Free White Ninja by Tiffiny Hall Page B

Jackson nods.
    â€˜How do I fit into all this?’ I stammer.
    â€˜There’re twice as many samurai as ninjas. Your ninjaism is just coming in and we need you on our side.’
    I realise why Mum would never have mentioned the White Warrior. She didn’t want me to be involved in this fight. She’s always wanted me to be a normal kid. Not a ninja.
    Jackson takes a star and throws it towards the ceiling. It flies up, past the beams, until it spears into the middle rafter, piercing it dead centre. Jackson turns and winks at me, causing my stomach to flutter. He is awesome at both art and ninja arts — what a legend.
    Now it’s my turn. I spin once, then let my star fly out of my hand. It circles us twice and returns to my hand. I try to throw it at the nearest wall, but again it circles us and returns to my hand. On my third try, the star slices through a punching bag, spraying sand across the mats, before rebounding to my hand.
    â€˜You’ve got a boomerang one!’ Jackson says and slaps me hard on the back. I cough. ‘We’re really going to have some fun. Now put your hands like this, in the sign of water,’ he says.
    I place the star on the floor and copy the movement, making a fist with my right hand and pointing my left palm flat towards it, fingertips to my chin in a prayer position. My hands touch.
    â€˜No,’ he says. ‘Like this.’ He makes the symbol again and this time I understand the microscopic distance between the two hands and copy him.
    â€˜If you can harness the power of rock,’ he nods at his closed fist, ‘and water,’ he nods towards his open palm, ‘and control both as separate entities within you, wherenothing else exists, then you’ll be able to control your invisibility.’
    â€˜Powerful stuff,’ Sabo says. ‘Classic ninja material.’
    â€˜I still don’t understand why you need me,’ I say, picking my star up again carefully, scared that it might do to me what it just did to the punching bag.
    â€˜Do you know the meaning of ninja?’ Jackson asks.
    I shake my head.
    â€˜Stealth. We’re known as the shadow warriors.’
    Stealth. There’s nothing stealthy about Jackson. He’s only been at the school a few days and every girl knows his name. He can’t go anywhere without being noticed.
    â€˜The samurai were the rich warrior caste, and the ninja clan developed as a reaction against them,’ he continues. ‘They came from the poor farming communities who were barely surviving under samurai rule. They started out as thieves and then became the best spies in Japan — achieving missions by any means. For thousands of years, the ninjas and the samurai have been enemies. We use stealth. They use swords.’
    I imagine Hero with a sword and my blood runs cold. Truly my mortal enemy.
    â€˜Eighty-seven years ago the ninja and samurai clans declared peace,’ he says. ‘Then a new White Warrior was born. The ninja clan kept their promise to protect the White Warrior, but the samurai still wanted to kill himto take his power. In order to protect her child from the samurai, the White Warrior’s mother had his powers extracted by a mystic monk and placed into some scrolls. The Tiger Scrolls.’
    â€˜Wow,’ I say.
    Jackson narrows his brows and stares deep into my eyes. This must be serious , I tell myself.
    â€˜We need to find the current White Warrior and the Tiger Scrolls before Hero does, to prevent him and the samurai from taking the White Warrior’s powers. We’re talking clan war here, Roxy. If Hero succeeds, everyone we love will die.’
    My heart throbs. Jackson’s words echo into its chambers, where my mother and Art live, and Elecktra. Cinnamon too.
    â€˜Where do we start looking?’ I ask.
    â€˜In the Cemetery of Warriors.’
    â€˜But where’s that?’
    â€˜It’s not of this world. You get transported