There’s silence for a second as if everyone really is trying to picture it. Then Melissa’s voice cuts through the quiet.
“Look, there’s a café. It says in English right there on the sign.”
Everyone turns to see.
“I’m dying for a coffee,” she announces, like we all care. “Please tell me they have normal coffee.”
She looks past Zach.
“Where’s that girl?...Fumiko, you have to help me,” she pleads, catching sight of Fumiko beside me.
Mr. Crawford holds up a hand to get our attention again.
“You’re welcome to get a coffee if you like and explore the street on your own. But before you all take off, we need to go over a few things.” He gives us a quick version of the you-are-ambassadors speech. Then he tells us to meet back at the temple in two hours.
Melissa pushes through the group and grabs Fumiko’s arm.
“Come on, Fumiko,” she says, ignoring me.
Fumiko turns and apologizes before allowing Melissa to drag her away.
“I will help people order coffee,” she says to me and anyone listening. “Then we can walk along the street and look at some points of interest.”
I watch Fumiko disappear into the café with Melissa and the others. So that’s it. I’ve lost Fumiko. Was I thinking I was going to spend the day with her? Did I actually want to? Whatever. I’m not sticking around to hear Melissa dis me in front of her. There is a dull ache in the back of my chest, but I shove it aside. I’d rather be on my own anyway.
Maya and a few others are walking down the middle of the street just ahead of me. I stop and pretend interest in a shop window. In the window display a yellow ceramic cat sits with one paw raised as if beckoning people into the store. I hesitate for a second, take a deep breath, and then I push open the door and step inside.
The store is small and crowded with trinkets. An older woman wearing a faded pink apron over modern clothes stands behind the counter. She smiles and says something in Japanese. I smile back.
“I’m just looking,” I say in English.
On one shelf there is a row of yellow cats, smaller versions of the one in the window. I pick one up and look at it. The cat has a red collar with a gold bell painted around its neck. On the bottom of the figure is a sticker that says five hundred. Five hundred yen is somewhere around five dollars.
“Maneki-neko,” the shop woman says, coming out from behind the counter to hover beside me.
“Lucky cat,” she adds in careful English.
I nod and smile. I’ve seen cats like this in Japanese restaurants back in Vancouver. This one looks handmade. Maybe my mom would like it for her office.
“I’ll get this one,” I say, bringing the cat to the counter.
The woman ducks behind the counter. She wraps the cat in tissue paper before placing it in a plastic bag. She says something in Japanese and pushes a tray across the counter toward me. I place a thousand yen bill onto the tray. The woman smiles broadly and sets my change into the tray. I smile back. It’s like we’re talking with smiles.
“Arigato gozaimashita,” the woman says as I turn to go.
“Arigato,” I tell her.
Back on the street again, I’m in a better mood. This is the first time I’ve been in a Japanese store by myself, I realize. It went pretty well. I need to get away on my own more on this trip.
The rest of the morning I duck in and out of stores, trying to avoid Melissa. This also means keeping out of sight of Fumiko. But I’m sure Melissa and the rest of the group are keeping her busy. at one point I see them a block away talking and laughing. Before they notice me, I slip through a doorway into some kind of museum.
A woman greets me in Japanese. When I don’t understand, she hands me an English pamphlet that says the building used to be an inn. I pay the entrance fee and walk through a dirt passageway. The pamphlet explains what all the rooms used to be. This passage was the kitchen. There is a room at the front of the inn with a raised wooden floor where the inn’s guests were greeted.
On the top floor is a sleeping room with old-fashioned futons on the floor. There are wooden headrests that look like pedestals with little flat pillows on top. I can’t imagine how anyone could sleep on them. The inn has three separate sleeping rooms. The floor of each room is slightly higher than the last. Apparently, the more important the guests were, the higher their sleeping level. At the front of the inn, the windows that overlook the road have angled wooden bars in front of them. The pamphlet explains that the bars allowed people to look at the street below without being seen. Ordinary people were not supposed to look directly at higher class people. But if everyone knew what the bars were for, it would be no secret that they were being looked at, it seems to me.
Still, I like the idea of being able to spy on people down below. I look out through the bars to test it out.
I realize it is time to meet at the temple. I won’t be able to avoid the others anymore. As I walk back up the street, I fix my face into a non-caring mask.
chapter nine
At the temple, I check in with Ms. Delluci and Mr. crawford. A few people are already sitting on the stairs eating their lunches. DJ and another guy are kicking a hacky sack around in the middle of the courtyard. I walk past them, ignoring the comment DJ throws at me.
At the other end of the courtyard is a shrine with a statue of a kneeling bald guy inside. Someone has tied a cloth baby’s bib around the statue’s neck. The bib is faded and weathered—like it’s been there for a while.
Suddenly something thuds into the side of my head. I whirl around.
“Sorry about that, Red,” DJ calls loudly. The hacky sack is lying on the ground at my feet.
“Yeah, right,” I say under my breath.
“Can you throw it back?” he has the nerve to ask.
Not likely. I give him a look of disgust and turn away.
There is a little gate at the back of the courtyard. I walk through it, ignoring DJ. I follow a path that leads to a garden. There is a small pond in the middle of the garden and a narrow path winding around it. I find a bench behind a tree, sit down and take out my lunch. On the other side of the pond, low-hanging trees and shrubs flow down the hill like a waterfall. Maybe I’ll take my sketchbook out after I eat. Maybe instead of working on my manga girl I’ll try drawing the pond.
As I unwrap my lunch, I notice a ceramic frog with a baby frog on its back. Is that what the frogs in the rice paddies look like? Is it just decoration or does it mean something? There are so many things in Japan that are still a mystery to me. I don’t know how I ever thought I would fit in here.
After lunch I am forced to head back. The bus is waiting at the temple. Reluctantly, I walk to the back of the group.
“Dana!”
I turn to see Fumiko making her way through the crowd. Behind her, Melissa looks annoyed.
“Are you okay?” Fumiko asks. “I was worried when I couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, a little snappier than I intend. What is it with her and her family? Why don’t they want me to go any-where on my own?
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” she asks.
“You were busy translating,” I say. It sounds like an accusation.
Fumiko stares at me for just a second. She looks confused and maybe hurt. Then she looks down.
“Your friends asked a lot of questions,” she says.
“They’re not my friends,” I tell her.
Fumiko and I climb onto the bus together, not talking. When the bus is full, Mr. Crawford raises a hand for our attention.
“I’ve just heard from Mr. Akimoto,” he says. “Our special trip is a go.”
“So, are you going to fill us in?” someone calls out.
He’s probably discovered another museum or old town for us to visit, I think.
Mr. Crawford is smiling. “Tomorrow,” he says, “we take the bullet train to Tokyo.”
A cheer explodes through the bus
. More questions are thrown at the teachers.
“How long do we get to stay there?”
“Do the host kids get to come?”
We are going for three days, including travel. Just the group from Canada, plus Mr. Akimoto. My mind is jumping with images—like a crazy channel clicker. Tokyo. Tall buildings. Crowds of people. Manga studios. Modern stores. Lights. Signs. Everything.
I’m still lost in my imagination when Fumiko leans close to me.
“Have I done something wrong?” she asks.
“What?” I look at her, startled.
“Did I do something to make you angry?”
“Of course not,” I say sharply. Then I catch myself. This is Fumiko I’m talking to, not Melissa and the rest.
“Look,” I start again, making my voice softer. “I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just...”
How can I explain?
“I think I understand,” she says quietly. “You said the others are not your friends... I think you are like Kenji.”
“What do you mean?” I demand.
“When he fears embarrassment, he is like a nut—hard on the outside.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” I tell her.
“Maybe not,” she says. “But maybe something else.” She looks at me sideways as if she is checking the impact of her words.
I force myself to swallow the angry comeback that rises in my throat. I’m not anything like Kenji.
Back at the Setos’ that night, I pack for the trip to Tokyo. I flip through the pages of Fumiko’s Doraemon manga. I wonder if I should bother taking it. It is mostly filled with drawings of the boy, Nobita, and Doraemon, the oversized cat. The people’s eyes are huge, and there are lots of exclamation marks coming off the faces to emphasize emotions. Doraemon pops out of a drawer, and Nobita is startled. Nobita eats an animal cracker and starts turning into a cat. Doraemon gets mad, more people get mad...But that’s about as much as I can figure out.
There is a knock on my door. I open it and am surprised to see Kenji standing there. He holds something out to me without meeting my eyes. A pile of manga books.
“Thanks,” I say as I take them. The one on the top is Full Metal Alchemist. Fumiko must have told him the type of manga I like.
We stand there for a second. Before I can think of anything to say, he walks away. I remember Fumiko saying that Kenji acts like a jerk to hide his embarrassment. Maybe it’s true, and he’s not so bad after all.
I close the door and sit on my bed, laughing to myself. I’m picturing a manga panel of me and Kenji looking at each other. Our emotions are drawn in Doraemon style. I look like Nobita when Doraemon climbs out of the drawer. My eyes bug out, my mouth opens wide. Lines of surprise shoot out around my head. Kenji has water drops of anxiety coming from his face or maybe crosshatched shading across his cheeks to show his embarrassment.
But if Fumiko is right about Kenji, is she also right about me?
chapter ten
In the morning we take the express train to Nagoya. The trip is about an hour and a half. We buy bento box lunches in the Nagoya station while we wait for the train to Tokyo. The streamlined, white, bullet trains ease in and out of the station almost silently.
Finally we board one with a long rounded nose. The train is already full of people, so we have to spread out. I slip into an empty seat beside a Japanese businessman, so I don’t have to sit with anyone from our group. As the others settle into seats, Ms. Delucci walks up the aisle, counting heads and giving warnings. I sit back and dig into my cold bento box lunch. I stare past the man beside me and out the window. We soon leave the city behind. The train speeds through rolling farmland, rice paddies and clusters of houses with brown tile roofs. Occasionally I glimpse the ocean.
After about an hour and a half, Mr. Akimoto walks down the aisle, telling us to look out the windows on the left of the train. We may be able to see Mount Fuji, a sacred mountain. I’m on the opposite side of the train, so I have to look past the people across the aisle. I can’t see much.
“I think I see it!” someone from our group calls out and is echoed by other voices, both English and Japanese.
A Japanese woman across the aisle steps out of her seat and gestures for me to take her spot so I can get a better view. I move over quickly, smile my thanks and bend to the window. There, now I see it. A brief glimpse of a white peak through a gap in the clouds.
“We’re lucky today,” Mr. Akimoto says with a broad smile. “Mount Fuji does not always show itself.”
A few people point cameras out the window before the clouds swallow the mountain again. I return to my seat, thanking the woman once more. The businessman beside me smiles as I sit back down.
Seeing Mount Fuji has broken the ice on the train. There is a murmur of friendly voices the rest of the trip. Two hours after leaving Nagoya, we pull into Tokyo station. Anticipation bubbles through me. Tokyo, here I come!
We drop our bags at our hotel and then hit the subway. There are two maps of the subway on the wall. One has Japanese place names and one has English. The English doesn’t help. The map is a total maze of colored lines.
“We’re going to Ueno Park,” Mr. akimoto says, pointing toward the top of the English map.
“Now remember,” Ms. Delucci warns. “We have to stick together. If anyone gets separated from the group, find a subway attendant. Ask them to page Mr. Akimoto, and then stay put.”
With a little luck, maybe we’ll lose Melissa and her groupies.
I half expect to see crowds of people being packed into subway cars by uniformed workers. I saw a clip of this on TV once. The workers were squeezing people in using something like push brooms. But it is not that bad now.
We finally emerge at ueno Park. Unfortunately we haven’t lost anyone. It’s sunny out now. The wide sidewalk at the entrance to the park is lined with vendors selling food and souvenirs. Colorful banners with Japanese writing hang from many of the stalls.
Before Ms. Delucci has finished counting heads, DJ has bought a paper cone full of grilled meat. Melissa and a bunch of the girls are begging Mr. crawford to let them get something before they faint from hunger. I can see that he is going to give in, so I head over to a stall selling shaved ice. I point to the red flavored syrup and hope for the best.
It turns out to be cherry and delicious.
Once everyone has food, we walk along the tree-lined sidewalk into the park. It’s obviously a popular place. There are people everywhere—babies in strollers, gray-haired grandparents. There are groups of picnickers sitting on plastic blankets. I even see a few people dressed in kimonos.
In the trees overhead, huge crows caw loudly. One swoops down in front of us to snatch food from the sidewalk. Melissa squeals, and Zach lunges at the crow to scare it away. It flies up to a low tree branch and squawks at Zach and Melissa. Everyone else laughs. Several more crows join the first one. They caw at us as we pass under the tree.
“The Tokyo National Museum is just ahead,” Mr. crawford tells us, raising his voice. “We’ll use the fountain in front of the museum as our meeting spot.”
“Do we have to go into the museum?” someone asks.
Mr. Crawford narrows his eyes.
“Yes,” he says. “This is a socials studies trip. I expect you to find at least two things in the museum to tell me about later.”
Everyone groans.
The museum is an older, creamy-colored, stone building. In front of the entrance is a long rectangular pond with a low round fountain in the center.
We make arrangements to meet by the pond in two hours.
“And remember,” Mr. Crawford says, “I expect each of you to tell me about two things you learn about in there.”
With a group sigh, we head inside.
“He didn’t say how long we have to stay,” I hear DJ whisper. “We look at two things; then we’re out of there.”
chapter eleven
The first room of the museum is filled with old
stone statues. They remind me of the statue with the bib in Seki-cho. Everyone from our group crowds around the statues. I guess we all had the same idea as DJ. Now I’ll have to look at more things. I don’t want to report to Mr. Crawford with the same thing as everyone else. I also don’t want to leave the museum at the same time as the others.
I cut through the statue room and then through a room filled with samurai swords. The walls of the next room are hung with painted screens and scrolls—all behind glass. I take my time walking through this one. colorful paintings of birds, trees and women wearing kimonos are all done using simple lines. They are kind of like manga, but with a different subject and style.
“You could do stuff like that,” says a voice beside me.
I turn, startled. It’s Zach.
“I looked at your sketchbook,” he says. “You’re pretty good.”
“Thanks,” I say warily. I search his face to see if he is making fun of me.
“Zach! What are you talking to her for?” Melissa’s voice pierces the quiet. She stomps up and grabs Zach’s arm. “Come on, we’ve seen more than two things. I want to get out of this boring hole.”
Zach lets her drag him away, but he looks back at the museum cases as if he’d rather see more.
I continue making my way through the museum, stopping to look at things here and there. Many of the paintings, kimonos and tea bowls are hundreds of years old. Some of the statues and pottery are even a thousand years old. Pretty amazing.
When I leave the building, there is no one from my group in sight. I let out a deep satisfied sigh. Finally I am by myself.
Now that I’ve seen all the old art, I’d really like to see some new art. I wish I could visit a manga studio or see what kind of manga is for sale here. Maybe if I get out of the park I can find a store.
I take the path back toward the subway. The air is warm and slightly muggy. I look around as I walk, enjoying my freedom. With the Melly Mob out of the way, I can relax.
The area around the subway is crowded with small stores and restaurants, though there are no tall flashy buildings like we saw on the way to our hotel. I walk through the throng of people, pretending I know where I’m going. Occasionally my red hair catches someone’s attention and their eyes flick my way. But there are no rude stares.
Manga Touch Page 4
