The Lotus Monster Book - Sample

The Lotus Monster
By
Judy Burns
Illustrated
By
Margien Burns
Original Idea
By
Shannon Duane
Copyright July 2, 2017
All Rights Reserved

Forward
Readers:
Did you know Japanese ghosts have no feet… or that
ghostly snow goddesses can either freeze a man who gets
lost in the icy mountains or marry him and have a family?
How about ghosts who love the way a blind young man
plays the Biwa (a kind of guitar), so they bring him out every
night to play for an entire royal court of ghosts?
Japan is full of wonderful stories about princes, princesses,
knights, gods and dragons. We have met some of
these terrific stories in movies like “Spirited Away” or 2016’s
“Your Name”.
Our story follows one little American girl who learns
that monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Monsters are
not all as big as Godzilla, but even little monsters can be
exciting and fun. We hope you enjoy our “Lotus Monster”.

This book is dedicated to:
Toshiro, Akira, Hiroshi, Yoko and her Obachama...
and especially to Momma, who always believed
in her children and their imaginations.
And we can’t forget Quinlan, without whom this
book would not exist.

There was once a very little girl (shojo) who lived in Japan.
Although she was not Japanese, Quinlan was like children
everywhere. She had a huge imagination and spent
most of her days using it.

In the morning, she pretended she rode a rocket car to
school instead of her bicycle. On the way out of the Marine
base where she lived, she imagined her daddy (otosan) flying
the old jet that was perched forever on a pillar inside the
main gate.

She had left the base and was biking past a lotus farm,
daydreaming wonderful things, when a terrible thing happened.
The lotus plants in the field suddenly began swaying
back and forth, and something horrible parted the lotus
leaves and stared out at her. Quinlan squeaked.

’“What’s wrong?” Momma (okasan) asked.’
“There’s a monster in the lotus! See!” Quinlan pointed.
Momma looked at the giant lotus leaves and flowers, but
she saw no monster.
Finally she asked, “Quinlan, are you sure you didn’t
imagine a monster?” Quinlan sighed. That’s what grownups
always thought.
As she bicycled away from the lotus field, she spotted two
tiger-fish (shachi) sitting on a blue tiled farmhouse roof and
thought, “Those fish things are monsters. They swim on
tiles that look like water, and nobody says they aren’t real!”

At school (shogakko), Quinlan hurried to her friend,
Toshi, and said, “I saw a monster in the lotus today.” Toshi’s
eyes grew huge.
“I live next to a lotus field,” he said. “I hope the monster
doesn’t find me.”
During art class, most of the children’s (kodomo no) pictures
were of houses (uchi), cats (neko) and flowers (hana).
Quinlan’s and Toshi’s pictures showed a sea of green (midori),
but in the middle there were monstrous eyes.
“Oh, my,” said Teacher (Sensei). “Something has very
big eyes.”
“The monster in the lotus,” Toshi blurted out.
“Ah so,” Sensei exclaimed, “A real monster?”
Sensei Sees The Lotus Monster Art

“Real.” Was all Quinlan
would say. She was
tired of grownups thinking
she had made up the
monster, but she pointed
to a calendar poster of a
tiger-fish on the wall. Its
scales glowed like fire. It
had puffy eyes and long
sharp teeth. “I think it
looks just like that.”
“Hmm,” said Sensei, “I know a story about a fish like that.
Would you like to hear it?
“Hai, Hai,” everyone said. “Yes. Yes.” And so this is the
story that Sensei told them.

The Good Little Fish
Once, there was a tiny fish (sakana) who wanted to make
the world better for everyone. His fish friends laughed at
him, saying Man (otoko) would surely catch and eat him one
day. And indeed, one day the little fish was caught.
The fisherman who caught him was so hungry that he
was going to pop the little fish into his mouth that very moment,
but the fish cried out, “Please, before you eat me,
could you tell me what I could have done to make the world
better?”
The fisherman had never heard such a question before,
so he thought about it, and then said, “I have heard that if
a fish were to swim up the great river that feeds this sea,
magic might help the world. But that’s just a story, and I am
hungry now.”
“I would swim the river (kawa) if I had the chance,” said
the little fish.
At that, the fisherman lowered the fish gently back into
the water (mizu). “If you are that brave, go and seek goodness…
for all our sakes.”

The Good Little Fish Is Caught

And so the little fish began to swim!

It’s very hard to swim upstream. The water tried to push
him back to the sea. The torrent became fast and powerful.
It smashed him against river rocks and hurt him horribly,
but still he fought on. Then he came to a waterfall,
and it seemed the little fish would die trying to swim up the
mountain of water, but finally the brave little fish managed
to reach the top.
He was so tired that he thought, “I can swim no further.
I am sorry I could not finish and help everyone, and he
flopped up onto the land to die. Still, as the fish panted for
breath, he did not realize he had made it all the way to the
beginning of the river.
Suddenly he felt his body growing bigger and bigger,
and his nose and tail growing longer and longer, and his
teeth growing great and sharp.
The fish looked at himself in the water and saw that he
was no longer tiny and weak. He was a great dragonl (ryu).

Then to his amazement, Amaterasu, the sun goddess, spoke
to him, saying, “Because of your good heart, all living things
will thrive, and the world will be better.”
Amaratsu and the Dragon