Catfish Rolling by Clara Kumagai ~ Blog Tour

There’s a catfish under the islands of Japan;
when it rolls, the land rises and falls.

Exploring themes of identity, relationships, grief and ecology, and set in a world of Japanese myths, folklore and magical realism, Catfish Rolling is the debut YA novel by author Clara Kumagai.

Since the rolling catfish caused an earthquake that destroyed Sora’s home, took her mother and cracked time itself, her life hasn’t been the same. Sora’s sensitivity to the shifting time zones in the wild and abandoned land around her is a gift her scientist father uses to research the uncharted space for his work, despite the unknown dangers. Over the years she’s watched the impact it’s had on her father’s health, but the yearning for a glimpse of Sora’s mother drives him to work longer and harder, despite her pleas for him to stop. Since graduating, she sees no hope at the end of the tunnel and finds herself feeling like an outsider and more alone than ever.

When her father goes missing, Sora must go searching – for him, her mother and perhaps even the catfish itself.

Catfish Rolling – Chapter 1

I didn’t want to come to my high school graduation ceremony, but here I am. The chair is hard and I’m hot and uncomfortable in my uniform even though it’s only March, and why do so many people have so much to say and for such a long time? There are only so many ways you can say that we should be proud, that we should keep working hard, that the future is waiting for us. None of it applies to me, but my classmates are bright-eyed, faces set with both determination and happiness. I try to arrange my mouth and eyes in the same way, but it makes my face feel weird. I glance at Koki, sitting further down the row with the other boys, but he’s staring straight ahead like everyone else.

I try to concentrate on the student president guy who’s speaking now. He’s tearing up too – funny, because he’s always been the serious type who only shows emotion when he gets his grades. I wonder what university he’s going to go to, and if he’ll cry when he gets there. When he finally finishes, it’s time for us to collect our diplomas. There are only two classes in my grade, and mine is called first. We line up neatly, waiting to walk across the stage and receive our nice pieces of paper.

I glance at the rows of families and teachers. Mothers are wiping their eyes, some fathers too. I search for Dad as subtly as possible, through the men in their black and navy suits. He’s not there. It’s boring, obviously, and I wouldn’t have wanted to come either, no way. My heart burns.

It’s my turn now. I’m concentrating on not falling over and trying to remember what a normal walk looks like, when there’s a shuffle and a murmur at the back of the hall. It’s Dad, sidling in and trying to squeeze into the back row of seats. He dips his head and apologises and people move to let him pass. He settles into a chair, palefaced, blond-grey hair dishevelled, wearing a suit with a wrinkled shirt. Some of the teachers look back, and then at me, and the principal clears his throat. I realise I’m frozen on the stage and I thaw into hot embarrassment. I take my diploma without making eye contact with the principal and then escape to my seat. I stare up at the ceiling, not at the other students or back at Dad, and pretend that I’m gazing into my dazzling future, and not just empty space.

I can’t pretend for long. I lower my eyes to my watch. A watch is a beautiful thing. It holds time right there, strapped to your wrist, pinned on a disc the size of a five-hundred-yen coin. I wear my mother’s watch, always. It’s ugly. The silvery steel is tarnished around the edges, and the hands are thick and decisive as they move around the hours and minutes, marked in black on a white face. It’s never failed me.

I’m told I check the time too often. It annoys teachers, makes me appear rude, like I’m bored or waiting for the conversation to end. But I need to know what time it is, and that it’s still running at the right pace, that it’s running at all.

Everyone has their diplomas now, but the principal starts droning on about perseverance, and I count the seconds that I won’t ever get back. There are some people in my town who’ve stopped caring about polite punctuality; who’ve thrown their watches away, put all the clocks in the house in the bin, who’ve set the oven or rice cooker to 0:00. Maybe they got tired of measuring time and never knowing if it was right. Or they simply didn’t want to be reminded of it.

The class is smaller than when I joined it seven years ago. A lot of people moved away, to the places where you don’t have to think about the time except when you’re rushing for the bus, or when your egg is boiling, or when you have to tell your kids that it’s past their bedtime. A few people became obsessed with time, like me. Like Dad.

‘Why is time doing that, Sora-chan?’ he asks me. ‘How? And why?’

I have no answer. He doesn’t really expect me to have one, but he always wants me to try. He never asks me why I check the time because he knows; he’s the one who taught me that experiments need to be monitored.

I look over at Koki again, and he gives me a sidelong glance. I roll my eyes and he flicks his gaze forward, trying not to smile. I don’t feel like smiling.