Sam Samurai (6 page)

“Eight,” said Sam.

“He’s counting?” I said. We all realized what was happening at the same time, but there was no time to time-warp slow it down or stop it.

“Nine,” said Sam in a very squeaky voice.

“He’s counting to ten before he gives the order to do us in!” I yelled.

Fred, Sam, and I backed against each other, but there was nowhere to go. Hands tied behind our backs, circled by samurai spears, we had just one more number.

And we didn’t need a translator to tell us it was a final “ten.”

“Stop!” yelled a girlish voice.

“Stop?” said Sam. “I thought
‘ju’
was ten.”

“Hold your spears, samurai. These boys are special friends to the Lady li Naomasa,” said the voice.

I opened my eyes, which I hadn’t even realized I had closed.

Owattabutt looked like he was going to explode. His face was almost as red as his armor.

The girl who had spoken waved to us from the bridge. She wore a bright green kimono. Two other girls stood with her.

Fred, Sam, and I had no idea who they were, but we waved back.

Owattabutt spoke to the girls. “I have disappointed Lady Ii Naomasa. I request permission to kill myself.”

“Permission denied,” said a lady, stepping out of one of the traveling boxes the guys carried on poles. “You are the most loyal warrior of the regiment. You were performing your duty to protect Lord Ii as you should.”

Owattabutt bowed deeply. “So sorry for my rudeness,” he said to us. He jumped back on his horse and galloped off to the head of the procession. His spear-pointing samurai followed him.

The lady spoke to the girls and got back in her traveling box.

The three girls walked toward us. As they came closer we could see that they weren’t Japanese. Something about them looked very familiar.

“Hi, Joe,” said the girl who had spoken.

“Hi, Sam,” said the girl with the crazy wild hairdo.

“Hey, Fred,” said the girl wearing samurai pants like Honda’s.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get any stranger, Fred, Sam, and I said hello to our great-granddaughters.

Now I realize a sentence like that last one has probably never been written before. Most people don’t get a chance to say hello to their great-granddaughters. It’s a long and complicated story. I’ll give you the short version.

In the past we went one hundred years into the future. We met our great-granddaughters-Jo, Samm, and Freddi. They inherited
The
Book. So they can travel anywhere in time, too. Don’t ask me how or why or if it messes up the universe. I have no idea. We’re always too busy saving ourselves to answer any questions. Check out our adventure called
2095
if you still think you need to know more.

The girls untied our hands. We tried to act like we knew what we were doing.

“Oh hey,” I said.

“What’s up?” said Fred.

“Ancient Japan,” said Sam.

“Do you realize you were about to get speared for insulting a samurai?” said the crazy-hair girl, Samm. “I don’t know what you said to Owattabutt, but he’s the wrong guy to get mad at you.”

“Oh what a butt,” said Fred.

Sam and I laughed.

The girls gave us a blank look. I’m pretty sure I saw Jo roll her eyes.

“You should be more careful about flipping the Auto-Translator off and on,” said Samm. “You had it off, you know.”

“We know,” said Sam. “We were just ...uh ... practicing counting to ten in Japanese.”

“We’re visiting our friends, Lady li Naomasa and Lady Ieyasu Tokugawa,” said Jo, holding out her arms to show off her kimono. “Isn’t seventeenth-century Japan amazing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Amazing anyone keeps their head on their shoulders for very long.”

“You’ve got to check out the samurai training,” said Freddi. “I wanted to come back to do some more work on my sword moves.” She spun through a few moves with a wooden samurai practice sword.

I saw Honda nod. Zou smiled.

Jo noticed Honda and Zou. “Oh these must be the Time Guides you picked.”

“Huh?” I said.

“No,” Samm said to Jo. “They must be on total Auto Travel.
The
Book picks everything. I’ll bet they don’t even know where to find The Book.”

Jo looked at us. She couldn’t be too mean. She is my great-granddaughter. “So were you going to warp home through the poetry contest, or wait for the next Time-Space Fold?”

I remembered the haiku that got us here. “Poetry contest,” I guessed.

“Well, let’s get going,” said Jo. “You can introduce us to your friends.”

We had no idea what she was talking about, but we followed Jo, Samm, and Freddi. We introduced Honda and Zou.

We walked down the seventeenth-century Tokaido Road toward Edo and the samurai warlord Tokugawa’s castle like we were strolling to the deli.

Time travel will do that to you.

It would take me a whole book to tell all of the strange stuff we saw and did next. It was like being on a different planet. In fact, it would probably take me two whole books. And I’m not that crazy about writing. So I thought I might make the next couple of pages like the part in movies where they show a lot of short scenes all mashed together. It’s usually in those lame movies when people are supposed to be falling in love. Or in the action movies when the good guy is getting ready to fight the bad guy. Sam told me the name for that, but I forget what it is. But now that I think of it, it’s kind of like haiku. Short and to the point.

Pine trees along the Tokaido road. Hills. Water-front. Over a bridge and into the crazy busy city of Edo. Buildings of wood, paper windows. Looking like New York in kimonos. Samm telling us, “Edo, as you know, is the original name of modern Tokyo.” Sam says, “I knew that.”