Hiro was a big, fluffy white Akita with ears like two pointed mountains and a tail that curled over his back like a cresting wave. Every evening at the dojo, Sensei Momo gave him one important job: carry the wooden practice board from the training hall to the storage shed before she locked up for the night. Hiro gripped the board firmly in his jaws — thwump — and padded out of the lantern-lit hall. The wood tasted of pine resin and chalk dust. Akitas do not drop things. Akitas do NOT drop things. Hiro had decided, and that was that.
The garden path was cool stone under his big white paws. The moon hung round and full above the plum tree, turning every leaf silver. Hiro's nose began to zigzag — left, right, left — across the path, following something invisible and extremely interesting. Rabbit? Moth? The ghost of last Tuesday's rice cake? Sniff, sniff, sniff.
His ears swivelled suddenly toward a rustling in the bamboo. Both ears, sharp and fast, like two satellite dishes locking on. He crept forward, board clamped tight, and peered through the green stalks. Nothing. Just the wind playing its own small game. Hiro snorted through his nose — a polite but firm disapproval — and kept walking. Then something glinted under the garden lantern. A tiny metal star, one of Sensei Momo's practice throwing stars, lying in the gravel. Hiro sniffed it carefully. Cold. Sharp-edged. Smelled of iron and someone's nervous hands. He stepped around it tidily and continued along the path. Some things were not his job. The board was his job.
He rounded the corner of the storage shed, and stopped. There, in the shadow of the wall, sat the tiniest brown mouse Hiro had ever seen. She had a walnut in front of her, nearly as big as her head. She was smacking it against the shed wall — thwack, thwack, THWACK — and the walnut was not cooperating even slightly. The mouse sat back, whiskers bristling with frustration, and tried again. Thwack. Nothing. Thwack. Nothing. She made a very small, very fed-up squeak. Hiro looked at the mouse. He looked at the board in his jaws. He looked at the walnut. He set the board down. Just for one second.
The mouse looked at the board. Then at Hiro. Her eyes went wide. She placed the walnut on the board, wound up with both tiny arms, and — CRACK — smashed it down with everything she had. The walnut split open in two perfect halves. The mouse leapt straight into the air. She actually cheered. It sounded like a very small bell ringing once. Hiro picked the board back up — thwump — tucked it neatly into the shed, and trotted back to the dojo with his tail curled high.
Sensei Momo found him already settled on his mat, paws straight out in front, eyes half-closed. The board was delivered. The shed was shut. She shook her head slowly, the way she always did, and turned off the last lantern. In the morning, there was half a walnut sitting on the dojo step. Hiro ate it in one bite, then rested his great white chin on his paws and blinked at the plum tree, very slowly, very satisfied.
