A sword?” the voice asked.

Yoshi sighed. “Just look for a long leather case. It’s very valuable!”

“Um, okay?” The light wavered, and Yoshi realized that it wasn’t a flashlight after all, just something reflecting a shaft of sunlight. And the girl holding it was a kid, maybe a year younger than him.

Where was the crew? And all the other passengers?

Most important, where was his family’s seventeenth-century katana?

The light flashed in his eyes again, and Yoshi fought a wave of dizziness …

A plane crash. An actual plane crash.

Out of everything that could have happened—lost luggage, snooping customs agents, hijackers—why did it have to be something so random?

He could see his father shaking his head. Your airplane crashed? Well, you should have thought of that before stealing from your homeland.

The words didn’t even make sense, and yet Yoshi could hear them perfectly.

He wondered again if this was all just a nightmare. The plane being torn apart, the weird lights, the impossible jungle outside. And after the crash, crawling down through that smoking rip in the cabin floor, into this jumble of luggage, all of it cheap and ugly and not his katana.

“You said a long case, right?” a boy’s voice called. “Like, black leather?”

“Yes!” Yoshi pushed his way through the strewn luggage toward where the two figures stood. He saw in silhouette that one of them held something a meter long, about as wide as a paperback book. As Yoshi stumbled nearer, he saw the dangling priority and insurance tags.

“That’s it!” He snatched the case from the boy, hefted it, and felt the familiar weight in his hands. Yes, the katana was still inside.

The boy and girl were staring at him, and Yoshi managed to gather himself.

“Thank you,” he said, bowing. “I owe you a debt.”

“Uh, sure,” the boy said. “Glad I could help.”

Relief swept through Yoshi. It was all he could do to keep from opening the case and drawing the sword before their startled eyes, just to make sure it was okay.

“Our friends are outside,” the girl said, nodding at a jagged hole in the airplane’s skin. “And we found some other people, too.”

“Of course,” Yoshi said. “Take me to them.”

Maybe someone out there knew what was going on.

The sunlight was blinding, the scent of the jungle overwhelming.

It wasn’t like anywhere Yoshi had ever seen before—not in textbooks, magazines, or movies. Certainly not in real life. It was more like something from Jura Tripper. He half expected to see dinosaurs crashing through the dense undergrowth.

There were five more people outside. The tall white guy with a crew cut was probably the oldest. A white girl, blond and willowy, was about Yoshi’s age, and the blond boy and two Japanese girls were younger. The boy and girl who’d found him in the cargo hold both had dark skin and curly hair, but they didn’t look like brother and sister. She was wiry and athletic, while he was short and a little out of shape.

A pretty random bunch, except for one thing—nobody was an adult. An odd coincidence, Yoshi thought, but not as weird as everything else that had happened.

They all stared at one another, until the guy with the crew cut began, “I think this is everyone. I’ve been up and down the plane, and there’s nothing but torn-out seats. The ceiling is ripped open the whole way down. It’s like the whole plane fell apart in midair!”

The guy was breathing hard, just standing there. He was still amped up from the crash.

Yoshi felt strangely calm inside, like part of him still thought this was all a dream. Or maybe the reassuring weight of the katana was keeping him grounded.

The older boy pointed at a plastic case on the ground at his feet. “I found a survival kit, and I’m sure help is on the way. We just need to get organized. Maybe build a signal fire.”

“We can’t do that,” said the girl who’d been in the cargo hold.

“Sure we can!” The guy knelt and tore open the survival kit. “There’s probably a lighter in here somewhere.”

“No, I mean …” She let out an exasperated sigh. “See that wing with all the dents in it? It’s full of jet fuel. If any fumes are leaking, you’ll get more than a signal fire. You’ll get an explosion they can see on Mars!”

The tall boy looked up at her, still breathing hard, and a tremor passed through the group—a struggle was about to start. But then the boy who’d found Yoshi’s katana stepped forward.

“Maybe we should all introduce ourselves,” he said. “I’m Javi.”

The tension ebbed as the others gave their names. The girl who’d been in the cargo hold was Molly, and their two blond friends were Oliver and Anna. The boy who thought he was in charge was Caleb.

Caleb pointed at the Japanese girls. “They don’t speak English.” He looked at Yoshi. “Do you?”

Yoshi nodded, then turned to the girls. “Onamae-wa, nan desu ka?”

“Kira,” said one, bowing.

“Akiko,” said the other.

Yoshi raised an eyebrow. Both the names meant shiny, and they wore identical skirts. Clearly sisters with easily amused parents, but Kira had dyed a white streak into her hair. Maybe she was the rebel.

“I’m Yoshi Kimura,” he finished the introductions.

“Okay.” Caleb clapped his hands, as if calling a meeting back to order. “I guess a signal fire isn’t necessary. That plane is pretty easy to spot. And it probably has all kinds of black boxes inside, transmitting our location.”

Yoshi saw Javi and Molly sharing a look, but Caleb didn’t notice.

“Of course, we don’t know how long it will take them to get here,” he went on. “So we should probably build a shelter.”

“A shelter from what?” Molly asked.

Caleb gave her that look again. He wasn’t used to being argued with.

Molly kept her eyes straight on his. “It isn’t cold enough to need insulation. If it rains, we can camp out under a wing, or one of those inflatable slides. And if a predator comes along, I’d rather be back inside the plane than hiding in some tree fort.”

“A predator?” Oliver turned to stare into the jungle.

Anna followed his gaze. “Good point, Molly. That’s a pretty big food web out there. There must be something at the top, eating everything else.”

Oliver blanched, and Molly glared at Anna.

“There’s insects,” Javi jumped in again. “I’ve only been camping one time, but around sundown we got eaten alive.”

“Sure,” Molly said. “But we can’t make insect screens out of palm fronds. This whole idea of building a shelter is silly.”

Javi spread his hands. “So maybe we look for bug spray.”

Yoshi watched Caleb, whose expression grew more and more astonished. Maybe he was always surprised when people didn’t let him run the show.

But no one was asking the real questions.

Why had a plane flying over the Arctic landed in a jungle? And where were all the other passengers? Was everyone else dead?

Yoshi shook off the thought. It was pointless guessing at something so awful before taking a look around.

“Bug spray?” A note of anger rose in Caleb’s voice, or maybe it was panic. “Don’t you realize how serious this is?”

“Why are you all arguing?” Oliver cried. “None of this makes sense, and everyone’s gone! And where’s Mr. Keating?”

His words descended into sobs, and silence fell on the group. Molly looked stricken, like she was about to cry, too—or punch someone. Kira and Akiko stood closer together, their hands finding each other’s.

Yoshi closed his eyes for a moment. His father had always said that manga and anime were distractions, that he should focus on reality instead. But now that reality was right here, staring him in the face, Yoshi knew exactly what to do.

He knelt by the open survival kit. It took a few seconds to find a canteen, a compass, and a two-way radio. Then he clicked open the hasps on his case, checked the oil and powder, the cleaning cloth—all there—and pulled out the katana. Lifting the strap over his head, he felt the elegant curve of the scabbard settle between his shoulder blades. As the others watched in silence, Yoshi pocketed the oil and cleaning cloth and snapped the case closed.

“I’ll be back before dark,” he said.

Caleb stood tall. “Uh, Yoshi, right? Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find water. I’ll leave the tree fort and bug spray to you guys.”

There was a moment of silence as the others registered his words. Water wasn’t about comfort—it was about survival.

“There were water bottles on the plane,” Javi said.

Yoshi nodded. “We’ll need all of them. But we won’t last very long unless we can refill them. You all realize that, right?”

When no one answered, Yoshi sighed and held out his arms, indicating the trees, the jungle, the white sky.

“Something very strange happened. We’re in the wrong place. Not Canada or Alaska. Not Japan. We have no idea when rescue is coming. Water is the first step to surviving this.”

Oliver made a small, frightened noise, and Molly moved to take his hand. The others just stared at Yoshi, and for the first time Caleb seemed to have nothing to say.

Yoshi held up the radio. “I have this, so once you find another survival kit, we’ll be able to communicate.” He turned to the two girls and switched to Japanese. “I’ll be back soon. It’ll be okay.”

Akiko nodded nervously. “Be careful, Yoshi. There might be something bad out there.”

He smiled and lifted his right hand behind his head to take the hilt of the katana. He drew it just a little, exposing a few inches of bright, razor-sharp metal.

“I’ll be fine.”