I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  A Triple Disaster

  Facts about the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

  For Further Reading and Research

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  At first, the wave was tiny.

  It was just a ripple in the huge Pacific Ocean.

  But it moved quickly, faster than a jet.

  And as it got closer to Japan’s coast, it got bigger. It grew and grew, until it was a monstrous wall of water, dozens of feet high, hundreds of miles long. It destroyed everything in its path.

  The wave smashed into crowded cities, knocking down buildings, swallowing factories, chewing up highways and bridges. It washed away beautiful villages, flattening pine forests and turning rice fields into seas of mud and garbage. In quiet fishing towns, boats tumbled like dice into the streets, smashing into shops and homes.

  Eleven-year-old Ben Kudo saw the wave coming as he stood on a street in the tiny village of Shogahama. At first, it looked to him as if a cloud of smoke was rising up over the ocean.

  Was it a ship on fire?

  But then a siren blared.

  Terrified voices shouted out.

  Ben didn’t speak Japanese. But he understood one word.

  Tsunami!

  Seconds later, the huge, foaming black wave crashed into the shore.

  Ben and his family thought they could race away from the wave in a car. But the water caught them. And suddenly, Ben was all by himself. The wave grabbed Ben and sucked him under. The churning water twisted him, tore at him, spun him around like a bird caught in a tornado.

  Terror screamed through his body.

  He was drowning!

  He fought with all his might, but the water wouldn’t let him go. It was as though he was in the jaws of a ferocious monster.

  And there was no escape.

  The score was tied with ten seconds to go. Ben grabbed the ball and dribbled down the court. He zigzagged around guys who seemed ten feet tall. The crowd cheered. As usual, Dad’s voice rose up above the rest.

  “You can do it, Ben!”

  The clock was counting down —

  4, 3, 2 …

  Ben shot the ball.

  It sailed for the basket and hung in the air….

  Ben’s eyes flew open.

  He sat straight up in bed, drenched with sweat, breathing hard. It took him a few seconds to remember that he wasn’t at home in California. He was at his uncle’s house, in the tiny village of Shogahama, Japan.

  His five-year-old brother, Harry, had been asleep next to Ben. Now Harry was up, too.

  “Scary dream?” Harry asked, putting a little hand on Ben’s clammy back.

  Ben shrugged off Harry’s hand.

  “Not too bad,” Ben said, careful to keep his voice from shaking.

  He never wanted Harry to know that he felt sad or scared.

  And besides, a dream about Dad was never a bad dream.

  It was waking up that was torture — remembering all over again that Dad was gone. He had died four months ago, in a car accident near the California air force base where they lived. Dad had been an F-16 pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He’d flown dangerous missions all over the world. And he’d died on a California highway, on his way home from picking up a box of doughnuts for Ben and Harry.

  A few months before the accident, Dad had announced a big surprise: a family trip to Shogahama, the fishing village in Japan where Dad had lived until he was ten. They would go in March, during Ben’s school vacation. They would stay with Dad’s Uncle Tomeo; they all called him Ojisan, the Japanese word for uncle.

  Ben had always dreamed of visiting Shogahama. Ojisan was more like a grandfather to him than a far-away uncle. He’d come to visit them in California several times over the years. Ben had heard so many stories about Dad’s life growing up in the village. He couldn’t wait to see it for himself.

  But not without Dad.

  Ben couldn’t believe it when his mom announced they were still taking the trip. He’d begged her to cancel, but Mom never changed her mind. “Don’t be tricked by that sweet smile,” Dad used to say. Mom had been in the air force, too, before she had Ben.

  “She’s tougher than all of us,” Dad always said with a proud smile.

  Mom wanted to go to Shogahama. And so here they were.

  Harry got out of bed, his Darth Vader pajamas drooping on his bony shoulders. Ojisan’s cat, Nya, was asleep at the foot of the mattress. Harry scooped her up. The cat had to be a hundred years old, her black fur rubbed away in places. She was small and scrawny with a crooked tail that looked like the letter z. Instead of saying, “meow,” she had a shriek that hurt Ben’s ears.

  “Eee! Eee!”

  Ben wished Harry would ignore the cat so she would leave them alone. But Harry had decided that Nya was a Jedi cat, Darth Vader’s special assistant. And somehow the old cat didn’t mind being dragged around the house as Harry played his Star Wars games, chasing invisible enemies with his lightsaber.

  Now Harry rubbed his cheek against Nya’s head and looked at Ben with his bright eyes.

  “Will you help me climb the tree after breakfast?” he asked. “I need to make my wish.”

  Not that again.

  One of the stories Dad told about Shogahama was that the cherry trees were magic. If you climbed to the top of a tree, Dad said, you could make a wish.

  Ben knew Dad was just telling fairy tales. But Harry believed in everything. For the whole week, Harry had been eyeing the cherry tree in Ojisan’s small front yard, waiting for the rain to stop so he could climb to the top. Now the sky was bright blue, and Harry was ready.

  “You know what I’m going to wish for?” Harry said, leaning in close. His coppery eyes sparkled. “I’m going to wish for Daddy to come back to us.”

  The words hit Ben right in the throat.

  “Harry,” he said sharply. “You know Dad is gone, and you can’t bring him back.”

  Tears sprang into Harry’s eyes.

  “You’ll see!” he cried, turning and running out of the room with Nya tight in his arms.

  Suddenly Ben was crying, too.

  He stood up quickly, angrily wiping away his tears as he pulled himself together.

  Ben had to be tough, like Dad.

  During Dad’s last tour in Afghanistan, when Ben was a baby, the engine of Dad’s F-16 exploded. He had to eject from the plane over enemy territory. He broke his ankle when he parachuted down. But he still managed to escape into the mountains before enemy fighters found him. For six days, he’d hidden in a cave, until he was finally rescued by a helicopter filled with U.S. Marines.

  Ben could picture Dad, standing in the darkness with steely eyes, never once stopping to moan or cry.

  And that’s how Ben was determined to be.

  He went to find Harry. He guessed there was no harm in helping him climb a tree.

  But Ben was too late.

  He was walking toward the kitchen door when he heard Harry scream.

  He ran outside, and there was his little brother, lying in a heap under the cherry tree.

  He was covered in blood.

  Ben stood between Mom and Ojisan as the doctor looked Harry over. Ben’s stomach was still twisted in knots
from the sight of Harry lying on the ground. The little guy looked terrible — a blood-crusted nose and a big gash on his arm.

  But as battered as he looked, he wasn’t so badly hurt. It seemed that the branches of the tree had slowed Harry’s fall before he hit the dirt, and that the ground was soft from all the rain. The doctor — his name was Dr. Sato — checked Harry over very carefully. When he was finished, he put his hand on Harry’s head.

  “You must be made of rubber, Harry,” he said in perfect English. “Did you bounce when you hit the ground?”

  “I think so!” Harry exclaimed.

  This made them all laugh, even Ben. The sound that came out of his mouth surprised him, it had been so long since he’d heard it.

  “I just need to fix up that little cut on your arm,” Dr. Sato said. “It will just take a few stitches.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Nooooo!” screamed Harry.

  Show Harry a cobra and he’d smile and reach out to pet it. But the tiniest needle sent him into fits of total panic.

  Dr. Sato wasn’t going to get anywhere near Harry, Ben was sure.

  Except it turned out Dr. Sato was a genius.

  “Mrs. Kudo,” Dr. Sato said to Mom, raising his voice above Harry’s screams. “Is it true that Darth Vader has a scar on his arm?”

  Harry stopped crying.

  “Yes,” Mom said, putting on a serious face. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”

  “Totally,” Ben answered, trying not to smile. “He got it in a lightsaber fight.”

  They all looked at Harry, who finally took a deep, hiccupping breath.

  “Can I get a scar?” he asked softly.

  “If you sit perfectly still while I do the stitches,” Dr. Sato said.

  Harry held out his arm to the doctor.

  “Go ahead.” He sniffed bravely.

  Forty-five minutes later, Harry admired his sewn-up cut as if it was the best birthday present ever. They all said good-bye to Dr. Sato.

  They piled into Ojisan’s little car and headed back to Shogahama. The road was narrow, and curved around high rocky cliffs. Out one window, Pacific waves crashed against a wall of craggy rocks. On the other side, the view stretched across rice fields to the mountains, which towered up to the clear blue sky.

  “Daddy was right,” Mom said. “I think this is the most beautiful place on Earth.”

  “You should stay longer,” Ojisan said.

  “I want to!” Harry shouted.

  Not Ben. He was glad they were leaving in two days.

  He’d miss Ojisan. But being here had turned Ben all soft. He’d been dreaming about Dad every night, thinking about him all the time.

  Back home, Ben managed to keep his mind clear.

  It wasn’t easy. He’d given up basketball, even quitting the travel team he’d worked so hard to make. Hoops had been their game — Ben and Dad’s. After the accident, just the sound of a bouncing ball would hit Ben in the chest like a bullet.

  He’d cleaned out his room so there were no more pictures of Dad. He’d ripped down the F-16 poster that had hung over his bed. When Mom knocked on his locked door, Ben said he was doing homework. When Harry wanted to play, Ben told him to go away.

  Sometimes it seemed that Ben had turned his room into a cave, a dark space like where Dad hid after he was shot down in Afghanistan. Yeah, it was lonely in there sometimes.

  But at least in his cave, Ben felt safe.

  Harry was exhausted from the trip to the hospital. Mom helped him change out of his blood-spattered pajamas and tucked him into bed. A minute later he was asleep, with Nya curled up on his stomach.

  Ben was in the kitchen pouring some juice when Ojisan came in.

  “How about a walk?” he said quietly.

  “No thanks, Ojisan,” Ben said with a tinge of guilt. “I’m kind of tired, too.”

  Every day they’d been here, Ojisan had invited Ben to go exploring. And every day, Ben had thought of an excuse. Ben didn’t want to see the pine forest where Dad used to play hide-and-seek, or the marina where Dad learned to fish. He didn’t want to hear any of Ojisan’s stories about Dad.

  Ben slinked out of the kitchen, avoiding Ojisan’s eyes.

  He’d just stepped into the bedroom when Harry suddenly sat up.

  Harry had a dreamy look on his face. Ben wondered if he was fully awake.

  “You know,” he said softly, “I made it to the tippy top.”

  “Top of what?” Ben asked, sitting down next to Harry.

  “The cherry tree,” Harry answered. “Before I fell down, I made the wish, Ben. I made the wish!”

  His eyes were glowing.

  Before Ben could say anything, Nya suddenly jumped up and yowled. She stood there with her fur standing straight up, then started pushing against Harry’s arm with her nose. It looked as if she wanted to roll Harry off the bed.

  Was the old cat going totally bonkers?

  And then there was a strange sound, a very deep rumbling.

  The glass of water on the dresser jiggled.

  At first, Ben thought it was fighter jets passing overhead, like at home when a squadron returned to the base.

  But the rumbling got louder and louder, and the bed began to shake.

  “Ben!” Harry cried. “What is it?”

  Dread rose up in Ben.

  Ojisan shouted from somewhere across the house.

  “Ben! Harry! Dishin! Dishin!”

  Ben didn’t need to understand Japanese to know what Ojisan was saying.

  Earthquake!

  The shaking got stronger and stronger until Ben and Harry were bouncing up and down on the bed.

  Ben gripped Harry as hard as he could so they wouldn’t fall off.

  It was as though they were rafting on a wild river.

  Thud!

  The dresser tipped over.

  Smash!

  The lamp hit the floor, its lightbulb exploding with a shattering pop.

  “EEEEE!” screeched Nya.

  But above all the other sounds was a thundering roar, like the earth itself was screaming with fury. The sound hammered into Ben’s ears and pounded his brain.

  “Make it stop!” screamed Harry.

  But there was no stopping it. Ben didn’t know that earthquakes could last so long. The ground in California shook all the time. But never for more than a few seconds. And never like this! Ben suddenly remembered that more earthquakes happen in Japan than practically anywhere else on Earth, even California. In Science, they learned about the earthquake that destroyed Tokyo in the 1920s, and another one in the city of Kobe, in the 1990s.

  How could he have forgotten all that?

  They’d also learned how skyscrapers in Japan were built to survive strong earthquakes. The tall buildings here were made to sway, like blades of grass on a windy day.

  But the buildings around here looked old. Ojisan’s house was made of wood and plaster. Like all the houses here, the roof was covered with red clay tiles.

  Could Ojisan’s house survive an earthquake like this?

  The answer came with a BOOM that rose up above the other noises.

  “Ben, look!” Harry cried, pointing up.

  A huge crack had appeared in the ceiling. It got bigger and bigger.

  Any second, the ceiling would collapse.

  They had to get out of here!

  Ben grabbed Harry. He crawled across the floor toward the door, dragging Harry along with him. He pushed against the door. But it was stuck. It was wedged against the cracked, broken floor.

  Now what? They were trapped!

  Panic churned Ben’s insides. They couldn’t stay here! But where could they go? His body was frozen. His heart pounded. His mind swirled so that it was impossible to think.

  Was this how Dad had felt, when he knew his F-16 was going to crash?

  Dad had only recently told Ben the story of the crash. They’d been at the basketball court across from their house. Normally, Dad didn’t tell stories about being at war. But so
mething about the thump, thump, thump of the basketball had loosened Dad up, got him talking.

  He’d described what had happened when the engine exploded, when the lights on the cockpit console had flashed like a video game gone haywire. He was twenty-five thousand feet in the air, rocketing through the sky at five hundred miles per hour. Any minute, the entire plane could burst into flames. His only chance was to eject, to pull the big yellow lever that would explode him out of the plane and send him shooting through the endless sky.

  The roof of the cockpit — the canopy — was made of clear plastic, and was designed to pop off when the eject lever was pulled. A small explosive under Dad’s seat would blast the entire seat into the air. Two parachutes would open — the first to yank Dad upright, the second to float him down to Earth.

  But what if the canopy didn’t open and Dad crushed his head? What if the parachutes failed and he fell like a rock straight into the ground? Dad had heard stories about ejections that went horribly wrong. Plenty of pilots had died, or were so badly hurt that they never walked again.

  These were terrifying thoughts. But Dad had been trained for these life-and-death moments — to fly through enemy fire, to land on an aircraft carrier in a thunderstorm, to avoid a missile aimed straight for the belly of his jet.

  “The fear is always there,” Dad had told Ben, bouncing the ball and lining up at the free-throw line. “But you can’t let it take over.”

  He’d eyed the basket and taken a shot.

  “You have to choose: live or die. If you let yourself panic, you’re finished.”

  Swish.

  Now Ben remembered what Dad had said to him next.

  “What you learn in training is to close your eyes,” Dad had said. “You breathe deep. You breathe, and breathe, and breathe. And somehow your mind clears so you can do what you need to do.”

  Ben closed his eyes now. It was hard to fill his lungs — his chest felt as if it was wrapped tight in rubber bands. But he kept thinking of Dad’s words:

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  And somehow his mind stopped swirling. His body relaxed.

  And then, almost without thinking, Ben grabbed Harry.

  He dragged him back toward the bed, which had strong metal legs.