Chapter 2

EPISODE 3 The Forest Depths I often write down plans in my notebook to methodically work through later. Plans for exploring with Uchida. Plans for books to read at the library. Plans to construct a space station out of LEGOs. Plans for practicing chess. Plans to go to the seaside town with the lady. The notebook’s grid allowed me to make nice-looking time schedules. Dividing big plans into several little plans. Dividing the big blocks of time into smaller ones. Time worked like LEGOs. It all neatly fit together into one big plan to turn myself into an important grown-up. I didn’t hate school, but it offered no way to determine my own schedule. If I could plan out the time allotment for school at will, that would be extremely fun. As summer vacation approached, I made a number of plans in my notebook. I divided up the time, making a number of different bricks, and fitting them together. All so I could accomplish as many fun things as possible. On the last day of school, we all went to the gym, listened to a speech from the principal, and then helped clean everything. I helped wipe the windows so clean, you couldn’t even tell they had glass in them. While I was furiously cleaning, Hamamoto came by carrying a broom. “Aoyama, are you going to the summer festival tomorrow?” she asked. “I believe the chances of me going are quite high,” I replied. Suzuki came over spinning a rag around his finger. “L-O-V-E!” he said. The emperor of the Suzuki Empire was always watching. Without thinking, I started to argue, but before I could, Hamamoto spun around. “Yes, we’re in love. You got a problem with that?” she yelled. The entire class got very quiet. Nobody had ever responded like this before, and Suzuki’s eyes got really wide. He stood there for a minute but couldn’t think of anything to say, so he finally left the room, muttering, “They’re in love…” Hamamoto turned back to me. “That wasn’t true,” she said. “He was just getting obnoxious.” I was impressed. On the way home, Uchida asked, “Are you really in love?” “No.” “Then why did Hamamoto say you were?” “If we insist we’re not in love, Suzuki will just keep making fun of us. So she said we were in love, and now Suzuki can’t say anything else. It was all part of her cunning plan.” “Oh. I thought the two of you were actually in love. I was so surprised!” “We are not in love.” Uchida thought about this for a while. “But thinking about it, if you tell a lie like that, won’t Suzuki just be even angrier later?” “Why?” “Because Suzuki’s in love with Hamamoto.” I stopped in my tracks, surprised. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s done nothing but be mean to her this whole time. If he was actually in love with her, it isn’t logical to do things she wouldn’t like.” “I don’t get it, either. But he’s definitely in love with her.” “How are you so sure?” “I’ve been observing him. But I think everyone else knows. They’re just too scared of Suzuki to say anything.” I was impressed by Uchida’s observation skills. Weirdly enough, this knowledge gave me a happy sort of ticklish feeling. I even felt like maybe I could be friends with Suzuki soon. “Oh. So Suzuki’s in love with Hamamoto. I had no idea. If he felt that way, he should have just told me.” “Suzuki would never do that.” “Why not?” “Because he’s embarrassed.” “Why would Suzuki be embarrassed about being in love with Hamamoto? Falling in love with people is totally normal. My mother and father got married because they fell in love. If my father didn’t fall in love with my mother, I’d never have been born.” “That’s true,” Uchida said, laughing. “But you just don’t get it.” “What don’t I get?” As we passed the dentist’s office, a warm wind was blowing across the vacant lot next door. The cumulonimbus in the sky looked like the soft-serve ice cream you eat at the pool. The cicadas on the row of trees were quite loud. The end of the asphalt road we were following was wavering like it was covered in hot water. Only when Uchida and I split up did it really sink in that summer vacation was starting tomorrow. “Uchida! Tomorrow is summer vacation. What do you make of this delightful fact?” “It makes me very happy.” “Me too! There’s so much we can do! I have all sorts of plans.” “Yeah.” “Are you going to the summer festival?” “I am.” “So am I. And so is Hamamoto. Going to the summer festival really makes it feel like summer vacation has started. I think that’s what it means when people say you can feel it in your bones.” The summer festivals in our town were held by the different neighborhood associations. They’d hang red paper lanterns around the park clearing, and people from the neighborhoods would pitch tents and open stalls. When we first moved in, the summer festival was really small, not very summerlike at all. But as the vacant lots filled in, more people joined the festival, and it became quite bustling. That Saturday morning, the festival hadn’t started yet, but my sister wanted to put her yukata on already and wouldn’t stop bugging my mother about it. “Wait just a little longer,” she kept saying. My sister got really sulky and blew raspberries at her. “You’re so selfish,” I said. “Mind your own business.” She’d learned this phrase somewhere recently and was using it at the slightest opportunity. I was getting extremely sick of it. After lunch, we started hearing noise from the park, so my father and I went to take a look. They were putting up a stage for the traditional Bon Festival dance in the soccer field and hanging paper lanterns from the electric lines. My father was talking to Yoshida, the head of the neighborhood association, and Yamaguchi from Seaside Café. Yamaguchi had closed up shop and had been helping with the festival preparations all day. My father started helping put tents up, so I went back home and started organizing my research. Then I took a nap so I wouldn’t get sleepy too early that evening. When the sun started going down, I went to the festival with my mother and sister. Walking through the neighborhood, we could hear children’s voices everywhere. Lots of people were strolling in the same direction we were. The summer festival was the only time you ever heard people’s voices late into the night. My sister had finally been allowed to put her yukata on and was quite pleased with it. Trotting along in her outfit, she looked like a silly little goldfish. She met some kids from her class on the way, and they were laughing together. The park at night was like another world entirely. It was shaped like a hexagon and all lit up; lights glowed from stalls like the one where my father and a few neighbors were cooking yakisoba, and lanterns were hanging all over the dance stage. Like a pool of light at the bottom of the night. I went around the different stalls with my mother. We watched my father make yakisoba for a while. We tried to catch some goldfish. Some neighbors taught my sister how to do the festival dance, so she was dancing a lot. Some girls from my class passed by. They were all in yukata. Hamamoto was with them. She said, “Look! Yukata!” and spun around. “How’s it look?” “Not silly,” I said. My honest opinion, but Hamamoto seemed miffed. “It looks great,” my mother said, and Hamamoto smiled happily. Then she went to dance with the other children. “Was that Hamamoto?” my mother asked. “Yes. She knows about the theory of relativity.” “She’s so cute! Like a little doll.” You meet all kinds of people at festivals. While I was watching the Bon Festival dance with my mother, the lady came pushing through the crowd. She was with the dentist and the receptionist. My mother said “Good evening,” and they bowed their heads and said “Good evening,” too. She’d been helping out at the raffle stall earlier but said they were taking turns enjoying the festival. “You like festivals, too, Aoyama?” she asked, giggling. “Are you researching them?” “I’m taking a break from that tonight.” “I see. Taking breaks sometimes is important. You aren’t getting sleepy?” “Not today,” I said. For a while, we stood and watched my sister dance. “You aren’t dancing, kiddo?” the lady asked. “I don’t dance.” “Why not?” “If I dance, it looks like a robot dancing. I think I approach it too logically.” “Well, you are a child of science,” the dentist said very seriously. Everyone else laughed. “See you around,” the lady said. They moved on. At last, I found Uchida. He was walking around with his mother and father. I ran over and said, “Good evening.” Uchida’s father was very thin, and his mother not so thin. Uchida and I decided to look around the festival together. We ate some shaved ice in a corner of the park, under the light of the red paper lanterns. The shaved ice was as cold as Antarctica, and my brain froze. Uchida kept looking warily around. “Is Suzuki here?” “I’m sure he is.” “I really don’t want to run into him.” “I also don’t want to run into him and get into a fight. But he has no right to curtail our freedom. We are free to come to this festival and to go out exploring.” Hamamoto, my sister, and the other girls were still dancing. They all loved dancing. Hamamoto waved at us while she danced. I waved back. “Aaaoooyaaamaaa!” a voice said behind me. As it did, someone grabbed my pants and pulled them up. My lower half was squeezed uncomfortably, forcing me onto my toes like a ballerina. Suzuki’s minions, Kobayashi and Nagasaki, were on either side of me with a firm grip on my pants. Suzuki came up in front of me. His face illuminated by the lantern, he was holding a bunch of cotton candy, sticky from drool, like a weapon. It glittered in the lights. “Don’t you move, Uchida,” Suzuki said, pointing the cotton candy at him. Even without the threat, Uchida was too surprised to move a muscle. I was stuck on my tiptoes and couldn’t move, either. Suzuki took a bite of the cotton candy, grumbling insults. I took a bite of shaved ice. “Stop eating that!” he yelled. “Why? I have the right to eat as much shaved ice as I like.” “You piss me off! Always talking crap!” “I know why you’re so angry, Suzuki.” “What?” “If you’re in love with Hamamoto, you should really just tell her. I had no idea! And I feel I should apologize. Hamamoto and I are not in love. So if you’re in love with Hamamoto, I really think it would be best if you tell her how you feel soon. And stop being mean to her instead.” “Th-th-th-th-th…,” Suzuki stuttered. “That’s not true! Don’t make things up!” “I don’t think you should be embarrassed about being in love.” “I’m not!” Suzuki had turned bright red. I have no idea why he was so angry. He spit in my shaved ice. It was a shame to ruin that much shaved ice. Since I couldn’t eat the shaved ice anymore, I grabbed Kobayashi’s T-shirt and dumped it down the inside. Kobayashi shrieked. I had successfully freed myself from Kobayashi, but Nagasaki had both hands on my pants like a sumo wrestler wrangling their opponent’s loincloth. Nagasaki was very strong, so I couldn’t free myself. While I was trying, Suzuki stuck his sticky cotton candy in my hair. “Stop that, Suzuki—my hair will be a fright!” “You little,” he said, grinding the cotton candy against me. “Suzuki, stop!” Uchida yelled. While we tussled, the lady’s voice came. “Yo there, rug rats. What’s all this?” Suzuki and his gang went super-quiet. The lady from the dentist’s office was their greatest weakness. “Kiddo, you appear to have something sticking out of your hair,” the lady said, looking it over. “It’s cotton candy.” “You’re supposed to eat cotton candy. You shouldn’t play with your food.” “Suzuki ground it into my hair.” “Ah! Don’t tattle!” Suzuki said. “I will if I want!” I said. The lady’s eyes narrowed, and she gave Suzuki a terrifying look. “If you keep doing stuff like this, I might just pull all your teeth out. With no anesthetic.” “That would be extremely painful. There would be a lot of blood,” I said. Suzuki turned white as a sheet. The lady put her hand on her hip. “Now, then,” she said. “Suzuki, you’re a good boy, so you’re gonna apologize to Aoyama, right?” Suzuki looked at the lady, then at me, and back at the lady. His mouth twisted sideways. Like he wasn’t giving in. “Why should I?” he said. “I don’t have anything to apologize for.” “Oh, look at the big strong boy. Even though you cried like a baby at the dentist’s office.” The lady laughed. “I didn’t cry!” Suzuki yelled. “You’re a liar!” “Why do you hate me so much?” I asked. “I hate you because I hate you!” “He can be a bit cocky sometimes,” the lady said, taking Suzuki’s side. He looked quite pleased by this. “Yeah! He’s cocky! Always saying weird stuff I don’t understand. And lying!” “Oh, Suzuki, you’ve got a bug on your back,” the lady said, stepping around behind him. Then she put him in a half nelson. “What? Where?” Suzuki screamed. “Grown-ups aren’t supposed to lie!” “Grown-ups lie all the time,” the lady said. “Come on, kiddo! Eye for an eye! Sticky hair for sticky hair!” I rubbed my head on Suzuki’s face. “Stop!” he yelled, struggling. But the lady held him still. Suzuki was a little pudgy, so his cheek was all wobbly. My hair was all sticky from the cotton candy and Suzuki’s drool, so naturally, Suzuki’s cheek was now all sticky because of the same two things. It glittered in the light. Finally, the lady let him go. “Now that Suzuki’s all sticky, too, that’s enough for today.” “It’s not fair!” Suzuki said, rubbing his cheek. “You always take Aoyama’s side. Even though you’re a grown-up!” “Who said grown-ups don’t take sides?” “Ugh, you’re so mean!” The lady snorted, puffing up her chest. Her breasts shook. “If you’re so mad, then you’d better try to get me back. But you can’t, because you’re just a kid!” After Suzuki’s group ran away, Uchida and I went with the lady to the water fountain in the corner of the park. I tried washing my hair in it, but a little water wasn’t going to be enough to get my hair back to normal. Suzuki’s drool and the cotton candy had hardened my hair. It was like a shape-memory alloy. “Maybe that was a little rough,” the lady said. “I thought it was a bit childish of you.” “Look who’s talking!” “But you really saved us,” Uchida said. “Thank you. I…I couldn’t do anything.” “I’d really prefer not to interfere in children’s fights, but… Oh well,” the lady said. Then she pointed at my hair. “Kiddo, your hair is a mess.” “I don’t mind.” “Do you know why Suzuki’s always coming after you?” “Because I’m much smarter than him?” The lady smiled at Uchida. “Do you know, Uchida?” He nodded. “I do. At least I think so.” “Earlier, Suzuki was getting in the way of Hamamoto’s festival dance. She was really mad.” “Suzuki is often mean to Hamamoto.” “Does Suzuki like Hamamoto?” “How did you know that?” I asked, surprised. “I didn’t know till Uchida told me.” “He’s mean because he’s interested in her. And you’re always talking to her, so that pisses him off.” “Hmm.” “You still have a lot to learn.” “I am forced to admit it.” “Forced, are you?” The lady laughed under the lantern lights. After that, we went around the festival again. The music playing on the speakers set up on the stage, the noise of the raffle drums, the laugher of children and grown-ups, all rose up and vanished into the night sky. The world seemed so different from how the park usually was at night that it struck me as very strange. The lady really seemed to like the summer festival. She was a grown-up, but she got really into the goldfish catching and then ate a bunch of cotton candy. When we got to the yakisoba booth, my father had left the griddle. He was enjoying a beer with Yamaguchi from Seaside Café. When he saw us, he stood up and bowed his head to the lady. “You sell out of yakisoba?” she asked. “Sorry! It was unexpectedly popular.” “I’m too late, then!” My father looked at my head, puzzled. “What happened to you? Your hair’s all…fancy.” “Mm. There was an accident that led to the application of cotton candy and Suzuki’s drool.” “What a tragedy.” “I got over it.” Uchida found his parents, and they went home. My father was helping to clean up the stall, so I went home with my mother and sister. As we left the park, Hamamoto came running over. “Aoyama, you’re leaving already?” “Yep.” “Your hair looks weird.” “Yes. There was an accident.” “Don’t forget about our research on The Sea.” “Of course not.” We left the park. The lady was going the other direction, so we split up there. The lady bowed her head and walked off alone. Toward the white apartment building by the water-tower hill. I walked with my mother and sister for a while, then turned around. I couldn’t see the lady anymore. Just the lights of the festival, all lit up like a merry-go-round at an amusement park. I have already told you about how I make plans in my notebook and carry them out later. With the start of summer vacation, I became very busy. Normally, I am the busiest child in the entire city, but when summer starts, I make a plan for the entire day and become even busier. I may very well be the busiest child in the entire world. I started waking up earlier in the morning. Sometimes I even got up at five. When I wake up that early, even my father isn’t up yet. I can listen closely, and there won’t be a sound in the entire house. My room and the hall are blue like the shoals of a sea from the Cambrian period. When I open the window and look out at the early morning neighborhood, chilly air comes rushing in, clearing my mind. I get a lot of research done in the morning. In exchange for waking up so early, I take midday naps. When we were out observing The Sea, I’d sleep under the parasol. When I was at home, I’d lie down on the floor in the living room with my mother and sister, put a towel over my belly, and sleep there. If I didn’t take a nap, by evening I’d get so sleepy and useless that I couldn’t move any more than my sister’s teddy bear could. On really hot days, we would play with LEGOs or games at my house or Uchida’s and discuss outer space. Sometimes we went to the library. Uchida and I both went to Hamamoto’s house, and Hamamoto’s father let us read some of his books on space. Hamamoto lived in the same apartment building as Uchida, so it was easy to get there. They had a small planetarium you could look at in the house, and Hamamoto’s mother gave us some really lovely sweets. I think summer vacation is an extremely good invention. While we were researching The Sea, we played chess under the parasol or with a ball Uchida brought. We also laid cards out on the grass and played massive games of Concentration. Hamamoto flipped a bunch of different cards over and then wailed “I can’t concentrate!” and flopped over on the ground beneath the parasol. Sometimes we spent the entire day in that clearing, but we never once saw anyone else come through the Jabberwock Woods. This was a secret clearing hidden deep in the woods. Sitting in that clearing felt like we were in outer space, so I talked about outer space a lot. Uchida and I were fascinated by wormholes. Wormholes were passages that connected our universe to another. Some people thought that black holes were actually wormholes. Uchida was extremely interested in the idea that black holes weren’t dead ends but actually led to another universe. “Even if you get sucked into a black hole, maybe you can get sucked through it and end up in another universe,” Uchida insisted. “If the gravitational force along the way doesn’t crush you.” “So what’s it like on the other side?” Hamamoto asked. “It’s the opposite of a black hole, so it would be a white hole.” Hamamoto often played with LEGOs while she talked. She’d brought some blue bricks in her bag, and she made a sturdy wall with them. She didn’t make space stations like I did. She just made walls, and she only used blue LEGOs. But she seemed to have so much fun doing this that watching her made me think it might really be fun. “Do you only make walls, Hamamoto?” I asked. “I dunno, I just like them.” When she ran out of LEGOs, she broke the wall she’d made up and started again. “I wish I had a lot more bricks. I think it would be fun to make a really big wall.” “Maybe it would be fun,” I said. “You’re weird, Hamamoto,” Uchida said. “Am I?” she asked. Uchida wasn’t sure how to respond. “…Maybe not weird enough to call weird,” he said, at last. Hamamoto hugged the LEGOs to her chest, chuckling. I imagined a whole lot of long blue walls all lined up across the grass. And Hamamoto standing on a ladder, piling up one blue block after another. The blue plastic wall shining in the sunlight. The Sea floating silently behind all these blue walls. I thought that would be extremely beautiful. It was a beautiful clear morning, with a warm breeze blowing. Cumulonimbus were piling up on the other side of the mountains. I spent the morning out of the heat in my room, researching the Suzuki Empire. After organizing all my previous notes, I wrote a list of all the kids in class, drawing circles around each group. I ended up with a bunch of different circles, like drops of water on tiles. The smallest circle of all was Uchida and me. I could also add Hamamoto to that circle. Drawing it all out like this showed me that the Suzuki Empire was definitely not very big. Kobayashi and Nagasaki were the only ones always with Suzuki. The Empire’s actual numbers were no different from our group, if we included Hamamoto. The only reason Suzuki could act like the king of the class is because the other little groups would do what he said. It was a strange hierarchy. Extremely interesting. After eating lunch, I got my rucksack ready. I was on my way to research The Sea. As I was putting my shoes on at the door, my sister asked, “Where are you going?” “To do an experiment,” I said. “I wanna come, too! Can I come?” “No.” “Why not? Why not?!” “Well, it’s an extremely difficult experiment. You wouldn’t understand.” “I would so! I understand things!” “What’s three plus five plus eight?” “Um, uh…” While my sister thought about that, I put on my hat and ran out of the house. I could hear her wailing behind me and felt a little sorry for her, but our experiments were a secret, and I had no choice. I met Hamamoto and Uchida on the water-tower hill, and we cut through the Jabberwock Woods. The breeze was hot, and the trees were swaying, making the light dance. Our plan was to send another probe into The Sea. On the grass under the parasol, I began construction on Penguin II. Hamamoto was wearing a big white hat, and she walked off alone across the grass toward the stream. Uchida sat on the chair under the parasol, glaring at his notes like a philosopher. The warm breeze was making the corners of the pages flutter. “What are you writing in your notes, Uchida?” “Hmm…,” Uchida said, clutching his head. “I’m not good at explaining things.” “Really? I think you’re good at it.” “But these are my own thoughts.” “It’s harder to explain things you think up yourself?” “If I struggle to explain something and then you just say ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ then I’d be sad. Maybe it’s all boring.” “I’d never say it was boring.” “I know you wouldn’t say that, but… It’s just embarrassing.” “Embarrassing things are tough to handle.” “Very.” “Is this like how Suzuki is in love with Hamamoto but won’t admit it?” “I dunno. Maybe.” “Then I won’t ask again. Professor Hamamoto himself said that really important research shouldn’t be shared with just anyone. That we should keep it secret.” Uchida focused on his notes, and I focused on building Penguin II. When I finally finished the probe and looked up, I saw Hamamoto moving closer to The Sea on her own. “Hamamoto, careful!” I said. She raised a hand and waggled her fingers. I looked through the binoculars, and there was a construction floating on the surface of The Sea like a big blue vein, moving like blood was circulating through it. I’d never seen a construction like that before. Hamamoto clasped her hands behind her, walking cautiously all around The Sea. Then her head tilted sideways. Suddenly, she started waving frantically. “Get over here! Quick!” she yelled. “What is it?” I jumped up and ran across the grass. When I drew up next to her, she said nothing, just pointed at the thing moving around The Sea’s circumference. Hidden on the curved surface of The Sea, I could see a boy and girl standing with their backs to us. The girl was wearing a big hat just like Hamamoto’s. The boy was wearing shorts just like mine. “Who are they? Where’d they come from?” I whispered. “I dunno,” Hamamoto said. “I couldn’t see them from the parasol.” “It was just a girl at first, but now there’s a boy, too.” Hamamoto frowned, worried. No other children had ever appeared in this secret clearing before. And these children just seemed to be hiding in the shadow of The Sea, not trying to talk to us at all. Hamamoto and I moved slowly around The Sea. But the strange children did the same thing, and we couldn’t seem to catch them. “Hey! Who are you?” I called. “Aoyama!” said a voice. Hamamoto and I turned around and saw Uchida standing there, looking baffled. “You see something?” We turned back toward The Sea to tell Uchida about the strange children, but there were three of them now. “There’s more!” I yelled. “There’s two boys now!” Hamamoto’s eyes narrowed. She looked them over carefully. “Are they us?” she said. “Is that even possible?” I waved an arm. One of the boys on the other side waved, too. “Hamamoto, can you turn around?” She did, and the girl on the other side turned to face us. The girl looked exactly like Hamamoto. Hamamoto’s double looked right at my face and said, “I can see them from here!” The Hamamoto next to me said the same thing at the same time. This was an extremely perplexing situation. When we turned around, the three children hiding on the other side of The Sea did the same, peering into the shadow of The Sea’s curve. “What’s going on?” Uchida said. “There’s a lot of us!” We went back to the parasol and analyzed the strange phenomenon we’d just observed. I drew a circle representing The Sea in my notebook and us standing next to it. Then I drew arrows wrapping around The Sea. “We could see our backs because the light went all the way around The Sea and reached our eyes. Maybe light is bending around The Sea.” “Like a black hole?” Uchida said. “But then why aren’t we sucked into it?” “The light is bending, but the gravity itself isn’t strong.” “That doesn’t make sense,” Hamamoto said. “If light doesn’t go straight, then wouldn’t The Sea look much weirder when we observe it from here?” I had to mull over that one. Hamamoto definitely had a point. “That must mean that when we’re standing there, only certain light circles the outside of The Sea.” “Is that even possible?” “I don’t know. But when you walked around The Sea, I saw new activity occurring on the surface of it. Weird blue veinlike things rising up. Maybe that construct has something to do with the light bending.” “Maybe it’s just making fun of us,” Uchida said anxiously. “I mean, we were really surprised.” “Payback for throwing a probe into it?” Hamamoto whispered. We sat together under the parasol, watching The Sea. It was extremely large right now. But the veinlike construct was no longer there. “What should we do? Should we hold off on throwing the new probe in there?” I held up the Penguin II probe I’d built. Uchida and Hamamoto thought about it. Uchida looked up, turning toward the stream. “The light’s weird again,” he said. “I can see someone over by the river.” I looked up. There were three children standing by the stream that ran through the clearing. “This is different,” Hamamoto said. “Uchida… Isn’t that Suzuki’s group?” “Chaaaaarge!” Suzuki’s yell echoed across the clearing. Sweat dripping off their faces, his minions shouted, too, and all three came running toward our base. Nagasaki was the biggest and the fastest. He reached our base first. “Eek!” Uchida yelped, running. Hamamoto was shoved aside. Both Kobayashi and Nagasaki tackled me, so I lost my balance and fell on my behind. A moment later, Kobayashi threw himself on top of me. I tried to shove him off, but Nagasaki jumped on top of him. Kobayashi chuckled and let drool fall on me. I said, “Ew.” They were extremely heavy, and I was extremely hot. This was a tough battle. At last, the Suzuki Empire’s emperor caught up with them. He took a seat on top of Kobayashi and Nagasaki, like this was his throne. It was even heavier, and I could barely breathe. “You’re heavy!” I said. Suzuki said, “Are we? Are we?” wriggling around. I groaned, and so did his minions. Suzuki was the only one enjoying this. That’s what emperors did. Suzuki leaned over Kobayashi and Nagasaki, looking at my face. He looked proud of himself. His sweat dripped down onto me. “I win! Say you lose!” “I…won’t!” I said. “Because…I haven’t…lost yet!” “You really don’t know when to quit!” “I…never…quit!” Hamamoto stood up and tried to push Suzuki off. Suzuki glared at her. “Don’t you move. I’ll stomp on Aoyama’s face!” “Why would you do something so stupid?” Hamamoto seemed less angry than disgusted. “You’re an idiot.” “Shut up. If Aoyama admits he’s lost, I’ll let him go.” “Aoyama, just say you’ve lost,” Hamamoto said frostily. “This is a waste of time.” “I…refuse!” “Aoyama, don’t be stubborn. They’re crushing you.” Suzuki yelled, “We’re crushing you!” and started rocking again. “You gonna beg the lady to save you again? It’s not fair having her save you! Promise you’ll never tattle again!” “I…will…not!” “You’re a snitch!” “I am!” This seemed to surprise Suzuki. He fell silent for a bit, then gulped. “You shouldn’t be a snitch!” He looked pretty serious. “Snitching is bad!” “How…did…you…find us?” “We were exploring the river,” Suzuki said, waving the exploration map. “Unlike you, we made a lot of progress during summer vacation. Today it took us through this dangerous forest.” “That…same river? From…behind…the school?” “Yeah. We followed it all this way.” The stream flowing through this clearing was the same as the drain going through the vacant lot behind the school. I was a little bit frustrated that Suzuki had figured that out before us. But only a little bit. “Prominence!” Hamamoto yelled. “What?” Suzuki said, looking up. Lying on top of me, Kobayashi also turned his head and saw The Sea for the first time. A number of different trumpetlike constructs were jutting out of its surface. Prominence was starting. “What is that?” Kobayashi grunted. “It’s moving! That’s…creepy!” “It’s dangerous. Gas comes out of the surface of it.” “What? Gas? Will you die if you inhale it?” Kobayashi asked. “You will,” Hamamoto said. “That sounds really bad,” Nagasaki said. On top of the pile, Suzuki didn’t budge. “That’s just another lie. You’ll be fine! I’m not scared.” Then a squeaking noise came from all around us. “What’s that noise?” Suzuki asked. I forced my head back and saw the lady, upside down, at the south entrance to the clearing. She wore a big straw hat and was leading a gang of penguins behind her like she was their boss. There was a huge wave of penguins coming out from between the trees around her. “Go, penguins! Get Suzuki!” the lady yelled. Suzuki gasped. The squeaking sound got louder as they approached. Kobayashi flinched and tried to stand, and Suzuki lost his balance and fell off. I was finally able to breathe properly again, so I was extremely relieved. “What the heck?” Suzuki said, angry. Both Kobayashi and Nagasaki were mad at him now. “You’re heavy!” they said. “Oh? You’re gonna disobey me now?” Suzuki yelled. As the Suzuki Empire was on the brink of a civil war, the charging penguins hit us. There were about ten in all. They knocked the parasol down and flipped the chair, stomping around us, flippers flapping. I almost got stepped on by one, and Suzuki and his minions got flipper slapped on their thighs. “Ow!” they yelped. Naturally, the penguins were quite strong. They could use those flippers to swim through the ocean like a space rocket. When the penguin army passed, Suzuki was gone. Kobayashi and Nagasaki were standing there, stunned. “Suzuki already ran for it,” I said without getting up. “What the…? Arghh…!” They looked at the group of penguins, then over at us. They clicked their tongues and ran off toward the Jabberwock Woods. The lady was standing at the border between the woods and the clearing, and as they ran by, she yelled, “The woods are dangerous! There are more penguins in there!” She came walking over and helped me to my feet. Then she lifted the brim of her straw hat and took a long look across the clearing at The Sea. “I see. That’s what you’re researching, hmm?” “Yes.” “You have found something very strange. So…what exactly is it?” “We don’t know.” The lady smiled at Hamamoto, but Hamamoto didn’t smile back. She was glaring at the lady from under her white hat. “Where’s Uchida?” “Over there,” the lady said, pointing to the west side of the clearing. Uchida came out of the forest and started walking toward us. “Uchida! Prominence!” Hamamoto shouted, pointing at The Sea. Small versions of The Sea were being fired out of the large trumpet-shaped constructs. One passed directly over our heads, flying off toward the forest. Another one went rolling across the grass, headed directly toward Uchida. “Look out, Uchida!” I shouted. But he stopped, staring at the little Sea rolling toward him, not moving at all. He was so surprised, his body had frozen up. The little Sea reflected the sunlight, glittering, like a piece of the sky rolling across the grass. The lady picked the Penguin II probe up from the ground at her feet. Then she swung her arm back and threw it. The stout LEGO probe puffed up as it flew through the air, changing into a penguin. Flippers flapping, it flew over to Uchida. A moment later, it slipped inside the little rolling Sea. The Sea shook like a round ball of Jell-O. The penguin seemed to turn over inside The Sea, and then The Sea exploded. Like when an old thermometer shatters, and the mercury inside comes spilling out. Large softball-size pieces went rolling across the grass, gleaming. The penguins that defeated Suzuki gathered around, sticking their beaks in the fragments of The Sea, shattering those until they vanished like mist. The penguins all moved their beaks happily. Uchida flopped to the ground, surrounded by penguins. “Well, kids. Have fun with your research!” The lady waved a hand and set off across the clearing to the north. A number of penguins waddled after her like they were following their mother around, but she ignored them, walking quickly away. The penguins were left behind, standing on the grass, looking sad. “Hey!” I said, waving. The lady turned around at the entrance to the clearing and waved back. Then she vanished into the darkness of the woods. As fast as if a neutrino had cut across the clearing. “What is even happening?” Hamamoto said. I had to record this new discovery. Penguins can destroy The Sea. I went on a drive with my father. We went toward the university, down the bus route that reminded me of a seaside highway. We passed through the university buildings to a narrow road that led into the mountains. We went up and down over the mountains and under a big highway. “I wonder where this road goes,” my father said. “I wonder,” I said. I liked going for drives with my father. When we left the house, we never had a destination in mind. He’d just pick roads out of curiosity. “Where does this one go?” I didn’t know where we’d end up. Neither did my father. When he put his hands on the wheel and muttered, “Let’s see where this road goes,” I felt like the asphalt before us led to places my father had never seen, possibly to the ends of the earth. But we never made it to the ends of the earth. We’d reach unknown towns, take a rest at a café or hamburger shop in that town, and then drive back home. That day, we found a town built on a hill. A big road went up a hill with houses on both sides and not a lot of pedestrians. The sunlight was pouring down, and everything around us was quiet. It was only two o’clock, but the sunlight hitting the houses made it look more like it was evening. Very mysterious. On the way to the water tower at the top of the hill, we saw a brown building with a fitness center in it. There was a café inside, so we pulled into the parking lot and went in. The café was air-conditioned and very cool. My father drank coffee, so I did, too. My father took his black, but I put sugar in mine. Mother doesn’t know I drink coffee. She wouldn’t be happy if she knew, so I only drank it when I was out driving with my father. I was slowly reducing the amount of sugar I used, training myself to drink real coffee. “Let’s stop at a bookstore on the way home,” my father said. “Did you read that book on the space station?” “I did. I used it as a reference to help build my LEGO space station.” “What part did you like best?” To get my father to buy me a new book, I had to pass my father’s test. He would always ask what I liked best about the last book he bought me, and I would have to explain it to him. If I didn’t pass that test, he wouldn’t buy me a new book—that was the rule. But I’d never failed the test. I told my father the things I’d been most interested in concerning the space station’s structure and history. My father nodded as he listened. At the end, he said, “I see. When you’re grown-up, do you think we’ll all be able to travel through space?” “I think it will be extremely expensive.” “That’s a shame.” “But if we can make a space elevator, maybe it will get easier. And then Uchida and I can go.” “Uchida wants to go to space, too?” “…Maybe he wouldn’t actually go. He’s scared of black holes. But I think the odds of being sucked into a black hole just because you’ve gone to space are quite low.” “However low those odds may be, that might not be enough to convince Uchida.” “Yes. In that case, we’ll just have to go see a rocket take off together. We’ve agreed to do that.” We could see the parking lot from the café window. Grown-ups were going to and from the fitness center. I knew that inside the fitness center, there were a bunch of machines that would let them run or walk forever without ever getting anywhere, like the exercise wheels we give hamsters. I’ve always thought these machines were very strange. “When I go driving with you, I always feel like we’ll end up at the ends of the earth.” “That would be interesting.” “But I know the ends of the earth aren’t anywhere close. I’m in the fourth grade now, after all. I know the ends of the earth are much, much farther away. And the ends of the universe.” “That’s not entirely true,” my father said, totally serious. “The ends of the earth aren’t far away at all.” “They aren’t?” “I don’t think so. In my way of thinking, the ends of the earth aren’t always on the outside. Take wormholes, for example. There might be a wormhole on the table between us. Perhaps it only exists for a moment, which is why we can’t see it.” I looked at my coffee cup. I imagined an entrance to another universe opening and closing right next to it. If that happened, it would definitely be very interesting. “The ends of the earth are folded up inside the world,” my father said. This was a very strange idea. Maybe that’s why I always felt like I was on the verge of discovering them. My father took a sip of coffee, smiling. “Is your research on the lady getting anywhere?” “It is extremely difficult.” “The other day, I had a chance to talk to her at the university. She’s very smart, and definitely interesting, but also quite mysterious. The dentist said the same thing.” “The more I research, the less I understand.” “I don’t know what sort of research you’re doing, but you remember what I told you before?” “About identifying what the problem is?” “What problem is it you’re trying to solve?” “I don’t know yet. I have found a number of different problems, and all of them are extremely difficult.” “Maybe that means you’re getting closer to an answer.” “How so?” “Perhaps the true nature of all those problems is the same.” “Is that possible?” “Sometimes.” I took out my notebook and wrote All the problems might be the same. I would have to consider the meaning of those words later and decide if the Penguin Highway and The Sea weren’t actually different problems, but the same research topic. “I’ll think about it.” “Make sure you record each day’s discoveries,” my father said. “Always go over those discoveries and organize them.” He finished his coffee. Hamamoto’s blue notebook had a record of The Sea’s size. She made good use of grid-lined paper to draw very accurate graphs. According to these graphs, the size of The Sea had been constantly increasing, but lately, that increase had been slowing down. We were on the grass under the parasol, engaged in a Joint Research Meeting. Hamamoto had her white hat pulled down over her eyes and was sitting in the folding chair. She had her knees grumpily pulled up to her chest and wasn’t saying much. Uchida was sitting next to me on the grass, anxiously looking up at her. We knew exactly why she was in a bad mood; it was because I’d kept it a secret that the lady could make penguins. Hamamoto was conducting an interrogation from that chair. “Aoyama. You’ve known the whole time?” “I have.” “That’s not fair! I told you about my research on The Sea. But you didn’t tell me about your research. I wanted to know where the penguins come from, too!” “I had no choice but to keep it a secret. I’d promised the lady I would. And I was worried that if I told anyone else about the penguins, the lady would be captured by researchers.” “I can keep a secret!” “I know you can.” “But you didn’t trust me.” “That’s not true.” I didn’t know what else to say. “But Hamamoto,” Uchida said, “you know now. So…isn’t that good enough?” “Don’t keep things like that a secret ever again. It can obstruct our research!” “That’s true,” Uchida admitted. “You’re right about that, Hamamoto. I thought our research on The Sea and my research on the Penguin Highway were two different things. But if we look over all the discoveries we’ve made, I think it’s clear The Sea and the penguin appearances are connected. Researching them separately won’t ever solve the problem. Because this is all one problem.” “Exactly!” Hamamoto said, pointing at me. Uchida hung his head. “I had no idea.” “So I regret keeping my Penguin Highway research a secret from you both. And I’d like to formally ask for your assistance researching the lady.” Hamamoto and Uchida considered my proposal. Hamamoto frowned. “I don’t believe that woman is telling you the truth, Aoyama. Does she really not know why she can make penguins?” “It’s a mystery to her, as well.” “That doesn’t make sense. I mean… She’s the one doing it.” “But she’s not a bad person, and she wouldn’t lie to me about the penguins. She doesn’t know. That’s why she asked me to research the topic.” “I’m not so sure.” “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you hate the dentist?” “That’s not true!” “You’re fighting again,” Uchida said. “Eat some sweets.” Hamamoto poured some ice-cold tea from a thermos into some paper cups. I took out three Boob Cakes from my rucksack. “Everyone’s going to be on edge, so I think you’d better bring sweets,” Uchida had said, so I’d bought these before entering the Jabberwock Woods. While we were drinking tea and eating Boob Cakes, Hamamoto seemed to calm down a little. “I’ll think about it,” she said. When the Joint Research Meeting ended, we observed The Sea for a while. It had shrunk a bit, but no particularly noteworthy phenomena appeared. Occasionally, we’d see a penguin waddle past at the edge of the woods, and Hamamoto shouted “Penguin!” every time. Our plan to send a second probe into The Sea was currently postponed. The Penguin I had vanished, and the Penguin II had turned into a real penguin—it was probably still wandering around the woods somewhere. And construction of the Penguin III was not yet complete. Losing so many LEGOs was a real issue, and we didn’t have replacements for the thermometer and penlight that had been installed in the Penguin I. Also, based on the mysterious optical phenomenon the other day, we had a hypothesis that The Sea might be making fun of us, which was cause for concern. Uchida was getting ready to fly a kite he’d made. We helped. I cut beautiful photos out of the magazine the dentist had given me, and Uchida glued them to his kite. At last, we had a bright, beautiful kite. We had a great time flying it over the clearing. For the next week, my family went to my grandparents’ house. We drove there every summer once my father’s summer vacation started. I was sad I couldn’t observe The Sea, but I couldn’t exactly stay behind on my own. And if I didn’t go with them, I knew my grandparents would be extremely sad. In this case, my grandparents were my father’s parents. The day before I left, I spoke to Hamamoto and Uchida and said, “The research is in your hands.” My grandparents’ house was a two-hour drive from where we lived. It was a much older town than ours. There was a small mountain behind their house, and in the summer, you could always hear cicadas. Deep in the mountain, there was a small pond, almost a big puddle. Next to the house was a field where my grandfather grew vegetables. While we were staying there, I would walk close behind my grandfather, helping tend to the vegetables. I liked my grandfather. He walked slowly and took his time when he spoke. I didn’t know anyone else who talked as slowly as he did. If I talked too much, he would always say, “Slow down, I can’t keep up.” My grandfather loves sweet things, so when we went out for a walk together, he’d always buy me some sweets. We would eat those sweets next to a fire we’d made in a hollow near the field or while walking through the bamboo groves in the mountains. While I was spending time with my grandfather like this, he’d tell me all sorts of stories. All the countries he went to when he was young, or stories about when my father was in college. I wrote all of these down in my notebook later. In the evening, I went to my grandfather’s room to show him my notes, and he was extremely impressed. “You’re quite the scholar,” he said. My grandfather’s room had a lot of old books and tools, and it always smelled of incense. He hated organizing his room, and he hated it when anyone else moved his stuff. His room had an old, comfy green couch for him to sit in and a small wooden chair. He would sit in the house, pour coffee from a thermos, add sugar, and drink that. I’d sit on the little wooden chair and talk with him. His room was extremely messy, and I couldn’t tell where anything was. I’d given him a map, but I had no idea where he’d put it. But my grandfather just said “I’m sure it’s somewhere” and drank his coffee. “As long as it’s somewhere, there’s no problem.” My grandmother was nothing like my grandfather. I liked my grandmother, too. She was always working in the house and talked faster than any of us. According to my father, she’d talked even faster when she was young, and when she got angry, nobody could understand what she was saying at all. While she was working in the house, she would tell me how to clean rooms or organize things. She’s the one who taught me that dividing everything up properly was extremely pleasing. My grandmother had three rules. Divide things you often use from things you only sometimes use. Divide things you definitely can’t lose from things you don’t care if you lose. Don’t divide things that are hard to divide. My grandmother divided up all kinds of things and put them away in a big chest with lots of drawers. I liked watching my grandmother organize these drawers. When I was with her, watching, she’d pull all manner of strange things out of the drawers and make me guess what they were for. She even had broken plates and wine corks in there. She threw things away that she didn’t use, so everything in there was something that still had use, but it was not easy to identify what that use was. The more lost I was, the happier she got. The only part of the house she didn’t organize was my grandfather’s room. “If I cleaned in there, I feel like it would kill him,” she said. “So I never do.” My mother said my father took after my grandmother. But part of him was also like my grandfather. “Normally, he’s a lot like your grandmother. But when he’s focused on his work, he gets more and more like your grandfather,” my mother said. When we were staying at my grandparents’ house, our family slept in an empty room on the second floor. At first, it bothered me that it smelled differently from our house. Just as I got used to the smell and was comfortable sleeping there, it was time to go home. After a week away at my grandparents’ house, we came back home, and the next day was one of those mid-vacation school days. I hadn’t been to school in ages, and some of the children had shocking tans. It was astonishing how much spending time in the sun could transform people. I never really got all that tan. While we waited for the teacher, I talked to Hamamoto and Uchida about what I’d done at my grandparents’ house. Then Hamamoto looked up. “Suzuki’s acting weird,” she said. “I wonder why.” I turned around and took a look at him. He was sitting at his desk, staring into space. That wasn’t like him at all. Everyone else in class was excitedly talking to friends they hadn’t seen in a while, but it was dead quiet around Suzuki, like he was in the eye of a typhoon. Kobayashi and Nagasaki both looked uncomfortable, as if they were afraid to approach him. While I was observing him, Suzuki glanced up and saw me staring. He avoided my eyes. “Suzuki’s being really quiet,” Uchida said. “I wonder what’s wrong?” I’d never seen the Suzuki Empire emperor sitting alone, lost in thought. A warm breeze blew in the open windows, making the big cream-colored curtains flutter. The classroom was full of happy voices, but one odd rumor was making the rounds. Uchida heard it first and made sure to tell me. A kid from another class had witnessed a strange creature in the drain north of the athletic field. That drain went under the bus route through a ten-meter-long dark tunnel. It was used for Tunnel Diving, one of the Suzuki Empire’s famous punishments. The drain was designed to help the water run off when it rained a lot, so most of the time, it was dry, and you could make it through the tunnel on all fours. I’d explored it myself once. Voluntarily. Anyway, the kid in question was trying to go through this tunnel when they saw a large creature lurking in the dark. The creature was wet and smelly, like a fish. It was about the size of a large dog. But it had no fur anywhere—its skin was smooth. It was big and round, so the kid couldn’t tell where the head was. While the kid was still astonished by it, the creature suddenly jumped up, stretched out, and ran off down the other side of the tunnel, footsteps echoing through the tunnel. The ground where it had been curled up had been soaking wet. “A new species?” Uchida asked. “Could be just a stray cat or dog. Maybe it got wet in the rain and was taking shelter there.” “But it wasn’t raining.” What a weird story. There wasn’t much to do on days like this, so school ended before lunch. In the afternoon, I went to the dentist for an examination. I figured it was best to have them make sure I hadn’t developed any new cavities while I wasn’t looking. When I stepped into the dentist’s office, Suzuki was already sitting there, just like last time. He was as out of it as he’d been at school, just staring up at the silver mobile with all the fish on it. When he noticed me standing there, he twitched. Then he avoided my eyes. I started flipping through a magazine. “Suzuki,” I said. “That last fight was extremely rough. If the penguins hadn’t shown up, I think I would have lost.” Suzuki didn’t say anything. “But I’m glad you explored the river. Now the town map is much better. The fact that the river behind the school flows down to that clearing is a great discovery.” Suzuki didn’t really respond to my praise. Something was very odd about him. “You’re acting weird today, Suzuki.” He scowled. “I’m not weird! You’re weird. You and those penguins.” “There sure were a lot of penguins. I was surprised, too.” “Why were there so many penguins there?” “Maybe someone’s pets escaped.” “Don’t just make things up! You’re such a liar.” “I said maybe. I’m just suggesting a possibility. That’s not a lie.” “You’re talking nonsense again!” Then he lowered his voice. “Why can the lady here control those penguins?” “That is a mystery.” “Not the only one,” he whispered. “There was that weird floating thing in that field.” “You mean the gas coming out of the ground? What about it?” I waited, but he just stared into space, saying nothing. “Something bothering you?” “Forget it.” “Nothing you want to talk to me about?” “Nope.” Suzuki said nothing else. “If there isn’t, that’s fine. I won’t force it out of you.” He spent the rest of the time in silence. By the time my examination was done, he was already gone. While I was sitting on the couch waiting to be called, the lady came out of the exam room. She sat down next to me. Her weight made the seat shift, and I was pulled toward her like my gravity was being influenced by a large sun. “You said something to Suzuki again, kiddo?” she asked. “He’s acting weird.” “I didn’t say anything.” “Really? Look at my eyes and swear.” I looked her in the eye and said, “I didn’t say anything.” “Hmm,” she said. “Then maybe he’s just scared of me now. Because I set the penguins on him.” “That might be it. It might not be, though. Suzuki’s been acting strange all day.” There wasn’t anyone else waiting, so after I paid, I talked quietly with the lady for a few minutes. “I was pretty surprised when you suddenly made a penguin in front of the others. A moment earlier and Suzuki’s group would have seen! You should be more cautious with that stuff.” “Sorry. Uchida seemed like he was in trouble.” “Well, you did save him.” “Right?” “Did you know the penguins could damage The Sea?” “I didn’t know that. I just threw one.” “That experiment proves The Sea and the penguins are connected. I’d like your help researching The Sea. But Hamamoto’s against it. I’ll need to persuade her first.” The lady looked at me and grinned. “That’ll be pretty difficult,” she said. “Really?” The lady thought for a moment, then patted me on the knee. “If you want to patch things up with her, why don’t you all go to the pool together?” “That sounds extremely enjoyable. I’m good at swimming.” Emperor Suzuki came to the clearing alone a few days after we saw him at school. He stopped at the entrance to the Jabberwock Woods, watching us. I was playing chess with Hamamoto, and Uchida had his arms folded in front of his notebook, thinking. Hamamoto looked up from the chessboard, glanced at the forest, and hissed, “Suzuki’s here.” The supreme ruler of the Suzuki Empire had no one with him. He stood next to the hammock we’d strung up near the forest entrance, glaring at us in silence. He didn’t come into the clearing. When he saw us looking, he turned as if he was leaving but came back and again stopped at the border between the forest and the clearing. “Maybe he’s here to challenge you to a duel.” “I don’t want to duel him.” “Duels are so boring,” Hamamoto said. She stood up and waved at him. “What are you doing here? Do you want something?” she called. Even then, Suzuki stayed in the forest, so we walked over to him. Suzuki said nothing, just pointed at the thing in his hand. The exploration map Uchida and I made that he’d confiscated from us. He spread it out and showed us an awkward, wriggly line representing the drain, drawn from the back of the school through the town and the forest. “Are you giving this back?” I asked. He nodded. He showed none of the energy he’d had the other day when they attacked our observation station. He kept glancing at The Sea. Hamamoto seemed rather taken aback by this. “So you aren’t here to fight?” “No.” “Suzuki, if you want to talk about something, come over to the observation station.” “I’m good here.” He looked at The Sea again. He stood like that awhile, hands scrabbling at his short-cropped hair. I’d never seen Suzuki this thoroughly at a loss. “If you say nothing, we can’t understand,” Hamamoto said, getting angry. Suzuki looked angry, too. “Really weird things are going on!” “Weird things?” “And you know something, right?” “If you explain properly, we promise to listen.” At last, Suzuki started explaining what had happened to him. It started the other day when the Suzuki Empire had attacked our observation station. That day, the lady had yelled “Go, penguins!” and in the chaos of the penguin assault, Suzuki had beat a hasty retreat back into the Jabberwock Woods. He’d assumed Kobayashi and Nagasaki were following, but they didn’t come running after him. Lazy bums! Suzuki thought. He’d turned around just in time to see them run off in a different direction. Suzuki tried to go after them, but right then, he heard Hamamoto yell, “Prominence!” What? he thought, peering through the trees into the clearing just in time to see a large ball of water go flying across the grass, directly toward him. Ah, he thought, closing his eyes. He felt like a giant ball of Jell-O wrapped around his body and then moved away behind him. Nothing else happened. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and found himself still standing in the forest. He wasn’t wet or anything. Or injured. But when he looked back at the clearing, there was no one where we’d been a second before. The lady and the three of us were gone. Suzuki thought this was a little weird but ran off through the Jabberwock Woods, trying to catch up with his minions. But he couldn’t find them anywhere. He left the woods and went to Kobayashi’s house but was told they’d just left to go play at Suzuki’s house. Suzuki was starting to get really concerned. He walked off toward the row of zelkova trees and found Kobayashi and Nagasaki running out of his house. Suzuki was about to yell for them but saw another boy coming out of the house after them. Who’s he? he thought. When this new boy turned his head to say something to Kobayashi, Suzuki noticed the boy looked exactly like him. He was so surprised, he almost screamed aloud. He quickly hid behind a telephone pole, watching his double walk away with his friends. Suzuki went inside, and his mother was surprised to see him. “What’s up? You’re back already?” she said. He looked at the clock. It had been almost evening, but the clock said it was just after lunch. His head was spinning, and he was totally confused, so he went to his room to lie down on his bed and then fell asleep. In the evening, his mom woke him up, and he went to the front door to find Kobayashi and Nagasaki there. They were pissed. They accused him of ditching them and going home to sleep. Suzuki tried to explain what had happened to him but couldn’t find the words. The more he muttered, the angrier they got. Eventually, they stormed off. Suzuki spent some time being scared the other Suzuki he’d seen would come home, too. So scared he hadn’t been able to eat a bite that evening. But that had been the end of his strange experience. “I know it sounds weird! You think I’m an idiot, right?” We hadn’t said a word, but he just kept yelling. “I know Kobayashi and Nagasaki think I’m an idiot!” “It’s definitely a strange story,” I said. “But it really happened! I’m not making it up! Who was that with my face? Did that thing that came flying at me make me crazy?” “Your experience is definitely a mystery, Suzuki. But I don’t think you’re crazy. We’ve been researching that strange thing you touched.” “Do you have any proof you aren’t lying?” Hamamoto asked. “I said I’m not!” he insisted, turning red. “It’s all true!” It was getting dark around us. The light of the evening sun behind the trees was turning the far side of the clearing red. The Sea was still glittering. We had to get through the Jabberwock Woods before night fell. “If you’re researching it, tell me what that thing is!” “We can’t do that,” Hamamoto said. “Why not?” “Because this is our research. We can’t talk about it to outsiders.” “Aoyama, what was that boy who looked like me? Tell me!” “I need more time to research this before I can say anything. And if you want to know the truth, you should try asking nicely.” Suzuki screwed his face up, furious. “You’re not fair!” “We’re being totally fair.” “You’re all weird! Sneaking about! That stuff with the penguins and that weird thing floating there! You’re all plotting something!” “We aren’t plotting anything. Just doing research.” “If you won’t tell me, I’ll tell everyone you’re doing weird stuff in the forest! Then you’ll have to confess everything!” “That would be a problem. That would be a detriment to our research.” Hamamoto took a step forward. “Tell them whatever you like,” she said. “You know what’ll happen if you do. I’ll never forgive you for it. I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.” That shut him up. He definitely didn’t want Hamamoto to hate him forever. She suddenly turned back toward The Sea and let out a loud cry. We all turned, assuming The Sea had activated. But it merely floated silently above the clearing, just like always. “Did you see something, Hamamoto?” “No,” she said, totally cool. “I was just faking it.” When we turned back, Suzuki was long gone. He’d fled in terror. He was really scared of The Sea. That night, I fought off sleep, scowling at my notebook, researching Suzuki’s experience. I decided the following facts were the most important: Suzuki saw another Suzuki. It was evening when he was in the forest, but noon at home. Kobayashi and Nagasaki thought he’d run away first. These facts led me to the following hypothesis: “Passing through The Sea made Suzuki travel back in time.” Of course, this was only a hypothesis. Behind the station was a place called the Welfare Pension Relaxation Center, which had a large pool. In the summer, it got very crowded. They had waterslides and sold chocolate mint ice cream and yakisoba by the side of the pool. I was extremely fond of chocolate mint ice cream. There was a current in the pool, like a river. When our school had a swim meet, all the students in our year did an experiment to learn the true power of water. All the students got in the water, walking around the edge of the pool. This gradually created a current, and the water in the pool started to spin. Even when we tried to stop walking, the flow of the water pushed us along. When the teachers clapped their hands and said “Now backward!” we all tried to walk in the other direction. We were all shouting, straining our feet on the bottom. But it was really hard work. The force of the water was extremely powerful. I thought about how salmon swim upstream to lay eggs and was very impressed by how much energy that must take. None of us were salmon, so we just wound up screaming and getting swept away. It was an extremely interesting experiment. It was more fun to float in moving water than in water that didn’t move. I think whoever invented pools with currents was very clever. It was a beautiful day with weather like the south sea islands. The lady had offered to take us to the pool, so we all gathered outside the dentist’s office at ten. The lady was wearing a navy-blue baseball hat like a boy. When I got to the dentist, Hamamoto and Uchida were already there. Hamamoto’s chestnut hair had been cut short, making her look like someone from another country. “Your hair is shorter,” I pointed out. “Yep,” she said. Like we were about to go exploring, the lady pointed at each of us, counting us, and said, “Let’s get going!” We all got on the city bus and rode it to the station. We got to the pool and changed, and the lady made us do some very thorough warm-up exercises. “If you don’t warm up properly before you get in the pool, you could have a heart attack and die,” she said. It was summer vacation, so the pool was extremely crowded. The surface of the water was reflecting so much sunlight, it looked almost white. Children and adults alike were riding the current. The sound of the water sloshing mingled with the cries of the swimmers, making my head spin. The waterslides were framed with cumulonimbus clouds. It looked like I could reach up and eat them like the soft-serve ice cream sold at the poolside concession stand. The lady was sleek like a dolphin. The intense stretching routine was making her breasts move around. Looking at the lady’s breasts, I realized that dolphins were mammals, so they must have breasts somewhere. But where did dolphins put their breasts? How did baby dolphins nurse? Wouldn’t seawater get mixed in, making everything salty? I thought about it some more. If dolphins had breasts, then blue whales did, too. Blue whale babies were bigger than I was when they were first born, so blue whale breasts must be so big, you would never even think they were breasts. “Kiddo,” the lady said loudly. “Where are your eyes?” “I was lost in thought.” “Liar!” “It’s the truth.” “You can’t just stare at people’s boobs.” “I wasn’t. I was thinking about breasts, but not your breasts.” The lady sighed. “I know why Suzuki hates you so much.” After that, the lady finally gave us permission to get in the pool. The pool’s current moved us slowly along. “No need to swim,” the lady said, just floating. Uchida was sitting on a swim tube, grinning happily. He liked swim tubes. Hamamoto grabbed Uchida’s swim tube and shook it, and he yelped. Hamamoto laughed. We went around the pool twice, and then I started swimming underwater. Shoving the water aside with all my might, I swam so fast I surprised even myself. Like a rocket flying through outer space. And I was picking out a clear path, easily sliding between the other people. I made astounding progress. Satisfied I was swimming faster than anyone else, I came to the surface. And was surprised to see the lady’s face in front of me—I’d thought I’d left her behind. Her face was so close, I could see the drops of water running down it. She cackled. “And you thought you were fast!” “I admit you are also fast.” “Thanks. But I’m tired from being so fast, so I’m gonna rest a bit.” The lady slipped across the water to the side of the pool and climbed out. Her backside gleamed like a dolphin in the light. She turned around and waved at us. I swam slowly, letting Uchida and his swim tube catch up. “Hmm? Where’s Hamamoto?” I asked. “We got split up. But that’s okay. I don’t like it when she plays tricks on me. She keeps trying to pull me under.” “That is a problem.” I drifted with him for a while. “Uchida, what do you make of the fact that blue whales must have breasts?” I asked. “If you keep talking like that, the lady’s gonna scold you again,” Uchida said, shaking his head. “You like breasts too much, Aoyama.” “It’s not that I like them. I’m just researching them.” “Isn’t that the same thing?” “I don’t think it always is.” I swam alongside him, talking about different breast-related topics. Uchida didn’t really respond much. He did not appear to be very interested in breast research. “Hamamoto doesn’t have any breasts,” I said. “She’s not a grown-up.” “Strange! Very strange.” Uchida was making a weird face. While I was thinking about breasts that existed and breasts that didn’t, Hamamoto came popping out of the water next to us and grabbed Uchida’s ring. He yelped and went under. Hamamoto laughed. Hamamoto’s interest in making him sink seemed like a real problem. After a while, I got out of the pool before them. I went walking along the side of the pool looking for the lady. She had sunglasses on like a movie star and was sitting on a chair under a parasol with one elbow on the table. She was drinking Coke through a straw from a transparent cup. I sat in the chair opposite her, and she handed me a bath towel. “I’ll buy everyone some ice cream later,” she said. “They’ll be thrilled.” “Look at those clouds! Amazing, right?” I looked up at the sky. The cumulonimbus clouds were still there. The poolside was really noisy, but above those fluffy clouds was another world, where really strong winds blew. I think about that a lot. “Hamamoto still doesn’t trust me,” the lady said. “It’s a real challenge.” “What matters to me is whether you can solve this mystery or not.” “I have an extremely large number of problems to solve.” “You still moaning about that?” “But according to my father, what seems to be a lot of problems might actually be one big problem.” “What do you think is the biggest mystery?” “Probably The Sea.” “The Sea…? That’s a nasty one. I really don’t get it.” “The penguins and your ability both seem connected to The Sea. At least, that’s what I think.” “You proceed how you think best. I really have no idea.” The lady took a sip of her Coke. Then she looked back along the poolside. As I gazed at her profile, I remembered observing her as she slept on the floor the day I visited her in the white apartment building by the water-tower hill. I’d recorded the details of that day in my notebook and would record the events of today as well. That way, no matter how far in the future it was, I would be able to recall the time spent with her in detail. But it occurred to me that being with the lady like this and remembering being with her were two totally different things. I felt like being here with her, by the side of the pool, where it was extremely hot, with the sound of the water and people swimming ringing in my ears, looking up at the soft-serve cumulonimbus above us… All of this was vastly different from reading the sentences I would write about it later. More different than I had ever previously thought. Extremely different. I thought about this some more, but I couldn’t figure out how to record that feeling properly. “Hey, kiddo,” the lady whispered. “If I couldn’t make penguins anymore, would you stop researching me?” “I don’t think I would.” “Why not?” “Because you are an extremely fascinating person.” I looked out at the sparkling pool. Hamamoto and Uchida had done another loop of the pool and were waving at us. Children and adults were sitting on all manner of floats, the sunlight gleaming on their wet skin. Their laughter echoed all around us, yet it felt like a sound from some far-off realm. The lady put both arms on the table, gazing absently at the water. “Would be nice if we can go to the beach before summer vacation’s over,” she said. “You want to see the ocean, right, kiddo?” We gathered in the clearing to observe The Sea. Hamamoto was drawing a graph in her notebook, and Uchida was watching with interest. According to Hamamoto’s observations, The Sea had peaked in size and was waning again. There were occasional waves on the surface but no large-scale phenomenon like the Prominence. I was sitting under the parasol drawing a chart in my notebook in an attempt to explain the Suzuki Time Travel Hypothesis. But this was an extremely bold hypothesis. Uchida and Hamamoto had both been skeptical. “I think we need to experiment more,” Hamamoto said. “Yeah,” Uchida said. I thought they were right. “We could ask Suzuki to go in The Sea again,” Hamamoto suggested. She seemed to mean it. “Suzuki was so scared of it, though. He’d never do it,” Uchida said. “Proving this hypothesis will be extremely difficult. And even if we wait for another Prominence and have someone make contact with The Sea that comes flying out, this time, they might get sent back to the Cambrian period. They’d never be able to come back.” “Should we use a probe?” “Would you be able to throw a probe in when a Prominence occurs?” “That would be difficult. And The Sea is waning now.” We spent the morning observing The Sea and discussing things. At noon, we ate lunch under the parasol, like we were having a picnic at the beach. Hamamoto and I had brought sandwiches, but Uchida used hot water from a thermos to make instant ramen. “Lucky,” Hamamoto said. Uchida seemed proud of himself. Eating instant ramen on the grass made it feel like a real campsite, which was lovely. The lady came to help with our research after we’d finished eating lunch. I looked up from the chessboard to find her standing at the border between the Jabberwock Woods and the clearing, holding a parasol. She looked at me, grinned, dipped her parasol, and came toward us across the grass. Maybe it was just the strong sunlight, but she looked more pale than usual. “It’s hot. Your research getting anywhere?” “It is not making much progress,” I said. “The Sea doesn’t seem very active.” “It seems smaller than it was last time.” Hamamoto showed the lady her notes. “It’s waning right now,” she said. “I see,” the lady said. Then she looked at The Sea through some binoculars. “That’s actually a spaceship,” the lady said. “I came to earth aboard that ship to conquer all of you.” The shock of this was so great, we fell silent. “Really?” Uchida said. “No,” the lady said. She always lied with such a straight face it was hard to tell. “What do you actually think it is?” Hamamoto asked. “Good question. You’re the ones researching it. How would I know?” “What about the connection between The Sea and the penguins?” “I dunno.” “Why can the penguins damage The Sea?” “That was a surprise.” Hamamoto peppered the lady with questions like this was an interrogation, but the lady just smiled and answered almost none. Hamamoto chewed on her ballpoint pen, frustrated. As an experiment, we asked the lady to make a penguin. I got a can of Coke out of my rucksack and had her hold it. She stepped out from under the parasol. “Kids, watch this.” We held our breaths, and she threw the can, and it did turn into a penguin, which went rolling across the grass. No matter how many times I saw this phenomenon, it remained extremely strange. The penguin righted itself and came walking over to the lady. She stuck out her index finger and drew a circle with it. The penguin stopped, surprised, following her finger with its eyes. “The penguin’s getting dizzy,” Hamamoto said. “You’re so cute!” the lady said, talking to the penguin. “All serious!” The penguin got tired of the lady’s finger and started staring absently up at the sky. “I wonder if it’s hot,” Hamamoto said. “These penguins seem to be fine with it,” I said. I tried coming up with experiments that would tell us something about the connection between the penguins and The Sea. We couldn’t send a penguin into The Sea like a probe. If that broke The Sea, our research would come to an abrupt end. And if the penguin vanished like when we sent the first probe into The Sea, then we’d feel sorry for the penguin. I knew this situation was what they called a dilemma. “I suppose we could try just moving it closer to The Sea?” Hamamoto suggested. So I ended up holding the penguin as we all walked closer to The Sea. As the penguin in my arms got closer, a tetrapod-shaped construct appeared on the surface of The Sea. “Oh!” the lady said. The tetrapod was like hardened blue Jell-O. I walked around The Sea with the penguin, and the tetrapod followed us, sliding around the surface. I moved even closer. “Careful…,” Uchida said behind me. The penguin turned its beak toward The Sea but didn’t struggle. The tetrapod shook, wobbling, and collapsed, forming a mortar-shaped depression on The Sea’s surface. The inside of this depression was wobbling, too. It was like The Sea was afraid of the penguin. The shaking was growing more violent, and the surface shifted, a number of bat-size cones growing out of it. “Look out, look out!” the lady said, clearly enjoying herself. A moment later, one of the cones stretched out of The Sea toward me. Everyone screamed and ran away. I looked back as I ran and saw a number of cones writhing about, as if searching for the penguin and me. We made it back to the parasol and observed The Sea from there. All the cones were slowly shrinking. Soon it was back to normal. After that, it was quiet. I sat down on the grass, drawing a picture of the cones sticking out of The Sea. Hamamoto sat next to me, with her own notebook open. The lady and Uchida played with the penguin. When the lady bent down and clapped her hands together, the penguin would waddle toward the sound. “She definitely knows more than she’s admitting,” Hamamoto whispered. I looked up and saw her frowning at the lady. “I’m sure she knows the penguin secrets and The Sea’s secrets.” “She doesn’t know. That’s why we have to research it.” “You’re too close to her, Aoyama. You can’t think clearly.” “That’s not true.” Hamamoto looked at me. “Are you mad?” “I’m not mad. I never get mad. I’m totally calm 24-7.” “I think there are times you aren’t.” “I want to know what makes you so suspicious.” Hamamoto snapped her notebook closed and chewed on her pen some more, saying nothing. “Over there!” Uchida called, pointing to the stream running through the clearing. Some penguins appeared at the border between the grass and the forest, all clustered up like just before they started jumping into the ocean. The penguin with the lady started flapping its flippers around. I couldn’t tell if the penguins in the forest noticed it or not. But I noticed the lady was a little unsteady on her feet. On Saturday evening, I walked over to Seaside Café. Cumulonimbus clouds were piled up over the mountains on the border. They were colored like they’d been splashed with strawberry syrup, so the clouds looked like a delicious dessert to me. I knew that clouds were clusters of water droplets. So why was it that every time I looked up at the clouds I wanted to eat them? Was it just my sweet tooth? As I walked along, imagining how sweet they’d be, the clouds changed shape, growing rounder. They reminded me of the lady’s breasts. The lady waved at me from her seat in the window of Seaside Café. It was nice and cool inside. The air felt sleek. The silver blue whale dangling from the ceiling swayed in the wind from the air conditioner. The lady had her chin in her hands, frowning as she wrote in her notebook. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, and she looked like she’d lost weight again. When I sat down opposite her, she closed her notebook and grinned at me. “What were you writing?” “My secret diary.” “It’s a secret?” “That’s why I’m not showing it to you. Diaries are inherently things you never show anyone else.” “Are you observing yourself objectively?” “There you go with the tough questions. Objectively?” “Are you writing about me?” “Of course I am,” she said, smiling. “I’m researching you.” “I don’t think you’ll make any discoveries researching me.” “That’s not true.” It had been a long time since the two of us played chess. As she glared at the chessboard, her face looked pale, and when she moved a piece, I thought her fingers looked frail. Her breasts seemed like they’d shrunk, too. “You’ve lost weight,” I said. “I can’t eat.” “Why can’t you eat?” “I dunno. Just no appetite.” While we played chess, all she drank was water. Could drinking too much water make you feel full? “Water is the source of life,” she said, but the fish in the sea didn’t live on water alone. Animals like us needed energy. I insisted she needed to eat some bananas or meat or an oyakodon soon for nourishment. I won three games of chess in a row. “I give up!” the lady said. “No children are better at chess than you. I can’t compete!” “You aren’t thinking clearly because you haven’t eaten anything.” “But I don’t want to eat.” “While I get hungry so easily.” “You get hungry easily and fall right asleep at night. That’s a good thing!” “You still can’t sleep?” “Not a lot, no.” She stared at the darkness outside. In the window, her reflection looked even thinner. “Maybe you shouldn’t make any more penguins.” “But then you couldn’t do any more research.” “But I’m worried that you making penguins is making you unwell. And if your power gets discovered, people from the government and TV will come. And university professors who want to experiment on you. Maybe even people from NASA. It will be a huge mess, and you won’t have time to play chess with me anymore. And wouldn’t that make you sad?” “That’s not gonna happen. No grown-ups would ever believe this.” “I think you can’t be too cautious.” “I mean, you could try telling your father about it. I’m sure he wouldn’t believe you.” “You’re right. I don’t know if he would.” “See?” she looked pleased. “And even if it does cause a fuss, I’d disappear before I ever let anyone experiment on me. So that’s not a problem.” I thought it was a problem. That evening, we worked up a plan to visit the seaside town. Once the lady’s appetite came back and she was feeling a little better, we’d go together. If we took the train my father rode every day and changed trains twice, we could get to the coastal town where the lady used to live. I wrote the names of the train lines down in my notebook. It was much farther away than where my father worked. We would have to ride trains for three whole hours. “There’s a church next to the house where I used to live.” “Is it like the church here?” “Even bigger.” “You used to go there?” “I didn’t. Back then, I only ever looked at it from the outside.” I didn’t know if there was a God or not, and I didn’t really get why she went to church. “Is there a God?” “Good question,” the lady said, tilting her head. “I don’t know.” “Even though you go to church?” “You should ask your father if there’s a God or not,” the lady said. Eventually, I started getting sleepy, and then my father came to get me. He noticed she’d lost weight, too. “You don’t look so good,” he said. “I hope he didn’t wear you out.” “He was fine.” The lady smiled and waved at me. “Good night.” I walked home through the darkened neighborhood with my father. The air at night soon grew cooler. There were a lot of stars in the sky. I was sure we could see even more stars from the camp in the clearing in the Jabberwock Woods. If we had a telescope, maybe we could see Saturn’s rings. But thinking about being in the dark clearing surrounded by the dark forest with The Sea floating nearby was enough to scare even me. I wondered what The Sea looked like at night. Did it give off a silver light? “The lady didn’t look so good. She’s clearly lost a lot of weight,” my father said, sounding concerned. “She said she’s got no appetite.” “You shouldn’t make her play with you when she’s tired.” “I thought the same thing. I think I’ll do that next time.” I thought about telling him about the penguins, but I just didn’t feel like talking about them with him. Part of me wanted my father to believe me, but part of me hoped he wouldn’t. I woke to the sound of wind rattling the windowpanes. It was six thirty, so the sun should have been up, but it was as dark as a winter morning. What I could see of the sky through the gaps in the blinds was murky, like it had been dipped in ink, and the branches of the dogwoods in the garden were thrashing in the wind. A typhoon had arrived. I sat in bed, observing the sky. Downstairs, I heard my mother seeing my father off for work. I looked through the water streaming down the glass and watched my father’s back as he headed for the bus stop. The wind was pulling his umbrella everywhere. I was worried it would blow him away. I opened the window a crack, and a warm wet wind blew in, flecks of rain spraying my face. I got myself ready. The hall and stairs were dark, too. I could hear windows rattling all through the house. My mother was getting breakfast ready in the living room, but I explained the day’s experiment to her. I was going to study the lady’s condition by experimenting with not eating anything myself. “So I won’t need any meals today.” “I’m against this experiment.” “I’ll eat twice as much tomorrow, so I should be fine for today.” “Moles will die if they don’t eat once a day.” “I’m not a mole.” My mother reluctantly agreed. “At least drink some orange juice.” This was an experiment, so I had to follow the same conditions as the lady. “I’ll drink some water.” “Lord!” my mother said, shaking her head. “Do what you like, then.” The rain and wind were too strong all day, so I couldn’t leave the house. I cracked the window in my room and measured the strength of the wind blowing in with an anemometer I’d invented myself. My stomach was a constant distraction, even doing experiments like that. I tried to write an objective record of my hunger levels in my notes, but I wasn’t sure how to measure exactly how hungry I felt. I tried thinking of ways to compare how hungry the lady felt to how hungry I felt, but all I could think about was the demands of my own belly. If I’d had a stash of candy in my desk drawer, I’m sure I’d have gobbled it right up. I didn’t eat lunch, either. Once I passed through the extremely painful period, it got much easier. I made a lot of walls out of LEGOs, like Hamamoto did. Then I was lying in bed for a while reading an illustrated guide to animals, but my stomach started rumbling again, and I couldn’t concentrate on the book at all. I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch. Thinking about skipping dinner made me want to cry. In the afternoon, I went downstairs and drank some water. My sister was plastered to the glass, staring out at the yard. A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the glass and scared her. “Whoa, that was scary!” she said. “Are the windows gonna break?” “They won’t,” I said. I didn’t feel so great, so I decided to lie down on the floor in the living room. My sister sat next to me. “Why won’t you eat anything?” she said. “Are you sick?” “I’m not sick.” “You look sick.” “Should we take a nap?” my mother suggested. She brought out towels. We put them over our bellies and sprawled out on the floor. My sister grumbled a bit but eventually drifted off. The way my sister was designed, all you had to do was put a towel on her, and she’d nod right off. I usually fell asleep pretty easily, too, but today I was so hungry, I was really struggling to sleep. “You sure you don’t need dinner?” my mom said, sounding sleepy. “I don’t.” “Sheesh. You must be starving!” “But I made up my mind to do this experiment, so I’ll endure it.” “You’re so stubborn,” she said. Then she fell asleep. I stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the typhoon beating against the entire house. I was starting to feel extremely sad. It was dark inside and outside, and I just didn’t have the energy to do anything. I felt like the world once your belly emptied was a very sad place indeed. Even then, it seems I eventually nodded off. Someone was shaking my body. I sat up and found the house was even darker. The wind appeared to have died down a bit, but the sky was still overcast, and the rain was pounding down, leaving the back porch soaking wet. My mother was gone, her towel neatly folded. My sister was flopped down next to me, looking worried, her towel wrapped around her. “What’s wrong?” I asked. My sister suddenly burst into tears. “Mommy’s gonna die!” she said, crying. This really surprised me. I thought something extremely bad had happened to her while I was sleeping. I got to my feet. “Where is she?” I asked, but my sister just shook her head. I sat down next to her. “Why is Mom gonna die?” I asked patiently. I soon discovered that when my sister said “Mommy’s gonna die,” she meant “Mommy’s gonna die someday.” My sister had been thinking about the future and managed to scare herself. “That won’t happen for a very long time,” I said. “But she will die?” My sister was extremely scared. “And you and Daddy will, too?” “That’s true.” “But why?” “Well, we’re all living things. All living things eventually die. Dogs and penguins and blue whales, too.” “I don’t want that.” “Well, you can’t have everything you want.” She pulled the towel over her head, crying even harder. She must have woken up from her nap and found my mother had gone out somewhere, and with the house all dark from the typhoon, she’d felt lonely and started thinking all sorts of gloomy things. I understood why my sister was crying. Back when I still didn’t know anything and was selfish and spoiled, I’d done the same thing she had and realized that everyone I cared about would die one day, and I would never be able to see them again, and that had come as quite a shock. I’d known that all living things died eventually, but it had never occurred to me that that really, actually applied to me. No matter how lucky you were, no matter how much you didn’t want it, you could never escape that fate. And that fact felt like a huge dark wall looming over me. I’d made this realization in the middle of the night, so I’d gone to my parents’ bedroom and tried to explain my discovery to them. But the discovery frightened me so much, I couldn’t say a single word. I felt like if I said a word about it, something extremely bad would happen. Even faced with my sister’s tears, I was so hungry my head wasn’t working properly, and I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make her feel better. But even if I’d been full, I might not have thought of anything. I knew perfectly well that explaining that all living things die would never make sense to her. I remembered that night and how awful that fact had seemed. So I stroked my sister’s head as she cried. That was the only thing I could do. Eventually, my mother came home. She’d briefly run out on an errand. “Whaaat? What’s going on?” she asked brightly. She drew the curtains and turned all the lights on, and it was like all the anxiety we felt melted like snow. I told my mother why my sister was crying. “Oh dear, you poor thing,” my mother said, giving my sister a hug. That evening, while the others ate dinner, I was upstairs in my room. I was feeling extremely sad, both because I was so hungry and because my sister had been crying. I didn’t remember the last time I’d felt this sad, and the sadness was so great, I couldn’t remember anything. I hadn’t recorded anything like this in my notebook, so I had no way to check. I realized I had no way of accurately measuring how sad I felt. Just like I had no way of measuring how hungry I was. I had no energy, so I was lying on my bed and staring out the window. The typhoon had passed, and the clouds outside were starting to have gaps between them. My nose was getting really sensitive, and I felt like I could smell all sorts of delicious scents rising up the stairs. I heard plates being laid out on the living room table and my sister calling my name. Until that moment, I never realized how much I loved my mother’s cooking. I thought about how much the lady must be suffering. I remembered how pale she’d looked and knew exactly why she’d been so listless. I took out my notebook and organized my notes on the lady. Trying to forget how hungry I was, I noted every time the lady had felt good and every time she hadn’t and made a list with dates. Then I made a chart that showed how she was feeling. It looked like a submarine rising and falling. When she was feeling too sick to see me at all I marked it zero; when she was able to call or send messages, one; when she met me but wasn’t feeling good, two; when she was feeling fine, three; and when she could make penguins, a four. I took these values and made a graph with the dates on the horizontal axis. I connected all the dots with curves and got a wave of the lady’s health. Satisfied that I’d managed to accomplish this research despite being very hungry, I dived back into bed. The next time I woke up, it was the middle of the night. It was already tomorrow. I’d completed my experiment goal of not eating for a full day. I didn’t think I could stand to wait for morning, so I went downstairs. My sister and mother were already asleep, but the light was on in the living room. My father was watching TV and drinking booze. He turned when he heard my footsteps. “Oh, you woke up,” he said. “Bet you’re starving.” “Dad. My energy has completely run out.” “That’s quite an experiment,” he said. “Wait right there.” He got up and went to the kitchen. He took out some sandwiches my mother had made and warmed up some potato bacon soup in a pot. He put the soup on the table, steam rising off it, and I felt like I was eating the scent alone. When I took a bite, I was so happy, tears rolled down my cheeks. Big lumps of potato in the soup and the cheese in the sandwiches tasted better than anything else I’d ever eaten. I asked for more soup, eating everything he’d warmed up. “Good, right?” “Very.” “So what are the experiment results? You satisfied with them?” “Yes. I accomplished my goal.” After the typhoon, the heat came back. It was now late August. My mother told me about some strange rumors floating around town. Apparently, some mailboxes and vending machines had gone missing. And the row of streetlights along the bus route had vanished into thin air as well. That wasn’t all; there were stories that several large birds that couldn’t be found in any bird guide had been spotted on the high-tension towers, and some sort of monkey had been seen dancing in the evening on the water-tower hill. Someone else had seen a white fish or lizard-like thing walking on the road past the meeting hall. “Ever since those penguins showed up, it’s been one strange thing after another,” my mother concluded. The mailboxes and vending machines might simply be missing because someone stole them. The birds on the high-tension towers, the monkey on the water-tower hill, and the lizard-like creature on the road all might just be someone’s pet that got away. But I felt like all these strange phenomena were connected to our research. Like my father said, it was quite possible all these problems were actually one problem. I wanted to see the lady again, but I had no idea what she was up to since she stopped feeling good. I went to her apartment building once. I rang the intercom, but she didn’t answer. I wanted her to eat something, so I hung a bag with orange juice and soft pastries from her doorknob. I wrote From Aoyama on a piece of paper I tore out of my notebook and put that in the bag, too. But from the graph I’d made, I estimated she would be feeling better soon. The graph showed a steady wave pattern, and I could tell the next recovery phase would be starting soon. And the graph led me to my next discovery. We were headed for the observation station. As we stepped out of the Jabberwock Woods, Hamamoto said, “Hmm?” The Sea had been in a waning period, but now it was waxing again and was visibly larger than last time. Sunlight hammered down out of the blue sky, making The Sea sparkle. There were several whirlpools on its surface. I sat under the parasol, reading my notes and indexing them. Uchida was flying a kite. Hamamoto sat next to me, making records of her observations of The Sea. She was using fluorescent markers to redraw her graph of The Sea’s radius. “You’re really good at that, Hamamoto,” I said. “I know!” she said, grinning. I took out my notebook, hoping to make a copy of her graph. As I was flipping through it, I found the graph I’d made of the lady’s health. I’d been starving myself when I drew it, so it was a much messier graph than Hamamoto’s. But their actual shapes were extremely similar. “Look at this,” I said, putting my notebook on the grass. I lined Hamamoto’s notebook up right underneath it. The two graphs showed waves fluctuating at the same pace. When The Sea was waxing, the lady got better. When The Sea was waning, the lady started feeling bad. Hamamoto’s eyes widened in surprise, but then she thought about it some more. “But it’s a little off. They aren’t precisely aligned.” “Changes in The Sea are reflected in the lady a few days later. This peak and that one are the same distance apart. They’re linked.” “Aoyama, this is amazing!” Hamamoto yelled. “This is a huge discovery!” Hearing us yelling, Uchida came running over. When I explained our discovery to him, he said, “That is huge!” He looked really happy. “But…what does it mean?” “It means the lady has a strong connection to The Sea.” “So?” Uchida asked. “So…” I thought about it. What did that mean? The lady made penguins. The penguins destroyed The Sea. The size of The Sea was linked to the lady’s health. But what was that link? “We’ve only just discovered this, so I don’t have a hypothesis yet. We’ll need to get more help from her and research this properly. Right now, she’s not feeling well, so there’s nothing we can do.” “You’d better be careful around her,” Hamamoto said gravely. “I don’t think you should tell her about this discovery.” “Why not?” “What if she’s actually an alien?” Uchida looked worried. “She said she made that up!” “If she is an alien, and The Sea is actually her spaceship, what then? If she thinks we’ve found out her secret, she might just kill us all.” “Your idea doesn’t make sense,” I said. “There’s no way the aliens would ever have let us get this far.” “They might have let their guards down because we’re children.” “You are very suspicious, Hamamoto.” “Why is it you trust her so much, Aoyama? Try to be objective.” “I am being objective. I wish you’d look at this logically.” “I think you’re the one not being logical.” Hamamoto and I glared at each other. Uchida waved his hands. “Don’t fight,” he said. “I don’t think either of you is being logical right now!” Hamamoto snorted. “Aoyama, you only like the lady because you like boobs.” “I admit I do like breasts. But that’s unrelated to why I like the lady.” “But the lady has boobs.” “That she does.” “Enough!” Hamamoto yelled. Uchida and I both jumped. I was thoroughly lost now. Hamamoto just bit her lip and refused to say anything, even if we tried talking to her. She sat under the parasol, her expression as frosty as an Ice Queen, building LEGO walls in silence. It was really uncomfortable to be around her, so Uchida and I took a walk across the clearing. Once we were a safe distance away, Uchida turned around. “That was a surprise. Didn’t think she’d get that angry.” “It’s a mystery.” “I don’t always understand her,” Uchida said. “But I think I do know why she got so angry this time.” “You do?” “But I can’t tell you. I don’t know if I’m right or not.” “It would really help if you tell me anyway.” Then we heard squeaking coming from the forest. And what sounded like a bird screaming in pain. Uchida grabbed my arm. “What was that?” he said. The sound came from the forest on the south side of the clearing. Something big hit a tree, and all the leaves rustled. We saw something white moving through the darkness of the woods. There were too many trees to get a clear look, but it was about the size of a dog, with smooth white skin, and it glistened like it was wet. The arms and legs looked like a human’s. It was such a sinister sight none of us dared move a muscle. After the white thing vanished into the depths of the forest, we heard the bird scream again. “What was that?” Uchida said. “Something very strange is going on,” I said. I recorded this significant discovery in my notebook. When The Sea waxes, the lady gets better. When The Sea wanes, the lady gets worse.