heave through Ojiichan’s chest as he let me slide back down to the ground. Tension rumbled in the air above my head, like low thunderclouds waiting to burst.
Don’t fight. Please don’t fight
.
Before I could say anything, Ojiichan answered. “She woke up early, so I made her breakfast and brought her out for a little practice. You had only to look through the window to find us.”
“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. Most kids would be watching cartoons or, I don’t know, spending time with their parents.” My dad’s voice had that funny, rough note it only got when he was talking to my grandfather. Like one of the boys from school trying to sound all grown-up.
“Daddy, you were still in bed. I wanted to practise.” I meant my voice to come out strong and calm, like Ojiichan’s, but instead it was small and wobbly.
My father sighed. “Wouldn’t you like a day off once in a while? What if we go to see Auntie Fumi today, how about that?”
Auntie Fumi made cakes and let me lick the spoon, and she had a silly, fluffy dog that loved to chase sticks in her big garden. Guilt squirmed in my belly. “But I promised Ojiichan.”
“Father…” That rough, angry note in Daddy’s voice was back, louder than before.
“What?” My grandfather cut him off, a little too sharply, a little too loudly. It was starting again.
I wanted to put both hands over my ears. Instead I stood still and squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I had the shinai back in my hands. If I had my practice blade I would chop and slash at the air, slicing up imaginary monsters until I felt tired and calm and peaceful inside.
Why are they always fighting? What am I doing wrong? Why do I make them both so angry all the time?
Stop fighting! Stop! STOP IT!
“She is my daughter, not yours,” my father growled. “If you keep pushing, we’ll leave. Then you won’t see Mio at all. Think about that.”
The kitchen door slamming made me jump. My father was gone and Ojiichan’s head was bent as if he was upset, but his eyes were burning. He looked the way I’d felt when I scored my first kendo hit – as if he didn’t know whether to yell or laugh or maybe even cry. He lifted the shinai and tossed it to me.
My hand shot up to catch it.
“Zenshin Kotai Okuri-Ashi!”
I responded automatically to the command, my body melting into the forms I had practised every day since Ojiichan had signed me up for kendo when I was five.
A while later we heard the garage door go up on the other side of the garden wall and then the deep roar of the car’s engine. I waited for the next instruction to come from Ojiichan, but he stood perfectly still, his head held slightly to one side as if he was listening. I tried to hear what he could, but all I could make out were the normal, dull London sounds and Mum and Dad’s car getting quieter and quieter.
When the sound of the engine had faded completely, Ojiichan sprang to life. “Quickly, Mio. Come with me.”
As I tagged along faithfully behind him, my grandfather nipped into the empty garage, taking a metal pry-bar out of the box of tools there. Then we went back into the house and climbed the stairs to the attic.
I’d never been in there before, because Dad said it was dangerous. It didn’t look dangerous. But it was dark, and cobwebby, and unpleasantly cold after the bright sunshine outside. Ojiichan left me by the door while he waded through piles of boxes and broken furniture. I stood very still, worried about what creepy-crawlies might be on the floorboards – I was still barefoot – and rubbed goose-pimply arms.
“Got it!” he whispered.
He’d found a tatty old metal box, covered in peeling white paint. The paint was streaked with dark, bubbling marks, like burns. Long and thin, probably taller than me if it was stood on its end, the box had been shoved out of the way in the space under the sloping attic window.
That? That’s what we came all the way up here for?
Ojiichan heaved