第十章

11 March 2011 10:20

I was ready for a break from studying and pleased that I had ten minutes before the next lesson began. I packed away my books and pencil case leaving my desk clear.

‘Haruka, do you want to come outside?’  I called across to her as she was also just finishing tidying up her things. ‘I want to feel some warmth from the sun.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied. ‘Let’s go!’

I removed my down jacket from the peg it was hanging on at the back of the classroom and slipped into it before wrapping a long and multi-coloured wool scarf around my neck. Even though the earlier grey clouds had thinned out allowing the sun to break through the gaps, it was still cold outside and the only part of my body that was in any danger of catching a few precious rays was my face. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to miss this chance as the days had been fairly gloomy of late and rain had meant that many of our breaks in between lessons were spent indoors.

‘That last lesson was fun wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘Dwain doesn’t look anything like a teacher but he really makes me want to study hard in his classes.’

‘I didn’t have much fun at all,’ Haruka replied. ‘How embarrassing not to be able to say all of my sentence in English. Everyone laughing at me was terrible.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure that they will have forgotten about it by the time the break is over.’

Just behind us, as we got to the top of the stairs, I could hear some stupid boys mocking Haruka saying My favourite food is Noguchi Katsu, followed by boisterous laughter and hoped that she could not hear them.

‘Oh, just listen to those idiots,’ Haruka said pursing her lips, having also clearly heard their taunts. ‘It makes me mad.’

As I walked down the stairs with Haruka, the chanting slowly died away, or at least got increasingly out of earshot. When we reached the ground floor, we turned along the corridor to the school entrance where our outdoor shoes were stored safely in the pigeon holes as we had left them at the start of the school day. I pulled my trainers out, dropped them on the floor and stepped into them from the raised platform. If Okāsan were here, she would have told me off for not undoing them properly before sliding in my feet but too late as I had already half trodden down the backs of the shoes. For the next dozen steps, I tapped the toe of the trainers on the ground to get my feet to move towards the front so that my heels were in far enough for the backs to spring up again. Haruka, who had taken the time to put on her shoes properly, caught up with me and put an arm around my shoulder.

‘All that talk of food has made me hungry,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe that we’ve got another couple of hours until lunchtime.’

‘Did you see the menu for today?’ I asked eagerly.

‘Yes, I had a look as we were leaving the classroom. Something you’ll like for sure as it’s quite a traditional menu. Gobō wrapped in chicken served with rice and miso soup.’

‘Mmmm, yum. Sounds delicious!’ I said and rubbed my tummy just as Dwain had done earlier.

‘For you maybe,’ Haruka said as she cast her eyes upwards thinking about something else that she would prefer to eat. ‘I was hoping for spaghetti and meat sauce.’

As I walked with Haruka around the side of school and towards the open cinder-covered sports ground, the sun shone in our eyes and I could feel not only the brightness but the warmth that I had been longing for.

‘That feels good!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yeah, it sure does,’ Haruka agreed. ‘It’s incredible that the heat from something so far away is able reach us.’

I closed my eyes and stopped walking for a while to enjoy this moment while it lasted. Haruka did the same and, whilst stood next to me, linked her arm with mine.

‘Best friends, right, Kimiko?’ she said.

‘Best friends forever,’ I replied as I looked at her and smiled.

The school grounds were tended to by Uchida-san who was officially the caretaker but turned his hand to most things, including clipping, pruning and shaping the branches of the pine trees that had been planted along one of the perimeters of the school. They all looked very neat and tidy, like a smart haircut, and I could see that Uchida-san had taken great care in his job of keeping these in order. In fact, judging by the many outstanding tasks around the school, I wondered if he preferred the gardening more than the maintenance part of his work. As I walked past these trees with their rough dark green clumps of needles, the scent reminded me of walking with Okāsan through the pine forest that surrounded Kumano Shrine. I always feel relaxed and calm at the shrine and got the same feeling as I stood here.

‘Haruka-chan. What do you want to do when you are older?’ I asked.

‘I really don’t know,’ she replied with a furrowed brow. ‘I think that dad would be happy for me to find a nice husband here in Ōfunato – preferably a fisherman – and settle down to a quiet life.’

‘And is that what you want?’ I challenged, perhaps a little too abruptly.

‘I don’t know. Seeing how happy mum is looking after her children makes me think that I could do a lot worse. But…’ Haruka tailed off.

‘But what?’ I asked looking towards her in anticipation.

‘I’m not sure that I want to stay in this town forever,’ Haruka explained. ‘All the people I care about live here but there is a part of me that is excited about going to university somewhere else in Japan and then getting a job in a big city.’

‘Where you’ll meet your Prince Charming?’ I teased.

‘No, not that!’ Haruka replied, puffing out her cheeks with indignation.

‘Do you know what type of job you want to do?’ I asked, quickly changing the subject.

‘No, not really. I suppose I’ll end up becoming an office worker somewhere,’ Haruka said.

‘You can do much better than that! What about becoming a writer?’ I suggested. ‘I love listening to your stories.’

All over Haruka’s bedroom and even in her bed were piles of books that she dipped into whenever she had a spare moment. I had also seen on her desk that she had started a notebook of writing ideas and when we spent time together she would tell me stories that she had made up. The one I remember best was called “The Last Bee on Earth” which she wrote after watching a programme on television about the importance of the bee in keeping the people of the world alive as they played a key role in over one third of all food produced. She told me about a village in China where farmers have to mix pollen with the flowers on the almond trees by hand using feathers tied to the end of bamboo canes as the bees were no longer present to carry out this job.

After years of using too many chemicals to make plants grow and to stop insects eating the plants, the world’s bee population had been almost entirely wiped out.

Betsy the Bee had spent most of her life living high in the Himalayan Mountains where the air was pure and no chemicals were used. She had no idea what was going on but had wondered why she hadn’t seen any bee tourists in recent months.

One day, she decided that she would go on an adventure to find out what had happened.

Flying down from the top of the mountain was hard work and it took Betsy many days and many nectar stops to make it to the bottom. When she got there, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The blossom on the trees had withered but no fruit was growing in its place. The same for the cucumber plants. The same for the aubergine plants. The same for the bushes of beans. This isn’t right, she thought to herself.

Over in the corner of a field, she noticed a colony of ants had gathered and were looking rather anxious. She buzzed over to see if she could catch what they were saying. It seemed that because of the lack of fruit and vegetables, the aphids were no longer gathering on the trees and plants and because of the fall in the number of aphids the poor ants had none of their sweet juice to drink.  This made the ants thirsty and sad.

Betsy asked what had happened to all the bees and she was shocked to hear about the fate of millions of her cousins. She couldn’t quite believe that the humans could be so stupid and so greedy.

She then panicked and thought it was up to her to do something about this terrible situation. Like a mad bee she flew from flower to flower, picking up pollen on her hairy legs and mixing it about as Mother Nature taught her she should.

The ants were rather interested in this strange behaviour. 

‘Hey Bee!’ they shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

But Betsy was too busy and buzzing too loudly to hear them. She was also so occupied that she didn’t see the child with a water gun walking towards her…

I never got to hear the rest of the story as her mother had called us down for dinner and when I asked her about it later that evening she said that she hadn’t yet decided how it was going to end.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Haruka said. ‘They’re fun but I’m not sure that anyone would pay me for writing that kind of stuff. I’m just messing around.’

‘No, really, you are good. Just keep on writing and I’m sure that you will find a great story somewhere in your heart.’

I was glad that the chime for the next lesson rang out at that point as I was not sure I was ready to answer the inevitable question that was coming from Haruka about what I wanted to do when I grew up. Truth is, as much as I had encouraged her to follow her dreams, I wasn’t clear at all what I wanted myself. However, unlike Haruka, I could see myself staying in Ōfunato. Okāsan no longer had any other family nearby and even though she joked about growing old on her own, I felt an obligation to stick around to look after her, just as she had devoted her life to looking after me.

***

…come on…

…think I’m getting loose…

…scratching the hell out of my scales…

…he’ll be back soon…

…don’t want to be imprisoned here anymore…

***

Can’t wait to find out what happens next?

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