He opened the door and couldn’t believe his eyes, there were thousands of gumballs in his room. Yoshii Masaki was a boy living in Tokyo, Japan during WWII, so he expected the worst when he heard the crash.
Sergeant Maxwell was a World War II sergeant at the time and was supposed to drop a 13 ton bomb on a house in Tokyo. This is the story of how these two very different people came together.
Yoshii looked across his room over the multi-colored gumballs that littered his room. He could only think of two things, #1 was he going crazy? #2, what were all of these gumballs doing in his room? He looked at the huge hole in the ceiling. What was he going to do?
Sergeant Maxwell had just dropped the bomb and was heading to North America when he noticed something. What was a huge bomb doing in the plane? He thought he had just dropped that bomb a second ago. Dread spread over his mind as he saw the ticking red numbers of a timer on the side of the bomb. The frantic but the brave sergeant grabbed his M-1 and a parachute and jumped out the back of the plane.
It was getting late and Yoshii was wondering where his parents were. He decided he better get to bed so if his parents came home they wouldn’t be mad because he was still up. So, he tiptoed across his gumball littered room and picked up a blanket and a pillow. He laid down on the tatami mat floor and soon fell asleep.
Sergeant Maxwell had landed about 200 yards away from the house he was sure he dropped the bomb on, but saw no fire or smoke. So, the weary soldier pulled open the wood and paper door and collapsed on the floor.
Yoshii got up and looked in his parent’s room and was surprised to see them not there. Surely they couldn’t be at the party that long? Yoshii walked down the hall to the kitchen to make breakfast when he saw an American soldier laying on the floor.
Yoshii poked the sergeant with a kitchen spoon. Was he dead? What was he doing there? Did he have something to do with all the gumballs? Yoshii poked the sergeant some more and he finally woke up.
The first thing the sergeant said was “Where am I and who are you?” Luckily Yoshii knew some English and could tell what the man was saying so he led the sergeant to his room and pointed to the piles of gumballs and told the story of the loud crash and finding the gumballs. Then the sergeant told Yoshii about how the bomb was in the plane and how he had to parachute down.
No sooner had he finished the story than there was a knock at the door. Yoshii told the sergeant to hide in the closet while he answered the door. When he answered it was his parents friend Michiyo. She told him that there was an accident and he needed to go see his parents in the hospital so he ran to the closet and told his somewhat friend to stay while he saw his parents. Yoshii ran back to the door and he and Michiyo walked to the hospital. On the way, Michiyo told Yoshii how a plane with a time bomb inside had crashed into the building his parents were in and how they were severely injured.
When they reached the hospital, Yoshii talked to his parents and they said Michiyo was to look after him. When they got home, Michiyo told Yoshii if he needed anything to just run over to her house.
Yoshii talked to Sergeant Maxwell about the gumball incident. “What demonic things,” said Sergeant Maxwell.
“Kurosaki,” said Yoshii.
“What?” said Maxwell.
“Kurosaki, the god of demons,” said Yoshii.
“The god of the demons?” said Maxwell.
“Yes, the god of demons,” said Yoshii.
“I thought he was only in books?” Maxwell said.
“Apparently not,” said Yoshii. “He wreaks havoc upon our crops and animals. “
“What kind of havoc?” said Maxwell.
“He tramples our crops and eats our animals.”
“But gumballs aren’t what you would call evil or demonic,” said Maxwell.
“Well, they could be disguised smoke bombs,” said Yoshii.
“Smoke bombs?” Maxwell said quizzically.
“You’ve never heard of a smoke bomb?” said Yoshii. “I guess our country is more advanced,” said Yoshii.
“Hey, who’s the soldier here?” said Maxwell.
“Sorry, I’m just psyched that you’ve never heard of a smoke bomb before,” Yoshii said.
“Well, let’s just see if there gumballs or smoke bombs,” said Maxwell. He angrily marched down the hall into Yoshii’s room. Yoshii followed Sergeant Maxwell.
“Well,” said Sergeant Maxwell, “there is only one way to find out.” Sergeant Maxwell picked up a gumball as green as his uniform and put it into his mouth.
“Yuck,” cried Maxwell, “this tastes like a cigarette butt,” he said after he threw down the apparent smoke bomb.
“Watch out!” Yoshii cried, as ugly black smoke spewed out of the smoke bomb. Yoshii ran out of the room and shut the door. Sergeant Maxwell followed.
“I think we oughta teach this Kurosaki guy a lesson,” said Sergeant Maxwell.
“You cannot defeat him with your gun,” said Yoshii.
“Why?” Sergeant Maxwell asked.
“Because he is a god. The only way to defeat a god is my ancestors’ dragon sword.” Yoshii continued, “to get to him, we have to go down the stairwell to the underworld.”
“We better get you some new clogs,” said Sergeant Maxwell.
“Why?” Yoshii asked.
“Because kid, we are going to the underworld.”
Yoshii and Sergeant Maxwell and Yoshii’s pair of new clogs, were making their way down the stairwell to the underworld.
“How long do you think this is?” said Maxwell.
“If you want to see, why don’t you just jump off,” said Yoshii.
“Well, I could but I forgot my parachute,” said Sergeant Maxwell sarcastically.
When Yoshii and Sergeant Maxwell arrived they confronted Kurosaki. “Why did you send smoke bombs upon us?”
“Why I did no such thing!” Kurosaki roared.
“But if you didn’t who did?” Yoshii turned to Sergeant Maxwell. “Do you have some way of knowing how they got there?”
“Well, before the war, my family owned a candy store. So as a joke my brother put lots of gumballs in my backpack and suit case so when I discovered it, I decided I’d make the best of it and to use an old bomb shell as a vending machine.”
“But thousands of gumballs couldn’t fit in your suitcase,” Yoshii said, “and what about the smoke?” Yoshii and Sergeant Maxwell turned and glared at Kurosaki.
“Well, uh, I may have put a few smoke bombs in.”
“And the timer on the side of the bomb,” asked Sergeant Maxwell.
“Um, uh,” Kurosaki stuttered.
“You have caused enough trouble.” And with that, Yoshii pulled the dragon sword out of its sheath. The metal of the dragon swords blade was flaming red. Yoshii fearlessly jumped up and cut off Kuroski’s head.
When Yoshii and Sergeant Maxwell got to Yoshii’s home, his parents were home from the hospital. When they saw Sergeant Maxwell, Yoshii told the story of how he and Sergeant Maxwell had slain Kuroski and how much trouble he had caused. When Yoshii finished, Yoshii’s parents bowed in respect to Sergeant Maxwell. “Well, it is nice to meet you Sergeant Maxwell.”
“Thank you,” said Sergeant Maxwell.
“You boys better find something to do because dinner is not going to be ready for a while,” said Mr. Masaki.
Yoshii and Sergeant Maxwell went into Yoshii’s room. “I guess we can eat these gumballs now that Kurosaki’s not around.” They both picked up a gumball and popped it into their mouths.
“Well,” said Sergeant Maxwell, “I guess you can get a skylight for the hole in your ceiling.”
“Yea,” said Yoshii.
Yoshii looked up. “Uh-oh,” said Yoshii, “I think its raining suckers.”
As they were poured on by suckers, they heard a voice. “Ha, ha, ha. You’ll never defeat Shiji, the god of thunder storms.”
Sergeant Maxwell looked at Yoshii. Yoshii looked at Sergeant Maxwell. “Here we go again,” they said.
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