Penguin Highway by Tomihiko Morimi

Author:Tomihiko Morimi
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Yen On
Published: 2019-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

The summer festivals in our town were held by the different neighborhood associations. They’d hang red paper lanterns around the park clearing, and people from the neighborhoods would pitch tents and open stalls. When we first moved in, the summer festival was really small, not very summerlike at all. But as the vacant lots filled in, more people joined the festival, and it became quite bustling.

That Saturday morning, the festival hadn’t started yet, but my sister wanted to put her yukata on already and wouldn’t stop bugging my mother about it. “Wait just a little longer,” she kept saying. My sister got really sulky and blew raspberries at her.

“You’re so selfish,” I said.

“Mind your own business.”

She’d learned this phrase somewhere recently and was using it at the slightest opportunity. I was getting extremely sick of it.

After lunch, we started hearing noise from the park, so my father and I went to take a look.

They were putting up a stage for the traditional Bon Festival dance in the soccer field and hanging paper lanterns from the electric lines. My father was talking to Yoshida, the head of the neighborhood association, and Yamaguchi from Seaside Café. Yamaguchi had closed up shop and had been helping with the festival preparations all day. My father started helping put tents up, so I went back home and started organizing my research. Then I took a nap so I wouldn’t get sleepy too early that evening.

When the sun started going down, I went to the festival with my mother and sister.

Walking through the neighborhood, we could hear children’s voices everywhere. Lots of people were strolling in the same direction we were. The summer festival was the only time you ever heard people’s voices late into the night. My sister had finally been allowed to put her yukata on and was quite pleased with it. Trotting along in her outfit, she looked like a silly little goldfish. She met some kids from her class on the way, and they were laughing together.

The park at night was like another world entirely. It was shaped like a hexagon and all lit up; lights glowed from stalls like the one where my father and a few neighbors were cooking yakisoba, and lanterns were hanging all over the dance stage. Like a pool of light at the bottom of the night.

I went around the different stalls with my mother. We watched my father make yakisoba for a while. We tried to catch some goldfish. Some neighbors taught my sister how to do the festival dance, so she was dancing a lot.

Some girls from my class passed by. They were all in yukata. Hamamoto was with them. She said, “Look! Yukata!” and spun around. “How’s it look?”

“Not silly,” I said. My honest opinion, but Hamamoto seemed miffed. “It looks great,” my mother said, and Hamamoto smiled happily. Then she went to dance with the other children.

“Was that Hamamoto?” my mother asked.

“Yes. She knows about the theory of relativity.”

“She’s so cute! Like a little doll.

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