The Hootie Bootie Rescue

Yuzuko Shikumi didn’t like being so far away from her girlfriend and son, but it had to be done. She cycled from Kyoto to Paris as foreign birds stared with disapproval. She parked her iBroom on the rooftop of a silver penthouse. She was the only person both sober and fully clothed. The catcalls came the moment people noticed her.

“HEY SEXY!”

Yuzuko whizzed past them. “Sorry, I’m not here to hook up. I’m here to collect somebody.”

That somebody was her stepdaughter, Susie Kanagawa. Yuzuko’s girlfriend Sakura sold her to Dolores April, a French socialite, in the belief that Susie would live a free life.

Yuzuko was a polite person, but when she saw Dolores exposing herself to male guests, she turned away in disgust. Everything about the woman repulsed her, from her alcoholic stench to her scathing comments about Yuzuko’s family. If Dolores April was a good person, Yuzuko would have accepted Sakura’s decision.

Dolores had been called out for her connections with child abusers. The authorities did nothing. So Yuzuko decided to take matters into her own hands. Her hands clenched at the mere thought of what she was going to walk into.

The penthouse was crowded with people who should not be there. There were smirking men and women in suits, too consumed in drugs and alcohol to even notice the blue smoke and dubstep music. And then there were scared youths who should be back home with their families.

Climbing the staircase, Yuzuko had to push a few drunks out of her way. She never harmed the young ones. She whispered into every teenager’s ears. “You need to get you and your friends out. Go straight home.”

On her way to Susie’s room, Yuzuko reflected on her stepdaughter’s short stay in Japan.

When she was a high school student, Yuzuko didn’t understand why Sakura didn’t want children. Every student over the age of sixteen had to marry and conceive. Low birth rates and pandemics almost wiped their nation. It was the student’s duty to save their nationality from extinction.

At the end of her teenage life, Yuzuko understood. Sakura’s free will was the trait that made an obedient people-pleaser like Yuzuko fall in love. To the Japanese media, Sakura Kanagawa was a selfish woman who miscarried, had an abortion, sold her child to a European family and even had the nerve to be divorced. Sakura’s greatest offence according to the media? Her curves.

After their stint on TV, tabloids had no shame branding Sakura a slut for doing things most women her age would do. Yuzuko knew Sakura better than anyone else, and half the things on her Wikipedia page were false. For a start, Sakura’s child was called Susie, not Dahlia.

She was used to people telling her her own country was insane. Japan had its flaws, like every country did. Every time people told her that, she remembered the British Prime Minister was a bulldog named Patience.

The last time Yuzuko and Sakura had seen Susie, she was the size of a shoe box. Susie would be four now. Yuzuko could imagine her running around with long brown hair and little black eyes, just like her mother. Many times, she wondered why Sakura had to give Susie away. Those days would be over soon.

Yuzuko knew where she was going because the socialite always gave virtual tours of her place on social media. She just had to skip over two puddles of vomit and then she would reach Susie’s room.

”Susie?”

When she opened the door, she saw a little girl playing with an owl. Susie looked exactly how Yuzuko imagined; Sakura‘s mini-me. “Hello!”

”Do you know who I am?”

”You’re Yuzuko.”

Yuzuko smiled. “That’s right!”

”I want to be like you when I grow up!”

Yuzuko gasped, what the hell had Susie seen on that TV show. The game that Yuzuko never wanted to think about again. All Yuzuko could muster was, “that’s nice.”

”So why are you here? I don’t remember Mama inviting you?”

Yuzuko crouched down to Susie’s eye level. “Actually, I’m here for you. I’m bringing you back to Japan, so you can be with your real mother.”

”But what about my owl?”

Yuzuko was sure that the owl was precious to Susie, but all Yuzuko could see was a caged bird, drowning in feathers and aching to be free. “We can take him. What’s his name?”

”Hootie Bootie!”

Yuzuko chuckled. “What a quirky name.”

”How are we going to Japan?” Susie asked. “Will we be coming back?”

”On my iBroom.”

Susie’s eyes beamed. “You have an iBroom? I’ve always wanted one because you can cycle in the sky.”

Yuzuko picked Susie up. On her way to the door, she could feel her back about to click. Her ribs ached as her hips leaned towards the right. Susie went back on the ground. “I didn’t realise how heavy you would be.”

”Wait!” Susie cried. She scurried back to the corner and dragged Hootie Bootie’s cage. “Don’t forget the owl, there must be room for him.”

”Of course there is.” Yuzuko opened her red coat. “You stay inside, there’s something I’m about to do that I don’t want you to see.”

”Okay.” Susie hid in Yuzuko’s coat. Yuzuko held onto Hootie Bootie’s cage. Yuzuko checked the golden gun. It was a gift from her biological grandmother, Sia Bucks. Holding the gun in her hand, she vowed that she would never be like Sia Bucks. Yuzuko only killed people when it was necessary.

The two people she killed in the game show? That was self-defence. As for her friend, Bobby, he wanted to die. She just ended his suffering. Yuzuko had no worries firing the gun at the peadophiles. It gave the young partygoers a chance to escape before their innocence was ruined forever, if it hadn’t been taken already. Even if they did call the police, she had diplomatic immunity. No one could stop her.

Yuzuko felt a wave of disappointment that none of her bullets reached Dolores April’s skull. Shrugging her shoulders, she placed the gun back in her pocket. She remembered why she came here in the first place. Yuzuko smiled. Bringing Susie back to Japan meant that her family was complete.

“STOP THE NOISE!” Susie screamed, grating Yuzuko’s ears. Her son Koichi was never that noisy.

Yuzuko took her outside and belted her up on the passenger’s seat. “It’s okay!” Yuzuko yelled over the owl’s cries. “It’s all over now.” Yuzuko broke the chain off the cage and released Hootie Bootie.

Susie couldn’t keep her eyes off the barn owl. “Yuzuko, why did you let it get away?”

”Owls don’t make good pets,” Yuzuko explained as she turned on the engines and cycled her iBroom up to the skies. “It’s okay. I’ll show you all of Grandpa’s robots.”

”But I might not ever see Hootie Bootie again…”

“Barn owls aren’t meant to live in compressed spaces. Owls have wings, and wings are meant to fly. Hootie Bootie will be thankful for it.”