Jay Read online

  A crowd was gathered in front of Lee’s shop — or what used to be Lee’s shop. The building had collapsed. As Kai and Jay approached, they heard Din shouting that Lee had been inside.

  “I am his wife,” a crying woman said to the ninja. “Please help! We must get him out and bring him to a doctor.”

  The two ninja helped clear away the debris and pulled Lee free. Lee’s wife ran to her husband. She talked to him, but then he quickly passed out. He had been hit on the head by a beam and, though still alive, would not wake up. Din, Lu, Kai, and Jay carried him to the doctor’s home. After an examination, the doctor said that Lee would be alright, but there was no telling when he would awaken.

  “What could have made the building just fall down like that?” wondered Din.

  “And what was he doing there in the middle of the night?” asked Jay. “He seemed set on closing up the shop for the night.”

  “We may not know the answer to your question anytime soon,” Kai said to Jay. “But maybe we can solve Din’s in the morning.”

  The next day, Jay, Kai, Din, and Lu went to inspect the remains of Lee’s shop. It was no more than a pile of timbers and canvas atop scattered food, rope, tools, and other items. It looked like a tornado had hit the place. Or someone who knows Spinjitzu, thought Jay.

  “Look for anything that might explain why the building fell down,” said Din.

  “Maybe it was just old,” suggested Lu. “I doubt Lee took very good care of the place.”

  “Could be,” agreed Jay. “But it seems kind of odd that it would come down in the middle of the night when Lee just happened to be inside. Still, maybe it was an accident.”

  “Or maybe it wasn’t,” said Kai.

  The four men began carefully searching the rubble. They pulled out pieces of timber, looked at any nails or rope that had held the building together, and generally checked for anything that looked odd.

  It was Lu who made the discovery. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to one of the support beams. “It’s broken right in the center.”

  The other three came over. The wood was fractured at just the right spot to bring the beam down. Din leaned forward to examine the break more closely. “That’s funny,” he said. “This wasn’t cut with a saw or any other kind of blade. It looks more like it was smashed.”

  Lu gave Jay and Kai a suspicious look. Then he walked away and started examining the other three support beams. All of them had a fracture in the same place. When he reached the last one, he bent low to examine something. When he rose, he was holding something between his fingers.

  “This was snagged on the wood,” said Lu.

  Jay, Kai, and Din looked at what he had found. They were pieces of thread, some red and some blue — the same colors as Kai’s and Jay’s ninja clothing.

  Din pulled a dagger from his belt and took a few steps back. “All right, you two, don’t make any funny moves. Your ninja tricks won’t work here.”

  “What?!” exclaimed Jay. “You think we did this? Look, I’m a lot of things — a ninja, an inventor, a pilot, and an all-around charming fellow — but I don’t hurt innocent people. Not even once. And as for my friend, well, he may be a hothead, but he’s mostly good.”

  “Thanks,” said Kai. “You’re a big help.”

  “Din, put the dagger away,” said Lu. He turned to the two ninja. “I don’t think anything, friends. But you have to admit, it looks suspicious. You two argued with him yesterday, and last night someone breaks four beams in half and brings the place down on his head … someone wearing clothes the same color as yours.”

  Jay knew Lu was right. It did look bad for them. But if they wasted time arresting the two ninja, the real attacker might get away. He only saw one hope.

  “Do you know of Sensei Wu?” Jay asked.

  Both men nodded. “Of course,” said Lu. “He’s a great hero. Who hasn’t heard of him and his Spinjitzu, and that constant cup of tea he drinks?”

  “Sensei Wu is our teacher. If you honor his name, I ask for a favor,” said Jay. “Give us one day to investigate this crime. We promise not to leave the village. At the end of that day, if we haven’t found the real attacker, we’ll face whatever justice you choose.”

  Lu and Din looked at each other. Then Lu nodded. “All right. I’ve heard tales of young ninja working with Sensei Wu, and maybe you two are some of them. But we’ll be watching you — if you try to trick us, things will go very badly for you.”

  At Jay’s request, Din gave him directions to Lee’s home. As he and Kai walked away, Kai said, “Good one. Got any idea who did it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any idea how we’ll find out in the next day?”

  “Nope.”

  “Now I remember why I hate traveling with you,” said Kai.

  Lee’s was a small but comfortable place at the edge of the village. A beautiful stand of trees took up half the front yard. Mrs. Lee was working in the garden as Jay and Kai arrived.

  “Hello, Mrs. Lee,” said Jay.

  Mrs. Lee recognized the ninja. “Hello. What brings you here?”

  “We’re trying to find out who caused this disaster. The evidence seems to say it wasn’t an accident. Can we ask you some questions?”

  Mrs. Lee invited Jay and Kai to sit on the porch. They followed her there, with Kai pausing on the way to look more closely at the trees. The trunks were marred, as if someone had been cutting the bark. When they finally sat down with the woman, Jay could tell she had been crying. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Why did Mr. Lee go back to the shop that night? It was closed, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Lee. “He said he thought he had left a candle burning and wanted to put it out. When he didn’t return, I got worried and went to look for him. That was when I saw …” Mrs. Lee fought back tears. “That was when I saw the store collapse.”

  “Did he often go out in the middle of the night like that?” asked Kai.

  Mrs. Lee shook her head. “He didn’t used to. But lately he has become very forgetful. He neglects to lock the shop, or he forgets to put the money away, or he can’t remember if he has unpacked the goods for the next day. So he has to go back to the shop at night to take care of it.”

  If heading back to the store has become a habit, thought Kai, then someone could have been waiting to ambush him. Or maybe he was meeting someone?

  “I suppose he kept the records of everything he bought and sold at the store?” Jay asked.

  “No,” said Mrs. Lee. “He uses a shed out back as a little office. He keeps the records there.”

  “We’d like to take a look at them. But first, is there anything else you can tell us about that night?” said Jay.

  Mrs. Lee dabbed at her eyes with a cloth. “There is one thing. When I first went over to him, he was still awake, and when he saw me, he whispered one word … then he passed out.”

  “What was the word?”

  Mrs. Lee looked right into Jay’s eyes. “‘Traitor.’ That was what he said.”

  With Mrs. Lee’s permission, Jay and Kai went into the shed out back. It was filled with dusty boxes crammed full of paper records. Jay wished Zane was here. The Ninja of Ice was much better at making sense of such things than he. Still, Jay was an inventor and he knew that sometimes you had to make do with whatever you had on hand — even if all you had was two tired ninja. He and Kai settled down and began to read.

  It didn’t take long for them to discover that something wasn’t right with Mr. Lee’s business. Based on his records, he had a lot more goods coming in than he was selling. Yet he kept buying more and more stuff each month. He should have been out of business by now.

  “Why would he buy so many goods if he hadn’t sold what he already had?” wondered Jay.

  “I don’t know,” Kai replied. “There’s enough here to supply a small army. Unless …”

  Suddenly, there came the sound of breaking glass. Someone had thrown something through the shed win
dow. To their shock, the ninja saw it was a burning stick. The flames jumped from the stick to one of the piles of paper, which immediately began to catch fire. Soon, the shed was full of smoke as flames spread everywhere.

  Jay rushed to the door, but someone had locked it from the outside.

  “The window is already blocked by fire,” said Kai. “We’re trapped!”

  Think! Jay said to himself. Sensei Wu didn’t spend all that time training you for it to end this way. There has to be a way out.

  By now, Jay and Kai were surrounded by fire. The shed had no basement, which left only one direction open to them — straight up — and only one way to reach it.

  “Spinjitzu!” both ninja said at the same time.

  Jay and Kai began to spin, faster and faster, until anyone watching would have seen them as little more than blurs. Where once had stood two ninja, now there were living tornadoes studded with lightning bolts and fire, respectively. Slowly at first, the whirlwinds began to rise from the floor. Then they abruptly shot up, smashing a hole in the shed roof.

  Jay and Kai whirled into the open air as tongues of flame and smoke pursued them through the gap in the roof. They veered sharply to the right and dropped, their spins halting abruptly just moments before they slammed into the ground. As Kai lifted his head from the soft earth, he could see a few villagers running toward the shed.

  Too late, Kai thought, as he watched the structure burn. Any evidence is just ashes now. We’ll have to solve this mystery some other way.

  Kai helped Jay to his feet. Jay pointed at some of the villagers, saying, “Hey, how come they’re running away from the fire?”

  “Let’s find out,” said Kai, as he stopped one of the villagers. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you helping?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” the villager replied. “Skeleton warriors have been seen in the woods near here. We have to get ready to defend ourselves!”

  Before the ninja could get any more information, the man rushed off. A moment later, a short, fat man hurried over to where they stood. “My name is Soon,” he said. “I am the elder of this village. I know you are just visitors here, but I have heard that you serve Sensei Wu. Will you help to protect our village from the skeletons?”

  “Of course,” said Jay. “We haven’t risked our lives in at least twelve hours. Just show us where they are.”

  Soon led the two ninja to where about a dozen men from the village were assembled. The skeletons were in the forest just outside of town, and Jay could see there were a lot of them. They were moving through the woods, parallel to the village’s main street. So far they hadn’t made any hostile moves, but if they launched a raid, the town’s defenders wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Jay, Kai, and the villagers followed the skeletons as they moved. The enemy paused only once, near the ruins of Lee’s store. Then they fell into a loose formation as if they were getting ready to attack.

  “What will we do?” said Soon. “Lee gave us about a dozen swords and shields so we could protect the village, but we can’t fight so many skeletons. We’re doomed!”

  “No, we’re not. I have an idea,” said Jay. “I need some tools, some big metal cans, and a lot of pipe. Can you find that?”

  Soon turned to two men. “Hurry and find what the ninja needs.”

  When the villagers returned, Jay set to work. He punched holes in the cans and fed the ends of the long, thin pipes into them. Then he positioned the cans in trees on either side of where the defenders stood. Each can was about one hundred yards from the group.

  “What are you doing?” asked Kai, bewildered.

  “Watch and see,” Jay said, grinning. “Now I need the men with the loudest voices.”

  Four men immediately raised their hands.

  “Okay, now take the ends of the pipes,” Jay continued, “and make as much noise as you can into them. Yell, shout, bang your swords on your shields, whatever you can think of.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Soon. “How does this help us fight off the skeletons?”

  “You’ll see,” Jay said. “Or, rather, you’ll hear.”

  The men did as they were asked, making an enormous ruckus into the ends of the pipes. Instantly, the sounds they were making boomed out of the trees. It sounded like there was a whole mob of villagers assembled instead of just a handful.

  “That’s … that’s amazing!” exclaimed Soon.

  “The sound travels down the pipes and gets amplified by the big cans,” Jay said. “By putting the cans on either side of us and a good distance away, it made it seem like there was a big crowd here, all spread out. Look.”

  The skeletons were moving farther into the woods, away from the village. Whatever they had come for, they evidently weren’t prepared to take on the big group of defenders they thought was assembled nearby.

  “Wonderful! Thank you very much!” said Soon, slapping Jay on the back. “What can we do to repay you? Just name it.”

  “Well,” said Jay, “how about the answers to some questions?”

  Jay and Soon went to sit on a bench and talk. Kai excused himself, saying he was going to find Lu and ask him some questions of his own. Jay noted that Soon seemed uncomfortable, but having skeletons planning a raid on your village will do that. “What do you want to know?”

  “You said Lee ‘gave’ you swords and shields so your men could defend the town,” said Jay.

  “Not really ‘gave,’” Soon said, looking down at the ground. “More like ‘sold,’ for quite a bit of money. Our whole treasury … we’re ruined, you see. But it was that or face the skeletons with no weapons but shovels and hammers.”

  “And he only sold you a dozen swords and shields?” asked Jay.

  “That’s right.”

  But he had way more than that, thought Jay. Swords, shields, armor, he bought all of that, but had no record of selling it. A little went to the village — where did the rest go?

  An unsettling thought struck Jay. “Sir, have you had skeleton raids on your village before?”

  Soon thought for a moment. “No, I can’t say we have. Oh, they’ve been seen in the woods from time to time, but they’ve never attacked. We don’t have much worth stealing.”

  “Or anything they needed to steal,” said Jay.

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “No,” said Jay, frowning. “It’s not.”

  “At least the skeletons have gone,” said Soon. “That’s something.”

  “Gone? No, they’re still out there. They’re waiting until dark,” said Jay. “That’s not what my friend Kai would do — he would charge right in, regardless of the opposition. Zane would analyze the situation and maybe take action next week. And Cole would spend the whole night planning for an attack tomorrow. Me? I’d do just what the skeletons are going to do: sneak in. I’m a ninja. We’re good at sneaking.”

  Suddenly, Mrs. Park came running towards the men, waving her arms and shouting. She was followed by Kai and Lu.

  “In all my years working at the inn, I have never seen such a thing!” she yelled. “Right in broad daylight, too! And where were the village ‘defenders’? Playing in the woods!”

  “What happened?” Kai asked Mrs. Park.

  “It’s Din. He was just returning to the inn when three skeleton warriors grabbed him and dragged him off into the woods. He tried to defend himself, but … Well, we found this on the ground.”

  Lu handed Kai the dagger Din had been holding earlier. He turned it over in his hands, paying particular attention to the blade. As a blacksmith, Kai had seen many swords and daggers before and had a good eye for their shape and quality. “Can I keep this?” he asked.

  “Will it help find Din?” asked Lu. He turned to Jay for an answer.

  “Oh, he’ll be found before tomorrow, don’t worry,” Jay replied. “I promise, and I always keep my promises. Just ask my friend Cole. Well, no, maybe you better not ask him; I still owe him money. Ask Zane — I never made him any promises, so I hav
en’t broken any.”

  “Lu, you said there were stories you couldn’t share,” said Kai. “I think it’s time to share them with us.”

  The tales were about what the ninja expected to hear — Lee was suspected of being disloyal to the village. A few people reported seeing crates brought into the shop during the night, only to see no sign of them in the morning. The theory was Lee had sold whatever was in them to thieves, perhaps in return for some of their loot. Lu had been robbed several times on the road and lost a great deal of money and goods, and he was certain Lee had profited from his misfortune.

  “Why wasn’t something done about this?” asked Jay.

  “There was no proof,” said Lu. “Just suspicion.”

  Kai turned and walked away with Jay. “I have a suspicion of my own,” Kai said quietly. “The skeletons are going to strike again, and we need to make sure they succeed.”

  Lu, Kai, and Jay headed to Lee’s house. Once there, Kai walked over to the trees. He took Din’s dagger and seemed to be poking the trunks with it in various places. After a few minutes, he beckoned Lu to come closer.

  “See?” Kai said, pointing to the largest of the trees. “I noticed when I was here before that there were all these little Xs carved in the bark of this tree, and a few others. The blade of this dagger is just the right size to have made those marks.”

  “So you think Din has been attacking Lee’s trees?” said Lu. “What for?”

  “No, not attacking them,” replied Jay. “Right, Kai? He’s been using them as a way to contact Lee.”

  Lu looked up at the setting sun. “The day is almost over. What are you going to do now?”

  Kai smiled. “Well, we’ve talked to you, Mrs. Lee, Mr. Soon, and Din’s not available.”

  “So, naturally, we’re going to go talk to the skeletons,” said Jay.

  After Lu left, Kai took Jay aside. “You handle the spy mission. We both know where the skeletons are heading tonight, so I am going to set up a little surprise for them.”