6 The puppet master

Chapter 6 The puppet master "There's only one thing to do," Jackson said. "We have to chase after him!" He jumped through the hole in the paper window, followed by Tempo. Sarah gave herself a shake. We can't give up now, she thought. She jumped through the hole too. They crossed the garden to a side gate that led out onto a street. As they ran, the Time Freeze was broken. Birds sang, the stream gurgled, and a breathless Kojima caught up with them, just as Jackson was swinging up the gate.

"You moved so fast I didn't even see you!" Kojima said. "You have skills worthy of a great samurai." "Cuckoo! Cuckoo-koo-koo!" Sarah looked up to see Tempo flying along the street, following a crowd of people. "She must know DeLay is heading that way too," Sarah said. "Come on!" "He's dragging us all around Edo," grumbled Jackson. "At least we're seeing the sights, I suppose." They wove through the throng of people. Everyone was heading into a park. "Did you notice," said Sarah, as they passed under some plum trees, "that DeLay didn't run away the instant we found him in the Silver Moon Teahouse? He couldn't resist showing off first." "That's true," said Jackson. Kojima nodded. "He's too confident," he said. "That's how you make mistakes. Every samurai warrior knows that." "I hope you're right," said Jackson.

Sarah stood on tiptoes, craning to see over the people. "Tempo is perched on top of something that looks like the bandstands we have in parks," she said. With Kojima leading, they headed for the bandstand. As they got closer, Sarah saw that it wasn't a bandstand at all. It was an open-air puppet theater. "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" squawked Tempo, from the pointed roof. "I think she's telling us, 'Down there!'" said Jackson. As Sarah edged to the front of the crowd, she noticed a figure behind the stage, clad in a black kimono and hood. Only his top half was visible behind his puppets. "This sort of show is called bunraku," said Kojima, "and the man in black is the puppet master. He wears dark clothes so we look at his puppets and not at him."

The puppet master seemed to move his puppets by using some sort of control inside their backs. The crowd was loving the show, and Sarah would have loved to know what the story was about. But she knew they couldn't watch. DeLay was around somewhere, maybe hiding in the audience.

As the Timekeepers and Kojima searched the crowd, the puppet master jumped up onto the stage. "I am brilliant with puppets, am I not?" he asked the audience. His black kimono swirled as he moved. "You are!" they roared back. "Am I a genius?" "You are!" "And yet I am always being chased by two silly children and a foolish bird," he told them. "Am I right to be annoyed?" "You are!" The people cheered and clapped. Sarah was furious. "DeLay's the puppet master!" she said. "What nerve! He's so sure we won't see through his disguise. Come on, let's get him!" The happy, chatty audience was leaving, so the three friends had to push their way through. By the time they reached the stage, all they found were two puppets that had been flung aside. DeLay had disappeared. "Cuckoo!" Tempo wheeled around in circles, searching for DeLay. Sarah and Jackson jumped onto the stage to get a better view, but he had gone. They didn't have a clue where, so they set off in search again. Would DeLay be wearing his coat with the leaves on it, or his puppet master's outfit? Or something else? "I can't believe DeLay called us silly and foolish," Sarah said angrily. "He obviously thinks he's too clever for us," Jackson said. "Remember," said Kojima, "that means he'll stop being careful. And then he will make a mistake."

"Kojima's right," said Sarah. "I read a lot of books to help me become a better writer, and I've noticed that often the biggest mistake villains make is to believe they're smarter than the heroes. That's DeLay's way of thinking." "Well," said Jackson, "It's time these heroes proved that villain wrong!" Sarah grinned. "And I think I know how..."