Chapter 1

EPISODE 2 Observation Station My hair was an extremely accurate barometer. I could measure the day’s humidity by how curly it got. It was raining constantly, and my hair curled up in little loops. The water level in the town’s streams rose, and the mountains on the prefecture border were always gray and indistinct. The sound of water dripping from the trees was a constant presence. “This is gonna create a bottomless swamp in the forest,” Uchida insisted. We were a wise exploration squad, so we delayed Project Amazon and resolved to focus on our Rainy Season study instead. We cut out the weather reports from the newspaper and pasted them into our notebooks, highlighting the high-pressure systems over the Sea of Okhotsk and the Ogasawara Islands. Such was our passion for research that my little sister copied us and turned the newspaper rainbow-colored with all the highlighters. “Look, look!” she said, all proud of herself. “You’re a real artist,” I said, and she was entirely satisfied. Uchida was really depressed about the disappearance of his friendly penguin. “Maybe that was never a penguin at all,” he said. “If it was a real penguin, it wouldn’t have suddenly vanished like that.” “Then what do you think it was?” “I don’t know. But he’s gone now, and I’m sad.” “I think it’s a real shame.” “Do you know why it vanished?” “This is a very difficult matter to research. Even for me.” “If it’s too hard for you, Aoyama, then it is very difficult indeed.” Even if the true nature of the penguins was a mystery, Uchida had been awfully close to that penguin, and having a living creature you were fond of suddenly vanish was quite a blow. But I couldn’t think of any way to comfort him. Even worse, I had to keep it secret that the lady was making the penguins. I didn’t think it was good to keep important facts from friends. The word vexing described these emotions exactly. But right at the height of my vexation, I got a call from the lady. “I’m gonna make some penguins soon. Wanna experiment?” she asked. She’s the biggest mystery of all, I thought. On Sunday, I went to the church to meet up with the lady. The sky was covered in fluffy clouds, all gray and silver. But patches of blue peeped out from between them. The air still smelled like rain. As I walked down the bus route to Kamonohashi Park, a ray of sunshine made it through the clouds, brightening the town around me. I could see the bright patch moving. It was like someone up in the sky was examining our molecular structure with a laser beam. The lady came out of the church smiling, clearly in a very good mood. I was always happy to see her in a good mood. Her hair was shining like aluminum, and I was extremely jealous. I expressed admiration for how straight her hair was, and she rumpled mine, saying, “Yours is having a tantrum!” My hair curled up like this because my hair molecules were bonding. It was not my fault. But I did not argue the point. “Where should we do this?” she said. I thought we should definitely keep using the bus terminal for our experiments. We walked down the bus route. The bus terminal was on the edge of our neighborhood. The closer we got, the fewer houses there were, until there were more vacant lots than houses. While we walked, it started to rain again. The drops of rain were tiny, like mist. The soft patter of the drops falling filled the air. I pulled out a very modern folding umbrella from my rucksack. All I had to do was press a button, and it unfolded like NASA deploying the antennae on a space probe. The lady took out a large green umbrella, as round as her breasts. Even with the umbrella, the raindrops were so light, they got under the umbrella, hitting my face and arms. “It’s like we’re walking inside a can of Sprite,” the lady said. “The plants are happy.” “The whole forest is soaking wet. It’s kinda nice.” “Feel like you can make penguins today?” “I do. Totally feeling it. I’m itching to make some. Watch closely and discover the penguin-making mechanic.” “This is a much tougher mission than I anticipated.” “Do I hear you complaining, child of science?” While we walked, I explained the Penguin Evaporation I had observed. I also filled her in on the Penguin Energy problem. It was a secret that Uchida had kept a penguin, so I didn’t mention that. The lady listened intently, but her only response was to whisper “Mysterious!” and swirl the umbrella around. The rain-soaked bus terminal was empty. It felt even bigger today. The forest behind the terminal was foggy, like it was wrapped in cotton. The vending machines were wet from the rain, waiting for someone to buy a drink. Being a vending machine was such a sad job to have. I always felt sympathy for them. We began our experiment. The lady bought a can of Coke from the vending machine. I stood next to the machine, observing her actions. When I gave her the nod, she gave a little shout and threw the can. The red can spun through the rain. Then it fell to the asphalt with a clunk, unchanged. I ran over and picked up the can. It was dented, but not at all penguin-y. We repeated this experiment three times with no penguins created. “The experiment has failed.” “It really shouldn’t have, though,” the lady said. “But the can hasn’t changed.” “Weird,” she said, spinning the green umbrella. Then I saw the phenomenon begin. This time, the phenomenon started on the surface of her umbrella. At first, I thought it was the drops of water on the umbrella surface. They were the same green as the umbrella. But the drops were moving oddly. Drop merging with drop, combining, the drops growing larger and larger. Then they swelled up like a blister and burst, and the fragments turned into pale-pink flower petals. As if the surface of the umbrella was producing them, drop after drop exploded. As the lady spun the umbrella, flowers of all colors raced across the surface, and between them, green stems stretched out in the air. It was like watching a time-lapse video of plants growing. The rain on the bus terminal was soft as mist, so it was very quiet around us. To better observe the phenomenom, I walked around the lady as she spun her umbrella. “What do you think?” she said, looking up at the umbrella. “It’s an extraordinary phenomenon,” I said. The plants were staking out their territory on the lady’s umbrella. The long green stems formed spirals. I clearly saw a row of daisies running along its edge. Flowers buried her umbrella, like someone had splashed paint all over it, the growing stems tangling together as they reached for the cloudy sky. Small yellow bulbs swelled up from the umbrella’s rim, growing into bright mango-like fruit. At last, large sunflower blossoms bloomed at the end of the longest stems. When the lady shook the umbrella, the sunflowers waved, too. Vines were spilling over its edge, so the lady ran her fingers along them, grinning. The umbrella had become a tiny botanical garden. “Wow,” she said. “Have you ever made plants before?” “My first time!” A beam of sunlight broke through the clouds like a searchlight, and the bus terminal we were experimenting in suddenly dazzled. Sunny but raining. Sunlight trickling through the flower petals, lighting up the lady’s face, like she was standing in a beam of light shining through a sheet of cellophane. A moment later, the second stage of the phenomenon began. The plants that had grown so tall suddenly stopped moving and began to wither. Color faded from the petals, and the long stems turned brown. The sunflower blooms drooped, and seeds spilled out onto the asphalt. The mangoes dangling off the umbrella swelled up, sprouted wings, and turned into penguins. “There they are!” she yelped. Penguin after penguin was born. They waddled off toward the forest behind the bus terminal. The lady threw the Coke can again, and this time, it did transform into a penguin. The lady’s umbrella was kind of a mess. Like she’d had plants growing in a hanging basket and forgotten to water them. They were completely brown and looked dead. “The experiment succeeded!” she said proudly. “I told you it would!” “It did. And I have a new hypothesis.” “Oh! Nicely done.” “We will need some more experiments to confirm it.” “More?” she said, sighing. “You sure know how to work a girl.” We did a few more experiments, and I wrote several hypotheses in my notebook. When the lady is in a good mood, she wants to make penguins. The lady has 1. The power to make penguins, and 2. The power to make other things (bats, plants, etc.). When the sun is shining, power 1 is active, and when the sun is not shining, power 2 is active. When power 2 is active, even the lady has no idea what’ll come out. When power 1 is active, the lady gets tired. (*Requires further experiments.) When power 2 is active, the lady feels better. (*Requires further experiments.) I have no idea why, but my mother loved it when my sister and I wore galoshes, so when it was raining, we always wore them to school. My sister had convinced our mother to buy her red galoshes and was thoroughly satisfied. On rainy days, she could be a real devil. She always shook her umbrella to fling water everywhere and jumped into puddles. As her brother, it was my job to rein her in. But I understood the compulsion to jump into puddles when wearing galoshes. It made you feel like a real explorer. Walking to school in the rain, I looked up, whispering, “Altostratus clouds.” I couldn’t exactly open my notebook in this weather, so I had to settle for reciting the names of each type of cloud I could remember. Cirrus, cirrocumulus, stratocumulus, nimbostratus. Clouds had different names depending on their shape and how high they were. I had memorized a lot of them. I’d started to regularly play chess with Hamamoto during breaks at school. Uchida joined in. When the three of us were gathered around the chessboard, Suzuki would try things every now and then. We considered that he wanted to play chess, too, and offered to let him join in, but he refused. Suzuki spread out the map as if flaunting it at us, making plans for further exploration. Suzuki and his minions, including Kobayashi, were copying us, forming an exploration society. “How far do you think we can go?” Kobayashi asked. “I dunno—it’s a big adventure,” Suzuki said, tracing the route on the map like the party leader. When he saw Uchida and me looking, he got mad. “What? Don’t look at us!” Uchida and I had made that map in the first place, so we had every right to look at it. But I said nothing, merely turning back to my match with Hamamoto. If I didn’t stay focused, there was no way I’d be able to play at her level. Suzuki went back to talking about his expedition plans. Staring at the chessboard, Hamamoto said, “Did Suzuki’s group make that map?” “No!” Uchida said quietly. “It’s ours.” “They swiped it?” “We stand in opposition to the Suzuki Empire.” “What’s the Suzuki Empire?” “Suzuki and his minions. Unfortunately, we have failed to find a way to get along with them.” Hamamoto snorted like a grown-up. “No need to do that. It’s impossible to get along with everyone.” She took her eyes off the board, staring into the distance. When she played chess, she was always so focused, it was like she was mechanical and didn’t need to breathe, so it was rare to see her tune out like this. “You okay, Hamamoto?” “Aoyama, have you two explored the whole town?” “Not all of if. Our map is still unfinished.” “The hill with the water tower?” “We’ve been there,” Uchida said. “We found a path that leads to the back of the athletic field.” “But that forest contains many mysteries,” I said. “That’s why we’ve named it the Jabberwock Woods. We intend to fully explore it sometime. Once the weather’s better.” “But the ghost moon shows up there,” Hamamoto whispered. “If you see it, you’ll die.” Uchida looked nervous. “…So I’ve heard. Is that real?” “I don’t believe it,” I said. “There’s no evidence to support it. Do you believe it, Hamamoto?” “Of course not,” she said, lost in thought again. I remembered when I was on a picnic with the lady in the grassy area near the back of the athletic field. I’d seen Hamamoto come out of the Jabberwock Woods and been quite surprised. I considered asking what she’d been doing there but decided not to. I wished to respect her privacy. Sunday night, I’d agreed to meet the lady for chess, so I went to Seaside Café. I sat in the seat by the window waiting for the lady to arrive. I had my notebook open on the table and was analyzing the results of the bus terminal experiment. I drew a picture of the sunflower growing out of the lady’s umbrella in my notebook. I needed to practice drawing more so I could record my observations with a greater degree of accuracy. Then I added an index to the notes. By creating an index, I could find out just how many things I’d learned. After burying myself in research for a while, I took a breather, staring up at the blue whale hanging from the ceiling. There were no other customers that night. Music was playing softly. Outside the window, I could see the darkened dentist’s office and the vacant lot next door. Every time I saw my face in the glass, I always thought I was looking more grown-up and felt satisfied, but then I’d look in the mirror the next day and not look older at all. This was a very strange phenomenon—and a very disappointing one. Yamaguchi made me a smoothie. “It happens sometimes,” he said, sitting down across from me. “What does?” “You get stood up.” I wrote stood up in my notebook. Yamaguchi scratched his bushy goatee. It looked like iron filings stuck to a magnet. I’d once been extremely focused on magnet research and still liked magnets better than anything else in the world. I don’t think there’s anything more wonderful and mysterious than magnets and iron filings together. I thought about the iron filings I had stored in the drawer of my desk back home. “Wanna play chess with me?” Yamaguchi offered, so we played chess. He was not good at chess and seemed more interested in scratching his beard than looking at the board. The match played out extremely slowly. I eventually started nodding off, and so did he. The game got even slower and eventually stopped progressing at all. I heard the door open and thought the lady was there, but it was just my father. “I got a call from her,” he said. “She’s not feeling well so won’t be able to make it.” It was a shame, but I hoped she felt better soon. I said good night to Yamaguchi. “Bonne nuit,” he said sleepily. My father and I walked through the neighborhood. The streetlights next to a vacant lot seemed like searchlights lighting the depths of the sea. I half expected strange-looking fish to come swimming out of the dark corners of the vacant lot. I’d borrowed a book Hamamoto recommended from the library and learned a lot about the deep sea. “The deep sea is a world of the unknown,” I told my father. “The water pressure is so high it flattens everything, and sunlight doesn’t reach it. There are creatures down there that look like aliens.” “Maybe the deep sea is connected to outer space,” my father said. “You know astronauts train in large water tanks, right?” “I do.” I walked awhile in silence. “I hope the lady feels better.” “…Getting stood up is always lonely. It’s happened to me, too. You get this lost feeling inside, right?” “I definitely feel a little lost.” “And nobody likes feeling lost.” “…Life is full of things you don’t like but have to endure.” “You are absolutely right.” “Dad, what does bonne nuit mean?” “Good night. It’s French.” “What’s so good about it?” “In this case, it’s used just like good night in Japanese.” I would have to write down bonne nuit in my notes. The next time I played chess with the lady, when it was time to go, I’d say good night in French and surprise her. If she said “What’s that mean?” I’d be able to explain that it was the same as good night. I have already mentioned buying sweets with my allowance to replenish my brain’s energy. All along, I’ve been buying different kinds of sweets and experimenting with how well my mind functions after eating them. I even tried eating sugar cubes directly. The results of my experiments indicate that the best nourishment for the mind is provided by the Boob Cakes sold at the nearby sweetshop. The actual name was some difficult foreign-language word, but when my sister first saw them, she’d shouted, “Boobs! Boobs!” so I called them Boob Cakes now. They were about ten centimeters in diameter, round, and unbelievably soft. There was cream inside. There were a number of nutrients beside sugar that help my brain function, and Boob Cakes had all of these. And they were far better tasting than sugar cubes. They were so soft, you had to wonder if anything this soft should be allowed to exist. Were actual breasts this soft? They were wonderful. Uchida and I bought some Boob Cakes on the way home from school. “We’re not supposed to take detours,” Uchida said. He was a little grumpy. “But Boob Cakes are really good. You should try them.” “Is that the real name?” “It’s the name I gave them. So when you ask for them at the store, make sure you don’t call them that. They won’t understand.” “Aoyama, for someone so smart, you sure talk about that stuff a lot. It’s weird.” “What’s so weird about liking breasts?” “Nothing, I guess… But it’s still weird.” On the way home, we crossed a big street with a dry cleaners, a drugstore, and restaurants. If you turn onto that road and then onto the side street that leads to the water purification plant, you’ll get to the candy store. If you open the heavy door and step in, you’ll find the air filled with sweet scents. There’s a table with a big pile of candy in little bags or wrapped in foil. In a big glass case are rows of little toylike cakes. There’s a small café attached, so it also smells like coffee. The air is so sweet, I feel like it makes everyone sleepy. Just being in the shop is really fun. It cheers me up so much, I feel like I don’t have to be afraid of anything. If I could make a second research laboratory here, my research would progress in leaps and bounds, and I’d get a lot of cavities. As they were putting Boob Cakes in bags for Uchida and me, the door opened and Hamamoto came in. “Shopping?” she asked. “Mm, yeah.” She looked at the candy on the table. Didn’t look like she was buying anything. When Uchida and I started to leave, bags in hand, she stopped us. “Aoyama, I have a question.” “What?” “You know a lot of things, right?” “Yeah. I like to think I do.” Hamamoto fixed her astonishingly large eyes on me and brushed back her chestnut hair. Her hair curled up in this weather, too. But it was still softer than mine. She smiled. “Are you free right now, Aoyama?” “I don’t know if I’m free. I am juggling several research projects, so I’m always very busy.” “What are you researching?” “That’s a secret. All I can say is that these projects are of the utmost importance. But if you’ve got a problem, I definitely have time to help solve it.” Hamamoto glanced around the shop. Lowering her voice, she said, “You see, I’m actually researching something myself. And I was hoping to get input from the two of you.” “Does the subject of this research start with a P?” Uchida asked, presumably thinking of the penguins. I thought the same. But Hamamoto shook her head and said something I didn’t expect. “I’m researching The Sea.” When the rain stopped, the sunlight hammered down, making it so hot and muggy that my face felt sticky. Uchida and I grumbled about the heat, but Hamamoto was almost skipping. She had a grace about her like a nobleman’s daughter, and she reminded me of a girl robot that had just finished charging her battery. Astounding. The roads and roofs ahead of Hamamoto glittered in the sunlight. Beyond those rooftops, the sky was blue, and the water tower stood on a breast-shaped green hill. Hamamoto was leading us to that hill. “Hamamoto, how far are we going?” “You’ll see.” I wondered what sort of sea Hamamoto was researching. Our town was quite far from the sea. Even if that new railroad was built, we’d still have to take a train to get there. But she made it sound like you could get to this sea on foot. We passed the white apartment building where the lady from the dentist’s office lived. Hamamoto pointed to the concrete stairs leading up the water-tower hill. “Up there,” she said. “I know this place!” Uchida said. “I’ve been up there before.” “We’ve already explored this area. Are we almost there?” “Not yet!” Hamamoto said. She kept walking. She went all the way up the stairs, around the water-tower fence, and into the woods. The same path Uchida and I had explored in May, following the Penguin Highway. The athletic field fence was on the left, and the deep forest we’d named the Jabberwock Woods was on the right. The rain had stopped, but from the sounds the forest made, you’d think it was still raining. The sunlight beamed down, creating little pools of light in the woods. If we walked much farther, we’d reach the field with the high-tension towers, but then Hamamoto said “There!” and pointed into the forest. There was what looked like an animal path branching off the trail we’d been walking on. It led deep into the woods. “Is it safe?” I asked. “I’ve been down it lots of times,” she said. “It’s fine. We might get a little wet, though.” Hamamoto was very adventurous. “Are you sure?” Uchida said nervously. “What if there’s a bottomless swamp?” When we were exploring, Uchida was always on guard against bottomless swamps. Apparently, they were found in forests sometimes and could easily prove fatal. “They suck you in like a black hole. Put one foot inside, and you can never come out.” “Just imagining sinking into a swamp is unbearable.” “You wouldn’t be able to breathe. You’d die, and no one would ever know.” Uchida was very serious. The noises of the town didn’t reach this far. The grass grew high on both sides of the path. There were trees as far as the eye could see. It was like we were in the deepest jungle. In the bright patches where the light made it through, we could see swarms of moths. The Jabberwock Woods was very deep. We weren’t sure just how far this forest went. But Hamamoto just kept walking. She even looked like she was having fun. The path sloped slowly downward. “It’s getting muddy,” Uchida fretted. Then he let out a little shriek and crouched down. A drop of water had fallen off a branch and moistened the back of his neck. A ray of sunshine hit him like a laser beam, and the drop of water gleamed. Like when there was a sun-shower. Suddenly, Hamamoto broke into a run. “Almost there!” she cried. “Wait up!” We hurried after her. Tree branches brushed against us as we ran by. I felt a nervous tension in the pit of my stomach. A feeling that when we left the forest we’d be at the ends of the earth, by a small observation station. That station should be a building shaped like a large white eggshell, built in cooperation between NASA and the Japanese government. Only one researcher had been dispatched here, and he lived there all alone. Would he welcome our exploration party? Maybe he’d have tea and snacks. I imagined he would. Then I realized I’d left the forest behind, and there was nothing but blue sky above. A clearing with grass, like a soft green carpet. Not a single tree growing in it. Blinding light made the whole thing glow. I looked up and saw long, jagged silver clouds drifting past at high speed. Nimbostratus clouds form at four thousand meters; up there, the wind was blowing so fast, it could blow everything away, but down here in the clearing, everything was quiet. A strange feeling. Hamamoto didn’t slow down after leaving the forest; she was already halfway across the field. A stream running out of the Jabberwock Woods stretched across the field like a snake. She reached the edge of it and turned back, waving at us. Trees surrounded the clearing. A forgotten land in the heart of the Jabberwock Woods. Like a giant soup plate waiting to be filled with some sort of liquid. As I walked across it, it felt like the sky was a lid placed on top of us. As if the top of my head was being pulled up toward the sky. Both Uchida and I looked tense. We walked slower and slower and finally stopped. Right in the middle of the grass, where Hamamoto was pointing, was a strange translucent sphere. Accounting for its distance from us, the sphere’s diameter was approximately five meters. It was hovering about thirty centimeters above the ground. It didn’t seem to be using any sort of engine to keep it suspended in the air. I could tell because it made no sound at all. This mysterious object was just reflecting the sunlight, glittering in silence. Uchida tugged my sleeve. “What is it?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a new type of spacecraft developed by NASA?” We tried to go closer, but Hamamoto stopped us. “Better not get too close,” she said grimly. “Is it dangerous?” “It moves sometimes. Spike-like protrusions extend out of it.” “So we can’t prove it’s safe yet.” I knelt down and looked under it. “Still! What is it? This is a very strange object! How is it floating like that?” “I don’t know. That’s why I’m researching it.” “You called it The Sea?” Uchida asked. Hamamoto nodded proudly. “Yes. I named it.” The sphere did look like it was made of water. Each time a gust of wind blew across the grass, little waves ran across the sphere’s surface. It was slowly spinning, reflecting the light. There was a faint white pattern across the surface, and parts of it were a navy blue. It was like looking at the Earth from outer space. But it was much more transparent than the Earth in those photos. Looking closely, I could make out the green of the forest on the other side of the rippling sphere. I paced on the grass around it, making careful observations. “Amazing, right?” Hamamoto said. “It is extremely mysterious!” I took out my notebook to record my observations. It opened to a place a few pages back, where I’d written about the rumors in class. A silver moon appears over the hill with the water tower, it read. Hamamoto peered over my shoulder. “Oh, those rumors. I started them.” “Why?” “If there are rumors about the place, then no other children will interfere with my research,” she said with an impish grin. This was completely astonishing to me. “Aoyama, will you help me research it?” “I am extremely busy… But this is fascinating.” “I thought you’d say that.” “We’re really going to have to use our brains for this one. Hamamoto, would you like some cake?” “You don’t mind?” We sat down a safe distance away, observing The Sea while eating Boob Cake. Hamamoto agreed with me about the cake’s flavor. Hamamoto doesn’t have any boobs, though, I thought. Feeling the nourishment spreading across my brain, I stared up at The Sea. As I did, my brain started working very quickly. We established an observation station on the boundary between the woods and the grass. Joint research on The Sea would be a long-term endeavor. Some days it would rain, and some days it would be unbearably hot. Constructing a comfortable observation station would be extremely useful. Uchida brought a folding chair and a beach parasol. Hamamoto brought a camping hammock. I brought binoculars and a tarp. We hung the hammock at the entrance to the forest so we could nap in the shade when we got tired from all this research. A short nap did wonders to restore the brain’s functions. On the field near the forest was an orange penholder. Hamamoto had placed it there as a marker for fixed-point observations of The Sea. The location was some distance from The Sea, allowing for safe observation. “This is a good place to make a base,” Hamamoto said. “If we get tired, the hammock is close by.” Uchida set up the white parasol where the penholder was. We set up the folding chair in the shade of the parasol. Sitting here made the grass field around us feel like the beach. The parasol was large enough that the three of us could fit under it with room for one more. I was sure that the shade provided by this parasol was among the best shade in all the world. I always got anxious crossing the Jabberwock Woods to observe The Sea. I’d wonder, What if The Sea has vanished? The possibility made me nervous, and sometimes I’d even break into a run when I saw the light of the clearing through the trees ahead. But there was no need to worry. Every time I came running out, The Sea was still there. Rain or shine, The Sea would be hovering in the same place. On clear days, it would look blue, like a giant marble. On rainy days, it gave off a silver light that could be seen through the misty field. When the rain stopped and the evening sun hit it, the northern half of the sphere looked as if it had caught fire. Monitoring The Sea through binoculars at the observation station, I took detailed notes. “I can’t read what’s written in your notes,” Hamamoto said. “They’re in shorthand. I can writer faster than anyone.” “You use a red notebook.” “And you use a blue one. That’s an extremely good notebook.” Hamamoto smiled down at the blue notebook in her hands. Her notebook had been made overseas, and each page was much thicker than mine. Inside, the pages had thin blue lines. An aunt of hers had bought it for her while traveling abroad. Hamamoto’s father was a college professor and had taught her how to take notes. She didn’t write as many as I did, but she also took a great deal of notes, so naturally, she’d become extremely intelligent as well. She wrote in her blue notebook in letters so perfect, they looked printed. She was recording all her research on The Sea in this blue notebook. Lists of the different phenomena that appeared on the surface of The Sea, a change log of the measurements of The Sea’s diameter taken from the same fixed point. It was extremely excellent research. According to her, the core observable activity The Sea took part in was expanding and contracting. She had decided to call periods where it was getting larger “waxing” and periods where it was getting smaller “waning.” She used trigonometry to measure The Sea’s diameter from a fixed point on the grass, made a chart of the results on graph paper, and pasted that into the blue notebook. “I see. It’s forming a gentle wave.” “It’s waning right now. See? It’s getting slowly smaller.” “It can get as large as three times the current size. That’s astonishing!” As it waxed, one day, a sudden Prominence occurred. This was Hamamoto’s name for the phenomenon. I was, of course, aware that in astrophysics prominence referred to the phenomenon where portions of the sun’s fire were flung up and away from the surface. “What is a Prominence like?” Uchida asked. “It fires a smaller version of The Sea like a cannon. You’ll be very surprised if you see one!” She showed us a diagram she’d drawn in her notebook. A picture of what looked like a cannon sticking out of the sphere. A marble-size little version of The Sea spilled out of it. She’d drawn an arrow to it with a note that said A small Sea comes out. “I’m the only one without a notebook,” Uchida said. “I do have one at school, though.” “It’s fun having your own notebook. You can record everything you discover.” “But unlike the two of you, I’m not researching anything.” “You are, though!” I cried. “Black holes and the birth of the universe!” “Do those count?” “If it’s new information to you or new ideas you’ve had, then it always counts.” Hamamoto looked at her notebook the way one looks at a treasure. “I think it’s good to write down whatever you find interesting.” Uchida thought about it. “Maybe I’ll start carrying a notebook, too,” he said. I was out for a haircut. It was an extremely quiet Sunday. Tiny raindrops fell like mist, coating the town. The mountains on the prefectural border were melting into the gray sky. When I turned the corner at the dentist, I saw my father sitting in the window at Seaside Café, working. I slowed down for a moment, wondering if he’d see me, and he did actually look up. When I dipped my umbrella at him, he tapped on the window glass. The shop that cut my hair was next door to the candy shop. The wall facing the street was entirely made of glass, and you could stand outside and see everyone getting their hair cut. I wasn’t sure why they’d designed it like that. I sat on a brown couch, waiting my turn, and when it arrived, I sat in front of a large mirror. This shop didn’t have any magazines worth reading, so I always took a half-read book along. While I was reading, the man who cuts my hair said, “The genius is here!” To my surprise, the lady was there, too. She’d arrived before me and was already getting her hair cut. When I sat down on the chair next to her, she looked at me from the mirror world, and said, “Hello, kiddo.” Seen inside the mirror, the lady looked a little different. Getting your hair cut right next to someone you knew was oddly embarrassing. When he cut my hair, the man placed a sheet around my neck, and this made me look like a baby. No matter how serious my expression was, I just looked silly. While he was cutting my hair, I inspected the lady’s face in the mirror. She was gazing absently at a magazine in her hands. She looked a little pale, like she’d lost some weight. “What you looking at, kiddo?” she asked, not glancing up from her magazine. “Nothing.” “Again with the lies!” Then she said, “Sorry I couldn’t show up the other day.” “I was stood up. So I did some research and played chess with Yamaguchi.” “Is Yamaguchi good at chess?” “He can play chess in his sleep.” “He’s a master!” “I also fell asleep.” “Doesn’t sound like much of a game.” After our haircuts were done, the lady said, “Aoyama, let me fix you lunch to make up for standing you up.” I used the barbershop phone to call my house. My father answered and said I shouldn’t impose. I let the lady take over. She was always very polite with him. The lady and I walked through the rain with our umbrellas open. In the rain, her face looked even more pale. “You don’t seem like yourself,” I said. “Yeah, I’ve been better. You feeling good?” “I am in extremely good health. Reasons unclear.” “Reasons unclear!” she echoed, laughing. The white apartment building where the lady lived was next to the hill with the water tower. I’d passed in front of it just the other day with Hamamoto and Uchida and had often looked up at it, thinking, That’s where the lady lives. But this was my first time going inside. The Jabberwock Woods came right up against the back of the building, and I could hear the soft sound of the rain on the leaves. I am the most collected and levelheaded child you’ll find anywhere, but I messed up a bunch that day. I had trouble getting my galoshes off and almost knocked the flower vase off the shoebox. Then I slipped on the linoleum and almost fell over. “Calm yourself, kiddo,” the lady said. The lady’s apartment was a single large room. The building was on the side of the hill, so from the veranda you could see the whole town through the gray mist of the rain. Her room had a round wooden table, two chairs, a bed, a small bookshelf, and a round TV. There was a small pea-green single-seat couch facing the TV. She must sit on that couch when she reads or watches TV. While the lady was boiling spaghetti and making the sauce, I helped toss a salad in a white bowl. The lady showed me a very professional technique that involved first making the dressing in the bowl, then putting the veggies in and mixing it all up. Lettuce and yellow peppers all tumbled around the inside of the bowl. I think I did a good job stirring it. We sat at the round table and ate spaghetti and salad. I thought it was extremely good. With her hair cut, the lady’s head seemed smaller. My head looked smaller, too. When the lady moved her head, her shorter hair swung in the light. “I always feel a little anxious after getting my hair cut,” she said. “My hair is too prone to tantrums, so it’s better to cut it. I feel much smarter now.” “Good lord. How much smarter do you need to be?” “As smart as humanly possible.” To demonstrate how I was smarter today than I was yesterday, I explained the causes of the rainy season to the lady. She said, “Hmm. Still, I’m getting sick of all the rain.” She twirled the spaghetti around her fork, yawning. “Are you sleepy?” “I was really feeling out of it yesterday. Didn’t even make it to church.” “If I don’t go to school, I get scolded. Does that happen if you don’t go to church?” “Nothing like that, no. I go to church because I want to.” “Do you believe in God?” “Good question.” She cocked her head. “That’s a mystery.” After lunch, she took out the chessboard from the top of the bookshelf. Her real chessboard was still at Seaside Café. The one in her apartment was an astonishingly small portable set. This one was only the size of a handkerchief, and the pieces were the size of peas. “You’re getting way better, so I gotta practice,” she said. “I’m playing chess every day at school. Hamamoto is extremely good at it.” “Oh?” “She even knows about the theory of relativity.” “Wow. Are you in love?” “I am not in love with anyone.” “You sure about that?” I sat on the floor with the lady, and we played chess. The lady opened the sliding door to the veranda, so a warm, wet wind blew in, making the white lace curtains sway. The wind wasn’t strong. The lady scowled at the chessboard intently at first, but she started nodding off soon. Eventually, I had to wake her up every time it was her turn. When we played chess at Seaside Café, I always got sleepy, but today it was her turn. “You’re very sleepy,” I said. “I’m not.” “You’re lying.” “Am not!” She rolled over, lying on her back. The feeble light from the cloudy sky played across her pale face. I knelt beside the chessboard, watching her expression. She opened her big eyes, trying to look up at me. She blinked several times. For a moment, she looked like she was my age, which was astonishing. In a dreamy voice, she asked, “What time did you go to bed last night?” “I always go to bed at nine.” “Right. You don’t know what the middle of the night is like.” “Is it amazing?” “It is. Everyone’s asleep; the whole town’s dark. It’s an adventure.” “I’ll have to do some training so I can be awake at night.” “No point in training for that. Being up at night is just lonely.” “I’ll play chess with you until you get sleepy.” “That’s enough out of you. Get your sleep, kiddo!” From time to time, she closed her eyes. I was worried she was asleep, but her eyes always snapped back open like my sister’s French doll. “Did you make anything after our last experiment?” “Nothing.” “I’ve got a hypothesis. I think you should try making things other than penguins. That might make you feel better. Like when you made the bats at Seaside Café.” “I don’t wanna make anything but penguins.” “Why not?” “I get bad dreams.” “Jabberwock dreams?” “Close enough,” she whispered. Then she turned her head and looked at the gray sky outside. “If I don’t feel better, your penguin research can’t progress, hmm?” “I think you should go to sleep if you’re sleepy,” I said. “Bonne nuit.” “It’s still day!” she said, laughing. I guess she knew French. Then she actually did fall asleep. All I could hear was the rain falling outside the veranda and the sound of the lady’s breathing. Her eyes and lips were closed, and she was sound asleep. She didn’t talk in her sleep like my sister did. As I observed her face, I found myself wondering how her face came to be the shape it was, who decided these things. Of course, I knew that genes decided what our faces look like. But that wasn’t what I really wanted to know. Why did I enjoy staring at her face this much? And how had genes managed to make the face I enjoyed watching so utterly perfect? That’s what I wanted to know. I tried writing about this mystery in my notebook, but I’d never written anything like this in my notes before, so I wasn’t able to find the words for it. I ended up just writing The lady’s face, happiness, genes, perfection. Then I wrote about the ingredients in the lady’s spaghetti and how extremely delicious it was. Then I wrote how we’d made the salad like pros, starting with the dressing and then mixing in the veggies. When I finished writing, the lady was still asleep. It occurred to me that if she got chilly, she might catch a cold, so I got a towel from her bed and draped it over her. I believe this was the correct decision. If she often sleeps on the floor like this, then she definitely needs somebody to come put a towel on her, I thought. Grown-up women didn’t let grown-up men into their apartments often. And they’d never fall asleep in front of them. That only happened if they were a couple. But the lady let me in her apartment and fell asleep in front of me. This was because I was only a child. There was something sad about the sight of someone asleep in the middle of the day. I felt sorry for the lady not being able to sleep at night. At night, I always get so sleepy I can’t fight it off, and that often makes me sad. I often hoped NASA would invent a system that would extract this unbearable sleepiness from humans. If we had a Sleep Shift System, then the lady could use my sleepiness to fall asleep at night. And then I could stay up later doing research and would definitely become an important grown-up. But while I was thinking about this, I must have nodded off. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the bed with a towel on me. The lady was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. “You’re up,” she said. “I think I should probably be getting home.” “Yeah… The rain’s stopped, too.” When I stepped outside, I said good-bye and added, “Sorry the research isn’t getting anywhere.” “No need to get all dejected about it,” she said, grinning. “You’re a child of science, right?” “Even children of science get dejected sometimes.” “Don’t try to rush it. Major discoveries take time.” I left the apartment building and found the sky above the hill was an unusual color. There were fluffy clouds covering the sky, and they were all painted a pale pink. I’d never seen the sky look like this before. There was a gap in the clouds beyond the mountains, and the light of sunset was shining through. I turned back and saw the lady waving from her veranda. She was pink, too. The Sea was a problem that would flummox scientists the world over. We had no idea what kept The Sea aloft. It appeared to be a large mass of blue water, but the surface of it remained constantly active. It got larger and smaller, like it was breathing. Sometimes several white swirls would appear on it, like miniature typhoons. Antenna-like structures would jut out of it sometimes. The more we observed it, the more it started to seem like a strange life-form. The fact that in all the world, only the three of us were researching a project of such significance was a source of pride for me. I even had a dream that Uchida and Hamamoto and I would all get the Nobel Prize together. The three of us would line up together and let them place the medals around our necks. We would be put in science textbooks as the researchers who discovered The Sea. My father and mother would be extremely pleased. And the lady would say “Well done, kiddo.” We had to keep this research a secret. After all, if the existence of The Sea got out, a whole swarm of researchers would come here and take the research project away from us for the simple reason that we were only children. That’s why we agreed to talk about The Sea as little as possible when we were at school. But keeping quiet when we had new ideas was extremely bothersome. There were times when we couldn’t wait and talked about them during a break. Uchida suggested that The Sea was a device created by some laboratory somewhere, I proposed a number of hypotheses related to the phenomena displayed on The Sea’s surface, and Hamamoto was thinking of ways to communicate with The Sea. We were all dedicated. When Hamamoto and I were whispering to each other, Suzuki made fun of us, saying “They’re in loooove!” The Suzuki Empire always insisted it was love whenever any boys talked to any girls. When we said nothing, Suzuki got louder. “Aoyama and Hamamoto are in love!” Kobayashi let out a whoop, and Hamamoto’s ears turned red. “Aoyama, is the exploring going well?” Suzuki said with mock politeness. “You can’t slack off just because you’re in love with Hamamoto. We’ve explored much farther than you now. We’ve explored the whole river and drawn it on the map.” “It was a great adventure!” Kobayashi said, nodding gravely. “We almost died for real.” “We aren’t slacking off. We’ve merely postponed operations until the rain stops.” “Getting frustrated??” “I’m not frustrated. We’re simply proceeding in a way that seems best to us.” “Hmph!” Suzuki snorted. “While you’re doing nothing, we’ll explore everything!” When Suzuki finally went away, Hamamoto sighed. “He’s so obnoxious,” she muttered. I guess he’d made her mad, because she said, “Let’s go exploring! I’m coming, too.” “Why are you mad?” “I’m not mad.” “Well, if you’re not mad, that’s good.” Hamamoto stared at me. When she did that, she always looked suddenly grown-up. I tried to imitate this, but it didn’t go well. “You don’t care if Suzuki gets ahead of you?” “Hamamoto, if Suzuki and us were like Scott and Amundsen and both trying to reach the South Pole, then we would have to hurry. But Suzuki’s party has been headed downstream toward the ocean, while we have been headed upstream toward the source. Since we’re going in opposite directions, there’s no need to panic. And I am confident that any map Suzuki makes will not be very accurate.” “You really don’t get frustrated.” “I don’t believe in getting frustrated easily.” “Ugh. But what if they change direction?” Uchida came over. “That would be bad!” he said. “And I want to come, too,” Hamamoto said. Uchida wasn’t sure about that. “But…this project is for Aoyama and me.” “Then The Sea is mine. Since the two of you joined later.” “Only because you asked us to, Hamamoto.” “Be fair,” Hamamoto said, sulking. “Hamamoto, exploring the river is dangerous. If you fell in, you might drown. I can’t really recommend it.” “I’ll be careful not to fall in! Even if I do, I know how to swim,” Hamamoto insisted. That Sunday, my father had to go to the university. There was a university in our town, and my father went there sometimes on Sundays. My father was a grown-up and had already graduated from college, but there were classes that people with jobs could take, too. According to my father, this university had just opened when we moved here, so all the buildings were brand-new, like a futuristic city. After lunch, I was getting ready to go exploring, and my father was in the living room preparing to go to the university. He was flipping through a really thick book with lots of tags in it, writing in his notebook with a fountain pen. “Going exploring today?” he asked. “We are.” “Watch out for cars and don’t go anywhere dangerous.” “Mm. I’ll be careful.” My father drove to the university, so I had him drop me off at the mall. I’d agreed to meet the others there so we could go exploring. It was an extremely hot day, as if midsummer had suddenly arrived. The sky above our neighborhood was blue like the pictures of Hawaii at the dentist’s office, and the trees along the bus route were a deep green. As our car ran down the empty bus route, I felt like we were driving on a seaside highway. As we rounded the curve near Kamonohashi Park, I felt like at any moment the sparkling sea would appear. But I’d never actually been on a seaside highway, so this was just how I imagined it would be. My father left me in the mall parking lot, and when I got to the food court where we’d agreed to meet, Hamamoto was sitting on a bench, looking like an impassive little robot. She had a large white hat on her knees. As though we were going on a picnic. When I said hello, she answered in a very cheerful voice. Uchida arrived shortly after me. First, we gathered at a table in the corner of the food court for a strategy meeting. I spread out the newly made map, and Hamamoto inspected it, making impressed noises. “This blue line is the river we were exploring. This is the vacant lot behind the school, so that’s where we started exploring.” “What’s the ‘ancient ruins’?” “A reservoir. It feels like an ancient ruin, so we named it that. If you keep following the river, it comes out in these rice paddies. If you go through the tunnel under the highway, it goes into a future residential area. That brings us to the area behind this mall.” “Beyond that is a mystery,” Uchida said. “We’re looking for the source.” “Is it not on real maps?” “This river is not on regular maps.” “Does that happen?” Hamamoto said. “Probably because this river is extremely small. I think the people who make those maps probably overlooked it. But that’s exactly why our mission is so important. Nobody knows where this river comes from. If we investigate and uncover the source, I’m sure the people who make maps will be pleased to find out.” “Hmm,” Hamamoto said. She looked serious. We left the mall. We went around to the back of the building, and the empty future residential area spread out before us like the desert. Hamamoto put on her white hat. When she saw the concrete ditch, she looked a little disappointed. “Oh. I was picturing a much bigger river, like the Amazon!” “There was a part of it that was like the Amazon,” Uchida said. “It might be like the Amazon again farther up. You can never be too careful.” We peered through the green fence on both sides of the river and saw quite a lot of water flowing through the concrete basin. Probably because it had rained so much. The future residential area behind the mall was extremely large, full of telephone poles and lots marked out in even squares. The sun beating down on the asphalt was very hot, but Hamamoto’s hat seemed to be keeping her comfortable. “It smells like crayfish,” Uchida said, peering into the river. Hamamoto snuck up behind him, yelled “Boo!” and pushed his back. Uchida yelped, and she cackled. Then she walked away so smoothly, it was like she was on skates. Hands clasped behind her, she said, “It’s all vacant lots!” Uchida shook his head. “I don’t get her,” he said. As we followed the river, we talked about The Sea. Hamamoto insisted we had to explore the inside of The Sea. “That sounds really dangerous,” Uchida said. “Of course, we can’t go inside. We have to put something else in.” “Send in a probe?” I said. “A probe!” Uchida said, delighted. “That sounds good. Like outer space.” We talked about that awhile longer, walking onward. I looked back, and the mall was very small. It wavered like a mirage on the far side of a real desert. A car climbing the ramp to the rooftop parking lot gleamed in the light. “Exploring rivers is not much fun,” Hamamoto said. “Sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it isn’t,” Uchida said. “Besides, you’re new at this.” We passed behind a depot with a lot of city buses parked in it. There was a two-story office and a vending machine behind the fence, too. The future residential area ended just past the bus depot, giving way to more rice paddies. The fence along the river stopped, and the concrete drain ran off between the paddies. By now, the rice had been planted, and there were even rows of green stalks in the water. Across the paddies to our right was the highway, with lots of large trucks and passenger cars zooming past. The drain ran into a culvert behind an old brown building. We took a break in the shade of the trees there. Hamamoto drank some water from a canteen, and I spread out the map and drew the river’s path on it. Uchida went to investigate the brown building and came back excited. “This is the back of the library!” he said. “If Suzuki sees us here, he’ll never shut up,” Hamamoto said, wiping the sweat off her brow. “That would be unfortunate,” I said. The laws of the Suzuki Empire held that boys and girls could not get along. Suzuki insisted that Hamamoto and I were in love and made fun of us for it. I thought this was very strange. First of all, this was hardly a matter worth wasting all that energy on. Didn’t he have anything better to do? Secondly, even if Suzuki were right, and Hamamoto and I were “in love,” that wasn’t a bad thing. Getting along was a good thing. I had no idea what the fuss was about. And third, Hamamoto and I were not in love. I already knew who I was going to marry. Even if Hamamoto was somehow in love with me, I would never be able to reciprocate. This was a shame. Our break ended, and we continued following the river. It ran alongside the highway for a while, between the rice paddies. A dark forest was drawing closer. There were high-tension towers on the other side of the forest. We stopped at the forest’s entrance. The drain kept going, into the woods. The shade here was cool, like we were underwater. “Is this the Jabberwock Woods?” Hamamoto asked. “That’s in the other direction.” We applied bug spray and went in. Different forests feel very different. The Jabberwock Woods is the most forest-y forest in town, I thought. A proper forest-y forest felt like the Amazon. The forest we were going through was not like the Amazon. It was all thickets. A place like this didn’t make me feel like we were about to find ourselves at the ends of the earth. An Amazon-like forest was one that might lead to such a place. I considered trying to explain my idea of the ends of the earth to Hamamoto, but for some reason, I was reluctant to do so. She might just say it wasn’t very scientific. Perhaps because of the river, the forest was quite humid. We had to be very careful not to slip and fall into the river. There weren’t any fences here. As we walked through the forest, Hamamoto talked about her father. Her father was a college professor, and every day, he went to the college in town, taught students, and did research. He was studying the Earth. Her father had a very interesting job. “My father’s at the university today,” she said. “There’s a special class.” “My father’s at the university, too,” I said. “He’s taking a class there.” “Oh? Well, maybe my father’s teaching your father, Aoyama.” “That would be nice.” Just then, Uchida, in the lead, stopped in his tracks. “What is it?” Hamamoto asked. Uchida just silently pointed at the river ahead of us. The trees grew thick overhead, and the river was dark. We looked where Uchida was pointing, at the surface of the river, and saw a white patch on the surface where the water was swelling up. And this swollen patch was moving toward us very quickly. Hamamoto grabbed my arm. “Aoyama, what is that?” “I don’t know.” “A fish?” Uchida asked. As we stood on the bank watching, the white thing moved forward, pushing the water aside. It passed right in front of us. It was a huge fish, so big I would need both hands to hold it. It had a pale, slippery body. It was far bigger than anything living in a city stream should be. As the fish passed us, it jumped out of the water. Hamamoto and Uchida both screamed. Through the water spray, I saw shiny silver skin, like a wet eraser. Even after the fish was gone, we stood rooted to the spot. “What was that?” Hamamoto asked. “A fish? Ewww.” “This river has fish that big?” I whispered. “It’s like the Amazon,” Uchida said. At last, we got through the woods. Beyond it, the river once again had fences on both sides. We passed through a field of overgrown grass. The heat hammered down, making it hard for us to breathe. There was an asphalt road next to the grass, and across that road was a row of buildings like a future city. We could see a lawn surrounded by a fence. “Oh, this is the university,” Hamamoto said. “Where my father works.” She stepped onto the lawn, walking across it. “What about exploring the river?” I asked. She had a tendency to forget that I was the expedition leader. This was very sad. Uchida and I left the river, too, following after her. The university on a Sunday was empty and extremely quiet. Her father’s lab was in a building called the Earth Science Laboratories. Hamamoto said she’d come to visit several times, so she led us through the buildings with ease. The passages between the tall laboratory buildings were shady, and a hot wind whistled between them. “Are we allowed to be here?” Uchida asked anxiously. Hamamoto seemed sure that it was fine. As we walked, we passed in front of a curved glass wall. Inside the glass were a lot of round tables, like the waiting area at an airport. Hamamoto called it the cafeteria. Then she stopped, peering in. I saw a man with an amazing beard sitting at a table in the corner, talking to my father. Sitting at the table talking to both of them was the lady from the dentist’s office, which I found extremely surprising. My father noticed us outside and stood up, looking surprised. The man with the beard looked our way, too. “That’s my father,” Hamamoto said. “The one with the beard?” “Yep.” “That’s an amazing beard.” “He looks scary,” Uchida said. “My father’s scary,” Hamamoto said, apparently delighted. “Very scary.” We went into the cafeteria. It was nice and cool inside. We were all sweaty, so we had to stop by the bathrooms and wash our faces. “I’m surprised,” my father said. “Were you planning on exploring the university today?” “Not at all. Our arrival here is a coincidence,” I said. I looked at the lady. “What brings you here?” “Studying,” she said, puffing out her chest. Hamamoto’s father was a professor here, and today he’d held an extension course. My father had seen a pamphlet at the neighborhood association, and the lady had been invited by the professor himself—he was a patient at the dentist’s office. After the lecture, the lady had come over to say a few words, and my father had joined them. While they talked, they’d decided to get some tea at the cafeteria. And then we’d arrived. We all gathered around the table drinking soft drinks like we were on a picnic. Hamamoto’s father was researching the atmosphere. He was a big bear of a man and didn’t talk a lot. He had large eyes that stuck out, and it always looked like he was glaring at something. He had a blue notebook, too, sitting on the cafeteria table next to him. Whenever he explained things, he always curled his big body up and drew things in his notebook. He explained the topic of the day’s lecture in terms we could understand. It was about an experiment to measure the composition of the atmosphere by floating a small balloon high up in the sky. He answered all my questions in great detail. I took out my notebook and took notes on this, and Professor Hamamoto ask if he could see my notes. His notebook was filled with complicated formulas and graphs, and I thought it was just wonderful. If I could learn to make notes like this, I’m sure it would be really fun. I showed the professor some notes I’d taken on black holes. “These are very well written. You’re interested in outer space, Aoyama?” “Extremely interested.” “That’s great. I’ve got some good books at home I can lend you.” “You like space, too?” “I do. I don’t know that I could talk to anyone who wasn’t interested in outer space.” “I’m not interested in outer space,” the lady said, laughing. “I guess I can’t talk to you anymore.” “You take extremely good care of my teeth. So even if you’re not interested in outer space, I can overlook it.” The lady seemed in much better health than the last time I’d seen her. Color had returned to her cheeks, and she didn’t look sleepy. She’d been smiling the whole time. Seeing her talk to my father and Professor Hamamoto made me realize she was a real grown-up after all. That made me feel a little sad. Strange. “Professor, Aoyama is engaged in several different research projects. He’s very busy,” the lady said. “You’re studying me, too, right?” I was surprised to hear her say that. “You’re studying her?” the professor asked. “She’s an extremely interesting individual,” I said cautiously. “I can see that. She’s certainly full of mysteries,” the professor nodded. “Aoyama and I are engaged in a joint research project,” Hamamoto said proudly. “So I’ve heard,” the professor said, looking very sad. “And you won’t tell me what it is you’re researching.” “Is that why you’re slacking off on researching me?” the lady said. “What is it you’re studying?” “It’s a secret. We will publish the results once our research has concluded.” Professor Hamamoto’s eyes locked onto me. “That’s good,” he said. “Secrecy is important. You don’t want to accidentally blab about really important research.” We decided to call off the day’s exploration there. It was getting late, and Hamamoto seemed pretty tired. My father agreed to give us and the lady a ride in his car. The lady took the passenger seat, and the three of us sat in the back. Hamamoto’s father still had research to do, so he saw us off in the parking lot. He was squinting into the sunlight, which made him look like a surprised bear that had just wandered out of the forest. Hamamoto waved at him from the car window, and he waved back, his face still wrinkled up. “Your father really likes doing research?” I asked. “He really does. That’s why he gets so many cavities. He always eats sweets when he’s researching.” “Is that why he comes by our office so often?” “All true researchers suffer from cavities,” I said. “You need to brush your teeth properly,” my father said. He was right. “I always forget. Because I’m so busy.” “You’re definitely busy. But there are busy people who don’t brush their teeth and busy people who do brush their teeth. Which do you think is smarter?” “If you put it like that, definitely the ones who do brush their teeth.” “Aoyama, you’re exactly like your father,” the lady said. “Both your passion for research and the way you talk.” “When I was a kid, I was neither as logical as him nor as interested in research.” As we passed the library and turned onto the bus route toward our neighborhood, I witnessed a mysterious phenomenon. Hamamoto was the first to notice. She poked me in the ribs and hissed, “The sky! The sky!” There was a cloud in the sky over the water-tower hill. The center of this cloud was swollen and hanging down. The lower end of this protrusion was narrow and spiral-shaped. I’d never seen a cloud like that before. Uchida leaned over and looked up and said, “That’s weird.” “Isn’t that over the Jabberwock Woods?” Hamamoto said, frowning. I can read lots of books, take notes with my hand in my pocket, and build a space station out of LEGOs. Acquiring such useful skills will make me a great grown-up. Swimming was another thing I was good at. When I first started elementary school, I was the kind of kid who avoided putting his face in water. I found the need to hold your breath in the water extremely restrictive. I thought it was very strange that we couldn’t breathe in the water even though water was the origin of all life. But we had to use the pool at school, so I had my father teach me, and I learned to swim. Now I can swim like a dolphin. In July, our school started swim lessons. We all changed into swimsuits and gathered at the pool. The sky was extremely blue, with only a few fluffy clouds. Before we could get in the pool, we had to form two rows and pass under some big showers. Uchida and I stood at the very back of the line. Uchida didn’t like the pool and looked ready to cry. Suzuki’s gang was ahead of us, and they turned back, yelling, “Uchida and Aoyama are scaaared!” “I’m not scared,” Uchida said, his voice shaking. “I’m just really nervous. That’s different from scared.” “That’s certainly the case. When I hear thunder, my stomach aches. But that’s not scared. My heart is just beating faster, and I start to sweat, and my stomach hurts.” “Exactly.” I stretched to see, and the front of the line was already under the shower. The noise of the water hammering down was getting closer. I could hear the shrieks and laughter of my classmates as the water hit them. I saw Hamamoto glance back at us, her hair all stuffed up under her swim cap. She grinned, then strode boldly forward, vanishing behind the wall on the far side of the shower. She was like a tiny foreign automobile going through the car wash. The shower spray filled my vision. I could smell chlorine. The water was extremely cold. Uchida was clutching his head, so I pulled him through the shower. I yelped, and Uchida squeaked. We did our warm-up exercises and then got in the pool. The water felt cold at first, but as we got used to it, it started feeling good. The first half was lessons, but during the second half, we could play as we liked. Uchida sat on the side of the pool, dangling his feet in the water. I called out to him as I swam past, but he just waved and said, “I’m good.” The teacher was wearing flip-flops and a shirt over her swimsuit. She came and sat next to Uchida, chatting with him. I slowly lowered my head into the water, keeping my eyes just at the water line. I imagined what it must have felt like billions of years ago when the first brave life-form stepped onto land. Maybe the first creature on land thought, It’s hard to breathe up here. I should go back to the water. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to sink to the bottom of the pool. I ducked all the way under, letting a trail of bubbles out of my mouth, and looked around the pool depths. When I was fully underwater, all the sounds faded and I was wrapped in a strange silence. Meanwhile, the bubbles I created were quite loud. I could see the bodies of my classmates all around. There were other kids underwater, their eyes squeezed tightly shut. I could see Uchida’s feet dangling in the water where he sat on the side. Looking up from the bottom of the pool, I saw that the surface was glowing, the light swaying. If I took a deep breath, I could stay down there for a very long time. The key lay in controlling the volume and speed with which you breathed out. One day, the lady and I would go to that seaside town, and I might be told to go swim in the ocean. I was glad that I’d learned to swim. I’d never swum in the ocean, so I wasn’t sure exactly how salty the water was. I was really looking forward to going there with her. Through the bubbles, I saw Hamamoto drifting by. She was balled up, floating near the surface like a buoy. With her swimsuit, she looked like a dolphin. Dolphins can talk to one another with sound waves. She had her eyes shut and seemed to be listening to the sounds of the water world. She’s doing the same thing I am, I thought. Then Hamamoto’s eyes snapped open. Her big eyes looked straight down at me. I puffed up my cheeks, sitting still. She gave a little wave, and a few bubbles escaped her lips. She might have said something, but in the water, I couldn’t tell what. I wasn’t a dolphin. Then I saw suspicious movement from Kobayashi and Nagasaki, two minions in the Suzuki Empire. They were creeping over toward the side of the pool, where Uchida’s feet were. Uchida was clearly in trouble, so I moved over behind Kobayashi and Nagasaki. I was planning on surprising them by pulling their suits. But I was too focused on them and let my guard down. Someone grabbed my suit from behind. They yanked on it so hard, I was shocked into swallowing some water. I hastily grabbed the side of the pool. I got my head above water and took a breath, but the person pulling my suit didn’t let go. The string had come undone, and it was coming off. This was an extremely unfortunate position. The two minions noticed and came over, grabbing onto my suit as well. My suit was all the way down to my feet now. My nether regions felt suddenly very cold. I turned around and found Suzuki spinning my suit around above his head, retreating toward the far side of the pool. The teacher blew her whistle. “Everyone out!” Everyone climbed out, dripping wet, bodies gleaming like dolphins on the side of the pool. I alone remained in the water. Suzuki and his minions climbed out, too, laughing and watching me. “Aoyama, what’s up?” the teacher asked. I rested my arms on the side of the pool, wondering why Suzuki had stolen my suit. Had they wanted mine for some reason? But they had their own, and given that mine was entirely ordinary, there was nothing to be gained by taking it. He didn’t want my suit; he wanted to put me in this predicament. I didn’t think it was nice to steal someone’s swimsuit for one’s own enjoyment. The more trouble I was in, the more he enjoyed it. Therefore, the less bothered I acted, the less he would enjoy it. If I didn’t act at all upset, he wouldn’t find it much fun and wouldn’t try something like this again. Based on this logic, I chose to pretend there was no problem. I climbed right out of the pool, and the teacher yelped, “Aoyama, where’s your suit?” The girls all squealed and the guys gaped. “Aoyama, wait! Stop right there!” the teacher said, trying to give me her shirt. I stood up proudly like I’d just stepped out of the bath, walking along the edge of the pool. Suzuki and his group tried to hide behind the other kids, but everyone opened the way for me. Hamamoto was standing there, saying, “Oh my!” She saw Suzuki trying to hide and grabbed his arm, pushing him toward me. I stopped in front of him. “Where’s my suit?” “Dunno!” he said. “Where’s my suit?” “Dunno!” “Where’s my suit?” Suzuki shoved me away, yelling “I said, I dunno!” and then ran away. I chased after him. Eventually, he yelled, “Bottom of the pool!” The teacher wrapped her shirt around me. Everyone else searched the pool and eventually found my suit. That evening was quiet and lonely. At night, our neighborhood got as quiet as the bottom of the sea, but only some nights felt lonely. I attempted to research what divided lonely nights from not lonely nights, but I never discovered an underlying principle. I was lining up LEGOs on the living room table and putting them together. My sister was asleep on the couch. My mother was drinking tea. “What are you making?” she asked. “A probe,” I answered. Hamamoto’s father’s story about measuring the atmosphere had given me a hint, and I was in the planning stages for an experiment to send a probe into The Sea’s interior. This required constructing a sturdy device. While I worked, I told her about what had happened in the pool. My mother listened in silence. She never looked flustered the way the teacher had, or worried. She just watched me, her eyes slightly bleary, like they always were. I thought my mother might scold me. When I was younger and had not yet made up my mind to be a great adult, she had often scolded me, like other ordinary children. “Suzuki is definitely a mean one,” she said. “I wonder why.” “So do I. I’m at a loss.” “You’ve been researching it?” “Quite a lot. But Suzuki is the emperor of the Suzuki Empire, so it is difficult to get along with him.” “Because he’s an emperor.” “Exactly.” “But…would you want to be friends with him if you could?” “I think that would be best, if it was possible. If Suzuki said we should be friends, I am prepared to do just that.” “Then that’s fine. Makes sense to me.” My mother ate some chocolate. My father had brought it back as a souvenir the other day. It had some peppermint pasted between two thin layers of chocolate. My parents wouldn’t let my sister have any, saying that this chocolate was for grown-ups. But she would let me eat a little when my sister was asleep. I was extremely pleased by this. As she ate the chocolate, she giggled like a little girl. “I’ll bet everyone was surprised when you hopped out of the pool naked.” “The teacher certainly was. She wrapped her shirt around me. Some of the other kids were surprised, but others just laughed.” “Be careful not to surprise people too much.” “There was no other way. If I’d stayed in the water, I would have gotten cold, and Suzuki would have enjoyed seeing me in trouble.” “That’s right. But was there really no other way?” “Can you think of one?” My mother considered. “I can’t think of anything,” she said. “You’re better at this than I am.” If she said so, maybe I could have thought of a better approach to the problem. Talking with my mother always made me feel that way. My sister started snoring. It was almost nine. My mother took a sip of tea, glancing up at the clock. “Your father will be late tonight. Maybe after midnight.” “I’m sleepy. I don’t think I can wait up for him.” “You don’t have to.” “He leaves early and comes back late.” “It’s really best if everyone gets a good night’s sleep.” “I wish I didn’t have to sleep.” I knew my father got on the city bus every morning at the Block 5 stop. The bus took about fifteen minutes to get to the station. Then he took the train across the prefectural line to work. My father always left very early and was liable to come back at all hours. Sometimes, like tonight, he’d be so late I couldn’t stay up. In the winter, he left while it was still dark out and got back after it was dark again. He always had to wait at the dark bus stop with his briefcase. When we knew my father would be back very late, I couldn’t wait up for him. I was someone who always fell asleep as soon as I got in bed, but in that moment before I fell asleep, I always wondered where my father was. Maybe he was on the bus, watching the lights of the neighborhood pass by. Maybe he was right outside our house. Maybe he had just gotten off at the bus stop and was walking toward our house. Thinking that always came as a great relief to me. And then I’d fall asleep. “Dad says when he’s waiting for a bus, walking through town, or riding the train, he does a lot of thinking. Says he gets a lot of good ideas that way.” “He does?” “And he gets a lot of good ideas at Seaside Café.” “Did you know that place isn’t actually called Seaside Café? I had no idea.” “That’s right. The lady gave it that name.” As I explained the origins of the name to my mother, the sleepiness got overwhelming. Then the phone rang. My mother answered. “It’s the lady,” she said, handing it to me. “Hello, kiddo,” she said. She seemed to be doing well. “Hello.” “You sound sleepy. Oh, right, it’s your bedtime.” “I am extremely sleepy today. My brain is tired.” “The other day, you said I should make things other than penguins, right? Your hypothesis. That maybe doing that would make me feel better.” “The Aoyama Hypothesis.” “Well, the Aoyama Hypothesis might just be right. I feel much better.” “What did you make?” She giggled. “…A blue whale.” I probably should have been much more surprised, but I was just too sleepy at the time. I was about ready to drop the phone. So I just stood there, phone in hand, saying nothing. “Wow, you are sleepy,” she said. “I am sleepy,” I said. “Brush your teeth, kiddo,” she said. “Bonne nuit.” There was a blue whale in my dreams that night. I insisted it was a bad idea, but the lady made a blue whale in my house. “It’ll be a baby, so it’s okay,” she said. But it was not okay. The baby blue whale filled the living room and couldn’t move. It looked extremely sad. I was worried it had crushed the lady. I searched for her as best I could, but she was nowhere to be found. And while I was in a panic, the baby blue whale made an amazing poop. I couldn’t believe it. What a scary dream. After school the next day, we went through the Jabberwock Woods to the clearing. A warm, wet wind was blowing across the grass, and cumulonimbus clouds were piling up in the sky. I spent a while walking around the grass alone. I had something extremely important to think about, so I must have looked like a Greek philosopher. Moving away from Uchida and Hamamoto, I felt like I really was standing at the ends of the earth. I looked back, and Hamamoto was kneeling down on the grass. She was tying a kite string to the probe I’d made of LEGOs. Uchida was under the parasol writing in a notebook. Like Hamamoto and me, he’d started taking notes. He wrote in a different way than I did. He spent most of his time thinking hard with the notebook lying next to him. Eventually, an idea would come to him, and he’d write a few words down. And he never let us see what he wrote. So I didn’t know what kind of notes he was taking. The Sea floating over the grass had swollen up quite a lot, and the current diameter set a new record, the largest recorded since we established the observation station. And it was still expanding. A number of different phenomena had appeared on the surface of it. We’d given the different phenomena names: Triangle, or Hula-Hoop, or Mobius. But giving them names and taking notes on them did not clear up the mysteries of why these phenomena occurred or what they were for. Walking around The Sea, I was thinking of nothing but the blue whale. What the lady had told me on the phone the night before. Even if the lady had made a blue whale, was there anywhere in town capable of hiding it? The penguins could hide in the woods. But you couldn’t have a blue whale just wandering around in the forest. They were huge. The more I thought, the less it made sense. “Aoyama!” I heard Hamamoto yell. “We’re ready!” I stopped mulling things over and joined her. Uchida came running over, too. Hamamoto had the probe dangling from the kite string and was swinging it back and forth. The probe was about the size of a softball. There was a thermometer inside, and the tip of a penlight jutted out of it, set up to flash at us. We’d also attached a small red flag so we could get an idea what forces were at work within The Sea. I’d tried to make it like the space shuttle, but as I was improving the sturdiness of it, it had grown short and stout, exactly like a penguin. “Not the best-looking thing I’ve made.” “That’s not true. It’s a probe!” Uchida said. “It’s amazing. Like a real experiment.” Hamamoto seemed pleased with it, too. “This is a real experiment.” “Aoyama, I think we should give the probe a name,” Uchida suggested. “Right… It looks like a penguin, so let’s call it the Penguin I.” “Cute!” The probe was officially christened the Penguin I. But once it came time to launch the probe, we all fell silent. The Sea was just hovering there without a sound, all swollen up. There were several white ringlike things floating on the surface of it, spinning and moving around it. We’d named this phenomenon Hula-Hoop. “I’m not scared,” Uchida said. “But what if putting a probe in it makes The Sea mad? I’m not scared, but…” “Will it get mad?” Hamamoto seemed worried, too. “We’ve still not determined if The Sea is a living thing or not,” I said. “But if The Sea is alive, then having a probe suddenly inserted in its body will definitely make it angry.” “Let’s stay as far away as we can!” Hamamoto said. We walked across the grass away from The Sea. Hamamoto unrolled a lot of the kite string. I took the Penguin I in hand, measuring our distance from The Sea. We were about fifteen meters away. Uchida held the end of the kite string, and Hamamoto peered through the binoculars. “Ready, Aoyama,” she said. I swung my arm back and threw the Penguin I. The Penguin I flew through the air, landing on the northern surface of The Sea. It easily slipped inside, as if inhaled. From the point of impact, ripples ran across the surface of The Sea, making it wobble like Jell-O. We could see the penlight moving inside. “Contact successful,” I said. “I knew it wasn’t water,” Hamamoto said. “More like gelatin. All wobbly.” Suddenly, the kite string snapped taunt. Uchida yelped and started trying to unwind it, but he couldn’t keep up. Trying to keep hold of the end of the string just led to him being dragged toward The Sea. “Aoyama! Help! I’m in trouble!” I grabbed onto Uchida. Hamamoto let go of the binoculars and grabbed Uchida, too. We put our combined weight into it, but it was like playing tug-of-war against our entire class. All three of us were dragged across the grass on our behinds. “Eep!” Uchida screeched. He let go of the kite string. A second later, the kite string was swallowed up inside The Sea. The flash of the penlight inside disappeared. Hamamoto stood up and peered through the binoculars. “Penguin I’s disappearance observed,” I said. “Did The Sea get angry?” Uchida said, flinching. Hamamoto lowered the binoculars and whispered, “Prominence!” As we observed it, the phenomenon occurred. The surface of The Sea moved violently. White-and-navy patterns flowed past. On what would be the southern hemisphere if this was the Earth, what looked like bluish-white walls rose up. If you were in space and a really huge tsunami happened on Earth, it might look like this. The walls moved slowly to the north, and as they did, they joined forces, forming large lines. If they really were the waves of a tsunami that could be seen from space, then they were really big ones. Big enough to swallow up Japan and China and Russia. Cautiously, we moved closer to The Sea. Other than the strange phenomenon on its surface, everything else about it was the same as ever. The Sea reflected the sunlight, shining on our faces like we were standing near water. “It’s moving slowly.” “This is a Prominence?” Uchida said. Hamamoto shook her head. “Not yet. This is the preliminary phenomenon.” As the tsunami-like constructs on The Sea’s surface reached the northern hemisphere, they all joined up, forming a single straight line. That line slowly started to bend, as if trying to wrap around something. Finally, the two ends of the tsunami joined up, forming a large ring. The tsunami rose to greater heights, the circle jutting out like a smokestack. The outside of the circle was generating a lot of airy white stuff, like when you’re whisking whipping cream. Inside the circle, it was totally different, a dark navy blue like a gouge running all the way to the deep sea. The changes happened slowly but precisely, as if the movements were calculated; it was impossible to get bored watching it. Hamamoto suddenly grabbed our hands. “Come on, we need to move back!” “Why?” “The Prominence is starting!” We did as she said and ran away. When we reached the observation station, we turned back and saw the circle on The Sea’s surface reaching toward the sky like a bluish see-through tube. Shortly after, the entire surface of The Sea seemed to pulse. The echo of it ran across the entire clearing. The tip of the tube swelled up like a trumpet and fired a small sphere. This new sphere traced an arc through the sky above the clearing, flying off into the forest. This was the phenomenon Hamamoto had named Prominence. The Sea bore children this way. Hamamoto had seen one of these tiny Seas drifting through the Jabberwock Woods. A lukewarm wind blew, making the Jabberwock Woods rustle. The air smelled like rain, and my hair was curled up tight. The sky was heavy with storm clouds, the bottoms of which looked like they’d been dipped in ink. Like if you ate them, you’d get sick. A flash of lightning ran across the clouds, and for a brief moment, their insides lit up. I saw what looked like blue fireworks burst across the sky. A few moments later, there was a low rumble. My stomach started to hurt, and I had trouble staying calm. “Thunder!” “That cloud just lit up!” Uchida said, pointing at the storm cloud. It was like a giant peering down at us. “Aoyama, are you scared of thunder?” Hamamoto asked. “I’m not scared of it. If I hear thunder at home, I’m comparatively calm. But we’re in a grass field with nothing around us, so the chances of lightning striking here are quite high.” There was another rumble. I flinched. “Is that cloud coming this way?” “If you hear thunder, you shouldn’t go near tall trees, big trees, train tracks, cars, or iron towers. You also shouldn’t be out in the open like this. And you shouldn’t have anything metal on you.” I folded up the umbrella and ran off toward the Jabberwock Woods. Once I was in the woods, I felt safer, but Uchida said, “Where’s Hamamoto?” I looked back at the clearing from inside the woods, and she was still standing in the clearing. She was an extremely logical person yet did not seem aware of the dangers of lightning. “Hamamoto, it’s dangerous!” I yelled. “Come on! Hurry!” A strong wind raced across the clearing like a wave in the grass. Hamamoto put a hand on her hair, staring at something across the field. The clouds were like soft-serve ice cream with ink swirled in, and they were getting closer. “There are penguins here!” she shouted. Somehow, there was a group of penguins over by The Sea. Their beaks all pointed at the gray sky, swaying rhythmically. Maybe the electricity in the atmosphere was charging the Penguin Energy. They surrounded The Sea, at a set distance from it. Like space pilots around the mothership. I wondered why it had never before occurred to me that the penguins and The Sea might be connected. “You’ll be struck by lightning!” Hamamoto yelled, addressing the penguins. “Hamamoto, you really should get in the forest!” I yelled. Then I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. On the stream that meandered out of the Jabberwock forest and across the clearing. A silver thing was moving along the surface of the water, kicking up foam. Hamamoto had seen it, too. When the silver thing in the river got near The Sea, it jumped high above the surface of the water. It was extremely small, only about the size of a dog, but I could tell it was a blue whale. And when the whale made a big splash, the penguins waddling around The Sea scattered in all directions, squeaking. Once it had chased the penguins away, the blue whale dived to the bottom of the stream. “Hamamoto! Lightning!” I yelled, clinging to a tree. At last, she turned and ran into the woods. She was out of breath and nearly ran right into me. A moment later, there was a huge crash of thunder, and I ducked my head. Hamamoto laughed, not seeming to mind. “You saw that, Aoyama?” she said. “There was a weird fish in the river!” “I saw it. An extremely big fish.” “That was weird!” she said, looking back out at the clearing. I added the following phrases to my notes: The penguins are afraid of the blue whalelike creature the lady made. There seems to be a significant connection between the penguins and The Sea.