Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [72]
Jack thought he understood and Sensei Yamada smiled, recognizing the glimmer of enlightenment in Jack’s eyes.
‘More haste, less speed, young samurai.’
Outside, the courtyard was empty of snow and the early signs of spring could be seen in the budding flowers of the surrounding cherry-blossom trees. Jack, Akiko and the others made their way over to the Hall of Butterflies where the Ganjitsu celebrations were to continue until dawn.
Inside the Chō-no-ma, tables had been laid with bowls of ozoni soup and plates piled high with sticky white rice cakes called mochi. Several groups of students were already tucking into the feast. A small crowd was gathered around two girls in the middle of the hall who were giggling loudly as they batted a feathered shuttlecock between them with wooden paddles. Jack noticed that the face of one of the girls was covered in large black spots.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Jack, sitting down at a free table.
‘Hanetsuki,’ Akiko replied, pouring each of them a cup of steaming sencha. ‘If you fail to hit the shuttlecock, your face is marked with ink.’
A cheer and more laughter erupted as the girl missed the shuttlecock again and had to suffer another blotch of ink.
‘May I join you?’ asked Tadashi, bearing a plate of rice cakes.
Yamato and Saburo shuffled along to make room for him beside Jack.
‘Here, try this,’ suggested Tadashi, offering Jack a mochi.
Jack bit into the rice cake. While it was tasty, it was also very glutinous and he found it difficult to swallow. Tadashi laughed and slapped him on the back to stop him choking. Jack took several swigs of sencha to wash the rice cake down.
Tadashi offered the rice cakes to the rest of the table. Everyone tucked in, though Jack noticed Akiko didn’t touch her food. Then he spotted Kazuki and his Scorpion Gang sit down at the table opposite.
Kazuki glanced over at Jack but ignored him. His friends began to clear the table of plates, while Kazuki dealt out a deck of cards across its surface. They huddled close as he selected a card from another pile and read its contents to the group. Immediately, there began a frenzy of card-snatching and boisterous shouting at one another.
‘What’s that they’re playing?’ asked Jack.
‘Obake Karuta,’ replied Tadashi, putting down his soup. ‘One person reads out clues and the others have to match it to a legendary character or monster featured on one of the upturned cards. The player who accumulates the most cards by the end of the game wins.’
‘Jack, I’ll show you a game you should try,’ Yamato announced, finishing his sencha. ‘Fukuwarai.’
‘Fuku-what?’ repeated Jack.
But Yamato merely beckoned him over to where a group of students was huddled round a picture of a face hung upon the wall. They were all laughing at a blindfolded girl who was trying to pin a mouth on to the face. Judging by the fact that the eyes and nose were located on its chin, she wasn’t doing very well.
‘Go on, Jack,’ encouraged Yamato after the girl had pinned the mouth to the face’s forehead, ‘you have a go.’
Yamato grabbed Jack, blindfolded him and handed him the mouth. He then positioned him three paces in front of the blank face before spinning him round several times.
Completely disorientated and unable to see, Jack wondered how on earth he would even find the face, let alone pin the mouth in the correct place.
‘He’s got no chance,’ he heard Tadashi say. ‘He’s not even looking the right way!’
It was then that Jack recalled Sensei Kano’s words: ‘To see with eyes alone is not to see at all.’ Using the sensitivity skills he’d been taught during the past couple of months, Jack listened to the crowd’s whispers, judging where the paper face was in relation to the changes in background noise. Turning until he found the blank spot among the chatter, he figured he was now facing the wall. He then visualized the face in his mind’s eye, took three confident paces forward and stuck the mouth on.
‘Good work, Jack. Now the eyes and nose.’
Yamato spun him again, then handed him the other features.