PRAISE FOR
TEMPLE ALLEY SUMMER
“This imaginative tale, enchantingly written and charmingly illustrated by veteran Japanese creators for young people, has a timeless feel.… An instant classic filled with supernatural intrigue and real-world friendship.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, Starred Review
“A sweet ghost story, a mystery, an eerie and unsettling story-within-a-story: Finally, the work of the great Sachiko Kashiwaba, one of Japan's most revered children's authors, is available in English translation! I’m so pleased that young people who read in English can now enjoy Kashiwaba’s Temple Alley Summer, and experience the pleasure and wonder of viewing the world from a less familiar angle.”
—LINDA SUE PARK, Newbery Medalist and New York Times best-selling author
“A charming, suspenseful tale that grabbed my imagination and kept me turning the pages to the very end!”
—CATHY HIRANO, translator for Hans Christian Andersen Award–winner Nahoko Uehashi
“What a thrilling discovery this book is. There are unexplained legends, ghosts, and plenty of twists and turns to keep those pages flying, but at its heart it’s a story about a sensitive boy who wants to do the right thing, even when things get strange and his ordinary life is suddenly filled with the most unsettling mysteries. It’s a story about friendship and about believing, and a thoroughly captivating read.”
—DANIEL HAHN, award-winning translator and author, founder of the TA First Translation Prize
“Utterly enchanting! Part mystery, part ghost story, this magical tale has the makings of a classic.”
—SUZANNE KAMATA, author of Pop Flies, Robo-Pets, and Other Disasters
“As a kid, I would have loved reading this compelling story within a story grounded in a Japanese boy’s school and home life as he protects a girl ghost. I love it now!”
—ANNIE DONWERTH-CHIKAMATSU, award-winning author of Beyond Me and Somewhere Among
“Fans of Hayao Miyazaki will love Temple Alley Summer.… This beguiling tale—skillfully translated and charmingly illustrated—imparts haunting, hopeful lessons about second chances and what it means to fully embrace life.”
—LEZA LOWITZ, author of Up from the Sea
“In this absorbing, multi-layered story, the past, the present and an unfinished fairy tale are all satisfyingly connected.… This bewitching book makes me hope more of Sachiko Kashiwaba’s works will be translated into English.”
—SUZANNE MORGAN, Politics and Prose (Washington, DC)
“This middle-grade novel exemplifies the joys of reading children’s books in translation: experiencing cultures other than one’s own. Kids familiar with Japanese culture from Studio Ghibli films, though, will feel right at home in this contemporary ghost story!”
—ROBIN STERN, Books Inc. (Campbell, CA)
“Temple Alley Summer is like a three-in-one book—a manga-like feel, a modern Japanese story, and fable, all in one. I loved the ghost girl, Akari, and the genuine Kazu.… One of my SUMMER PICKS!!!”
—KIRA WIZNER, Merritt Bookstore (Millbrook, NY)
“A tenderly written and thoughtfully translated book about family, friendship, grief and new beginnings which made me laugh and cry—sometimes at the same time.”
—DENISE TAN, Closetful of Books (Singapore)
“In this engrossing translation by Avery Fischer Udagawa, Sachiko Kashiwaba’s Temple Alley Summer delivers a page-turner of a mystery, a paean to the transformative power of stories, and one intrepid fifth-grader’s quest to discover how those we have lost might return … and whether they should!”
—PHILIP NEL, Director, Program in Children’s Literature, Kansas State University
“Middle grade readers (and beyond) will love this thrilling and heartfelt book.”
—MELEK ORTABASI, Chair, Department of World Languages and Literatures, Simon Fraser University
“In Temple Alley Summer, Sachiko Kashiwaba spins an intricate yarn that celebrates the power of story to overcome even the greatest obstacles.… A story for anyone who has ever lost themselves in a good book and will do anything to learn how it ends!”
—JENNIFER MACDONALD WHITMAN and NATHANIEL FORREST WHITMAN, co-authors with Margaret Read MacDonald of Teaching with Story: Classroom Connections to Storytelling
TEMPLE ALLEY SUMMER
Sachiko Kashiwaba
Illustrations by Miho Satake
Translated from the Japanese
by Avery Fischer Udagawa
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents herein are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 Sachiko Kashiwaba
Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Miho Satake
Translation copyright © 2021 Avery Fischer Udagawa
First published as Kimyōji Yokochō no Natsu in 2011 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.
Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First Restless Books hardcover edition July 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 9781632063038
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933874
Restless Books gratefully acknowledges the support from The Japan Foundation for this publication.
This book is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Cover design by adam b. bohannon and Sarah Schneider
Text design by Sarah Schneider
Cover illustration by Miho Satake
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Restless Books, Inc.
232 3rd Street, Suite A101
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.restlessbooks.org
[email protected]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. A Ghost at My House!
2. Am I the Only Clueless One?
3. Strange Old People
4. A Family Secret
5. The Missing Statuette
6. Daisy
7. “The Moon Is on the Left” Part One
8. “The Moon Is on the Left” Part Two
9. Dead Ends
10. Who Is Mia Lee?
11. “The Moon Is on the Left” Part Three
12. “The Moon Is on the Left” Part Four
13. Summer’s End
TEMPLE ALLEY SUMMER
CHAPTER ONE
A Ghost at My House!
I never dreamed my house had a secret unknown to my parents or me—and believe me, when I discovered it, I had no plans to get involved. I am a scaredy-cat.
The whole thing began because I frighten easily, or because it was summer. Or maybe because my grandpa died this past spring.
I shouldn’t have learned the secret at all. But from the morning of the day we had multigrade activity time at school, or really the day before, I was involved.
It was a sticky, hot July night. The TV ghost story shows, typical for summer in Japan, came on at seven. A scaredy-cat like me had no business watching them, I know. But I couldn’t not watch, either. I had to see: Dishes rattle in a hotel late at night, though no earthquake registers. A ghost with long hair keeps pace with a car doing forty miles per hour. A hand appears forming a “V” over the middle person’s head whenever three people have their photo taken at a certain scenic spot. Could it happen? I was hooked. For three hours. It was a ghost story marathon.
“Don’t come crying to me in the middle of the night asking me to take you to the bathroom.”
She shot me an icy glance.
My sister’s in seventh grade and I’m in fifth, and since last spring our two bedrooms have been next door to each other. I would never go running to her bedroom at night. Ha! I grabbed a fifth slice of bladder-loading watermelon to prove it.
I should have known better.
My eyes shot open. I had to pee and fast. I looked at the clock: not yet four a.m. The sky was pitch black, the same as at midnight. I wanted to cry.
My house is old, built by my grandpa when he was young. We live in it while my parents renovate a little at a time. The place is pretty big.
To reach the bathroom from my room on the second floor, you have to go down a flight of squeaky steps, past the storage room, past my grandpa’s old bedroom, and next to a room with tatami floors that faces a porch and has the family altar inside. The add-on bathroom juts into our grassy courtyard.
Since there’s no way to reach the bathroom quickly from upstairs, anyone with stomach trouble sleeps on the floor of the tatami room, close to the toilet.
My mom keeps saying we’ll renovate the house to make it spacious and modern, but until we have the money, this is just a pipe dream.
Anyway, it was a long way to the bathroom, and scary, so there was no way I could go. I had no plans to wake my sister and have her take me either, thank you very much. I knew how she would react. But I had to pee. Help!
Time for emergency measures. I opened the window. A light rain was falling—perfect. If I peed on the roof from the open window, the rain would wash away the evidence.
It was hardly the first time I’d done this. I pee out the window every once in a while. Especially in winter, when I get so cold going down to the bathroom that it’s impossible to fall back asleep. My window opens onto the courtyard, so nobody sees me, but there was the time last winter when Mom saw evidence of my pee in the snow on the roof.
“We still have your ducky potty from when you were a baby!” she said, glowering. Um, I will not use the ducky potty! I told Mom I would never pee out the window again, and she calmed down. Now I just avoid getting caught.
This time, everything went smoothly. My pee made a sound, but it was masked by the rain, so there was no chance of my parents hearing anything as they slept downstairs.
Joro joro … as the pee left me, the tension drained from every part of my body. I exhaled so deeply I almost sighed out loud.
Then I heard a noise below.
CRASH.
My body tensed up again, but there was no stopping the pee.
I squinted toward the sound and saw the sliding door near our altar room slip open. No one was outside. Was a thief about to escape? Or a family member sneaking out of the house? My Uncle Junichi who lives with us often goes out fishing or hiking. But Junichi’s been in China since last year, with his former university professor, helping out with an archaeological dig. I knew it couldn’t be him.
My pee stopped, and I felt a bit better. Just then, through an opening in the faded curtains behind the sliding door, I saw a pale foot. A child’s foot. My sister’s? Not possible since she was asleep in her bedroom. I would have heard her if she’d used the stairs. And her feet are tanned, not pale—she swims on the swim team, so her legs are darker than mine.
Then I saw a figure step from behind the curtains. Wearing a kimono. A white one. Even the sash was white. The child had shoulder-length hair that was pulled back on one side. The sky had brightened a bit, so I could see two small, bright red baubles on a hair band. The baubles were the size of pickled plums and perfectly round. Because the child was looking down, the face was hidden.
Who was it? A child robber? The hands were empty. And the kimono was exactly like the one they put on Grandpa when he died. Thin and snow white.
A ghost, whoa! A ghost! It had to be.
I forgot that I had just seen the feet. People say that real ghosts have no feet, but is it true? I only thought about that later.
“G-ghost! A ghost!”
I wanted to scream, but my voice got stuck.
Still, the figure stepping into the courtyard sensed me. I saw thick, pitch-black hair swing around and a face tilt in my direction. I think I saw the face, but I didn’t meet the eyes.
This time I screamed for real.
“GYAAA!”
As if pushed by an invisible arm from the foot-wide windowsill where I stood, I fell back and landed on my bottom.
“Ghost! Ghost! Ghost!” I shouted.
For the first time ever, I lost all strength in my body. All I could do was sit and stare at the window.
The impact of me falling on my butt made our old house shake.
Mom, Dad, and my sister came running to my room.
What followed was torture.
We discovered that a lock on one of our sliding doors was open, and the wooden gate that leads from the courtyard to the alley was ajar. “We probably just left them open, though,” my mom said.
No one believed I had seen a ghost.
“You idiot, I told you not to watch those shows,” my sister said as she conked me on the head with a fist and headed to her room.
“You agreed to do your business in the toilet, young man.” Mom seemed ready to chew me out for the foreseeable future.
“It’s only four. We can still get some rest,” my dad offered. “Kazu, are you OK? Can you get back to sleep by yourself? Do you want me to stay?”
My only ally.
I told my parents that I’d fall asleep on my own, but my mind was racing. I saw what I saw. I saw! For a long time after that, I lay awake.
When Mom shook me later that morning, it was past eight. I had slept soundly, without dreaming. This must be what they call the sleep of the dead.
“Kazu! Get up! We’re late. Even I overslept because of you.”
Mom flew out of my room as soon as she saw me struggle to sit up.
“I’m out of here!” my sister yelled from the front door.
“Shake a leg, it’s after eight!” Mom barked at Dad as she ran downstairs.
“Stop shouting, I’m up,” Dad grumbled from the bathroom.
Everyone was late and crabby, even Dad. There was no time for breakfast. I grabbed a slice of bread and ran out the door.
The light rain of early morning had become a downpour.
Third and fourth periods of school that day were multigrade activity time, our last of the spring term.
My school, Uchimaru Elementary School, sits in a shopping district with centuries of history. Most of the kids’ grandparents, not to mention their parents, went to the same school. People have kept up a neighborhood association that runs traditional events year-round.
Multigrade activity time means that kids from grades one to six break into their neighborhood association groups instead of their grades. Younger students spend time with upperclassmen, learning how to succeed at school and developing respect. That seems to be the point of it, as far as I can tell. Mostly we do recreation, like dodgeball or demon tag, and the little kids behave okay. We do pretty well if we just listen to the sixth-grade leaders. The sixth grade at my school has four girls who are born leaders, and the fifth-grade class has several ready to take their place. That leaves me on easy street. Other kids complain that my group has too few older students, but I don’t mind multigrade activity time.
Today, though, we had to stay indoors because of the rain. The school gym was closed for repainting, so no recreation. We stuffed ourselves into a conference room to look up old names for the sights in our area.
Who gets these ideas? My money is on the vice principal, nickname: Broad Bean, who is obsess
ed with local history.
Of the seventeen kids in my group—the Minami Ōdori Shopping District group—sixteen stood huddled around a map that lay open on a desk. (I sat to the side, stifling a yawn.)
“Wow, a map from 1913. I can’t believe they have this.”
“Must be a copy.”
“The regional castle used to be here. Whoa, in 1913 the grounds were already a park.”
“The Naka River is here. Naka River Bridge is over here too. Same place as now, right?”
“The park is there, so yeah.”
“So Minami Ōdori must be here.”
“It has a different name, doesn’t it?”
“‘Ōmi district, Gofuku area.’”
“Here’s a blurb: ‘Ōmi district. Established near the castle by Ōmi merchants during the feudal period, when each regional lord traveled between his domain and Edo, which is now Tokyo. The goods of Ōmi merchants were highly favored in the capital. Ōmi district included numerous clothing and ocean product stores. Kimono sellers, or gofukuya, later separated and formed Gofuku area. Traditional footwear, accessory, and handbag stores also flourished in this bustling area.’”
I could hear the students murmuring, prompted by the leader, as they examined points on the map. I myself sat slumped at another desk, picking my nose. If you can avoid getting caught by a teacher, a relaxed posture is the way to go.
“Hey, there’s no Park Heights!”
“Duh, it’s an old map, it wouldn’t have English names.”
The kids leaning over the map kept bumping heads with each other. One head had some red baubles on it. They looked exactly like the ones I’d seen on the ghost at my house that morning. You can buy those baubles anywhere, I told myself. Yet I kept glancing at them without meaning to.
“Yūsuke, isn’t this your family’s store?”
Someone pointed to the map.
Yūsuke is my best friend. His family has run a kimono and clothing store for generations. He went to look.
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