Work Text:
Ring ring ring ring!
Yomiko blearily smacked the snooze button on her alarm clock.
Ring ring ring ring!
She reached out, smacked the snooze button on her alarm clock again, and pulled the sheets back over her head. Mr. Watanabe's comparative literature and 10th grade literature classes weren't until 4th and 7th periods; his substitute for the term had plenty of time.
Ring ring ring ring!
This wasn't the alarm clock.
Ring ring ring ring!
It gradually sank in that this was Yomiko's cellphone, and she felt around the top of her nightstand until she found the phone and pulled it into bed.
"Hello?"
"Good morning Ms. Readman. This is Principal Royama. Today we'll need you to fill in for Mr. Suzuki's 2nd per--"
Yomiko bolted upright, suddenly much more awake, and stared at her clock. Mr. Watanabe's substitute for the term did not have plenty of time.
"--iod chemistry class and Mrs. Arakawa's 5th period gym class. He has a lawyer appointment and she's using some accrued vacation time. Mrs. Arakawa's teaching the swimming unit this month, so bring a swimsuit. See you soon," Royama finished and hung up. By then, Yomiko had already opened her wheelie case and started running around her apartment.
She opened her fridge. Looked wistfully at the miso and eggs for a moment. Shook her head. Grabbed the lunch she'd cooked and packed the night before. Tossed it in the wheelie case on the way to her closet. Pulled out her gym bag and a swimsuit. Tossed them in too. Threw a white short-sleeve blouse, a black pinstripe waistcoat, and a black A-line skirt on her bed. Glanced at the clock again. Dashed to the bathroom. Turned on the shower. Pasted her toothbrush. Chomped on the bristles. Stripped. Jumped under the now-hot water. Looked at her shelf of waterproof books. Decided to save Aqua Erotica edited by Mary Anne Mohanraj for when she had time to linger before bed. Jammed A Field Guide to Corals and Other Radiates of Galápagos : An Illustrated Guidebook to the Corals, Anemones, Zoanthids, Black Corals, Gorgonians, Sea Pens, and Hydroids of the Galapagos Islands by Cleveland Hickman under the showerhead's base. Kept her eyes on the book. Kept her hands on the shampoo and soap and washcloth. Brushed her teeth while the water pressure rinsed her hair. Shaved. Cleaned up quickly. Barely remembered to turn the water off before leaving. Didn't bother shelving Field Guide. Dried off. Got dressed.
While Yomiko finished her rush through Jinbōchō station with a quick step into the subway car, she overheard a fellow passenger's iPhone audio leak out of his MUCH TOO LOUD earbuds. Yes, that fits Principal Royama all right, she thought.
Finally having a chance to stand still while the subway rushed for her, Yomiko cooled down a bit, glad she had left her jacket at home before running through the sunny early June weather. She pulled Underground : The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Murakami Haruki from an outer pocket of her wheelie case. Yomiko held the book open with her right hand, turning pages with her thumb, while hanging from an overhead strap with her left hand. Nearly half of the car's other passengers had books open too. Yomiko smiled as she occasionally looked up; seeing everything from elation to disgust on the readers' faces. Books really cover everything, thought Yomiko.
"OH NO YOU DIDN'T AOYAME! HOW COULD YOU TOTALLY DIS TSUBASA LIKE THAT?!" exclaimed one of the passengers at the other end of the car, thumbing through a thin volume of a thick novel.
"NO SPOILERS PLEASE!" Yomiko shouted back.
The crowd quieted down again, and Yomiko's mind drifted to the ghosts of commutes past...
Early one morning, 13-year-old Yomiko sat in a window seat, taking the bus from the suburbs to junior high in downtown Saitama. Kitchen by Yoshimoto Banana held her attention. The day's sudoku puzzle in the local newspaper challenged the salaryman in the seat next to her on his way to work.
One of the straphangers, another salaryman, turned his attention to Yomiko's next-seat neighbor. "Heh, cute uniform. How many Gucci bags did it take to get your Lolita?" he leered. Yomiko cringed.
"Fuck you arsewipe! I'm not her sugar daddy I'm her actual father and faithful to her mother! Leave the kid alone!" roared back the first salaryman, Tetsuo Readman. The jerk backed off and retreated behind his copy of the newspaper. Tetsuo turned to face Yomiko.
"I'm sorry, kid. Are you OK?"
"Thanks Dad."
"Now I really understand why you said you wanted vocational-technical school instead of 3 more years of this bullshite. I'm afraid not wearing a middy blouse and skirt doesn't guarantee people leaving you alone, though."
"It's not just that!" replied Yomiko. "A more techie physics class may help me figure out my paper powers too," she added in a whisper.
"Ow! Damn paper cut," muttered the jerk, bleeding on his newspaper.
"Atta girl..."
Yomiko looked around the subway car again. Everyone, from salarymen to students, kept their hands to themselves--and to their train handholds, books, gadgets, et al., of course. She smiled, and held Underground higher and closer to her face. Others who held both hands up, to make it clearer that they weren't groping anyone, could see she was one of them.
The early summer sun shone through the windows of a Tokyo high school lab. A substitute teacher rushed through the door almost as late as her new students for the hour.
Once most of the students sat down, Yomiko stood up and wrote her name on the chalkboard. She turned around and gazed at the students. New classes are always awkward, but you're used to this. It's been ten years since Nenene's class!, the shy young woman reminded herself. You're tougher than that now. Calm down, keep your poise, follow the lesson plan, and you can make it through...
"Good morning everyone. I'm Ms. Readman. Mr. Suzuki will be out this morning, so I'll--"
One of the girls interrupted. "I know you! You're subbing for Mr. Watanabe this trimester!"
"Yes, Hitomi, I'll see you in comp lit today as usual."
"What are you doing in chem class?" Hitomi continued.
"Principal Royama called me this morning and asked me to cover your class. I won't grade any of your work here--you'll write down everything in your lab notebooks and hand them in at the end of class for me to give Mr. Suzuki." She picked up the lesson plan Mr. Suzuki had downloaded from Mr. Guch's Cavalcade o' Chemistry and translated into Japanese, and read the instructions for students out loud:
"'As you’ve learned in class, hydrates are chemical compounds which contain loosely bound water molecules. Because these water molecules are loosely bound, they can be easily removed or replaced.
"'In this lab your job will be to find the empirical formula of magnesium sulfate hydrate. You will be given five grams of magnesium sulfate hydrate – with this material you may use any laboratory procedures you like to find the empirical formula...
"'Some things you should keep in mind:
- You will be limited to five grams of the magnesium sulfate hydrate – make sure you don’t waste it!
- Make sure to put all waste in the designated waste container.
- Wear eye protection at all times!
"'Good luck!'
"Oh, and don't wear rubber gloves since if they melt they'll stick to your skin," Yomiko added.
Yomiko shrugged on the lab coat Mr. Suzuki had left on his chair, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and fitted a pair of safety goggles over her own glasses. Then, she picked the box of supplies off his desk and walked among the lab benches. She handed out the magnesium sulfate in reagent bottles as the students pulled out their beakers, burners, matchbooks, scales, tubes, racks, and more. Most of the students were getting ready to heat up the sulfate and distill the water out.
"Mariko, are you really going to eat that?" chuckled Hitomi as she watched her lab partner get ready to take a bite of the sulfate. Yomiko's head snapped around.
"I heard that! Please don't eat it," said Yomiko as she rushed over from another lab bench. "Taste tests aren't a lab procedure here."
Mariko put the sulfate down reluctantly. "Aw come on Ms. Readman, for all we know it's edible."
"If it were, I'd eat some myself, I skipped breakfast this morning. Please don't risk poisoning yourself. I promised the principal I wouldn't lose any students on my watch," Yomiko sighed.
Class went along more or less smoothly from there. The students had more than a month of experience at labs. The usual spills and burns happened, but people cleaned those up before Yomiko had a chance to help.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yomiko saw a matchbook in midair, with all its matches lit. That wasn't a usual burn. She quickly made the matchbook's cardpaper cover scrunch around the flames, tightly enough to cut off their oxygen supply. By the time the matchbook landed in the sink of an empty station of another lab bench, the fire was out.
"Are you the author of the flying fire?" Yomiko asked a grinning student leaning at the spot whence it must have flown. "What's your name?"
"OK, OK, I confess, it was me, Fujiwara Ennosuke," he said, trying and failing to look contrite.
"No he's not!" yelled the real Ennosuke from the next lab bench. "He's trying to get me in trouble!"
"Please don't frame other students," Yomiko told the liar. She reached under her lab coat lapel, pulled her cellphone out of a waistcoat pocket, and took a photo. "Since I don't know your name, I'll just show Mr. Suzuki your face when I write my notes for him after class."
"At least he didn't aim it at another student," murmured Ennosuke. "The sink's broken there."
Meanwhile, two other students had grown bored waiting for the water of hydration to finish evaporating. They tapped lines of extra sulfate onto paper towels and tried to roll them up--but the paper towels kept unrolling flat.
"Please don't smoke in class," Yomiko told the lab partners as she walked towards their lab bench.
"How'd you--wait--who said we were going to smoke the stuff?!"
"I went to an even more technical high school than this one. My classmates in chemistry labs did that kind of thing all the time..." Yomiko said.
One evening during summer break, 14-year-old Yomiko was chilling out in a cotton kimono in the dining room at home. Batteries, lightbulbs, wires, LEDs, clamps, transistors, a circuit board, phototransistors, CDS, and more were all over the place as she read the entrails of an electronics kit.
"Hey everyone, I'm home!" called her father as he came in the front door.
"Hi Dad!"
When he entered the room, Tetsuo saw the table and scratched his head. "There's no room for dinner here. Aren't you hungry?" he said.
Footsteps came down the stairs, then Yomiko's mother Rachel walked in. "Hi Honey!" she said, kissing Tetsuo. She looked at what her kid had wrought. "Hmm. I guess we can have the dinner table conversation before dinner. Yomiko, what's the meaning of all this?"
"I'm reading a book, see?" replied Yomiko as she picked her copy of The Modern Amateur Electronics Manual : A Practical Reference Manual on Electronics Technology Today by Günter Haarmann & Matthew Pulzer off the table and held it up. "I was thinking about what's inside books when they're on screens, inside the machines that display them and oh have you heard about the electronic paper coming up?"
"That Media Lab stuff? Yeah, I remember the article you showed me last week," said Tetsuo. "Do you want to make a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer?"
Yomiko's face looked wistful. "Well, learning basic nanotech would be a baby step that way..."
"OK, I get it now," chimed in Rachel. "Before, I worried you were giving up your love of books when you said you wanted to go to a voke-tech high school. This is such a relief!" she added as she hugged Yomiko.
"Books aren't only classical novels, they're about everything! They were invented before paper too."
Tetsuo's imagination drifted back to those days...
...he saw himself and Rachel standing in front of a brick farmhouse, with caramel complexions and darker, curlier hair. Tetsuo loaded bags of ripe olives onto six donkeys while Rachel wrote on a tablet with a stylus. A similarly racebent Yomiko ambled up the road, squinting as she approached. Her light tufted wool sarong went from chest to knee unlike her parents' skirt sarongs because Tetsuo didn't want to imagine his daughter topless.
"Where did you go?" asked Tetsuo.
"Nowhere."
"Then why are you late?"
"Never mind," said Rachel as she put the tablet and stylus in a shoulder sack. She handed it to Yomiko, who put it over her left shoulder and right hip. "The cheque's in there too, and remember to not squish the shopping list blank before coming home."
"OK Mom!"
One of their neighbors from across the road came outside, noticed the trip preparations, and stopped to chat. "He's taking the kid instead of you?" she asked Rachel as she saw Tetsuo and Yomiko mount the leads on their donkey train of twelve.
"She can handle the mean streets of Sumer even better than I can," Rachel answered.
"Oh, OK," replied the woman. "Have a nice trip!" she told Tetsuo and Yomiko right befiore they spurred their donkeys to head downtown. "Thanks, and take care!" Tetsuo said while he and Yomiko waved back.
As they left the fields and joined the tree-lined main road, Tetsuo turned to face Yomiko.
"Can you double-check the cheque?"
"Sure Dad!" said Yomiko, reaching into her shoulder sack. She pulled out a baked tablet and read the cuneiform: "'Amil-mirra will pay 100 pounds of barley to the bearer of the tablet at harvest time.' Here, you take a look," she said, handing it over.
"Thanks, kid," Tetsuo said, twisting on his saddle and taking the tablet with both hands.
They kept riding. An hour later the road went through a thick grove.
Suddenly, two men on foot burst from behind the trees, grabbing the lead donkeys and brandishing daggers.
"Your crops or your life!"
Tetsuo said nothing, but shifted his grip on the baked tablet.
"No Dad, not the barley!" cried Yomiko as she cringed away from the highwayman pointing a dagger at her. Focusing on the farmers, the highwaymen didn't see bits and drops of clay ooze out of the soil around the road. Looking over her attacker's shoulder, Yomiko did see what she was doing. She used her clay powers to make the drops flow up into midair, and clump and harden within seconds. Now, she clobbered both robbers with the clay, knocking the daggers out of their hands. "Dad, let's run!" she said as she spurred her donkey to hurry down the street and away from the confused and stunned bandits.
A few hours down the road, Yomiko and Tetsuo caught their breath and let their donkeys slow down. Tetsuo turned to Yomiko and said "Tomorrow morning let's split up when we leave the inn, I'll barter the olives for the groceries and you go see Amil-mirra to grain the cheque..."
"...and cheques were invented before money too..." murmured Tetsuo as his mind drifted back home.
"I just got an idea," Rachel said. She cleared a corner of the table for the stuff she'd brought from the kitchen. "Check this out," Rachel added. Yomiko and Tetsuo watched as Rachel stuck forks in both ends of a soy hot dog on a plate, and added little LED bulbs in the middle. One 60-volt battery, two cables, and four clamps later...
Yomiko shook her head a bit and returned to the tasks at hand.
"This is taking forever!" groaned Hitomi, with an eye on the classroom's wall clock.
"Write down your observation that this is taking forever," suggested Yomiko. "Seal whatever you have left in there and show Mr. Suzuki tomorrow."
Two benches over, another student had another problem. "My dehydrate is stuck!" yelled Hsiao-lou as he held his crucible upside down and hit its base with the heel of his hand.
"Try chipping it out with something," Yomiko said as she rushed over and rummaged through Hsiao-lou's lab bench drawer for a metal spatula. "If you're afraid you can't get it all out without chipping the crucible, just leave it in there and seal the top to show Mr. Suzuki tomorrow."
As the students packed up their lab materials and filed out of class, they handed their lab notebooks to Yomiko. One handed her an extra book too.
"Hey Teach, I just finished a book report on this for another class," he said as he handed Yomiko a library-processed copy of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind : Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer. "I heard you might get a kick out of what he accomplished reading a book in a foreign language."
"Wow, thanks!" Yomiko said as she flipped through the book and her eyes lit up...
After class, Yomiko took a tea break in the faculty lounge and finally ate breakfast.
"...good thing we don't spend the whole day in here, can you believe anyone gets away with that?" said one of the teachers gathered around the water cooler.
"I agree, the book's an eye-opener," replied another, holding his copy of Poor Economics : A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo. "Thanks for recommending it, Izumi."
"Mmm-hmm," Yomiko nodded in agreement. She would have said more, but her mouth was full of rolled sweet omelet.
One of the history teachers piped up. "I'm showing this to all my students' parents, especially the ones who call social sciences fluff. Who says you can't run randomised control trials with peopl--?"
The door opened. A man pushed a pram inside.
Everyone changed the subject. "Hi Watanabe!" "Aww how cute!" "How's paternity leave treating ya?" "He's so adorable!" gushed the lounging faculty.
Mr. Watanabe picked up his 5-month-old son and beamed with pride. "We're doing fine," he said, "mostly."
"No sleep?"
The new father lowered himself and the boy to the lounge sofa and sighed. "Chojiro has strabismus. He'll need surgery soon, and contacts until he's old enough to keep glasses on."
Ms. Readman gasped, then sat down next to Mr. Watanabe. "Don't worry one bit about your classes. I'll take care of them. Just focus on Chojiro." She then turned to face the baby. "Chojiro, I hope you get well soon, and don't let the glasses get you down..."
Yomiko's first glasses gave her a clearer view of everything. The sight of the snow-covered trees outside the classroom window--wonderful. The sight of the rest of the 2nd grade class staring at her--not so wonderful.
"Lots of kids in high school have glasses," announced the teacher. "When you stare at Yomiko, you stare into your own future."
"No fair! My glasses are better! LOOK AT ME!" shouted one of the boys on the other side of the room.
Thanks, Akira, Yomiko thought. She opened her math book, took off her glasses, and started reading.
What the teacher had said still bothered her, though. If kids without glasses will need glasses in the future, will I go blind in the future? HOW WILL I READ? Yomiko realized. Mai's big brother reads by feeling the paper, she remembered. Yomiko then closed her eyes and turned to a new page. C'mon paper, pop up your words. So I don't need eyes to read them...
Mai's seat was next to Yomiko's, and she saw the random ripples on her neighbor's math book. "Yomiko, what the?"
"Just in case."
"Um, Braille doesn't work that way. Come to my place after school. Murai and I can show you how we get those books..."
"...it'll be OK, and it won't stop you reading at all."
"Thanks, Yomiko," replied the father. "Did you hear that, Chojiro? Daddy's co-workers care about you too..."
The literature-heavy track was a much smaller class, small enough to have circled their desks, and so Yomiko sat down with her comparative literature students. "How do you all like Forest of a Thousand Daemons so fa--?"
"SMOKE MONSTER!"
"Um, OK, Jun. Well then..."
"NO SERIOUSLY THERE'S A SMOKE MONSTER AND FAGUNWA WROTE THIS LIKE 70 YEARS BEFORE LOST," the wide-eyed girl continued.
The trigonometry teacher from next door poked her head in. "Can you keep it down? My students are trying to take a test and the smoke monster is not on it,"
"Sorry, Ms. Nakada!"
"Thanks," Ms. Nakada said before leaving.
"You heard her, class. Today let's split up into small group discussions. Each group, pick one episode and come up with an analysis to present the whole class tomo--
SCREECH
"---and pick up your desks, don't drag them on the floor!"
Watching the students put their heads together and overhearing their enthusiasm, Yomiko smiled. These kids really enjoy literature, she thought. They're like my friends in junior high...
So far, so good! You even got the Torah portion just right!, the shy 12-year-old girl reminded herself. Calm down, keep your poise, read the rest of the texts, and you can make it through...
Yomiko looked out at her audience, friends, family, and more wishing her well, and blushed again. She took a deep breath, adjusted her semi-formal silk kimono a bit, and began to chant her Haftarah portion.
"שׁוּבָה, יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַד, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ: כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ, בַּעֲוֹנֶךָ.
קְחוּ עִמָּכֶם דְּבָרִים, וְשׁוּבוּ אֶל-יְהוָה; אִמְרוּ אֵלָיו, כָּל-תִּשָּׂא עָוֹן וְקַח-טוֹב, וּנְשַׁלְּמָה פָרִים, שְׂפָתֵינוּ.
אַשּׁוּר לֹא יוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ, עַל-סוּס לֹא נִרְכָּב, וְלֹא-נֹאמַר עוֹד אֱלֹהֵינוּ, לְמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ--אֲשֶׁר-בְּךָ, יְרֻחַם יָתוֹם.
אֶרְפָּא, מְשׁוּבָתָם--אֹהֲבֵם, נְדָבָה: כִּי שָׁב אַפִּי, מִמֶּנּוּ.
אֶהְיֶה כַטַּל לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, יִפְרַח כַּשּׁוֹשַׁנָּה; וְיַךְ שָׁרָשָׁיו, כַּלְּבָנוֹן.
יֵלְכוּ, יֹנְקוֹתָיו, וִיהִי כַזַּיִת, הוֹדוֹ; וְרֵיחַ לוֹ, כַּלְּבָנוֹן.
יָשֻׁבוּ יֹשְׁבֵי בְצִלּוֹ, יְחַיּוּ דָגָן וְיִפְרְחוּ כַגָּפֶן; זִכְרוֹ, כְּיֵין לְבָנוֹן.
אֶפְרַיִם, מַה-לִּי עוֹד לָעֲצַבִּים; אֲנִי עָנִיתִי וַאֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ, אֲנִי כִּבְרוֹשׁ רַעֲנָן--מִמֶּנִּי, פֶּרְיְךָ נִמְצָא.
מִי חָכָם וְיָבֵן אֵלֶּה, נָבוֹן וְיֵדָעֵם: כִּי-יְשָׁרִים דַּרְכֵי יְהוָה, וְצַדִּקִים יֵלְכוּ בָם, וּפֹשְׁעִים, יִכָּשְׁלוּ בָם."
Mai double-checked the Hebrew-Japanese program card the Readmans had given her ahead of time. She readied her green tea and plum matcha soft candies...
"דְּבַר-יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר הָיָה, אֶל-יוֹאֵל בֶּן-פְּתוּאֵל.
שִׁמְעוּ-זֹאת, הַזְּקֵנִים, וְהַאֲזִינוּ, כֹּל יוֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ; הֶהָיְתָה זֹּאת בִּימֵיכֶם, וְאִם בִּימֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם.
...עָלֶיהָ, לִבְנֵיכֶם סַפֵּרוּ; וּבְנֵיכֶם, לִבְנֵיהֶם, וּבְנֵיהֶם, לְדוֹר אַחֵר."
"Psst, what's she chanting now? She already finished the translated part," Mai whispered to Byung-soon, another friend of Yomiko's from junior high. "When's she gonna close the book? These candies won't toss themselves."
"Don't worry, we can ask her later," said Byung-soon. She smiled, then added "We knew this was going to happen, this is Yomiko after all..."
"Hey, Ms. Readman?" asked another one of the students.
"Yes, Yajirobei, what is it? replied Yomiko.
"We're stuck on what genre this is. Last week I read The Brave African Huntress by Amos Tutuola on my own. Are these hunting trips turning into supernatural adventures their own genre in Nigeria like wuxia is a genre in China, or are they just more magic realism...?"
Having to teach both a 4th period class and a 5th period class doesn't leave much time for eating out, not even when the weather's nice. For once this term, Yomiko ate lunch in the teacher's lounge instead of at a café or a public park's picnic table.
"...and hey Yomiko, I heard that you sometimes use all five senses to read a book. What's up with that?" asked school librarian Mr. Kwang.
Yomiko looked up from her copy of The Kwinkan by Mudrooroo. "Well, according to my mother..."
The baby couldn't read yet, but Tetsuo and Rachel thought Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt would be a fun way to introduce her to this whole book concept.
There's more to paper than the origami butterflies breaking from the mobile over her cradle and clumsily flapping around the house, after all, Rachel thought.
She cuddled Yomiko on her lap with her left arm, held the book with her right hand, and started reading out loud. "Judy can pat the bunny. Now YOU pat the bunny."
Yomiko patted the bunny. Then she grasped the cardboard around the bunny. Then she bit the corner of the page next to the bunny's ears.
"I think she likes it," said Tet--
Ring ring ring!
Ring ring ring!
"Excuse me, this message might be urgent," said Yomiko, glaring at her cellphone.
ChemSensei: lb brnd dwn yt?
YomiRead: no
ChemSensei: ok :)
"Sorry about that."
"No problem. Anyway, I can relate, my toddler chews on everything," said Mrs. Shibata.
Economics teacher Mr. Akutagawa looked puzzled. "Doesn't that count as tasting an Indian cookbook?" he asked, pointing to Ms. Readman's lunch.
"This?" Yomiko replied, poking at her curry over white rice with her fork. "Tasting a British cookbook, maybe. Chicken Tikka Masala is the U.K.'s national dish..."
Yomiko pulled on her swimsuit, a boy-short one-piece with cap sleeves, and looked in the mirror. Yes, this means business, not flirting at the beach, she thought and smiled to herself. Then, she stepped out of the changing room in the gym teacher's office and checked the notes Mrs. Arakawa had left:
Dear Substitute:
Thank you for covering my class. Since you probably don't know my students' names, I put photos of their faces on the progress report sheets. If the sheets get rained on during track and field or splashed during swimming, don't worry. Ms. Readman hooked me up with a ream of Rockstock at the beginning of the year.
Good luck,
Arakawa Sakuro
p.s. If there's any bullying, throw the book at them.
Yomiko picked up the progress reports folder for 5th period, and read everyone's name. Then, she walked to the half-Olympic school pool.
"Good afternoon everyone. I'm Ms. Readman. Mrs. Arakawa is out today, so I'll let you just swim this period."
Three students in wetsuits looked up from one of the benches. "We're wearing our uniform swimsuits under these," said one of them while the other two kept double-checking each other's gear.
"That rule is not my problem, I'm a substitute." Yomiko replied. She looked the three up in the folder. "Izumi, Genjo, Hiroshi, since you're scuba certified go ahead and dive." She then pulled on goggles and a snorkel. "I'll still be keeping an eye on all of you," she added before fixing the mouthpiece in place and jumping in the water.
The next half hour went swimmingly. Some just played in the water, some did laps, some snorkeled, and some didn't come up for air because they took it down with them. Yomiko took another look under the water to make sure nobody was struggling, and was shocked.
The scuba divers weren't diving.
They weren't even swimming.
They just sat there in a corner of the deep end playing cards.
Yomiko couldn't speak through her mouthpiece, but she could drop a hint. Her copy of Reef Creature Identification : Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas by Paul Humann & Ned DeLoach sank down on top of the card deck. If you're not going to exercise in physical education then at least read something, Yomiko thought, and resurfaced.
Over at a bench near the shallow end, other people could and did speak. "Eww, weren't you supposed to be born a boy? Your legs are gross," sneered one of the boys.
"I shaved this morning and never have time in the locker room!" retorted the girl.
"Freaks like you don't belong here," he said and grabbed the progress reports from where Yomiko had left them.
"I heard that!" said Yomiko, jumping out of the pool and running along the side. By the time she reached the two, he'd crumpled up his target's progress report and thrown it in the water. The teacher didn't even finish pulling off her mask before making the paper fly back out of the water, hover in front of the bully, and snap back in shape, spattering water on his face.
Yomiko then pulled her cellphone out of her gym bag. "Fujikage Honzo, Javadi-Conceição Tahmineh, I'm texting all of this to your parents. And the principal. And Mrs. Arakawa. You two wait here." After rattling off a long text message to several numbers, she sat on the bench between Tahmineh and Honzo. "Everyone else, back in the water!" Yomiko announced.
One of the other girls got back out of the water. "Ms. Readman, can I keep Tahmineh company?"
"Hmm...okay, Shinobu."
For the next half hour Yomiko watched the class and stayed ready to act if anyone started to drown. Honzo just seethed. Tahmineh and Shinobu chatted, and Yomiko noticed how bubbly both of the girls seemed when not harassed.
"...and have you read Canal Dreams by Iain Banks, Tahmineh? The main character's a Japanese woman with the same issue and she's not even immigrant," Yomiko overheard Shinobu say. One more for my To Be Read list, she thought.
Finally, the other adults arrived.
"Why couldn't we have this meeting in my office?" sighed Principal Royama, cringing at the thought of his suit legs getting splashed.
"My wife made it, why'd you call me here too and embarrass me in front of the boss again?!" whined the salaryman Mr. Fujikage to Principal Royama while his wife scolded their son Honzo.
"Even on my mental health day bullies drive me crazy!" grumbled Mrs. Arakawa, back in class despite her day off.
"You should talk to my husband about meditation, he's a psychiatrist," said the salarywoman Mrs. Javadi-Conceição while her husband listened to their daughter Tahmineh.
"I didn't do anything, it's her fault for sticking out!" blurted Honzo.
"If you think her being less fuzzy than me the way you're fuzzier than your mother isn't enough, check this out," said Dr. Javadi-Conceição. He put one foot on the bench, and pulled up his trouser leg to bare his shin.
The Fujukages were shocked into silence while Tahmineh smirked and the other adults turned to Yomiko to triple-check what had happened...
Yomiko didn't have any class to teach right afterwards, so she decided to run some errands. The school library had a perfect WiFi connection for that. She resisted the pull of the stacks enough to sit at a table, pull her netbook from her wheelie case, and get online.
Oh yes, today's payday, Yomiko thought. She logged onto her bank's website, checked the direct deposit, paid her utility bills, and balanced her electronic checkbook. Now, what else is due...? She logged onto the Tokyo Metropolitan Library's website. I'm in two libraries at once, yeah. Over there, she renewed Hellblazer Vol. 2: The Devil You Know by Jaime Delano & David Lloyd and checked her place in the waitlist for De:tales : Stories from Urban Brazil by Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.
Chores done for the hour, Yomiko kicked back and checked Facebook...
Mui Maggie
More of the books the Diet library adds aren't paper. More of the other things it adds are. I'm sitting in its new café with a paper coffee cup, paper plate, paper napkins, and Geisha : A Life by Iwasaki Mineko on my smartphone. Hmm.
Unlike · Comment · 2 minutes ago via mobile
Readman Yomiko
They added even *more*? Back when we flew out, there was so much you didn't need to touch a single actual book...
Like · 1 minute ago
...just when the British Library troops thought they had thrown their wet blanket on the Paper Sisters party, Michelle and Maggie launched Anita back into action. Between Anita's paper dagger and Michelle's paper longbow and arrows, the sisters disarmed agent after agent without killing or even wounding anyone. Nenene too got in a punch--right in Joker's face. Yomiko held Nancy, terrified, in the remains of their 8th floor National Diet Library hideout.
"Let's run," suggested Michelle.
"I don't know what's going on, but I'm on your side. Come with me," added Nenene. "I'll suffer with you."
This was it, Yomiko thought. What had been one of the Cold War bomb shelters built into nooks and crannies of the national archives, mostly forgotten once the USSR split up, and then Yomiko's home for five years as she protected Nancy and felt grateful for hot running water, was now completely breached. Time to move on--and fast.
Maggie whipped up enough paper to form a roc bird around the fugitives, and Yomiko cried out for a moment.
"All those poor books!"
Maggie gently smiled and beckoned Yomiko to take a closer look. Printer paper, fax paper, scrap paper, paper towels, money, flyers, maps of where to find which subject, bookmarks, posters, receipts for paid library fines, toilet paper unspooling out of the restrooms, free newspapers from those inviting stacks in the lobby, even cigarette wrappers out of the ashtrays. Paper, paper, everywhere up in the atrium now, nor any book to read...
Readman Yomiko
...anyway, how are you all?
Like · about a minute ago
Mui Maggie
Fine :) Like · about a minute ago via mobile
Mui Maggie Let's take this to PM. Michelle's recovering from her cold. :) Also, remember how Junior looked 11 when he was really 6?
Readman Yomiko Yes.
Mui Maggie Anita's on his case about *that*. She wants his secret.
Readman Yomiko True, it would work faster than just drinking all that milk...
Mui Maggie She wants to use *both* methods. Anita's still the most lactose tolerant person I know.
Mui Maggie Anyway, I have to go now. Talk to you later.
Readman Yomiko Bye, Maggie!
Yomiko logged out of Facebook and considered grading the comparative literature papers in her wheelie case. No, anyone can look over my shoulder here, she thought, and turned back to her netbook.
"Hmm...they'd like Loice, High School Student, that novel's by a high school class..." she said quietly to herself. "What?! No copies for sale?!"
"Keep it down!" yelled one of the students from the stacks.
"Sorry!" Yomiko replied. "So much for Google making all books available. At least they admit it, Dokusensha and the British Library would destroy books like this and wipe everyone's memories of it and then pat themselves on the back for making all books available to everyone now that 'all books' means the dozen bestsellers they left standing..." she muttered. She turned her search to Butere Girls High School, hoping to eventually reach the alumnae of 1970's Form IV A...
Yomiko stood in front of the 10th grade literature class, holding her copy of Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex : A Collection of Her Short Stories and Lesser-known Writings. "...and who finished reading 'Cady's Life' for today?"
"Me!" "I did!" "Me too!" said half the class.
"I sure didn't, none of you did, Anne never finished writing it!" spat one of the other girls.
"Good point, Nozomi."
One of the quieter students found his voice. "I found an outline of the rest in the May 11, 1944 entry of her Diary," said Heiji.
Nozomi spun to look at him. "How does it end?"
"Well, Cady drif--"
"HEY NO SPOILERS!" shouted another girl.
Yomiko raised her voice. "It's actually relevant right now, and half of you returned your copies of Diary last month so I can't exactly tell you all to reread it for tomorrow. Go on, Heiji."
"She drifts apart from Hans when he turns out to have Nazi sympathies, then years later Hans proposes to Cady and she refuses and marries someone else when she's 27 even though she still pines for Hans. Then she finally tells him goodbye in a dream. More stuff happens too but I don't want to spoil everything."
"Thanks, Heiji!" said Nozomi. "I don't get it, though. Why'd Cady still love Hans for so long after he turned out to be a Nazi? I mean, what the fuck?"
"Cady's an excellent example of how the main character is not always the author in disguise," Yomiko answered. Her voice then wavered a bit. "Besides, it's possible to hate who someone turned into and still miss who he or she was before." Donnie, why'd you ruin everything by forcing my hand...? she thought...
This time, Yomiko managed to find a seat on the subway. She overheard another fellow passenger's iPod audio leak out of her MUCH TOO LOUD earbuds. The song reminded her of another book in her wheelie case's outer pocket, and soon she was reading Some Dream for Fools by Faïza Guène.
A cane tapped the floor of the subway car. Yomiko lifted her eyes from the pages and saw a much older woman looking for a seat. "Please, sit here," Yomiko said as she stood up and grabbed one of the overhead straps.
"Thank you, dear."
"You're welcome," replied Yomiko. The other woman settled in her seat and opened her pocketbook. Yomiko saw her take out a needlebook and embroidery hoop holding a half-done floral design, and smiled before starting to read again.
Ring ring ring!
Yomiko put the book back in her wheelie case to free up her hand for the phone.
Sumiregawa Nenene Just wanted 2 let u know, I'm on way 2 book club meeting. Thanks 4 inviting me!
Readman Yomiko Gone Forth to Seek Her Fortune : Bachelor Girls in Today's India is our nonfiction this month, how could I not?
Sumiregawa Nenene ;)
Sumiregawa Nenene No crazy fans 2night, I hope?
Readman Yomiko NO
Readman Yomiko Half club likes our fiction this month more
Sumiregawa Nenene Yeah, Water is pretty good
Readman Yomiko BTW how r foreign licenses going?
Sumiregawa Nenene Agent's in talks w/ Random House 2 get English translation in Vintage Departures series
Readman Yomiko u'll get in! Pico Iyer did + he writes some novels 2
Sumiregawa Nenene TY! Anyway, what u reading *now*? I'm in middle of Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky...
The End (until the next shift)