The Monster on the Road Is Me

by JP Romney

  I caught our school counselor watching us from the other end of the hall.

  “Oh, right. The field trip. I guess so,” I said with a strained grin.

  He grunted and lumbered up the stairs.

  “Ohayō,” a group of third-year guys said as they passed me on their way to homeroom.

  “Genki de ne,” said a gaggle of girls.

  Huh. Who’d have thought that the secret to popularity is getting hit by a van? In high school, people will either like you based on your merits or pity you. Hey, you get to the same place either way, right?

  “How are you feeling, Koda?” Ino-sensei asked. “Everyone was very worried about you.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “It’s true,” the school counselor said. “Many of the students asked about you.”

  “And you had nothing to do with that?”

  “I had very little to do with that,” she said, walking me up the stairs. “There are many people here who care about you. That is a wonderful thing.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said awkwardly.

  After we got to my homeroom, Ino-sensei crossed her arms in front of her and bowed. “Well, you better get inside. Have fun today, Koda.”

  I bowed back and then walked inside. The students were sitting around the classroom talking and laughing.

  “Don’t forget your bentō lunches,” Shimizu-sensei said from the front of the class. “There will be vending machines, but you will only be allowed to buy drinks. Cookies and Hi-Chew taffy do not constitute a meal. I’m looking at you, Kenji-kun. Stay with a partner, and when you’re ready walk quietly down to the buses.”

  As the students filed out, Kenji walked up and got very close to my face. “You have to be my partner.”

  “Actually, I already have a partner. Her name is Moya and we’re in love. No, we’re not in love. She’s nice. I like her. It’s complicated. The point is … I have a partner already, so…”

  Kenji looked at me for a second and then turned and walked away.

  “Koda,” Shimizu-sensei said, “could you stay behind for a few minutes?”

  “Okay.”

  After everyone left the room, Shimizu-sensei told me to sit on a chair next to his desk.

  “Am I in trouble? I just got here.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that, Koda. It’s about your accident. I’d like to ask you … what it was like.”

  “To get hit by a van?”

  “No, not that.” He glanced behind him at an empty corner. “I wanted to know what it was like to leave Kusaka Town.”

  “To leave?”

  “You had to go to the hospital, didn’t you? In Kōchi City? What did it feel like to finally leave this place?”

  “I’ve been outside Kusaka before. You know that, right?”

  “Wonderful. Just wonderful. Tell me all about it.”

  “I mean, you’ve been outside of Kusaka, too.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I’m pretty sure you have.”

  “No,” he said. “In my entire life, I’ve never left this town.”

  Except I knew that wasn’t true. Shimizu-sensei’s mother was from the northern island of Hokkaido. Her family tended sheep on a farm, and Shimizu-sensei used to tell stories about spending summers there running through the pastures and the birch wood forests. A faded picture of that farm even hung in an old frame on the wall behind him.

  “Tell me what it was like, Koda,” he said. “Please.”

  Shimizu-sensei had different-colored eyes. One was brown. The other was light green. How had I never noticed that before?

  “Well,” I started, “leaving Kusaka wasn’t so hard. First, I had to find a van that was speeding out of control. Then I had to stand in front of it. For the last part, and this was probably the most important step, I had to stay very still while it attempted to park on my face. The rest was easy. I woke up in a hospital in Kōchi City.”

  “Fascinating,” Shimizu-sensei said with exaggerated hand movements. “Just like that, you woke up outside Kusaka Town.”

  “Well, yeah, but from the way you’re looking at me, I feel like I have to mention this: There are easier ways to leave Kusaka. A car. Or a train maybe. You don’t even have to get hit by any of those. Just get inside and ride them out.”

  “I love it. I really do. Ride them out. Brilliant.”

  I thought he was mocking me. But he wasn’t.

  “Have you ever tried to leave Kusaka?” I asked him.

  “I see where you’re going with this. The short answer is yes. I would like to leave Kusaka.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “The long answer is no. I’ve never been outside.”

  How is that the long answer?

  I looked up at the picture behind him. Those rolling grassy valleys weren’t from anywhere on this island. “Why have you never left this town, Shimizu-sensei?”

  My teacher leaned back in his chair. “No, no, no. That is something I can’t discuss with you, Koda.”

  “Well … okay.”

  “I cannot talk about it.”

  “All right.”

  “Even discussing it could put you in great danger.”

  “Then let’s definitely not discuss it.”

  “The doctors say it’s a condition.”

  “I thought we weren’t discussing it.”

  “Have you heard of agoraphobia, Koda?”

  “Um … no.”

  “Agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces or crowded public places, but it’s also a fear of leaving safe places. That’s what the doctors say I have. Agoraphobia. Kusaka is my safe place. Whenever I try to leave it, I feel like my body is melting and coming apart. My brain shuts down. My fingers lock up. My feet stiffen into cement blocks.”

  “How would knowing that endanger my life?” I asked.

  “Because they’re wrong,” he said, leaning forward. “Kusaka is not my safe place. I hate this place. I hate this town. And I hate this school.”

  As a teacher, that’s probably a secret you should keep to yourself, I thought.

  “I’ve tried to leave, I really have. I’ve gone to the train station. I’ve sat in a car. I’d crawl out on my hands and knees, but every time I try, they stop me. They are doing this to me. They won’t let me leave.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Which was the worst question I could have possibly asked.

  And his answer was probably the worst he could give: “Do you know what happens when you die?”

  “Well, I’ve never died before, so … no?”

  “I don’t know either. Maybe you’re reborn. Maybe you float up into the sky to meet the sun goddess Amaterasu. Maybe you attain enlightenment and contemplate the cosmos from your castle in the middle of space.”

  “I’m pretty sure you made that last one up.”

  “But what you don’t do, Koda, what you absolutely should not do under any circumstances, is stay around in the exact same house and torment all of your living relatives that come after. That doesn’t makes sense, does it? Who would want to do something like that? They just showed up one day. Who would want to spend the rest of eternity haunting your own family? It’s crazy! Simply crazy!”

  “That is the word that came to mind,” I said.

  “What if I needed to go to the hospital? Did they ever stop to think about that? What if someone put me into an ambulance and just drove me out of town? Would my body tear apart? Would my brain melt into a puddle? Would my ancestors actually let me die?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that. But if you’re thinking of getting hit by a car so you can leave town, my recommendation would be not to do that.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!”

  “Okay.”

  “No. Not you, Koda. Them.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m with a student. You know that. You can see him.” His greenish eye drifted off a bit.

  I looked behind him. No one was in that corner. “If you have company, I can go,” I said,
backing away ever so slowly.

  “He doesn’t know how we can leave. I already asked him. He said ride a train. Of course I know that’s a stupid idea. I know we would have tried it before. What do you want me to do? Punish him? Give him more homework? He isn’t the key to anything. You were wrong! I hate you! I hate all of you!”

  “I would like to go on my field trip now,” I said.

  Shimizu-sensei’s one creepy eye drifted back over to me again. “Yes. The field trip. Ikeda-sensei will be waiting. Go now. Please shut the door on your way out.”

  I bowed and quickly left the room.

  “The door, Koda. Please. You’ll let the crows in.”

  I ran back and slid the door closed.

  24

  I was looking out of the bus window when Kenji tried to squeeze in next to me.

  “Koda, I need the window seat.”

  “I’m doing something right now.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking about something. It’s very important. I shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “I need to sit there,” he said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I’m serious. I get motion sickness.”

  “Ugh. Aren’t you supposed to sit with your partner?” I said, scooting over to the aisle.

  “You are my partner.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  I slid my backpack onto my lap and sucked in. Kenji tried to push himself over to the window, but the seat wasn’t cooperating.

  “Just—like, turn your head.”

  Yep. I’d rather not have your butt shoved into my face.

  “A little more. One last squeeze. Almost there … yatta.” The springs of the seat shuddered in defeat.

  “I get sick if I’m not by the window,” Kenji said again, adjusting and reaching into his backpack.

  Yeah, well, I get sick when sweaty butts are shoved in my face. We all just have to deal with stuff in life, I thought.

  “Uso,” squealed a girl from my class. A whole mess of them were sitting at the front of the bus giggling and talking about Hello Kitty, probably. Or makeup. Or Hello Kitty makeup. I bet they have that.

  In the middle sat the jocks. Well, as close to jocks as Kusaka High School gets—so in the middle of the bus sat the guys who could run a race without getting a bloody nose.

  In the back of the bus sat the delinquents. These were the kids who talked back to the teachers, hardly ever did their homework, and probably did macho things like fighting with knives, wrestling boars, and riding bikes without safety helmets.

  Then there was me. And Kenji. He was sitting hunched over a portable video game. He was easily the biggest and loudest kid in class, but no one wanted to actually hang out with him. If he hadn’t spent so much time being a jerk to me, I might have felt sorry for the guy.

  The bus suddenly rocked from one side to the next. Students grabbed their seats. The talking and the giggling instantly died. Ikeda-sensei pushed his huge frame onto the small bus with the small hired driver.

  “That’s more like it,” he said. “You think Hayashida-san likes driving a bus with you chatterboxes working your jaws nonstop? Would you like it if someone came to your house and crammed cicadas in your ears? You wouldn’t like that, would you? All day. High-pitched semi. Squealing. In your ears. That’s what you sound like every single day.”

  Ikeda-sensei adjusted his thick glasses and turned to the bus driver. “Gomen, ne. Children are rude little monsters. No getting around that.”

  The driver smiled and nodded in his blue blazer, cap, and white driving gloves.

  Ikeda-sensei turned back to us. “Tell Hayashida-san thank you for being willing to drive your noisy, yapping mouths around all afternoon.”

  “Arigatō gozaimasu,” we said.

  “Louder!” Ikeda-sensei barked, slapping the back of the nearest seat.

  “Arigatō gozaimasu!” we yelled in unison.

  The bus driver lifted his gloved hand and gave us a little wave.

  “We can go now,” Ikeda-sensei said.

  The bus engine started up, and the first-year class from Kusaka High School pulled away from the parking lot. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the noise of Kenji’s video game. I pictured myself in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 Star Jet, feeling the vibrations through my seat as the plane roared down the runway. The nose finally tipped up and the acceleration of the plane pushed heavy on my chest.

  From the window, I watched my town fade into the distance below. At this height, Kusaka sat awkwardly between two mountain ranges. I’d never really thought about it before, but imagining the town from above, I wondered why anyone would have settled here. Sure, Kusaka River would be nice for crops and fishing, but there wasn’t much else around. Kusaka was just the middle of nowhere.

  From way up here I could see Kōchi City in the far distance. There were other towns dotting the horizon, too: Sakawa. Nōzu. But Kusaka was isolated. Lonely. Hidden deep in a valley overflowing with bamboo forests, leafy green ferns, and dried persimmon stumps.

  Maybe that was the point. Maybe this was all on purpose. Maybe the families who came here two hundred years ago chose this valley precisely because this was the one place no one would come looking for them.

  “Koda.”

  I jumped a bit. Moya was leaning over the aisle with a cellophane bag in her hand.

  “Moya, what are you doing here? I didn’t see you get on the bus.”

  “Well, I did.” She untied the gold ribbon at the top of the bag.

  “Shimizu-sensei is on the Road,” I whispered frantically.

  “Right. And that ogre sitting in the front is, too.”

  “What ogre?” I said.

  “Koda!” Ikeda-sensei barked. “Keep it down.”

  “That ogre,” Moya whispered.

  “Ikeda-sensei?”

  “Here, take one,” she said, offering me the bag of cookies.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Just some kappa eggs I found.”

  “Kappa lay eggs?”

  “I like to steal them out of their nests at night,” Moya said. “Then I boil the babies inside and dip them in chocolate.”

  “That sounds kind of gross. But I like chocolate, so—”

  “What is wrong with you, Koda? I was joking.”

  “I’ve never had kappa before,” I said.

  “Kappa babies!”

  “Dipped in chocolate,” I reminded her.

  “You’re sick. They’re just cookies.”

  “Are they good?”

  “Well, they’re not made from babies, if that’s what you’re asking. You monster.”

  I picked out a cookie and put it in my mouth. “Mmm. Does not taste like a dog biscuit.”

  “That’s a rude thing to say!”

  “I said ‘not.’ Your cookies do not taste like dog biscuits.”

  “Baka. See if I ever bring you dog biscuits again.”

  “These are dog biscuits! I knew it!”

  She shrugged. “They’re cookies to me.”

  I spit the not-cookie into my hand and dropped it on the floor. Kenji looked over at me. I tried to smile, but I still had biscuits in my teeth. He shook his head and went back to his game.

  I leaned forward and glanced across the aisle. Moya was pretty. Not your average J-pop-singer-whose-poster-hangs-in-the-train-station pretty, though. She had a foreign look to her. Her eyes weren’t very dark; they were almost gray in the sunlight. Her nose was thin, not short. Her cheekbones sharp instead of round. She didn’t have maru-gao like a lot of the girls in my class. A round face isn’t a bad thing, of course. It’s soft and cute. Kind of the ideal Japanese girl. But Moya didn’t have maru-gao; she had kitsune-gao, a sharp, angular face—a fox face. It was pretty, but it made her look cunning. Devilish in a way. In hindsight, it should have been obvious what kind of yōkai she was.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, crunching on another biscuit.

  “I bet y
ou don’t.”

  “You were wondering—why Kusaka?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why did the seven noble families come here and not to some other mountain village in Japan?”

  “Not what I was thinking.”

  “Look at this place, Koda. It’s secluded. Completely cut off. Its only tether is that freeway that runs through the town. It’s obvious, isn’t it? This valley is where people—and others—come to hide.”

  “What are they all hiding from?”

  “Koda!”

  I flipped around to the front of the bus. “Yes, Ikeda-sensei?”

  “I understand you were hit by a van, I do. Congratulations for that. But unless that vehicle knocked the ears clean off your head, I know you can tell when you’re talking too loud. I can tell. Hayashida-san can tell…”

  The bus driver blankly waved.

  “Everyone can tell. Now you’re going to keep your chatty mouth shut, or I will come back there and shut it with my hand. Wakatta?”

  I nodded. “Wakarimashita.”

  Ikeda-sensei turned back to the front of the bus. Kenji giggled but didn’t take his eyes off the little flashing screen in his lap. I leaned back in my seat and looked over at Moya. She slid down and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at the back of Ikeda-sensei’s head. It was going to be a quiet bus ride after all.

  * * *

  Thankfully we arrived at the Kōchi Cultural Center without Ikeda-sensei having to physically shut anyone’s mouth. Moya stood up and quickly left the bus. Her face didn’t have that follow-me-around look, so I decided not to chase after her.

  I walked between the seats and stepped off into the parking lot. The teachers were wrangling the students, lining us up according to height.

  “Yoku kiite kure,” Ikeda-sensei started. “While you are here at the Cultural Center you will be representatives of Kusaka High School. There will be art projects from schools all over Kōchi Prefecture. You must be respectful. You must not separate from the group. You must not, under any circumstance, touch anything. Not the watercolors. Not the pottery. Not the mobiles. Nothing. Do you understand?”

  “Hai,” we said.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Ikeda-sensei said, pushing his glasses farther onto his face. “If you break any one of these rules, you will be bringing a great dishonor upon your own head, as well as upon your school, your teachers, and your family name. You don’t want that, do you? That would make me very unhappy. I don’t like to be dishonored. I don’t like to be shamed. If you separate from the group or touch anything at all that doesn’t personally belong to you, I will knock your head through a wall of my choosing! Do you understand now?”