The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe Read Free Book Online Page B

You’re just a book.”
    For a moment it was quiet in the room. Then the book spoke again, his tone somewhat different than before. “I get it. You just don’t want to go back to school. That’s why you wanted to go help your brother. It was just an excuse to play hooky.”
    Yuriko went to throw the book on the floor again, but her hand stopped in midair. She stood there, holding the book over her head. An unbearable sadness washed over her, and her eyes burned with shame. Yuriko lowered her hand and gently slid the book back onto Hiroki’s bookshelf.
    “There, there. That’s the way,” the book said, sounding satisfied. “Good night, miss. Get some rest.”
    I’ll let go of the book and just walk out of the room. We’re done here.
    Wait. No we’re not.
    “Is there really no way I can help my brother? Are you sure none of the grown-ups can do it? My parents and the police can’t help?”
    “That’s right, they can’t.”
    “And I can’t help either because I’m a little girl? So who could? Who else is there? Isn’t there anybody who could help my brother?”
    “What would you do if I told you?”
    “If there is, I’m going to go to them and ask them to help my brother.”
    I would go and ask, and they would listen.
    “If you know, you have to tell me. Where can I find someone who can help my brother?”
    Yuriko wasn’t looking at the clock, so she didn’t know how much time passed before the book answered, but it seemed like an eternity. “Nowhere here. An otherplace .” There was something in his voice that sounded sterner, more solemn than before. “You would have to leave your world in order to find someone who can help your brother, little miss.”
    How am I supposed to do that?
    “Is that what you were talking about when you said adults couldn’t even leave this world?”
    “That’s right.”
    “But I’m a kid…so I can?” If I can, I’m going. “Where is this other place? Is it in another country? Would I have to take an airplane?”
    “Not just any other place, an otherplace . A place outside this Circle you’re in.”
    The book began to explain. Circle meant this world. And not “world” like in “world history,” or even “world map,” or the other worlds that Yuriko was familiar with. It meant something bigger, much bigger.
    “You could walk to the farthest corner of Earth, or the most distant star, and that would still be inside your Circle as we see it. Your world, or to be more precise, the story of your world is all inside this Circle, and nowhere else.”
    This wasn’t very helpful. But Yuriko had found one thing to seize hold of.
    “But if I really, really want to go, um, outside my Circle, I can, right? Would you take me there?”
    “Well, you are a child…” the book muttered. “And because you’re a child,” the book said, a little more loudly, “you can make this kind of immense decision. The kind of decision that might change your life. The kind you can never take back.”
    She couldn’t tell whether the book was rolling his eyes or was genuinely impressed with her.
    “But I suppose there’s no helping it, after all it was my fault for talking to you in the first place. I have a responsibility.”
    Something deep in Yuriko’s chest tightened, but for the first time in a long while it wasn’t thanks to sadness or anger.
    “Thank you! Thank you so much.”
    “Don’t thank me yet. This isn’t going to be easy. And I won’t be able to do it by myself,” the red book admitted. “That’s why I need to take you to my friends first. And besides,” the book added quietly, “that’s where the Way In is, anyway.”
    “So we have to find your friends? Where? A bookstore, maybe? A library? You’re pretty old so…maybe a used bookstore?”
    The red book chuckled. “You’re pretty funny, miss. Maybe you’ve forgotten?”
    Forgotten? Forgotten what?
    “Do you really think your brother picked up a book like me, with all the strange things