* * *
I rushed into the classroom in my cram school, the one for English for Top-Tier Private Colleges. I was a little late and in a hurry. The school had a rule that if you’re late they won’t let you in.
Four people who looked like college students, two guys and two girls, were standing in front of the blackboard, smiling at the students seated in front of them. I could tell at a glance they weren’t teachers and weren’t cram school students, either. Teachers are older and frumpier, students younger and less confident. Both the teachers and the students at this cram school lacked the same exact thing: affection for others. No room for that in a cram school. But these four guys and girls in front of us had these permanent smiles, as if they were the hot lifeblood that flowed through this cruel battleground. One of the girls, the collar of her white shirt pulled out over her gray power suit, spoke up:
“It’s summer vacation already. Now’s the time you’ve got to do your best and don’t let yourself give up. There’s still time. It’s only the beginning of August. So no more complaining, just do the very best you can. If you don’t, believe me—come next spring you won’t be smiling. The spring when I became a senior in high school I was told to forget about getting into the university I was hoping for. It’ll never happen, they told me. But, no exaggeration, that summer I spit up blood. I never worked so hard in my life. And I got into the Japan Academy of Arts. It gives you tremendous confidence, confidence that you can build on for the rest of your life. So I want you to give it everything you’ve got.”
The girl paused, and gazed around the room.
“We’re going to come around to each of you, so feel free to ask us anything.”
The cram school had a system called My Tutor, which involved having college students hang around the classroom. They were supposed to be graduates of the cram school, but I wasn’t buying it. During our short breaks they’d go around the classrooms, giving us little pep talks. The point being that having real-life college students among us was supposed to get us focused on taking entrance exams. Cheer us up. To me, though, they looked like Disney dolls, with toothy pasted-on smiles. I’d just barely slipped into my seat when the power-suit girl sidled over.
“You would be—Miss Yamanaka, correct?” the girl said, glancing at the list in her hand. “English isn’t your subject, I take it. You have a fifty-two average. You’ve got to work harder if you expect to pass. Are you studying hard?”
It annoyed me to have everyone hear my average.
“My name is Ninna Hori.”
The girl looked suspicious.
“Are you registered for this class, Miss Hori?”
“Yes, I’m signed up.”
Keeping a perfectly straight face, I put my electronic dictionary on top of the desk.
“Really? Hmm. That’s strange.” The girl was taken aback. “I’ll have to get the right list. Which colleges are you hoping to get into?”
“Sophia, or Keio.”
“Then you’ll have to do better in English. What’s your average?”
“About fifty-eight,” I lied.
“You’ll need to be at least five points higher than that,” the girl said, gazing at me closely. I could see the contact lenses pasted to her slightly popped eyes. “Anyhow, don’t give up. If you study like you’re going to die, it’ll work out. Vocabulary, vocabulary. Memorizing vocabulary’s the only way.”
What did she mean, study like you’re going to die? She said she spit up blood, but is that for real? Is studying really worth dying for? I couldn’t accept it, and I guess that was one of my weak points. One of the other tutors, a guy in a white shirt and tie, was standing next to the prematurely bald guy in the seat in front of me, patting him on the shoulder.
“You’ve got to get your average up a bit,” he said. “I know you can do it.”
The balding guy, embarrassed, gave some vaguely positive reply.
“I studied twelve hours a day and raised my average by ten points,” the tutor said.
“Really?”
You study twelve hours a day and your average goes up only ten points? Overhearing their conversation despite myself, I got depressed. While this was happening, the girl who’d counseled me went over to the quiet girl who sits behind me. The whole charade was disgusting. This was no better than getting caught by somebody at the station shoving a questionnaire in your face or trying to read your fortune.
They smile like mad but inside they couldn’t care less about me. They’re in it for the money. Or out to pick up somebody. Unlike Terauchi, I’ve never been openly propositioned, but I can understand the feeling that you’re being targeted. If you fall for their lines you’ll lose money and wind up suffering. It’s a little like how, unless you watch yourself and try to stay under the radar, you get bullied. The world laughs at losers. But does that mean the ones who target other people and bully them are okay? No way. But everybody seems to forget that.
The sense of danger we all feel is something my mother can’t comprehend. My mom’s generation still believes in beautiful things like justice and considering other people’s feelings. My mom’s forty-four and runs a home nursing service with a friend of hers. She goes out herself to people’s homes, so she’s interested in things like social welfare and problems related to the elderly. Coming from me it might sound weird, but she’s a pretty nice person. She’s smart and knows how to stand up for what’s important. She’s genuine, and what she says is almost always right on target.
Dad works for a software company, and though he’s usually out drinking, he’s serious and a good guy. But even a nice mom and dad like this can’t really sense how their child’s been assaulted by commercialism ever since she was little, how she’s lived in fear of being eaten alive by the morons around her. They just don’t get it.
Mom always lectures me about not being afraid of getting hurt, but all she can imagine is the kind of hurt she’s experienced herself. She has no idea of the threats that surround kids these days, how much we’re bullied, how much hurt this causes.
For instance, since we were little kids we’ve been exposed to calls from people trying to get us to hire tutors, or cram schools trying to get us to enroll after phony free counseling sessions. You think that’s going to raise your GPA? No way. That’s something you have to do on your own. Walk around Tokyo and all you see are people trying to sell you something. Tell them okay and before you know it you’ve bought something. Make the mistake of telling them your name and address and now you’re on a mailing list. Some old guy pats you on the shoulder and before you know what hits you you’re in a hotel room. Stalkers’ victims, the ones they kill, are always women. When the media was going nuts over schoolgirls getting old guys to be their sugar daddies for sex, that was the time when high school girls like us had the highest price as commodities.
It sucks. It totally and absolutely sucks. That’s why I became Ninna Hori. Otherwise I couldn’t keep myself together, couldn’t survive. It isn’t much, but it’s the least I can do to arm myself. All these thoughts went through my mind as I fanned myself with the thin little textbook.
I somehow managed to stay awake till the end of class. I looked for my cell phone, thinking I’d call up Terauchi for a random chat, but my phone wasn’t in my bag. I was talking with Terauchi before I left the house, so maybe I left it on the table. I was disappointed, but I didn’t worry about it. I joined the horde of students streaming down the hallway hurrying home, when somebody called out from behind me.
“Toshi-chan!”
It was Haru, who’s in my class at school. She’s in one of the few Barbie Girl groups at our school. Now that summer vacation was here she was even tanner than before, her hair dyed almost totally blond, her nails manicured an eye-catching white. She had on heavy blue eye shadow and oversize false eyelashes, plus a gaudy red spaghetti-strap dress with pink polka dots. We used to be pretty good friends back in junior high, before she became a Barbie. Our freshman year of high school she even in
vited me to go karaoke singing with some college students.
“You came all the way from Hachioji?” I asked.
“I did,” she said, fingering the strap of her cell phone with those nails that weren’t what you’d expect to find on a student studying for college entrance exams. “The Kakomon Master Course here’s supposed to be pretty good.”
A fat boy from our cram school walked by, sweat dripping from his forehead, and openly sneered at Haru. You idiot, I thought. You have no idea how gutsy Haru really is.
“I’m taking the composition and English classes in the Top-Tier section,” I told her.
“Good luck,” Haru said. “Catch you later!”
Haru teetered down the stairs of the cram school on her platform sandals. The guys in the cram school made way for her. Like a timid queen, she stealthily walked down the middle of the stairs, and when she got to the landing, she waved to me. Like the fake names my friends and I use, Haru’s disguise is her weapon. By becoming a Kogyaru or Yamamba or whatever they’re called, I think Haru found a place where she could be totally accepted. Barbie Girls, Haru included, go to tanning places to get ultraviolet rays so their skin turns light brown, use oil pens for eyeliners, and glue on their eyelashes so they’re permanently curled up. They’re the ones who, more than anyone else, play around with their bodies.
My second weak point is that I feel put off by those kinds of outrageous outfits and makeup. Me, I just want to wear ordinary clothes and not stand out.
My face was dripping sweat. In the bicycle parking lot my bike was nowhere to be seen. It must have been stolen. It wasn’t much of a bike, so why, of all the bikes in the world, steal mine? It was locked, too. I ran all around the huge parking lot, but no luck. Hot and angry, I ducked into a convenience store to cool off. I bought a plastic bottle of oolong tea and set off down the steamy road. In the twelve minutes it took to walk from the station my sandals gave me a terrible blister. Pissed off, I finally arrived home. The second-story window of the house next door reflected the orangish setting sun. Strange, I thought, none of the windows seemed broken. I remembered that sound I’d heard earlier and stood there, puzzled. I got the evening paper from the mailbox, held the cool bottle of tea to my burning forehead, and gazed again at the neighbors’ house. The sliding doors to the Japanese-style room on the first floor were half open. Which was kind of weird, since the woman next door was such a stickler for keeping the place neat. Her windows always sparkled, and there was never as much as a single piece of litter in front of her house. Whatever, I thought, dying of thirst. I stepped inside my saunalike house, switched on the AC units in all the rooms, and drank down the oolong tea in a single gulp.
I rinsed out the empty tea bottle and tossed it in the recycling bin as I glanced at the table and realized my cell phone wasn’t there. I must have taken it with me and dropped it. I calmly reviewed what I’d done since leaving home. I’d taken the phone with me and put it in my bag when I got on the bike. Then I parked the bike at the parking lot, went to cram school, and attended two classes. That’s when I noticed the phone was missing, so I must have dropped it at either the station or the school. Or else it fell down into the bicycle’s basket. I called the cram school and asked if anyone had turned in a cell phone, but they curtly told me no. I tried calling my cell phone number, but nobody answered. My bike and my phone. This sucks. I was beat, so I trudged upstairs to my sweltering room, flopped down on the bed, set the AC to high, and closed my eyes.
I dozed off until seven p.m. I heard the siren of a patrol car or an ambulance, but it just stopped nearby. The way it stopped all of a sudden was a little alarming, but I didn’t worry about it. There’s a chronically sick old person living nearby, so ambulances are often driving down our narrow lane. I couldn’t sit around thinking about that. Mom would be home soon and I had to close the shutters and get the bath ready. I could imagine her unhappy tone of voice if she found out I didn’t do any of my chores, so I dragged myself out of bed. Right then our phone rang.
“Dude.”
“Terauchi, I lost my cell phone.”
“Yeah, I called you and this weird guy answered.”
“What kind of guy?”
“A young guy. When I said, ‘Dude,’ he yelled, ‘Stop joking, you dummy.’ Totally pissed me off.”
I told her how I’d lost my cell phone and how my bike got stolen.
“He must have got your cell phone from the bike. You should get the service cut off right away. Forget about your bike, or else try to steal it back.”
She was right. I hung up and ran downstairs, thinking I’d call and get the phone service cut off. The whole thing made me angry. All of a sudden I heard the rattle of a key and the door swept open. It was my mother. She had on white pants and one of my old blue T-shirts, and the basket-type bag she likes to carry around in the summer slung over her shoulder. She didn’t have on any makeup and her face was sweaty and flushed.
“Oh, you’re here. Thank goodness!”
She looked relieved. But she also looked pale and upset.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You don’t know? There’s a police car outside the neighbors’. Apparently the woman next door was murdered. Her husband found her when he came back from work. I was so worried that something had happened to you, too.”
Since morning I’d had this bad feeling, and now it felt strange that it had actually materialized into something. I felt like bragging to everybody about what a great sixth sense I have.
“The police said they’ll be over soon to talk to us. How frightening! How could something like this happen? And in our neighborhood. What should we do? Should we call your father? I guess we’d better let him know.”
Mom always kept her cool but now she was definitely flustered. I sat down on the sofa in the living room and started to think about the bad feeling I had when I heard the smog siren and then that crash came from next door. Was that the instant the woman was murdered? Could Worm have done it? I recalled how cheerful he seemed as he hummed and gazed up at the sun.
“Toshiko, the police want to talk with you.”
I looked up and there at the front door stood an elderly man in a white polo shirt and a middle-aged woman in a black suit, both of them gazing into our house. I didn’t like the look in their eyes. That’s when I decided not to tell them anything about what I’d seen and heard.
Their questions seemed endless. I told them that I left the house to go to cram school about twelve, and didn’t hear anything or see anybody. Their questions implied that they thought it was right about that time that the woman was killed. In other words, it looked like my testimony was key. One final question, they said. It was obvious that the police were suspicious of Worm.
“Have you seen the boy next door today?”
“No,” I said.
I pictured Worm’s expression. His happy, excited face. What was that all about? Did he feel liberated by killing his mother? Or was he just plain crazy? I wasn’t so much afraid of him as curious to know what he’d been thinking. I was sure that he would never tell adults how he felt then. Maybe he wouldn’t even know how to explain it. Or else if he tried, it would be so simple he’d hesitate to go into it. I think I know how he feels. Probably he just felt his mother was a pain. A real pain. If you told adults that was the reason you killed your mother, they wouldn’t believe you. But it’s the truth. The whole world’s a pain. Such a pain, you can’t believe it. Still, freaking out over it like he did was stupid. When high school girls like us freak out, people are always able to overpower us before we do something stupid, like hijacking a bus or running around with a knife. Which is why girls arm themselves beforehand so they don’t get caught up in something like that. Boys probably aren’t so good at protecting themselves.
“Were you friends with the boy next door?”
“Not at all. We didn’t even say hi when we ran into each other. It’s like we’re, you know, strangers. Like we’re living in two diffe
rent worlds.”
“Different worlds? How so?” asked the female detective in the black suit. She had on white sunblock makeup and her hair was done up, like when you wear a kimono. It was tied back by this girlish hair tie made of red and purple ribbon with millions of tiny flowers on it. She looked kind of silly, but her eyes were sharp, like she was seeing right through my lies. I got nervous, sure that she would figure out I was lying.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I didn’t want to know anything about Worm’s world. I live in a world where I think I’m right, a world that frightens me, and not since I was little was I naive enough to think that other people’s worlds were the same as mine. When I did once blurt out that everybody must agree with me on this, I caught hell for it. People won’t stand for others being different from them. Since I’m a little different from other people, I learned this early on. At school people form little four-five person cliques, but I never wanted to be with them or get to know them. Actually, I wasn’t able to. In my class there are all kinds of people—Barbie Girls like Haru, nerds, and kids that fall into easy-to-classify groups because they’re in clubs. Fortunately for me, I ran across some girls I could get along with so I could enjoy high school life okay, but it must be awful for kids who don’t get along with anybody. We’re different from our parents, a completely different species from our teachers. And kids who are one grade apart from you are in a different world altogether. In other words, we’re basically surrounded by enemies and have to make it on our own.