair back to normal. Suzuki’s drool and the cotton candy had hardened my hair. It was like a shape-memory alloy.
“Maybe that was a little rough,” the lady said.
“I thought it was a bit childish of you.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“But you really saved us,” Uchida said. “Thank you. I…I couldn’t do anything.”
“I’d really prefer not to interfere in children’s fights, but… Oh well,” the lady said. Then she pointed at my hair. “Kiddo, your hair is a mess.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Do you know why Suzuki’s always coming after you?”
“Because I’m much smarter than him?”
The lady smiled at Uchida.
“Do you know, Uchida?”
He nodded. “I do. At least I think so.”
“Earlier, Suzuki was getting in the way of Hamamoto’s festival dance. She was really mad.”
“Suzuki is often mean to Hamamoto.”
“Does Suzuki like Hamamoto?”
“How did you know that?” I asked, surprised. “I didn’t know till Uchida told me.”
“He’s mean because he’s interested in her. And you’re always talking to her, so that pisses him off.”
“Hmm.”
“You still have a lot to learn.”
“I am forced to admit it.”
“Forced, are you?” The lady laughed under the lantern lights.
After that, we went around the festival again. The music playing on the speakers set up on the stage, the noise of the raffle drums, the laugher of children and grown-ups, all rose up and vanished into the night sky. The world seemed so different from how the park usually was at night that it struck me as very strange. The lady really seemed to like the summer festival. She was a grown-up, but she got really into the goldfish catching and then ate a bunch of cotton candy.
When we got to the yakisoba booth, my father had left the griddle. He was enjoying a beer with Yamaguchi from Seaside Café. When he saw us, he stood up and bowed his head to the lady.
“You sell out of yakisoba?” she asked.
“Sorry! It was unexpectedly popular.”
“I’m too late, then!”
My father looked at my head, puzzled. “What happened to you? Your hair’s all…fancy.”
“Mm. There w
as an accident that led to the application of cotton candy and Suzuki’s drool.”
“What a tragedy.”
“I got over it.”
Uchida found his parents, and they went home. My father was helping to clean up the stall, so I went home with my mother and sister.
As we left the park, Hamamoto came running over.
“Aoyama, you’re leaving already?”
“Yep.”
“Your hair looks weird.”
“Yes. There was an accident.”
“Don’t forget about our research on The Sea.”
“Of course not.”
We left the park. The lady was going the other direction, so we split up there. The lady bowed her head and walked off alone. Toward the white apartment building by the water-tower hill.
I walked with my mother and sister for a while, then turned around.
I couldn’t see the lady anymore. Just the lights of the festival, all lit up like a merry-go-round at an amusement park.
I have already told you about how I make plans in my notebook and carry them out later.
With the start of summer vacation, I became very busy. Normally, I am the busiest child in the entire city, but when summer starts, I make a plan for the entire day and become even busier. I may very well be the busiest child in the entire world.
I started waking up earlier in the morning. Sometimes I even got up at five. When I wake up that early, even my father isn’t up yet. I can listen closely, and there won’t be a sound in the entire house. My room and the hall are blue like the shoals of a sea from the Cambrian period. When I open the window and look out at the early morning neighborhood, chilly air comes rushing in, clearing my mind. I get a lot of research done in the morning.
In exchange for waking up so early, I take midday naps. When we were out observing The Sea, I’d sleep under the parasol. When I was at home, I’d lie down on the floor in the living room with my mother and sister, put a towel over my belly, and sleep there. If I didn’t take a nap, by evening I’d get so sleepy and useless that I couldn’t move any more than my sister’s teddy bear could.
On really hot days, we would play with LEGOs or games at my house or Uchida’s and discuss outer space. Sometimes we went to the library. Uchida and I both went to Hamamoto’s house, and Hamamoto’s father let us read some of his books on space. Hamamoto lived in the same apartment building as Uchida, so it was easy to get there. They had a small planetarium you could look at in the house, and Hamamoto’s mother gave us some really lovely sweets. I think summer vacation is an extremely good invention.
Penguin Highway Page 13
