Stealth of the Ninja Read online

  I stopped talking and looked over. He was nodding in agreement. It was nearly impossible to get him to say more than a few words at a time but at least he was listening.

  I noticed he was suddenly holding two poles in his hands. Where did they come from? They weren’t there two seconds ago. They looked like wooden swords. He turned and threw one into the air towards me. I reached for it but missed. It struck me on the side of the head and fell onto the deck with a rattle. It didn’t hurt much because it was so light. I stared at it for a moment before picking it up. I had a feeling that the second I touched it, I was in trouble. I could just leave it there, and pretend I wasn’t interested … like a chicken, or I could grab it and defend myself.

  I picked it up. It was light in my hands, like bamboo, and felt good. He stood and faced me. He was smiling, but it was a serious kind of smile. “When you want to stop,” he said, “you just say … ‘give up’”.

  Give up? Was he serious? I hated those words. I hated them more than anything. Giving up was the one thing I never did. If I were going to give up, I might just as well have stayed home and worked on my grandfather’s boat. Sensei was in for a surprise if he thought I was ever going to give up.

  The second I raised my wooden sword, his sword swung through the air with a flash of colour and tapped my ear. It stung just like a bee. “Ouch!” I tried to duck, but he struck me again. Oh boy.

  “Give up?” he said.

  “No!”

  As hopeless at it might have seemed, the feeling of the sword in my hand gave me such a sense of power that I thought maybe, just maybe, I might surprise him. I wouldn’t rush in and foolishly expect to strike him right away, knowing what a superior fighter he probably was. Instead, I would play the innocent, and lure him into a trap. I would pretend I couldn’t handle the stick as well as I actually could, and wait for him to let down his guard. I had to hit him only once, just once, for him to feel my sting. And that gave me more determination than I think I’ve ever felt in all of my life.

  And so began the stick fight on the ship, a crazy kind of fight that started out as a simple lesson but became for me a very painful one.

  Sensei’s method of teaching fighting was brutally simple: I’m going to keep hitting you until you learn how to defend yourself. If you hurt too much, you just have to say, “give up.”

  But defending yourself against someone who can jump eight feet in the air, who has lightning reflexes, and years of training, is hardly easy. For the first hour or so I received so many hits with the stick that my body ached all over. My ears were inflamed and burning. The bones of my skull were sore. My elbows hurt, my back stung as if I had been whipped, my feet were so sore they were almost numb, my upper lip was swollen, and I think my front teeth were a little loose. But painful as it was, it never crossed my mind to quit, and I think that surprised Sensei, and maybe even shocked him a little. He kept saying, “give up?” And I would answer, “No! I don’t give up!”

  Even as he was inflicting pain on me, I stayed on my feet and ran around the ship. He was laughing a lot of the time, seeming to have fun in a serious sort of way. He’d disappear, and reappear, most often right behind me. But I learned to look for that, and guess when he might show up. If the sticks had been real swords, I would have been dead in the first ten seconds. I knew that. And I did wonder if he realized just how much pain he was inflicting. He must have known. Still, neither of us could give up. I was too fired up, and he seemed to be just as locked into having to hear me say “give up” as I was in refusing to ever say it.

  And then, in one glorious moment, I discovered his weakness. Yes, he did have a weakness, though he had hidden it from me all this time. It involved his aerobic capacity. Sensei was like dynamite for quick bursts of energy. He could jump, run, swing, stab, and exercise in so many ways for anywhere from ten seconds to about two minutes. But then he needed to stop and catch his breath. Up to two minutes he could do almost anything. But after that point he would lose his breath. Because his body simply wasn’t getting enough oxygen, he’d have to stop and let his lungs breathe in and fill up, and give his muscles a chance to regain their strength before he could continue. And once he was in that state of needing oxygen, he was vulnerable.

  This was the difference between us. Except for the pull-ups I did every day, my main exercise was riding the stationary bike on the sub, which I did for hours at a time, so my lung capacity was really strong. When I was on land I could walk for days before I got tired. Sensei’s exercises were all bursts of energy that lasted for only a minute at a time, except for when he ran around the ship. But I never saw him run for more than a few minutes at a time, and that was why he didn’t have great aerobic capacity. It might also have been because he was a hundred years old.

  Once I understood this difference between us, I began to use it to my advantage. At one point, I watched Sensei stop chasing me, bend over, and catch his breath. As soon as I saw that, I turned around and swung my stick at him, but he picked himself up, blocked my swing, and hit me. So I ran again.

  Before long, he stopped again, and did the same thing. That’s when I realized I just needed to wear him out. And so, instead of running fast, as I was doing, I slowed down my pace a little so that I could keep it up longer. I ran around and around the deck, and up on the bridge, and back down, with Sensei following me, hitting me on the side of the head, or at the elbow, or on my feet, but each time it was weaker now, and he was getting slower. I was wearing him out!

  The first time I struck Sensei with the stick I could hardly believe it, and neither could he. Unlike him, I swung with all my might. I hadn’t yet learned to swing more gently and efficiently, with control. I just swung wildly, expecting as always to strike at air. But the stick hit Sensei on the arm just below the shoulder, with a cracking sound, as if I had hit the side of the ship. It was a hard strike, and though it bounced off his muscles like a sponge ball, I knew that he felt it. It must have stung.

  But if it did, he didn’t show it. Instead, he immediately rushed in and struck me just as hard. He hit me on the leg, and it really burned. I didn’t care; I had inflicted pain on my attacker. I felt like a king—bruised and beaten-up, but a king no less.

  Chapter Eight

  I was sleeping. I had left the hatch open to let fresh air in. Sleeping with the hatch open was almost like sleeping outside, except that you didn’t get wet if it rained, and the wind could seep in softly, and was warm on your skin.

  Hollie was on his blanket on one side of the observation window, and Seaweed was on the other. I had fallen asleep with the sound of Hollie snoring, which I could hear only when the sea was calm. I remember feeling in my sleep that there was someone in the sub, but I didn’t pay it much mind. Many sailors speak of ghosts that visit their vessels while they sleep, or while they are below deck in storms. It was a feeling I often had, too, so much in fact that I had learned to stop worrying about it.

  But in the middle of the night, I woke to the most horrible sound. There was a banging on the outside of the hull, and a frightening, hideous crying, as if an animal were being attacked and killed by another animal. It was awful. Had some creature grabbed another and taken it to the sub to dismember it? This is what ran through my mind even as I knew there couldn’t be any kind of animal in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There might be a bird, such as a long-distance seabird, although I didn’t think it would sound like that even if it were being killed. And what would be killing it?

  As the poor creature wailed pitifully for its life, I meant to jump to my feet and rescue it. But the moment I tried to rise from my bed, I felt something tighten around my hands and feet and bind them. I raised my head. I had been tied to my bed!

  “Sensei?” I yelled. I knew it had to be him. “Sensei?”

  There was no answer. The noise outside the hull had stopped. I tried with all my might to pull my hands and feet free, but it was impossible. Struggling only made the knots tighter. I was trapped. I was powerless. Wha
t a horrible feeling. How could I have let this happen?

  “Sensei?”

  I waited and waited but he never came. It was the middle of the night, when my fears were always strongest. What if Sensei never came back? What if he was truly crazy, and this was his way of punishing me for having struck him with the stick? These were the thoughts that raced through my head as I failed to free myself.

  “Sensei?”

  For what felt like hours, I fought against my confinement. I pulled and twisted and tugged until my whole body was sore and sweating. It was only when I stopped fighting it, and calmed down, that I was able to think it through and come up with a plan to rescue myself.

  “Hollie,” I said quietly. He had been sitting next to my bed the whole time, waiting for me to get up. “Bring me a knife. Bring me a knife, Hollie. Go get me a knife.”

  Eager to please, and used to bringing tools to Ziegfried and me, Hollie went to the stove, where the cooking utensils were stuck by magnets to the wall. He came back with a wooden stirring spoon.

  “Good dog, Hollie. You are so smart. Now, go get me another one. Go get me a knife, Hollie. A knife.”

  It took three tries before he brought me a knife. He dropped it on the floor beside the bed.

  “Up here, Hollie. Bring the knife up here.”

  He barked. He liked playing this game. He picked up the knife, jumped onto the bed, and dropped it onto my belly.

  “You are so smart, Hollie. Good dog. What a good dog you are.”

  By twisting and raising my trunk I was able to slide the knife down to my left hand. Once I gripped it, I turned it upside down, and then began to slowly cut the plastic twine around my wrist. It was tricky to do without cutting myself, and it took a long time, but I cut my left hand free. Once one hand was free, I was free. I sat up on the edge of my bed and patted Hollie’s fur.

  “What a wonderful dog you are. What a wonderful friend. What do you think, Hollie? Should we leave now? Should we get away from this crazy old man? Or should we wait until tomorrow to decide?”

  Hollie stared up at me and wagged his tail. He liked Sensei. They had become good friends. Hollie didn’t have many friends.

  “Okay. I think maybe he’s crazy, but if you want to wait, we’ll wait.”

  I climbed the portal, sealed the hatch from the inside, and put a bar in the wheel to lock it. Then I climbed back into my bed. It took a long time to get back to sleep. I knew I had to think about what had just happened but was too tired to make any sense of it now. My gut feeling was to leave, that this was all going too far. And yet another voice inside me made me wonder if there was a greater purpose in it. Was I learning something, or was I just being abused by a crazy old man? In the middle of the night, I really didn’t know the answer to that question.

  In the morning everything looked different to me. I found Sensei in the middle of his meditation on top of the bridge, sitting like a monk under the morning sun. He didn’t look at all like a crazy man now; he looked like a wise old sage. Just the sight of him filled me with respect. He was, after all, a hundred years old. I was the boy. Looking at him now, I realized his late-night prank was most definitely a lesson for me, a lesson in vigilance and stealth. An important lesson, too: don’t leave yourself so foolishly vulnerable to attack. If Sensei could sneak in and tie me up so easily, what was I doing to prevent pirates from doing the same? Nothing.

  As I sat down across from him he leaned forward slightly in a bow to welcome me. I bowed back. He was wearing a friendly smile. I couldn’t quite bring myself to smile, and neither of us mentioned what had happened.

  I had to get even though, not because I wanted to, but because I knew that he expected me to, even if he didn’t say so in words. I just knew it. He was the teacher; I was the student. As kind and gentle as he was when we were not fighting, he was ruthless and disciplined when we were. He would expect retaliation, and in that way I would show that I had learned the lesson. But sneaking up on Sensei was easier said than done.

  In the first place, I didn’t know where he slept. He never showed me. But the very next night when it was late, I climbed out of the sub and shinnied up the rope as silently as I could. In my pack I carried a small can of grease. On the deck near the stern, where Sensei would often sprint in the morning, bounce off the railing, and jump high into the air, I spread a thin layer of grease—not enough to be visible, but enough to turn the area into a skating rink. In truth, I never really thought it through; I just pictured Sensei sliding on the grease and flying into the railing. He would catch himself because he was too skilled not to, and wouldn’t get hurt. But he might have a scare, just a tiny one, and then we would be even. It wasn’t brilliant, but it was all I could think of. It never crossed my mind that anything worse might happen.

  The next morning, I joined him for meditation. Afterwards, we did our exercises, pumped water, and ate breakfast. Then we pulled garbage from the sea. But all I could think of was when he would run down the passageway, slide on the grease, and slam into the railing. I would stand back and smile. I chuckled about it every time I thought of it.

  As Murphy’s Law would have it, Sensei didn’t take his normal morning sprints, and kept avoiding that area as if he knew what I had done. Did he? I followed him around more closely than usual, and had to remind myself to avoid the slippery spot. I even wondered if he were trying to lead me onto it a few times. I couldn’t help feeling impatient waiting for him to run down the deck and fall. But just when I had all but given up, he slapped me on the shoulder, clicked his tongue, and took off at lightning speed down the deck, right onto the grease. With wide eyes I watched him go. He hit the slippery patch, started to slide, lost his balance, hit the rail, and went right over the side of the ship.

  I stood still, stunned. I never heard him hit the water, but that was not surprising because it was a long way down. I just stood there and stared for a while, half expecting him to poke his head up and laugh. But he never did. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had never actually seen Sensei swim. My mind raced as I tried to remember if I had ever seen him in the water. I didn’t think so. I had seen him climb down the rope, and he had certainly climbed onto the sub, but had I ever actually seen him in the water? No. Did I know then that he could swim? No, I didn’t. Therefore I had to assume that he couldn’t. Many sailors and fishermen couldn’t swim. Good Heavens.

  I rushed to the railing, slipping and almost falling on the grease myself, and looked over the side. Luckily the ship wasn’t sailing, so I didn’t have to worry about him being left behind in its wake. But where was he? I scanned the water carefully, looking for his little head to come up, but it never did. Since muscle was heavier than fat, and a muscular person can’t swim as easily as a flabby person, because they don’t have as much buoyancy, and as Sensei didn’t have any fat at all, maybe his body went straight to the bottom. The thought that I had just killed him by knocking him overboard horrified me. I jumped onto the rail, scanned the water below to make sure I wasn’t jumping right on top of his head, and went over the side.

  The jump pulled me under about ten feet before I could swim back up and search for him. I scanned the surface but he wasn’t there, so I stuck my head under and began to look for him there.

  I couldn’t find him. I began to panic. How could I have been so stupid? What a ridiculous thing to do. Why hadn’t I turned the other cheek? Why hadn’t I trusted my own judgment? Please, please let me find him, I said over and over in my head. Don’t let me kill this man.

  For several minutes I searched as hard as I could. I swam down about thirty feet, turning in all directions frantically. If he had drowned, I would surely be able to find his body. He wouldn’t sink so fast, would he? I really didn’t know.

  But I couldn’t give up, so I resurfaced, took a deeper breath, and went down as deep as I could, about a hundred feet, and searched desperately. But it was darker there, and very hard to see, and it just felt futile. If Sensei had drowned, his body was probably sever
al hundred feet down already, and falling. How horrible. What had I done?

  I rose to the surface gasping for air. I was very upset. I had played a really stupid prank on an old man and had killed him. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  Well … it wasn’t. As soon as I raised my head out of the water and filled my lungs with air, I looked up and saw Sensei on the deck, staring down at me with a grin on his face.

  “Give up?” he said.

  Chapter Nine

  After two weeks my body was more bruised and sore than it had ever been in all of my life. I had cuts on my hands and feet, cuts on my elbows and knees, bumps on my head, bruises on my face and back, and blisters on my fingers and toes. I was more beaten up than if I had been beaten up.

  And yet I had become stronger and tougher. That felt good. When Sensei struck me with the stick, it still hurt, but not as much as it had at first. I could climb like never before, and was even starting to use my feet. Just two weeks of onelegged squats had almost doubled the height I could jump. I liked these changes very much. As beaten up as I was, I was hungry for more.

  Even more surprising, I felt more sharply aware of the things around me: the sounds, shapes, and smells. Things that had blended into the background before now seemed more obvious. I felt more aware of the wind, how it shaped itself into little curls when it brushed up against me, and I could smell the tomatoes on the breeze from a farther distance. I even thought I could taste the sun and soil in their flesh. Where all this awareness was coming from I couldn’t say exactly except that it had something to do with the extremes of physical challenges, and sitting quiet under the sun. There was something life-changing about struggling very hard physically. Meditation brought life-changes too, no doubt, but it was the exercise that affected me most. You wouldn’t want always to seek it, I thought, but when it was in and around you, it brought a wonderfully heightened awareness with it.