Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters

by Margaret Dilloway

  I gasp like I’ve inhaled a lungful of water. I grab the comic out of his hand.

  It’s my handwriting, all right. My style of drawing. Mine. All of it.

  I fling it across the room like it’s a black widow spider. It hits the bookcase and knocks a box off the shelf, I throw it so hard.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Peyton’s giving me the same look my grandma gives me when I fart in her presence.

  I open my mouth to tell him. But what? If I tell him the truth, I’ll sound so crazy he’ll be forced to call 9-1-1 and have me carted away to the nearest hospital. If I don’t, he’ll know I’m lying. Peyton always knows when I’m hiding stuff. It’s his best and worst quality.

  “Dinner!” Obāchan yells up the stairs.

  Saved by the grandma. Peyton and I get up without another word and run into the bathroom to wash up, knowing that if my grandma doesn’t smell the scent of soap coming off us, she’ll send us back to redo the job. No more questions from Peyton. An angry obāchan just isn’t worth the time.

  If you want Peyton to forget about something, just offer him food. Which is fine by me. I’ll think about it later, I decide. Maybe ask Dad. Ask him why he gave me that comic and didn’t say, “Hey, remember drawing this?” He probably assumes I remember. Which is pretty reasonable.

  There must be a logical explanation for all of this. I just don’t know what it is yet.

  It’s only ten till five. Obāchan says her old belly agrees better with an early dinner. Peyton’s family eats at seven, so Peyton will have dinner twice tonight. Not that he minds.

  Steaming chicken thighs, crackled with sweet glaze, are piled onto a platter, along with sticky white rice from the cooker. We have rice at least once a day. Peyton loves rice like I love chocolate bars. “Have as much as you like. I made extra.” Obāchan heaps a giant spoonful of rice onto Peyton’s plate. “You growing boys need it.”

  He slaps a big glob of butter on it. “Thanks.”

  Inu and Dad come down. Inu settles next to Dad’s chair, his paws politely folded.

  Obāchan bows her head and says the blessing in Japanese. It’s a Zen Buddhist thing called the “Verse of the Five Contemplations.”

  We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.

  We reflect on our virtue and practice, and whether we are worthy of this offering.

  We regard greed as the obstacle to freedom of mind.

  We regard this meal as medicine to sustain our life.

  For the sake of enlightenment we now receive this food.

  Her eyes fly open. She thumps her fist on the table. “Dig in before it gets cold.”

  I won’t argue with that. We eat.

  Inu sits next to me and gives me his best, saddest look. He puts one paw on my leg.

  “No begging, Inu,” I say for my grandmother’s benefit. I’m not supposed to feed the dog at the table, but I tear off a piece of chicken and secretly toss it onto the floor. Inu eats it, then lies on top of my feet, awaiting the next morsel.

  “Delicious dinner, Mrs. Miyamoto,” Peyton says.

  “I’m glad you like it. Akira,” Obāchan says to my father, “pass me the salt.”

  Dad hands her the crystal saltshaker. “Don’t use too much. It’s bad for your blood pressure.”

  She shakes a huge amount over her chicken. “I’m ancient. I do what I want.” She stops and squints at Dad. “I heard something today.” Then she cuts her eyes at me and edits herself. “Remind me to tell you later.”

  Dad glances my way, too. He nods.

  Uh-oh. She got the phone call from school. My stomach flips. I put my fork down. Good thing Peyton’s here—he’ll keep them from going crazy. I brace myself for the punishment to come. Worst-case scenario: grounded for all of spring break. With no computer. I will die if that happens, but at least I’m prepared.

  I grit my teeth. Maybe I can negotiate. Trade computer privileges for a lifetime of toilet scrubbing. Or digging out a bunker for Obāchan. Something that will make her happy. Watching that bridal reality show with her without complaining, ever. Ugh. Being grounded would be better than that.

  Dad smiles at me. “Hey, how about we drive down to the mall in Alpine, get ice cream after dinner? You boys deserve a treat.”

  This makes me feel worse. My throat closes. My dad’s still looking at me with his little smile. It reminds me of Inu. Just—so trusting. I have to tell him the truth. I gulp. “Dad? I kind of got into trouble today.”

  Peyton kicks me under the table. He never tells his parents anything.

  Dad’s fork pauses en route to his mouth. “What kind of trouble?”

  The house shudders, the windows rattling like pebbles in a tin cup.

  The sound stops. We look at each other. Obāchan’s face goes white-gray.

  Dad wipes his mouth and goes to the window.

  “No, Akira,” Obāchan whispers. “Sit down.”

  Dad faces us. His blue eyes seem to melt into his face. He looks like somebody just told him his best friend died.

  He takes off his glasses, sticks them in a hard protective case, and puts that on the table. “Everybody,” Dad says softly, “no matter what happens, stay inside this house. Got it?”

  I swallow hard and nod. “Is it an earthquake?”

  Dad’s eyes shoot warnings. “I said stay inside. You must do as I say, even if it seems wrong. Do you promise?”

  “Why?” I put both hands on the shaking table.

  “Promise, Xander!” Dad shouts.

  Dad never yells. Unless it’s super-maximum serious. Fear leaps into my throat. “I promise.”

  The old chandelier above the table begins to swing, its lights blinking and the little crystals tinkling, softly at first, then harder and harder, until it sounds like a thousand jackhammers on cement. I cover my ears.

  Inu whines and barks.

  “Get down here, boys!” Obāchan crawls under the table.

  The rumbling sounds again, and the whole house seems to jump. The walls—I’m not kidding—they bulge in and out like they’ve turned into lungs. The hardwood floor vibrates, the boards rippling across the room. I fall onto my belly, the wind knocked out of me. It feels like I’m riding a boogie board in a stormy ocean.

  Something wails—wind, the forest, a person? I don’t know. The house seems to brace itself.

  The couch rises up, and then, incredibly, it pauses in midair, quivering. Dad’s trying to get to the front door, his arms flailing like wind socks. Before he can reach it, he falls to his knees and puts his hands behind his head, bowing with his forehead on the floor. The couch smashes down right in front of him, splintering the hardwood, exposing the empty dirt crawl space underneath.

  “Dad!” I scream, but I can’t hear myself at all.

  Obāchan yanks me underneath the table.

  Peyton’s already there, clutching Inu. The dog growls and barks. Woofwoofwoof! I grab Inu, too, and feel his heart hammering in his rib cage as he pants hard. I don’t even care that he’s slobbering on me.

  A BOOM! shoves us back. I hang on to Inu and Peyton. There’s a flash of blinding light.

  The house bursts open.

  My chest slams hard against the floor. I’m deaf and blind from dust. I’m being shaken like ice cubes in a blender. I don’t know which end is up.

  Finally the shaking stops. I wipe at my eyes. White plaster fogs the air. Shards of glass and china cover the floor. The furniture’s tumbled all over the place. I can see sky through the roof. A plane, I think. A plane must have crashed nearby.

  The dog bolts from under the table and runs out the open front door.

  “Inu!” I shout, but he ignores me.

  Peyton gets up slowly. He’s still got his napkin clutched in one hand and a bare chicken bone clenched in the other. He spits out a chunk of plaster. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t see Dad or Obāchan anywhere.

  From outside someplace, Inu gi
ves two sharp barks.

  Peyton carefully places the chicken bone on the table, as if it matters where his trash goes at this point. “Come on.” I follow him outside onto the deck, and we look down at the open meadow leading to the forest.

  Everything’s covered in a thick, shimmering gray mist. It’s as warm as a bathroom after a long hot shower.

  It’s completely quiet. No bird or cricket sounds. Just a missing kind of quiet.

  Like nothing exists.

  I’m afraid to breathe.

  Down at the tree line, a dark shape moves. Woof, woof! Inu’s warning bark.

  “Inu!” I shout.

  The deck lurches under us. I fall forward and grab the railing.

  Then I see him. My father is standing a few yards inside the pine trees.

  “Dad!” I scramble down the steps and head toward where Inu is running back and forth, still barking.

  Dad turns. His eyes glitter and wink like stars. Stay back, Xander! His mouth doesn’t move, but I hear him anyway.

  Inu lets out a great moan and lopes over to me. I put my hand on his big head. He whines again. I try to move around him, to get to Dad, but the dog blocks me.

  Now the sky is getting dark. Black thunderheads roll in, like someone is pouring chocolate syrup over the forest.

  A salty smell pierces the pine air. I sniff. It’s familiar, but wrong. It doesn’t belong here.

  The small hairs on my arms and neck stand up. I’m dreading something, but I don’t know what.

  Inu barks and growls at the thunder. He whines again. Then he does something strange. He takes my hand in his big, drooly mouth, hard enough so I feel his teeth, and he starts running back toward the house, almost yanking my arm out of my socket, his jaws bearing down hard enough to break my skin if I pull away.

  I have no choice but to run, too. More rumbling sounds, drowning out everything else.

  I look back once, and Dad’s still standing there. Motionless.

  Then I see why we’re running.

  An enormous wall of water, taller than these thousand-year-old pines, taller than any building I’ve ever seen, swells toward us.

  Trees bend and snap like puny toothpicks. A windy spray shoots pine needles at my neck. Within a few seconds, my hair and clothes are soaking wet.

  A tsunami, my brain nudges me.

  But here? How? We’re on top of a mountain, a one-hour drive from the ocean.

  My father finally moves. He takes off running.

  Toward the tsunami.

  “Dad! Stop!” I yell, but the wind’s carrying me away from the water and I can’t stop no matter how much I want to.

  The wave swallows the trees in front of Dad. He doesn’t slow down. He puts his hands up, as though he’s pushing an invisible wall as he runs.

  The wave hits him. Or he hits the wave.

  The powerful water splits. It surrounds him like a fog.

  The tsunami shrinks. As it rolls toward us, it gets smaller and smaller, until it’s no bigger than a tiny ripple in a stream. It reaches where we’re standing and licks our toes.

  I look around. The mist has cleared. The sky is brightening.

  The mountains are gone. They’ve completely disappeared. Ahead is water for as far as I can see. All the way to a flat, blank horizon.

  I’m standing on a beach.

  I stand and gape. It’s so surreal my mind can’t catch up to my eyes. I don’t realize that my mouth is hanging wide open until a fly buzzes into it and I spit it out.

  The grass near my feet, where the water is lapping, is already flattened and turning brown, dying off. The water’s totally calm, like a bay. The sky is blinding blue again. A white seagull caws and swoops.

  It’s as if the forest was never here at all.

  And my dad is gone along with it.

  “Dad!” I yell. I walk out into the water, up to my knees. “Dad, Dad, DAD!” It’s a hundred percent useless.

  Peyton puts his hand on my shoulder. “Dude, your dad’s gone. He…” His voice cracks. “He got washed away.”

  My ears feel pressure, like I’m ascending in an airplane. But I can hear my grandmother’s voice, faint, from inside the house. “Kita, kita! Come here, quickly!”

  “Obāchan!” I’d lost track of her. Peyton and I rush back into the house.

  Inu races in first, barking. We follow him up the partially collapsed stairs to the bedrooms. Why did she go up here?

  We run by Dad’s office, nothing but a pile of books and lumber. My room’s a mess, too. Everything’s fallen off the shelves. A gentle breeze now wafts through the broken windows, and my drawings flutter through the air. Not a single one is left on the walls.

  Obāchan is wedged under a collapsed metal bed frame, with the heavy solid-wood bookcase on top of that. Blood streaks her forehead. Inu licks her face, and she pushes him away with a grimace. “Stop that, you silly dog.”

  I run to her, try to move the bookshelf off, but of course I can’t budge it. “Help me.” Peyton pries up the other end so Obāchan can scoot out.

  I pull her to her feet. She brushes off her polyester pants. Her arm’s bleeding, too. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Old skin tears easily.”

  I think of Dad, out there in the forest. Which is now water. I shake my head, trying to clear it of this nightmare. “Obāchan…” My throat closes. “Dad’s dead.”

  She puts her hand on my arm, clenches it tight.

  “There was…” I don’t know how to explain the rest to her. “…a big wave. We got flooded.”

  Her small brown eyes lock onto mine, and she lets go of my arm. “Come on. We have to hurry.”

  “I better go home and check on my mom.” Peyton starts for the door. “I’ll call 9-1-1, tell them about your dad.”

  “No.” My grandmother grabs my friend’s arm in a death grip this time. “Your house is fine for now, Peyton. You must help.”

  His eyes dart from the door, to the window overlooking the ocean, to me. His tan face is covered in red blotches, the way it gets when Peyton’s trying hard not to cry, like the time his cheekbone was cracked by a stray fastball. I’m glad, because if Peyton starts crying, I will, too, and I can’t do that. I might not be able to stop.

  “I promise. It’s all right.” Obāchan’s tone will not be argued with. She’s so sure of herself that Peyton visibly relaxes. She releases him as if she’s letting an unruly Inu off leash.

  Peyton slumps to the floor, Inu flopping down beside him with a loud doggy sigh.

  I turn to help my grandmother, who is now scrabbling through the fallen objects on the floor. “What are you looking for?”

  “Here it is.” Obāchan picks up a wooden shoe box with Japanese writing on it. It used to hold candy—now it has Japanese stuff my grandpa left to me.

  She takes off the lid and dumps it out. Netsuke. Little carved figurines, no bigger than a man’s thumb, that people used to stick through their kimono ties and attach boxes to. Kind of like super-decorative buttons with dangling boxes that served as pockets. Anyway, they’re really old, and people like to collect them now, as my grandfather did.

  Obāchan’s gnarled hands sift through the figures. She selects three. A tiny sailing ship, made out of dark wood. Second, an ivory octopus, which Obāchan told me was carved out of the tooth of a whale that washed ashore in my grandpa’s hometown when he was a child. It has long, curly tentacles with teensy suction cups on each one. And the last is a wooden monkey with a bare-toothed grin. Each of the netsuke have a small lacquered box attached by a golden thread.

  Obāchan displays them in her palm. “There’s a reason your grandfather wanted you to have these, Xander. How he wished your father would follow him…” She trails off and looks right at me. “But your father had a different way of doing things. He liked to take a more peaceful, intellectual approach. He was trying theories of peaceful resistance.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think that worked very well.”

  Thoughts rush around in my head. Liked. She
said liked, past tense. He is gone, for real. Dad, the absentminded professor. Gentle Dad, barefoot, urging a line of ants out of the house by making a line of sugar water for them to follow. “He studied fairy tales,” I argued, feeling defensive.

  “He studied historical events.” Obāchan goes silent, letting this sink in.

  I blink at her. “What do you mean?”

  Peyton gets it first. “I’m sorry, what?” Peyton stands up and unfurls his long arms. “Are you saying that fairy tales are historical events? Jack and the Beanstalk? Cinderella?”

  “Not all. The ones Xander’s father studied.” Obāchan points to the ground. “Now, please sit down and let me finish telling.”

  Peyton scowls and looks at me. I shrug. He shrugs back and returns his bottom to the floor. Obāchan opens the closet and takes out one of my belts. She secures the octopus and monkey netsuke to it before she speaks again. “Did you read your story of Momotaro?”

  “My story?” I’m confused. “You mean the comic book Dad gave me?”

  Obāchan clucks at me. “You made it, Xander.”

  So it’s true. I drew it. But why don’t I remember that? I sit down on my bed, feeling dizzy and nauseated. Inu lies down at my feet, puts one huge paw over my toe, and whines as if to tell me not to worry. I scratch his head. Inu always makes me feel better.

  Obāchan sighs and closes her eyes for a second. “Xander, this is not how we wanted you to find out. Your father wanted to protect you for as long as we could. Momotaro is a real story.”

  Inu howls like a werewolf, cracking the air. My stomach knots up even more. What is she talking about? Demons, here? Momotaro, real? Maybe the earthquake gave her a stroke. She is super old, after all. “Okay, Obāchan. Do you know what year it is?”

  She ignores the question. “All the bad things in the world today?” Obāchan says. “It’s the oni.”

  “The oni?” Peyton asks.

  Obāchan takes a canteen from the closet, goes into the bathroom, and opens the tap. She tastes the water and makes a face. “Eh. No worse than usual.” Then she turns back to us. “War? The oni. Disasters? The oni. A fire eating the South Pole?”