Brave Story (16 page)

“Well, can I go shopping with you?” Wataru asked. “I only have five hours of school and then I’m free. We could go to a department store, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or anywhere!”

His uncle paused a moment. “Well…that
sounds
like a good idea.”

“Lemme come, please?”

“Okay, ask your mother if you can go shopping with me for a couple of hours, and be sure to tell her I’ll have you home in time for dinner.”

Wataru rejoiced.
I’ll have plenty of time to talk with him about everything!
Covering the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand, he spun around. “Mom! Can I…”

Kuniko, who had been sitting at the table drinking a cup of tea, answered before he even finished asking. “No.”

“Why not? He’s coming on Friday! I don’t have to go to cram school on that day!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Your uncle is coming to Tokyo on business. You’ll just get in his way.”

“But I’m going to
help
him! He’s coming to buy a present for…”

Kuniko placed her mug on the table and let out a sigh. Her face darkened further, until she reminded Wataru of the wicked old witch he had seen once in a television movie. “No means no, Wataru. Give me the phone.”

“No, it’s okay, Wataru. You can go out with your uncle.” It was his father. Startled, both Wataru and Kuniko turned to see Akira standing at the entrance to the living room, briefcase in hand. He was still wearing his suit, and his rimless eyeglasses had slid partway down his nose. He was looking straight at Wataru.

“You haven’t seen your uncle in a while.” He handed his briefcase to Kuniko, who had approached him with a surprised look on her face, and continued, “It’ll be a good chance for you to talk with him about what kind of work you’ll be doing in Chiba this summer. Here, let me talk to him.”

Akira took the receiver from Wataru’s hand. “Hey, Satoru, how’ve you been? Mom doing okay? Yeah, everyone here is well. So, about getting together with Wataru…”

The cavalry had arrived in the nick of time. Wataru’s eyes shone. He could feel his body emitting a happy glow to a radius of at least a yard. Godzilla wasn’t coming, but he bounced about the room all the same.

“Hush, Wataru,” Kuniko scowled, still clutching Akira’s briefcase. “You’re father’s still on the phone.”

You’re upset because you just got KO’d,
Wataru thought, but he took great pains not to let his unbridled joy show on his face.

Akira finished talking and handed the phone back to Wataru. “Why don’t you go ahead and have dinner with your uncle too. That way you won’t have to rush your shopping.”

“Thanks!” Wataru jumped up and quickly worked out the details with Uncle Lou, who promised to come pick him up at their apartment. Akira confirmed the schedule, then hung up the phone and went to change clothes. When he came back to the table, Kuniko was laying out dishes for supper. Wataru was so happy that he wanted to dance around the room, but one look at his mother’s scowl told him that restraint was the wise course of action.

“Thanks, Dad!”

“Don’t be a bother to your uncle, now,” Akira said, opening the evening paper.

“I won’t! I promise!”

“You’re home early tonight, aren’t you?” Kuniko inquired as she shuttled back and forth between the table and the refrigerator. She was angry and ignored Wataru. “If we’d known you’d be home so early, we’d have waited to have dinner with you.”

“My meeting was cancelled.”

“Beer?”

“No thanks.”

Just as Kuniko avoided looking at Wataru, so did Akira avoid Kuniko, keeping his eyes glued to his newspaper as he spoke. Wataru retreated to his room, mumbling something about having to do homework.

Wataru sat quietly at his desk with his homework spread out in front of him, but there was no way he could immediately shift into work mode. He was too busy imagining how his uncle would react when Wataru brought him up to speed on recent events.
I met a wizard, Uncle Lou! He cast a spell on me to turn back time! It’s all true!

Finally reining in his enthusiasm, he began to tackle his arithmetic and writing homework. When he got up to go to the bathroom, he found his parents sitting on the living room sofa, drinking coffee. Kuniko told him to take his bath.

“Just two more pages.”

When he came back, Kuniko was talking about something. Wataru could sense at a glance that the room was still under martial law, so he pretended not to listen and headed back to his own room. He had caught a snippet of the conversation: apparently, someone had again called and hung up several times that day.
Ah, so that’s why Mom looked so nervous when Uncle Lou called.
It also explained her unusually foul mood today. Wataru sighed.

By the time he crawled into bed, though, Wataru’s mood had picked right back up.

“What’s it been, six months since I saw you at New Year’s?” Uncle Lou said, grinning as he placed a large hand on Wataru’s head. “You sure sprung up! In another six months you’ll be up to my shoulder!”

“I’m not growing
that
fast,” Wataru laughed. Right now he was only tall enough to come up to the tattooed scar left by a childhood immunization shot on Uncle Lou’s left arm. Wataru knew about his scar from the many days they had spent on the beach in Chiba.

His uncle was a big man, both horizontally and vertically. He had long hair and a beard, and both his arms and legs were covered with thick hair. Today, he was wearing a typically gaudy shirt that made him look like a cartoon bear. If he picked up a banjo and put on a straw hat, no one would be able to tell the difference.

“Sure is hot in Tokyo,” Uncle Lou said, wiping his face with his hand. “Muggy too. That’s the difference between the heat down here in the city and the heat out on the beach. I would’ve given up on shopping if I were trying to do it alone. Sure glad you’re here to help.”

It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon on Friday. Wataru had come home from school two hours before to wait impatiently, fully prepared with a brand-new white shirt on for the occasion. The thing that had been weighing on his mind for the past two days—his fight with Katchan—had been resolved. The following day in school he had gone up to his friend to apologize, and Katchan had looked at him with his big round eyes and said, “What for?” and the matter had been settled. He was ready to go.

“I don’t imagine the rainy season is over yet, but at least today, you’re in luck,” his mother said, moving to the window and looking up at the sky. It had been overcast all morning, but since noon the sun had been shining with a weak light through the hazy clouds.

“At least we won’t have to haul umbrellas around,” Uncle Lou said, beaming as he turned to Wataru. “Ready to go?”

“You bet! Later, Mom.”

“Be good now. Watch after him, Satoru.”

“Aww, he’s always a good kid, aren’t you, Wataru? I’d have to try pretty hard to be half as good as you are.” Uncle Lou cackled as he led the way out. Kuniko saw them off at the door, and apologized for not having been a better hostess. She hadn’t even offered him a cup of coffee, unusual for someone who prided herself on propriety. Now that Wataru thought about it, her expression had been a bit stiff and forced that afternoon.
Maybe there were more prank calls.

Uncle Lou had new intelligence about the boy he was going to visit in the hospital. First off, he had learned that he loved anime about robots. Unlike Wataru, he almost never played computer games, as his mother forbade them. The thing he had wanted most was a portable MD player, but someone had already given him that for good grades on his last report card.

Wataru suggested that they go to the Jinbocho district.

“The place with all the bookstores?”

“Yeah, there’s a shop there called Konno Books that specializes in anime stuff. They’ll have something on robot anime for sure.”

“Good thinking. How do you know about the place? You into that stuff too?”

“Not so much, but a friend of mine from cram school is really into it. If you ever need to know
anything
about anime, just ask him.”

Wataru led the way to the train while listening to his uncle talk about news from Chiba. Apparently, the humidity was up, along with his grandmother’s complaining. That was okay though, because her gripes were always good for a laugh. There was a new arcade near the beach (which Wataru would have to check out during his visit), and a big debate was going on about whether a man fishing on the pier had really seen a sea monster. Finally, the owner of Wataru’s favorite ramen joint had gotten into a fistfight and ended up with ten stitches.

They got off at the station and made their way toward the bookstores, only to discover that the district was so big and there were so many stores that Wataru wasn’t sure if they would ever find the one he had heard about. He didn’t know the exact address.

“We’ll figure it out. Follow me.”

Uncle Lou went into a large bookstore facing the main intersection and began talking to a young employee at the register. She was very helpful, handing him a map of the shopping district and pointing the way to Konno Books for him. The encounter put Uncle Lou in a good mood. “You know,” he said, “if you listen to the news, you’d think the whole world was going to pot. But there’s still plenty of kind folks around, that’s clear.”

This was Wataru’s first time in the booksellers’ district, and it made his head spin. He couldn’t believe that there were so many books in the world. Who could possibly read them all?

“If I spent the rest of my life trying, I still couldn’t read one ten-thousandth of all of the books they sell here,” Wataru said.

“I couldn’t read one one-millionth!” Uncle Lou replied, his body shaking with laughter. “What I want to know is, who’s writing all of them? Whoever it is, their heads must be full of words instead of brains.”

Konno Books was a small, three-story building. Uncle Lou pushed his way through the crowd with Wataru following close by. There were rivers of books flowing over display stands, and mountains of books stacked high to the ceiling. After spending close to an hour, they managed to find three glossy, oversize books that seemed to fit the bill.

“Whew!” said Uncle Lou, “talk about a workout!” Sweat was dripping from his brow.

They spilled out of the crowded store onto the street. Wataru was just about to take a deep breath, when someone slammed into him from behind. Caught off guard, Wataru wobbled and fell to his hands and knees on the pavement. A sharp sting ran up his arms and legs. He tried to get up, but his legs were numb. Helpless, he watched as a grimy sneaker came down on his right hand, stomping it into the asphalt.

“Yeeouch!”

Uncle Lou’s thick arm snaked around Wataru’s chest and lifted him up off the ground. “You okay? Are you hurt?” He was yelling. Numb from the pain in his hand, Wataru managed to nod and slowly stand.

His uncle dashed after a man walking fast in the opposite direction. He grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around, revealing a very young man in jeans wearing a gray T-shirt.

“What’s the big idea, knocking down a kid and stomping on his hand? You didn’t even say sorry!”

Even with Uncle Lou’s arms on him, the young man’s expression didn’t change a bit. He looked pale and sickly. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes vacant.
They look like the eyes of a dead fish
, Wataru thought, clutching his throbbing hand to his chest.

“Hey! Do you even know what you just did?” Uncle Lou was coming to a boil. His face turned beet red, and he grabbed the guy by the neck of his Tshirt. The young man remained coolly silent.

“It’s fine, Uncle Lou, I’m okay,” Wataru called out.

His uncle glanced back at Wataru, and then turned back to his captive. “You trampled that little boy over there and stepped on his hand, and you were just going to walk away like nothing happened? Who do you think you are? What makes you think you can get away with something like that?”

The man’s expression didn’t change. The muscles in his face were completely relaxed, giving him an angry look.

“You’re a grown man! Don’t you know that you’ve got to set an example? Now you go apologize to that boy, and make sure he’s not hurt!”

The man’s mouth finally moved, but from where he was, Wataru couldn’t make out what he was saying. He could see his uncle turn a deeper shade of red, though.

“What was that? Let’s hear you say that again!”

The man complied. “Shut up,” he said, louder this time.

Uncle Lou blinked. “Did you just tell me to shut up?”

“Man, give it a rest, will you?”

Uncle Lou was so surprised his grip loosened. The man wriggled out of his grasp and started to walk away. “What do I care if he gets stepped on, or run over?” he spat over his shoulder. “He shouldn’t be out in traffic.”

Satoru’s mouth fell open. His face went pale.
This could be bad
. Wataru felt his heart skip a beat.
Uncle Lou, Uncle Lou, stay calm!

Just then, Wataru heard a familiar voice. “Your uncle’s in danger! You have to stop him!”

Wataru was so surprised he stopped for a second.