Sam Samurai (2 page)

“Hey, check it out,” said Fred. He nodded toward the wall closest to us. Three long spear poles with machete-style blades at the ends leaned against the wall.

“Those are closer to us than they are to him,” said Fred. “There are three of us and only one of him.”

Sam turned completely ghost white. “No, no, no. Don’t you remember
Blade of Lightning?
Samurai are fast enough to take on ten guys with spears
and
swords.”

It was too late. I could tell Fred had already made up his mind. He got up slowly, pretending to stretch his legs.

“Oh, that’s it. Just needed to stretch the old—”

Then it all happened in a second. Fred jumped for the machete-spear weapon. His shadow flashed across the samurai.

“Look out Fred!” yelled Sam. “He’s going for his sword!”

I dove for the samurai’s feet and smacked my head on his shin guards. The samurai fell toward Fred. Fred grabbed the spear. He spun around to face the samurai, and as he turned he swung the spear with him. The samurai lunged. The blade of the spear caught the samurai just under the chin and sliced his head right off his shoulders.

The armored body part crashed to the floor. The helmeted head rolled and rolled and came to rest next to the fire pit. The red-lipped black faceplate stared at us in the light of the dying fire.

Sam and I stood up. Fred looked at the blade of the spear.

“Sorry?”

First of all, I want you to know that Fred and Sam and I are very sorry for any trouble we might have accidentally caused in the universe by slicing off someone’s head five hundred years before we were born.

Maybe one of your ancestors got turned into a monkey or a pig because of Fred’s spear chop. Maybe you are a monkey or a pig because of Fred’s spear chop. I don’t know. We’re not exactly sure what happens when someone messes with the past like we sometimes do. But we are working on it. And we are sorry. So ... well ... sorry, or
“eee eee,”
or
“oink oink.”

Secondly, before we lose our own heads for being so impolite, for wearing shoes indoors, for moving a guy’s head closer to the fire, I’d like to try to explain how we got into this latest Time Warp jam.

If you are still reading this, and haven’t stomped off to go yell at the bookstore owner or teacher or librarian who would let children read such terrible things, you probably already know this is all because of a book.
The Book.
A dark blue book covered with strange silver writing and signs.

I got
The Book
as a birthday present from my Uncle Joe. He’s kind of a magician. Oh, and did I mention that
The Book
can send its readers anywhere in time and space? Did I mention that the only way to return to the present is to find
The Book
in that past or future time? Did I mention that
The Book
always disappears no matter what we do and leaves us stranded when we Time Warp? Did I mention this is beginning to drive me crazy!!??

Sorry.

I guess I just get a little annoyed because Fred and Sam and I are having a hard time making this time warping thing work when even our own great-granddaughters, who are girls, and a hundred years younger than us, can figure it out and—

I’m screaming again. Sorry. This messing around with time gets very complicated. Here, why don’t I just tell you what happened. Maybe you can figure it out. If you do, send me a postcard, and we’ll be happy to try your idea for hanging on to
The Book.
If you don’t have any bright ideas (or are still yelling at the bookstore owner, teacher, or librarian), save your stamp.

We were over at Sam’s house, working on our homework.

“Write three different examples of haiku,” Sam read from the assignment sheet. “Use the form five syllables for the first line, seven syllables for the second line, and five syllables for the last line. Remember the examples we studied in class.”

“Oh man,” said Fred. “I can’t believe it. This is such a goofball thing. Writing poetry.”

Sam squinted at Fred and adjusted his glasses like he does when he’s thinking. “Two more and you’re done.”

Fred pushed his Yomiuri Giants hat back on his head. “What?”

“You’ve got your first haiku,” said Sam.

“Wow,” said Fred. “I’m a natural.” He pulled out a half-ripped piece of paper and started writing it down.

“Fred, I was kidding. Hand that in to Ms. Basho, and she will freak out.” Sam squinted again. “Though that’s a pretty decent haiku, too.

“Come on, guys. Let’s get serious and finish this homework. I want to show you this trick I figured out,” I said. “Didn’t Ms. Basho say we have to write about Japanese things like cherry blossoms or ninjas?”

“No, no, no,” said Sam. “Why does every American kid think Japan is all about ninjas?”

“Because you see them in every computer game, cartoon, and kung-fu movie?” said Fred.

“Historical research shows most ninjas were just hired robbers. The real warriors in Japan were the samurai,” said Sam. “Let me show you these guys.”

Sam scooped up a pile of books from his mom’s desk, dumped them on the kitchen table, and started flipping through them like a maniac. In case you haven’t noticed, Sam’s like that. He’s a maniac for something different every week. Last week he knew everything about sharks. This week it was everything about Japanese samurai warriors. I don’t know where he gets it. Though now that I think of it, I guess he does get a lot of that craziness from his mom. Sam lives with just his mom. She writes stuff for magazines and books and computer sites. She knows all kinds of stuff, and she’s always going crazy over whatever she’s working on.

“Look at these stone castles. Four hundred, five hundred years old. Look at these armies. Check out these swords.” Sam flopped open a book to a picture of two beautiful swords, one long, one short. “The long one is called a
katana.
The short one is called a
wakizashi.
If you were a samurai, you carried both swords tucked into your sash. And here’s how sharp they were.”

Sam opened another book to a black-and-white drawing of samurai warriors looking at two shelves. The shelves were full of heads. Yes—heads. Just ... heads.

“Oh man,” said Fred. “I guess they were the losers.”

“Definitely,” said Sam. “The winning general had the heads of the losers in battle washed and combed. Then he inspected them. If the eyes were looking up, that was unlucky. Eyes looking down or closed were lucky.”

“Either way sounds pretty unlucky for the guy losing his head,” I said.

Sam threw out more pictures of armored and helmeted samurai in battle. “And you’ve got to see these movies I’ve been watching with my mom. She’s writing this article on samurai. We’ve seen
Seven Samurai, Shogun, Ran, Samurai
—”

“Aren’t they all in Japanese?” said Fred. “I hate those movies where you have to read them.”

“There’s not many words in the good action scenes,” said Sam. “And I started to learn some Japanese just from listening.”

I looked up from the samurai warlords book. “Hey that’s the trick I was going to show you. Remember when you asked how come everyone speaks English no matter where we time warp?”

“Yeah,” said Sam.

“Well, you were right. I found a part in
The Book
that explains the Auto-Translator. It automatically translates everything into
The Book
user’s language. Look.” I pulled a thin blue book covered with silver writing and designs out of my backpack.

Sam jumped up from the kitchen table. “Are you crazy? Put that away! You know if you get that thing anywhere near those samurai books something is going to happen and the next thing you know, we’ll be back in sixteen-hundred Japan with armored samurai trying to slice off our heads.”

“Ah, calm down,” said Fred, slapping Sam with his hat. “This sounds good. Maybe there is an Auto-Haiku Writer or an Auto-Homework Doer in there. We could put our empty papers in there. Go get a slice of pizza. Come back, and we’re finished.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But look in the back here. I think I finally found the section that explains how
The Book
works.”

That got Sam interested. “Really?” He moved one step closer. “Just don’t anybody touch any pictures or read anything from
The Book
out loud.”

I opened
The Book
to some strange diagrams and charts in the back. But that wasn’t what got us in trouble. It was what happened next.

“So what cranks
The Book?”
said Fred.

“What triggers the time warping?” I said.

“You mean the green mist?” said Sam.

A wisp of that very mist leaked out and curled around the samurai books.

Sam jumped into his ready karate position. “Stop! No!
Yamero! lie!”

“What did we do?” said Fred. “What did we say?”

The whirlpool of green time-traveling mist swirled around Sam’s kitchen. And just before we were flushed down four hundred years, I saw the answer. Time travel haiku.

“So what cranks
The Book?

What triggers the time,warping?

You mean the green mist?”

Fred, Sam, and I stared at the helmeted head resting by the fire. It stared back at us. We were too freaked out to move.

“I guess he wasn’t as fast as that guy in
Lightning Samurai,”
I finally said.

Fred carefully leaned the spear back against the wall, then put his hands in his pockets. “You helped slow him down by taking out his legs, Joe. And you saved me by yelling a warning, Sam. But I didn’t mean to whack his head off. I was just going to keep him covered while we found The
Book.”

“Speaking of which,” said Sam. “Now I think we’d definitely better get
The Book
and get the heck out of here. I don’t know all of the samurai customs, but I’m pretty sure it’s not polite to remove a samurai’s head.”

“Shouldn’t we at least clean him up or put him back together?” I said. “Maybe no one will notice for a while.”

“That is disgusting,” said Sam. “How are we going to clean—” Sam looked at the armored body. Then he looked back at the head.

Soft daylight filtered into the room from outside. I heard birds chirping. The morning sun began to light the corners of the room.

Sam looked at the armor again. He looked at the head. Then he started to laugh.

“Uh-oh,” said Fred. “He’s losing it.”

I grabbed Sam by the shoulders. “Hang on, Sam. Don’t worry. We’ll find
The Book.
We’ll get back to your house.”

Sam shook his head and only laughed harder. He tried to say something, pointing at the head. But the only sound that came out of him was something like, “Eep ooh eh urh.”