Sam Samurai (3 page)

Fred looked at me. “Lost it.”

I nodded.

Sam broke away from me. He picked up the head and tossed it to me.

I didn’t want to catch it, but I couldn’t help myself. I caught the head and closed my eyes. It seemed oddly light. I opened one eye. I turned the helmet and mask over. That’s when I saw what Sam had realized. It wasn’t a head. It was an empty helmet and mask.

Sam laughed. “That was no samurai. We just beat up a suit of armor.”

Fred picked up the body. The arms and legs flopped loosely. Fred looked hugely relieved. The morning sun poured into the room. Now we could see we had taken on a suit of armor sitting in a dark corner. The shadows from the flickering fire had made it look like it was alive.

We all sat down on the edge of the wooden platform in our socks. It felt good to be alive. I held the helmeted faceplate in my lap and looked it in the eye. “You want some more of that?”

“Yeah, come on, metalhead,” said Fred. We both laughed.

“Though I do think you’re right, Joe,” said Sam, cleaning his glasses with his T-shirt.

“About what?”

“We should put everything back just like it was, find
The Book,
and get out of here.”

For once, we all agreed. Fred sat the samurai armor back on its stool. I gave him back its head. Sam searched the room for
The Book.

We met back at the fire pit.

“As usual,” said Sam. “Nothing. Nada. No Book. Nowhere. Don’t you guys think this is starting to get ridiculous? I mean we get thrown around time by looking at a picture, or touching some numbers, and now from saying a group haiku! And what’s with the disappearing Book? Why can’t we ever hang on to it?”

Fred frowned and pulled on his hat. That’s how I could tell he was thinking. “Yeah, what’s the deal with that, Joe?”

“That’s what I was trying to show you,” I said. “In that same section where I found out about the Auto-Translator, there was a part about keeping track of
The Book.”

Sam’s eyes lit up. “So what did it say?”

“It’s called the Eternal Return,” I said. “It’s something about how
The Book
has to change to fit in with whatever time it’s in.”

“But what about holding on to it?” said Sam.

“That’s the part I didn’t get,” I said. “It said ‘Look for the books of the time,’ and then it had a bunch of words in some other language and drawings and signs.”

“Oh great,” said Sam.

“Is that good?” said Fred.

“It’s what we already know,” said Sam.
“The Book
disappears, then it turns up somewhere you might find a book. Brilliant. Oh man, I just know we’re going to get our heads cut off.”

“That’s bad,” said Fred, sitting down next to Sam.

“Come on, you losers,” I said, walking around the room. “Let’s think. We’re back in ancient Japan.”

“Sixteen hundred, no doubt,” said Sam.

“Did they have books then?”

“They sure don’t have any tables or chairs,” said Fred.

“I know they printed things with wood blocks,” said Sam. “Some of their books were illustrated action books like comic books.”

Fred perked up. “So maybe they hide their books like I hide my comic books so my brothers don’t mess them all up.”

“This is hopeless,” said Sam, holding his head in his hands.

Fred scanned the room. “Like there,” he said. He pointed to a small ledge on the top of a wall. “That’s where I’d hide them.” We looked up and saw a row of book-size packages wrapped and tied.

“I mean this is hopelessly easy,” said Sam.

“Time Warp traveling mist, here we come,” I said.

Fred and I boosted Sam up the wall. He stood with one foot on each of our shoulders. He stretched up and grabbed a dark blue package. That’s when a shadow fell across the room.

An angry man’s voice shouted a very mean-sounding string of Japanese words at us. Then we heard an even more chilling sound—the
chiiing
sound a thin sharp piece of metal being pulled from its holder might make. The sound you might imagine from a sword being pulled free for action. The last sound you might hear before your head rolled off your shoulders.

We turned slowly, with Sam still on our shoulders, toward the sound of our doom.

A man in a kimono and wide pants, a real man this time, no tricky shadows, stood in the doorway. He had two swords stuck in his belt, just like the picture of the samurai Sam had shown us. In his right hand he held the sword that had made the noise. He didn’t look happy. And he was still speaking some very mad Japanese.

“What the heck is he saying?” asked Fred.

“I can’t understand a word,” said Sam. “But I’m guessing it’s something like, ‘Why are you three criminals stealing my best comic books? Stay right there. I will use my very sharp sword to cut you into tiny pieces to feed to the worms.”’

“Mr. Samurai,” I said. “This is not what it looks like. We are just three innocent time warp guys looking for our
Book.
Book. Us. Ours.”

The samurai guy frowned. He obviously didn’t understand a word I said.

“What happened to the Auto-Translator?” said Sam.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It must have got switched off.”

“Well, I hope you’re good at sign language or have one very good silent trick up your sleeve,” said Sam. His legs started to shake. Fred and I started to shake, too.

The samurai yelled something again. I think it was a question. But he didn’t wait for an answer.

He ran up to us, drew his sword back, and prepared to strike a serious two-handed blow.

I remember looking closely at the strange little ponytail of hair the samurai had folded forward on the top of his half-shaved head. I remember seeing every detail very clearly and thinking, “We are about to get our heads sliced off by a guy with a very funny ponytail ... but it doesn’t seem that funny.”

The samurai pointed his sword at Sam and motioned for him to get down. Fred and I slowly lowered Sam. The samurai grabbed the dark blue package roughly out of Sam’s shaking hands. More pointing with his sword and Japanese shouts moved the three of us into a line.

“He’s going to try to take all three of our heads off in one swipe,” said Sam.

“Let’s make a grab for
The Book
and open it really fast,” said Fred.

“We’ll never make it against a real samurai,” I said.

“Joe,” said Sam. “Our only hope is a magic trick—quick.”

The samurai put the package down behind him, keeping his eyes on us the whole time. He drew his sword slowly back. I knew I had one chance, and probably only one chance to come up with a particularly great trick.

I thought of the magic book I was reading and what trick might impress a mad samurai. The Coin Vanish? I didn’t have a coin. The Red and Black Card Switch? I didn’t have cards. The Number Prediction? This guy wouldn’t understand a word I said.

“Oogala boogala”
(or something like that), said the samurai.

“Uh Joe ... the trick?” said Sam. “Some trick. Any trick.”

The lightbulb went off over my head. Sam had given me the perfect idea. Any trick. “That’s it!” said. I thought of the first chapter of every magic book I ever read. It’s always about how you can make almost any trick work. You just have to command your audience’s attention.

It’s like when you talk to your dog or cat. They don’t know what you are saying. They listen to how you say it. If you sound nice, they wag their tail or purr and rub on you. It doesn’t matter if you are saying the words, “Come here doggy-woggy. I’m going to tie your ears in a knot and whack you.”

I didn’t need a great trick. I just needed to sound like a great magician. I looked the samurai in the eye and said in my best stage voice, “Mr. Samurai, observe.”

I had his eyes on me now.

“With nothing up my sleeve ...” I motioned to my two bare arms, since I was wearing a T-shirt ... “I will now present one of the most ancient and astounding tricks in the long and glorious history of magic.” (I copied most of that from listening to my Uncle Joe. He’s a stage magician sometimes, and he said that kind of talking while you set the trick up is called “patter.”)

The samurai looked puzzled, but interested.

“I will attempt to link this ring—” I made a circle with my thumb and first finger—“with this ring.” I made the same circle with my other hand and held them up.

The samurai lowered his sword down in front of him. Sam breathed a huge sigh.

I moved my hands back and forth, around and around, chanting, “Hocus pocus, toilet plunger, football touchdown, woof!”

I crashed the two circles together, then held them up, now linked together.

The samurai looked stunned.

I heard Sam whisper to Fred, “Now who’s lost it?”

But I noticed the samurai give a half smile.

“And to reverse this amazing effect,” I boomed in my biggest stage voice, “you simply reverse the spell.”

I waved my linked hands around and chanted, “Football touchdown, toilet plunger, hocus pocus, woof!” I slipped my fingers apart and raised the now freed circles over my head.

Talk about a “Do or Die” trick.

If the samurai liked it, we lived. If not—

The samurai leaned back and back and ... actually snorted a laugh.

Sam, Fred, and I started breathing again

The samurai said something that sounded like,
“Eeka waka dodo chacha
is the stupidest trick I have ever seen.”

“I know,” I said. “I think it’s the first trick I ever learned from my dad but—hey! What did you just say?”

“Hey, I’m understanding Japanese,” said Fred.

“The Auto-Translator must have kicked back on,” I said.

The samurai laughed and shook his head. “That is the stupidest trick I have ever seen. Except for this one.” He slid his sword back into his belt and held up two hands—one a closed fist, the other with two fingers up.

“Observe,” said the samurai. “I will magically make one finger jump from this hand with two fingers to this hand with no fingers.” He waved the two-finger hand around saying, “Jump to the other hand, now!” He smacked the two-finger fist down on the other fist. He held up both hands. Each one had one finger up.