Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

Author:Margi Preus [Preus, Margi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780810989818
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2010-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

But what if someone came along and took it? Wouldn’t it be better if he tried to find the owner? Manjiro decided this would be the right course of action, and he bent to pick it up. But just as his fingers were about to close around it, the coin skittered out of his reach!

That was odd, he thought, and he tried once more. But again, just as he was about to pick it up, the coin scooted away as if it were alive!

Manjiro stared at the coin. There it lay on the ground, unmoving, just as you would expect it to do.

This time, he decided, he would step on it to prevent it from skittering away. He inched his foot toward it, and gradually lifted the toe of his shoe. He was just bringing it down when the coin jumped out from under his foot.

What would make it do such a thing?

Manjiro stood back and scratched his chin. He gave the coin a good, hard look, and for the first time noticed the very fine thread attached to it. Looking up, he noticed a tall boy leaning against a fence, calmly chewing on a stalk of grass. But behind that blade of grass, the boy couldn’t quite conceal a smirk. Manjiro laughed and said, “That is a good joke. Are you making the coin jump?”

The boy shook his head, then jerked his thumb toward the woods. “Job!” he shouted. “You’ve been found out.”

A willowy boy wearing a bemused smile appeared from behind a tree. “I fooled you, huh?” he said, winding the thread around a stick as he walked.

“You must be some kind of dupe,” the boy at the fence said, sneering at Manjiro.

Manjiro recognized this boy. He was one of the boys who had made faces behind his back that very first day in America. Now he was in on some kind of joke that was being played at Manjiro’s expense.

“What is a ‘dupe’?” Manjiro said.

The boy snickered. “It’s what you are: stupid.”

Job said, “Sheesh, Tom, ease up a little.”

Manjiro turned to the boy named Job. “That is a pretty good joke. But you can fool more clever people than me if you use different string. If you want a suggestion, of course.”

“Sure,” Job scratched at his mop of hair. “What kind of string?”

Manjiro picked up the coin, and was about to open his mouth when the tall boy spat out his grass and pushed himself away from the fence.

“Job!” he said, loudly, for the benefit of some other students who had begun to gather. “You’re not really going to listen to this squinty-eyed son of a pig are you?”

Job looked from Manjiro to the tall boy and back again. “Well, Tom, I …,” he said.

Tom walked up to Manjiro and glared down at him. Tom was bigger and taller than Manjiro, and maybe older, too. But Manjiro’s many months on a whale ship had made him tough and strong. He might be able to beat Tom if it came to a fight.

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