Little Yokozuna Read Online Free Page B

Knuckleball were eating breakfast with Kiyoshi-chan's family in Kashiwa, the yellow sun was rising on a stony mountain, a painted temple, and an old snow monkey in another part of Japan.
    The mountain was covered with ancient, windshaped trees and overlooked a long valley that reached away to the horizon. In its history it had been climbed by untold numbers of pilgrims.
    The temple was silent and philosophical, as temples should be, especially one famous for a seven-hundred-year-old garden.
    The monkey was sitting under an alder tree, trying his best to look ignorant. His name was Basho, and he was an old macaque who possibly should have known better. Presently he was scratching his armpits, somersaulting, and trying to compose a
haiku
about a frog, three activities that very few humans can do simultaneously.
    "White cherry blossoms," he said. "Falling dapple the old frog. The golden sun smiles."
    "That is so
trite
," came a whisper from the bushes behind him. "At least try to be more original. I've read better haiku on cereal boxes."
    "Bah," said Basho. "One flea on my rump has more originality than you do in your whole soul. What could you know about haiku, gaijin?"
    "And sit still," the voice whispered again. "Try not to make a scene. Do you have to flip like that every ten seconds?"
    "Yes," said the monkey, standing on his head and looking between his legs at the temple. "Don't you?"
    "No!" said the voice in the bushes. "Does the expression self-control mean anything at all to you?"
    "Yes," the monkey replied again, doing a double flip in the air and landing on all fours. "It is no fun. It is one of the things that makes humans so boring. How can you stand it?"
    "It comes in handy," said the voice. "When you have to do things like sneak into secret gardens for unnatural purposes. Do I have to tie you to the ground?"
    "Try it," said the monkey. "You might be surprised who ends up in knots."
    "Hmph," grumped the voice.
    "Besides," said the monkey, "what do you think would be more conspicuous, a monkey acting just like a monkey, as I am, or a monkey just sitting still on the ground like a big dumb mushroom?"
    The voice mumbled something reluctant, which Basho decided to interpret as an apology.
    "Don't mention it," he said. He stood on his head, making a tripod with his two legs, and began to wave his bottom in the air. He peeped into the bushes and recited, "Age-old lotus pond. Suddenly a frog leaps in. Surprised water speaks."
    "Oh, put a sock in it," said the voice, for the first time in English. "I'm sick of your haiku."
    "
Domo arigato
," Basho said. "Your words are too kind. I don't understand your foreign gibberish exactly, but I sense that its meaning is that you love my poetry and will soon die if you don't hear more."
    "Oh, go jump in an age-old pond yourself," said the voice.
    The monkey kept up its vigil, watching the temple with one eye while leaping back and forth from the branches of the alder tree to the ground.
    "Besides," said the monkey again, getting bored. Another haiku followed. "Roadside frog awaits. Eager to reach other side. Donkey steps on him."
    "Well," said the invisible speaker, in a weary voice. "Now he's doing haiku about
roadkill
. Very sensitive. Sign of a great soul."
    "I love poetry," said the monkey, spinning around like a top. "Helps my digestion."
    At that moment, there was the sound of a quiet latch.
    "Hark!" said Basho.
    "Quiet!" hissed the voice.
    The temple gate opened. A very, very old priest came out, closed the gate, and shuffled away up the mountain path, all bent over and tapping with his staff on the stones.
    "Wow!" said a new voice in the bushes. "Did you see
him?
He must be at least a thousand years old."
    "Is he the last one to leave?" asked the first voice.
    "Should be," said the monkey. He waited till the old man had disappeared from sight, then scampered off toward the gate.
    "C'mon, 'Siah," said the bodiless voice to someone, and out of the bushes came two more figures,