Coin Locker Babies Read Free Page B

watch TV or whatever. We’ll be back at noon,” she told them.
    Kiku and Hashi had some rice with a raw egg and miso soup, then counted the sailboats printed on their shirts. The TV had nothing but cooking programs to offer, so they turned it off and wrestled for a while on the floor. Then they discovered an awl on the desk and practiced sticking it in the paper doors from several paces away, but, getting bored with this, they ran out into the small garden, which had some tomatoes and eggplants growing in it. They could see Kuwayama’s sweat-soaked back as he bent over the machine in the shed at the end of the yard, raising and lowering a steel bar.
    “Looks like a robot, huh?”
    Lush carina lilies lined the steep, narrow road that stretcheddown from the front of the house, then crossed the main road that ran the length of the island and led straight on to the sea. Beneath a large tree, three sunburned children were busy catching cicadas. As Kiku and Hashi approached, the children eyed their new clothes.
    “What are you doing?” Hashi asked, and one of them held up a cage full of insects. Hashi took the cage, buzzing like a broken radio, and peered at its contents. Then they looked up at the tree where the children were pointing, but no matter how hard they stared, they couldn’t spot the cicadas on the bark through the gaps in the thick branches. When the trap—a shell filled with birdlime tied to the end of a stick—was pushed gently nearer the trunk, however, the sawing of the insects suddenly became louder, wings began to beat like toy birds, and the bugs were easily snared. Kiku and Hashi were as excited as if they’d seen a magic trick. One of the kids spotted a large bug high up on a limb and passed the stick to Kiku, who was the tallest among them.
    “I can’t see it,” Kiku protested, but several dirty fingers pointed at what looked like a knot on the branch. Kiku held his breath and crept nearer; the cicada was trilling for all it was worth on a branch just at a height he could reach standing on tiptoe. He stepped up onto a broken concrete block at the base of the tree as the children explained that he had to maneuver the stick to approach from the bug’s blind spot. As he was adjusting his angle, the block began to totter. Hashi cried out and Kiku thrust the stick out as if trying to spear the cicada in the tail, barely managing to catch the fluttering wings and bring the insect down as the others cheered. The huge cicada struggled to free itself, making the stick to which it was attached dance on the ground, but the children had soon freed it and, wiping the birdlime away, presented it to Kiku. Hashi asked whether the steep road was a good way to getto the beach, but was told it ended in a cliff with no way down. The best route, they explained, was to take the main road as far as the second side street, which led to the beach.
    Kazuyo’s beauty parlor was above a bus stop not far down the main street, and when she saw the boys passing she came down, shouting “Where do you think you’re going?” Kiku pointed mutely toward the sea. “Well, all right, but you’re not to go near the old mines.” Kiku and Hashi had never heard of “mines” before.
    The second side street, which the other kids had recommended, was so overgrown the boys walked right by it. They turned instead at a likely looking lane that soon divided into two winding tracks, and after several turns they had no idea at all how to get back to the main road. Attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, their legs cut by the thick grass, the boys began to panic. They wanted to yell for help, but they knew no one was around to hear them. The road divided again, with a dark tunnel to the right, so they went left, only to find a snake slithering across the ground ahead of them. With a scream they headed for the tunnel.
    A gradual curve made the opening at the other end of the tunnel appear as a distant tube of light. It was cool inside, and the