Tokyo Surprise

by Alex Ko

  Finally, Mr. Yamamoto’s monologue rolled to a halt and he thanked Josh for visiting. Josh took the elevator back upstairs, still mentally laying out fight scenes from the comic, which he’d decided to call Mr. Y’s Golden Years. He made a beeline for his bedroom and threw a quick sad glance at his games console with its Japanese two-pronged plug—

  Wait. Its Japanese plug? He looked again. He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes and then looked again. It was definitely there, neatly wired into the charger, a plug of exactly the right sort to fit into Granny’s power sockets.

  He poked his head into Jessica’s room, where she was scribbling in a notebook and chewing on her pen lid.

  “Hey Jess, did you bring my Japanese console plug?”

  She looked up at him and shrugged.

  “Nope,” she said.

  “It’s just – I could have sworn—”

  “You forgot it?” Jessica asked, pulling a sympathetic face.

  “Yes, I mean, I thought I had. But now it’s right there, wired in and everything.”

  “You must’ve just missed it before,” she said.

  “Only rational explanation. Oh, unless – I know,” she said, with a totally deadpan expression, “Granny must have sneaked in and rewired it for you.”

  “Oh right. Yes, that must be it.” They looked at each other for a few seconds. But Josh couldn’t keep it up for long – he could feel the laugh start at the bottom of his chest and work its way up through his throat. He cracked up.

  “Ha!” Jessica crowed. “I win! I am the Queen of the Straight Face Game.”

  “You always win.” Josh bowed to her, still sniggering. “Granny rewired the plug! She wouldn’t know a fuse from a hairpin.” He went back into his room, shooting another glance at the games console and then putting it out of his mind.

  “Come and have your lunch,” Granny said, appearing in the doorway a few minutes later. Josh followed her beckoning, bony finger into the dining room. It was as clean and traditionally decorated as the rest of the apartment, with a few concessions to the modern age – as well as the low wooden table surrounded by cushioned seats, there was a worktop containing a pair of silver steamers and a sparkling hotplate.

  Jessica was already sitting at the table, gazing at the food Granny Murata had laid out for them. Josh felt his mouth start to water at the sight of the little bowls of rice, slivers of fresh ginger, sliced tuna, and pork dumplings wrapped in dough with spicy sauce to dip them in. He quickly slid into a seat and waited for Granny to make herself comfortable.

  “Itadakimasu,” Jessica said.

  Josh nodded fervently. “Yeah, thanks!” he grinned.

  Granny nodded solemnly to them both and picked up her chopsticks. Josh dug into the dumplings and rice balls.

  When the meal was nearly over, Granny’s phone chirped. She apologized and excused herself to the kitchen to answer it.

  “Granny’s cooking is the best,” Josh said, slurping down the last of his broth.

  “Agreed,” Jessica replied, setting her chopsticks down on their holder.

  Granny returned and collected their empty bowls. “Josh, Jessica. Will you two go to the mall for me now? I need some groceries for dinner tonight but I am feeling tired.”

  “Sure!” Josh said, happy to go exploring in the city.

  “Here is my list,” Granny said. She handed over a piece of paper. It was all written in kanji.

  Josh felt his face heat up. He was rubbish at the Straight Face Game. “Hm,” said Granny Murata. “You see how useful it is to know your kanji. Take this also.” She handed over a second piece of paper, this time with the list written down twice – once in transliterated Japanese and once in English. “Use this to learn,” she said.

  “Hai,” Josh and Jessica chorused.

  Granny Murata had sent them off to the mall with a wallet full of yen and a mobile phone in case they got lost. But as soon as Josh walked up to the huge glass front doors, he was sure that getting lost was inevitable. The mall towered over them and sprawled out, all brightly coloured bricks and giant windows. In the massive entrance lobby there was a map showing six floors and eighteen separate shopping districts, with tiny kanji lettering and arrows. Jessica pointed suddenly.

  “There!” she said. “That’s the grocery store. See, the kanji matches this one on Granny’s list.” They set off, passing noodle stalls decorated with beads; gangs of teenaged girls in identical outfits with exactly the same stripy socks, short pink skirts and pink goggles on top of their heads; giant light displays advertising soft drinks and candy; and gleaming white shopfronts that didn’t seem to be selling anything at all.

  They passed an electronics shop decked out in sparkling lights. Josh stopped in his tracks when he saw the window display.

  “It’s the new Starplayer,” he breathed, gazing at the sleek white machine. “It’s the new generation of video games – backwards and sideways compatibility, 200 gig of memory, touch screen and laser sensor interface, and full exclusive rights to the Star Knight franchise – and it’s not going to be sold in Europe for the next five years.”

  “And even then there’s no way you’ll be able to afford one,” said Jessica wistfully.

  She wandered off to look at the other cool gadgets in the window, leaving Josh to sigh at the Starplayer. The power of its awesomeness sucked him in until there seemed to be nothing else in the world but him and its shiny buttons.

  “Hey, Josh. Look at this!” Jessica said, bringing him back down to earth with a poke in the shoulder blades. “It’s Kiki. I think she’s on the news.” Josh turned to look. In another window of the electronics shop, a collection of massive High Definition TV screens showed a serious-looking newsreader in a pink suit beside a photo of Kiki. “Look, I found one with English...subtitles...” Jessica began, but trailed off as she read the translation of the kanji that was scrolling along the bottom of the screens.

  Bodyguard sustains several injuries. Authorities call for any witnesses to go to the police. Chiba Mikiko abducted in Tokyo.

  “Josh,” Jessica gasped. “Kiki’s been kidnapped!”

  Jessica rushed inside the shop and Josh followed. Now they could hear the newsreader’s voice – the shop manager had turned the volume up and most of the customers were staring in disbelief at the TV screens.

  “In dramatic scenes in Minato Ward earlier today,” the newsreader’s subtitle read, “Chiba Mikiko’s loyal bodyguard stumbled into a police box, with several injuries to his face and arms, and told officers that a masked thug broke into Chiba-san’s car and abducted the popular singer as they travelled from Tokyo Airport to her penthouse apartment.”

  Josh and Jessica stared at each other. Josh thought of the friendly girl on the aeroplane and blinked hard – this couldn’t be happening! Jessica was wide-eyed and clutching her shopping bag so hard her knuckles had turned white.

  “What can we do?” she asked. “Maybe we were the last to see her! Maybe we should talk to the police?”

  The newsreader cut to a live report of Kiki’s bodyguard making a speech outside her apartment building. Josh stared as the hulking, suited man appeared at the top of a flight of concrete steps. He had a black eye and a large purple bruise spreading across his jaw.

  As he watched, Josh got the feeling that he knew those steps. In fact, the whole scene, the gleaming glass doors and polished silver railings of the building, was ringing a huge, loud bell in Josh’s head.

  “I know that place!” he said. “That’s just round the corner from here. We could...” He wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence – what more could they do there? But Jessica finished it for him.

  “Let’s go,” she said, heading for the door.

  As they reached the apartment building, Josh realized they weren’t the only ones who’d had the idea of going round to see what was going on. As they turned a corner and the building came into sight, they nearly ran into a group of girls who were walking towards the steps chattering worriedly. A crowd h
ad already gathered outside Kiki’s apartment.

  “How could they do this?” one of the girls wailed. “Who would want to hurt Kiki?”

  Josh and Jessica weaved through a group of teenagers holding up hastily scrawled banners saying We ♥ you Kiki and Give us back our Kiki and passed two women weeping hysterically on each other’s shoulders.

  Police barriers surrounded the building’s entrance, where the bodyguard was appealing to a row of TV cameras.

  “We were prepared to deal with an incident of this nature,” he growled, “but we were taken by surprise on the road. Mikiko-sama was very frightened on the aeroplane,” the bodyguard went on. “She had received some upsetting hate mail.”

  “That’s not true!” Jessica said loudly. Josh “sshhed” her, and she frowned at him. “But it’s not,” she said more quietly. “We were there; she was fine! She said she liked her fan mail; I’ve still got my notes.”

  “She could have been just...trying to keep her spirits up?” Josh suggested, but he didn’t believe it himself. Kiki’s publicist, a woman in a bright red suit with hair that stuck straight up from her head, took over from the bodyguard.

  “Please,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Whoever has taken our Kiki – please let her come back!”

  Josh watched the bodyguard carefully, as the focus of the crowd’s attention slid over to the publicist. The man stalked down from the steps, cracking his knuckles.

  “He doesn’t look badly injured,” he said.

  “You ran into him in the airport,” Jessica said. “Did he seem like he could be overcome by a single thug in a confined space? Or thrown out of a car he didn’t want to be thrown out of?”

  “Not in a million years,” Josh said. Beside them a young woman groaned sadly at something the publicist had said, and a man put his arm around her.

  “He’s having a bit of an off day then, isn’t he? And how did the kidnappers know exactly where the car would be so they could jump in? And” – Jessica’s eyes glinted with the excitement of a journalist onto a hot story – “why weren’t the car doors locked in the first place if they were so security conscious?”

  Josh didn’t have an answer. There was no answer. Except... “It’s all lies.” Saying it out loud gave Josh shivers down the back of his neck, but there wasn’t any other explanation. “Something happened to Kiki, and that bodyguard’s lying about it.”

  “Look, he’s answering his phone,” Jessica said, pointing to the police barriers where the bodyguard was slipping away with a small black phone clamped to his giant ear.

  “I wish I knew what he was saying—” Josh began, but Jessica was already dodging her way through the hysterical crowd. “Jess – wait!” Josh went after her, catching up when she had to find her way through a circle of women holding hands and singing one of Kiki’s famous love songs. Together they ducked and weaved until they spotted the bodyguard turning down an alleyway, still talking into his mobile phone. They ran after him.

  The alley was dark and dingy, lined with large rubbish bins where the nearby shops dumped their waste. Graffiti was scrawled up the walls, a mixture of kanji and English-style graffiti lettering.

  The bodyguard had stopped a little way down. Josh and Jessica crept closer, darting from behind a pile of discarded boxes to leap into a hidden doorway, then racing to kneel beside a large green rubbish bin. They had drawn near enough to hear what the big man was saying.

  “Yes, Boss,” he said. “I did, Boss.”

  “Kiki?” Josh mouthed. Jessica shook her head.

  “Don’t think so,” she mouthed back.

  “Yes, Boss,” the bodyguard repeated. “She is on her way.” Suddenly he laughed. “Ha! Ha! People are so stupid. They will all see Chiba and not know it! Very clever, Boss.” He moved away down the alley.

  “He knows where Kiki is!” Jessica hissed. “We have to go after him, maybe he’ll lead us to her.” Josh nodded. Carefully, the two of them followed, watching where they put their feet in case they trod on something that would make a noise.

  “You know, if this was a comic book, we’d be walking right into a trap,” he whispered.

  “Oh thanks,” Jessica muttered. “I’m so much more relaxed now.”

  They crept further into the alley, which looked like it was coming to a dead end, stepping over discarded bottles, keeping the bodyguard in sight. A rat scuttled under one of the bins, and Josh suppressed a shudder. Suddenly Jessica poked him in the back.

  “Ow – what?” he hissed. Then he turned to see what she’d seen: two more men in black suits coming down the alley after them. Josh looked back and saw that the bodyguard had turned around and was walking towards them. They were surrounded.

  “Not good,” Josh said through gritted teeth. “Really not good...” The men came closer, and Josh tried to stand up straight and not look like he was sneaking anywhere. He plastered a bright smile on his face. “Hullo,” he began. “Um, my sister and I are lost...hagu...re...ta?” he said, making sure to pronounce the Japanese badly.

  “Can you gents tell us the way back to the mall?” Jessica joined in. “Our father must be looking for us...”

  The men in suits didn’t answer.

  “We’ll be off, then...” Josh said. He grabbed Jessica’s hand and launched himself into a run, aiming straight between the two men and the alley entrance. But one of the men shot out a huge arm and pushed him back. Jessica cannoned into him and they both almost fell to the ground.

  “Hey—” Josh began, but then a familiar growling voice from behind cut him off.

  “Stop them!” it said in Japanese. “I know them – meddling English from the plane.” Josh and Jessica turned to find Kiki’s bodyguard in front of them. “We take them in,” he said. “Until it’s all over.”

  A pair of strong hands came down on Josh’s shoulders. Josh wasn’t about to let himself be taken anywhere. He seized one of the man’s wrists and twisted away, holding on tight and bending the arm around with him. The man let out a surprised yell, before grabbing at Josh’s throat with his other hand. Josh ducked away, and saw that Jessica had tried a similar move, but not succeeded – her attacker had an iron grip on both her wrists. She writhed and pulled but couldn’t free herself. Then Josh choked as the bodyguard’s arm closed around his throat.

  He managed to get one good backhand blow in on the bodyguard’s nose, and the big man dropped him. He rolled away from the other suited man’s boot as it headed for his face and heard a loud, “Hai!” A second later he saw Jessica lash out with one foot getting her attacker between the legs with the pointy end of her shoes. The man crumpled to his knees with a yell. Sensei Neil from their dojo would be proud.

  “Yeah, go Jess!” Josh cried. He shot to his feet and managed to dodge the bodyguard. Jessica pulled away from the other man, and then they were sprinting away towards hope and freedom and safety...and the brick wall at the wrong end of the alley.

  They stopped and turned back. The three men were advancing on them with bared teeth.

  “I knew you stupid children would be trouble,” growled the bodyguard.

  Josh and Jessica both took up their ready stances, like Sensei Neil had taught them, with their weight evenly distributed and one hand up ready to parry a first blow. But Josh’s arms were aching and he could hear Jessica breathing fast. It was two against three. Josh tried to push his brain into a higher gear, looking for a way out. But they were trapped.

  Suddenly, Josh heard a noise above them. He looked to see something falling out of the sky. The bodyguard and the two men in suits looked up too, frowning in confusion.

  “What’s that?” Jessica cried.

  Josh could see that it was a person, dressed all in black, zipping down from the roof on a wire. About half a second later the figure’s feet landed right in the middle of the bodyguard’s face. Josh pressed himself back against the wall as the bodyguard fell to his knees.

  The mysterious figure used the bodyguard’s face like a springboard an
d leaped into the air. The attacker twisted and landed a kick on each of the other men’s necks before somersaulting back to the ground with a graceful flourish.

  The black-clad figure raised its hands in challenge to the thugs, who growled and rolled up their sleeves.

  “Yay! Go...mysterious ninja!” Jessica cried.

  The figure executed a perfect spinning high kick to the first thug’s face, sending him reeling. The second thug tried to grab hold but their rescuer used his momentum to bounce the man’s head off the wall.

  The bodyguard scrambled to his feet, blood streaming from a broken nose, and stumbled away down the alley.

  Josh was stunned. This was a superhero. A real life, seriously for serious superhero had just rescued him! The person turned, hands on hips.

  “Well? Nigero!” came the command.

  “Okay, we’re going!” Jessica said. She grabbed Josh’s hand and tried to pull him away. He dug his heels into the concrete – there was no way he was going to be yanked away before he found out who their superhero really was. “Come on, Josh, don’t upset the dangerous ninja,” Jessica said through her teeth.

  No way, Josh thought. The hero’s hood was coming loose from its top. If he could just reach it...

  As Jessica dragged him past, he wrenched his wrist free, reached up and pulled the black fabric hood. It slid off, smooth as silk.

  Underneath there was a flash of grey hair, pale skin, serious brown eyes...wrinkles...thin lips pursed in an expression of annoyance. Josh’s hero shot out a hand, quicker than the eye could follow and grabbed him by the wrist.

  “Josh Murata, you return that to me this instant!” said Granny Murata.

  Josh dropped the hood. Granny scooped it up, brushing the dirt off. She sighed at Josh and Jessica, then her hands shot out and cuffed them both around the head.

  “Foolish, foolish children!” she said. “You wander off alone; you follow a suspicious man three times the size of both of you put together; you do this—” She brandished the mask. “Worst of all, you compromise my mission!”