by Leza Lowitz
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Leza Lowitz
Cover art and design by Ray Shappell
Hand lettering copyright © 2016 by Alison Carmichael
All rights reserved. Published in the United States byCrown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Lyrics translated from “Tohoku Ondo” by Ken Odajima and Hachiro Sato copyright © 1965 by Kahoku Shimpo Publishing Co., used with permission of the publisher and Sato Hachiro Memorial Museum.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowitz, Leza.
Up from the sea / Leza Lowitz.
pages cm.
Summary: A novel in verse about the March 2011 tsunami that sent Japan into chaos, told from the point-of-view of Kai, a biracial teenaged boy.
ISBN 978-0-553-53474-0 (trade)—ISBN 978-0-553-53475-7 (lib. bdg.)— ISBN 978-0-553-53476-4 (ebook)
1. Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, 2011—Juvenile fiction. [1. Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, 2011—Fiction. 2. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 3. Japan—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L96548Up 2016 [Fic]—dc23 2014048672
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.1
a
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Spring
Adrift
My Town—
March 11—
I Do
The Clock
My Knees
Keiko! Come On!
School Sways And Tilts
Loudspeakers Announce
Sirens
Like a Bullet Train
Almost at the Mountain Base—
Fingers Shaking
Scccchhhllllllllllllluuuuuu—
Five Blocks Across Town
Heart Pounding
Another Quake
Black Monster
We Make It
Shin! Ryu! Aki-Sensei! Keiko!
Bridge Heaves
Into the Wave
The Pine Tree
Can’t Give Up
Silent
Afloat
Facedown
Staggering Toward Me
Big Black Dirt
In the Auditorium
But I Need to Know
My Eyes Land
Then We’re Slammed
If the Quakes Continue
The Shaking Stops
Hands And Feet Numb
We Section Off
Amidst
In My Dreams
Wind Blows the Doors Open
Tiptoeing Like a Ninja
Aki-Sensei Runs Over
Back In My Corner
Looking Up
Then We See
Onigiri!
The Radio Tells of Whole Villages
After the Principal Leaves
I’m About to Make a Break For It
He Puts His Arm Around Me
Pulling My Hood Up Over My Head
Obaachan’s Sweater—
At Least
Obaachan And Ojiichan
Shin, Keiko, And I Keep Busy
Whoa! I Think I Felt That Before It Happened!
Later We Trudge Up the Hill
Bowing Low
See This? Shin Asks
In the Hospital Parking Lot—
Dad Had Round Glasses
I Still Remember
Didn’t Even Know
Don’t Need Dog Ears
For Seventeen Years
Rain Beats Down
I Need to Go Back Home
The Suzukis’ Yellow House
Warped Skeleton
Where Are the Wishes
Wonder Where
In the Rubble
Ashore
Two Weeks After the Tsunami
Baseball Players, Models, Movie Stars
On Graduation Day
Shin’s Family
People Talk About
Nothing Is Normal
Wasn’t That the Same Boat
What’s Left Is Just a Memory
Until the Day
Don’t Notice
A Few Days Later
Yes!
Tattered Ball Under My Arm
When I Was His Age
From Then On
I Thought Things Would Get Better
I Was Midfielder—
Some Famous Japanese Players
I Didn’t Have Close Friends—
Mom And Dad Cheered Me On
One Day Dad Went to the Pine Forest
We Kept On
My World Became One Small Ball—
I Dreamed of Hearing Dad
It Hurt Too Much to Hope
Summer
Astray
It’s Been Forty-Nine Days
I Carry a Red Snapper
Down By the Broken Bridge
Safe Travels
My Little Boat
I Finally Give In
I’m Playing Soccer With Guts
In a Second
I Run Up the Hill to the Mountains
I Never Should Have
I Guess I Could Try to Track Him Down.
Night Falls
Keiko Looks Straight at Me
I Wish
Everyone’s Wishing These Days—
The Little Kids Have Lots of Wishes.
What Are You Going to Wish For?
How Will the Cowherd And His Weaver Meet
Ryu Was Stronger
It Does Not Rain On Tanabata—
My Tanabata Wish Always Hung
Aloft
I Shove Clothes Into My Pack
Running Through My Ruined Town
In a Neighboring Town
I Tell Him About Ryu
You’d Better Get Back
The Moon On the Water
Arm Over Arm
Don’t Know
Taro Nishi, That Crazy Ninja
What Did You Come Here For?
Old Man Sato Is at the Pier
There’s a Saying In Coastal Towns—
Keiko Rushes to the Auditorium Door
Kenji Came Back, Too
I’m Kenji, He Says
Will You Come? He Asks
Kenji Knows, Too.
Keiko Watches
I Take Deep Breaths
Keiko Jumps Up
We Leave September Fifth
Three Weeks to English
Still Want to Believe
O-Bon Will Be Here Soon—
Fireflies Light Up the Sky
I Watch the Women Sway To
Fall
Ascend
Wish Mom Were Here
Driving With the Top Down
Two Other Coastal Kids
On the Plane
Maybe They Can Hear
Don’t Even Notice
Strange Music
Tom’s a Big, Tall Man
It Took a Long Time
Where Were You When the Quake Struck?
I Tell Them Things
Masa Tells Them
I Talk About Keiko
Sho Ga
Nai—It Can’t Be Helped.
Tomo Was at Her Family’s Store
Maybe That’s the Silver Lining
I Keep the Words In Mind
The Granite Holes
A Nine-Year-Old
I Take the Busted Cell Phone
Leaving the Monument
In the Middle of Broadway
When I Tell Tom, He Doesn’t Ask
We Split Off From the Group
Take Your Time, Tom Says.
Things Change.
No Answer.
Maybe Dad Left This Apartment Years Ago
First Thing In the Morning
It’s Our Last Night Here—
Arrive
As We Fly Back Over the Pacific
Shin And His Family
When I Say Good-Bye
We Drive Up the Coast
If I Hadn’t Climbed It
In Town
At the Shelter, Keiko Is Knitting Booties
It Gets Even Better
We Teach the Kids
Guts Follows Me Everywhere
Every Day We Clear the Land
Every Day We Practice
Anything Can Happen.
The Quake Moved the Earth
Word Gets Out
Eleven Players On Each Side—
My Eyes Lock On Taro
Before I Even See Her
When Halftime Ends
Then Something Changes—
I Hear Him Before I See Him
I Wave, And Dad Waves Back.
Something Takes Over
Notepads In Hand
Reporters Come Closer
We Line Up to Bow
Then Dad’s Next to Me
Guts Runs Up to Give Me Five.
Dad And I Go Out For Ramen
Dad Stays to Help Me
Principal Kunihara Handed Us Our Diplomas
I Tell Dad This
Looking at the Photo
That Night
I Dream of Mom
When I Wake Up
When Dad Asks If I’ll Go Back
I Think of All the People Here—
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
perseverance becomes its own kind of strength
JAPANESE SAYING
At 2:46 p.m. on Friday, March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Tohoku region of Honshu, Japan, 231 miles northeast of Tokyo. It was the strongest temblor ever to hit that quake-prone country. It lasted six minutes. After the quake struck, a massive tsunami followed. The Pacific Ocean lifted from the seafloor and slammed into 300 miles of coastline. The tsunami—one of the largest ever recorded, with waves reaching up to 133 feet—swept five miles inland, destroying entire villages. The earthquake moved the main island of Japan eight feet east and shifted the Earth on its axis between four and ten inches. One hundred fifty-five miles up the coast from Tokyo, the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was also damaged, causing a dangerous nuclear meltdown. There were 11,106 aftershocks, many measuring over 7 on the Richter scale.
Approximately 15,889 people died, 6,152 were injured, and 2,601 people are still missing. And 127,290 buildings were destroyed, with a million more severely damaged in the Tohoku region, an area known for its rich history and folklore, delicious mackerel and oysters, the scenic beauty of the pine-studded islands of Matsushima, and the resilience of its people. Thousands in the affected areas are still living in temporary housing. It will take decades for the region to fully recover, but the strength and courage of the Tohoku people remain unshakable.
MY TOWN—
Didn’t love it,
didn’t hate it—
it was just
where I lived.
In the back of my mind,
there was always New York,
where Dad lived a life
I could only imagine—
far from this sleepy town
with its ponds and pines,
temples and tea,
wooden houses
falling into each other
like sailors wobbly
from too much sake,
days as predictable
as the tides.
In the back of my mind,
I’d graduate from high school,
leave the place
Dad left
behind.
MARCH 11—
Mom rode her bike to the oyster farm,
pulled shell clusters from the ocean,
pried the oysters off the mother shells,
washed the sludge away.
Obaachan*1 picked wild ferns on the mountain.
Ojiichan*2 fixed a busted light on his sanma*3 boat.
Shin’s dad washed his taxi in their garage,
bleached the seat covers white as bone.
Shin, Ryu, and I walked to school together—
Ryu juggling his soccer ball the whole way.
We planned to skateboard by the seawall
after school, but we never made it.
Just an ordinary spring morning,
ordinary fight with Mom.
Maybe she spoke to me in English
and I answered in Japanese—
don’t even remember now.
Maybe I threw my dirty socks onto the floor
or left the toilet seat up again.
Whatever it was seems so stupid
at 2:46 p.m., when I’m sitting in math
waiting for the bell to ring
and the earth starts to shake.
I DO
what they’ve taught us since nursery school—
bring my knees to my chest, cover my head.
The desks rattle,
the window frames buckle,
the building creaks
from side to side,
no one runs out.
We laugh, thinking we’ll
get out of school early,
thinking the quake will stop
like the others always have.
But the shaking continues,
stronger and stronger,
not caring at all
what we thought.
THE CLOCK
flies off the wall.
Time stops.
Windows shatter.
We dive under desks—
this time for real.
The earth jolts us over
and over.
It’s like getting kicked up
from the ground
and thrown
from side to side
and punched
in the stomach
all at once.
Aki-sensei shouts:
Evacuate!
Evacuate!
his voice fierce,
urgent.
MY KNEES
shake,
my legs
shake,
my hands
shake,
but somehow
I manage
to stumble
out from under my desk,
stand up,
scramble to pull
the yellow vest
and hard hat
free,
put them on,
throw the
emergency pack
onto my back.
We rush out of the room—
all except for Keiko Inoue,
curled under her desk,
long legs tucked into
her chest,
frozen.
KEIKO! COME ON!
We’ve got to go! I shout.
She doesn’t budge.
I reach out,
but she won’t
take my hand.
Get up! Get UP!
NOW!
Her dark
brown eyes won’t focus—
she’s not there.
The wall cracks,
splits in half
with a groan.
Taro Nishi pushes me aside,
; kicks over the desk,
scoops up Keiko,
slings her like a deer
over his broad shoulders.
So relieved
to be out
of the building—
then I look at Taro
carrying Keiko,
think:
Wish it had been me.
SCHOOL SWAYS AND TILTS,
playground cracks,
classroom crumbles,
cinder blocks shower,
sheets of wall collapse.
Roof buckles into itself,
tiles rain down
with chunks of concrete,
shards of glass.
In the distance,
water sloshes over
the edge of the pool.
I close my eyes,
pray I’ll wake up
from this nightmare,
pray that everything
will be normal again.
LOUDSPEAKERS ANNOUNCE
Tsunami!
A tsunami is coming!
It’s been drilled into us
since nursery school—
a tsunami always
follows a quake.
Still,
I never thought
I’d be
this close to one—
too close to one
right here,
right
now.
SIRENS
break through
the eerie silence.
Then Aki-sensei shouts:
Higher ground!
Get to higher ground!
Another quake
shakes the earth
beneath our feet,
jolts us sideways,
almost knocks us down.
LIKE A BULLET TRAIN
we speed off
toward the mountains
behind the school.
First straight lines,
then chaos,
scurrying toward safety.
I turn around,
keep my eye on Shin
behind me—
tall, thin Shin,
he says he’s got my back.
Ryu’s up ahead,
strong thighs pumping.
Hurry up, everyone! he shouts,
moving quick as lightning.
I’m fast, too.
That’s what Coach Inoue
always said—
fastest boy in town—
gotta prove him right.
Gotta make it up the hill!
Come on!
We’re going to be all right!
Ryu shouts, even though
everyone knows
the water will
be coming soon.
Dirt flying at our heels,
ocean at our backs,
we funnel our bodies
into narrow streets,
zigzag around rubble—
once-peaceful town
now a war zone.
