I Had That Same Dream Again

by Yoru Sumino

  Somewhere along the way, I began jumping too. I laughed to myself, imagining that the two of us were doing some sort of special training together. The frog put all it had into that training. Surely it was a shy little thing, only conducting its training on rainy days, when there were few people around. I cheered the stalwart little frog on.

  But perhaps the frog didn’t hear this encouragement, or perhaps it simply wasn’t planning to train today, because eventually it hopped off, scampered into the grass, and vanished. I was sad to see it go, but although I waded into the grass myself, and no matter how much I muddied my boots, I could not find the frog again.

  I was filled with a sense of gloom, but there was nothing I could do. By now, I had pushed my way all the way to the riverside. I decided to climb back up the embankment, but I proceeded along a different path, never abandoning the hope that perhaps fate would help me find the frog again.

  A bobtail cat was waiting for me at the end of the path, huddled in the grass. I ran over to her, kicking my way through puddles. She was covered in mud, flecked with red here and there. More than anything, I noticed that her tail was only half as long as it should be.

  How terrible, I thought.

  I did not wonder who she was, nor how she had ended up this way. I folded my umbrella and gently wrapped her up my arms, carrying her up the bank so as not to startle her. I could sense her quiet breathing.

  At first, I thought I might take her back home. However, I quickly discarded that idea when I realized there would be no one else there. I couldn’t mend her wounds alone.

  My face was cold from the rain, and I was sure that she must be cold too. I thought about whom I could implore for help. I climbed down the bank opposite the river and ran to the nearby cream-colored apartment building. Although I ran a bit recklessly, the cat did not stir in my arms.

  I rang doorbells on the building’s first floor, starting from the end. There was no reply at the first door, nor was there one at the next, or the next, or the next. Finally, the fifth door swung open, but the woman who answered closed it again the moment she laid eyes on me. I kept trying at door after door, but there was no one home at most of them, and when occasionally someone did open the door, no one was interested in hearing me out. The little one in my arms was trembling.

  I reached the last door of the building. My heart was racing as I pressed the doorbell. Her gentle breathing was growing fainter, and I was afraid that she might be fading away in my arms. I heard the bell ring within, then other sounds. At first, I was relieved to know that there was someone inside. There were plenty of other doors where there was no one present, even if the lights were on.

  Footsteps approached slowly, someone unfastened the lock, and the knob turned. The moment that the door opened, I shouted: “Please save her!”

  The beautiful woman looked at me in shock for a few moments. She looked at the little one in my arms. I stared into her eyes. You must look people in the eyes when you’re speaking to them, Hitomi-sensei had told me.

  The young woman’s eyes stopped on my new friend’s trembling form, and then she did something that no one had done: she looked back into my eyes.

  “Just a minute.”

  She stepped inside, and returned with a towel. She took the little soul from my arms and took her inside, wrapping her up.

  “You come in, too. Take off your coat and shoes.”

  Hearing her gentle voice, I felt such relief I could have fallen asleep right then and there, but I needed to thank her first. I wondered what her name could be, and my eyes fell on the nameplate fixed beside the door.

  I read the letters that were crudely scrawled over the nameplate in black magic marker.

  “Skank…?”

  It was a strange name. It didn’t sound Japanese at all. I wondered if she might be a foreigner, though she didn’t look it. I tilted my head curiously.

  “Come on now, come inside, I’m not scary.”

  The woman insisted that I have a bath before thanking her, and before I knew it I was washing myself. When I stepped out of the bathroom, some adult-sized pajamas were set out for me in place of my soaked clothes, and I gratefully slipped into them. The woman was wrapping the little cat in bandages. I watched her hands as she worked, not wishing to get in the way.

  “Thank you, really,” I said, when she had finally finished her doctoring.

  “No problem. I put your clothes in the dryer, so you can wait here until they’re ready.”

  “Okay. Um…Skank-san?”

  She looked taken aback when I said her name. Perhaps she was surprised that I knew it.

  “That was what it said on your nameplate out front,” I explained. “It’s okay if I call you Skank-san, right?”

  “You mean as my name?”

  “Yes.”

  As I nodded, she let out a great laugh. I hadn’t the slightest clue what that was supposed to mean. However, I was glad that she seemed to be amused, so I started to laugh, too.

  “Aha ha. Ah, yeah, that’s just fine. That’s my name.”

  “Are you from another country?”

  “No, I’m Japanese.”

  “Huh, that’s a weird name.”

  Skank-san laughed again.

  “Skank-san?” I said. “I can rewrite your nameplate for you, as a thank you for saving this little one. It might be rude, but I can’t say those letters are very well-written. My handwriting is much better.”

  But she just shook her head. “Mm, I appreciate the offer, but it’s not the sort of thing I’d want you to bother with. I didn’t write it there, either.”

  “Huh? So who wrote it?”

  This time, she laughed thinly. “I’ve already forgotten who it was.”

  And so I became friends with Skank-san and Miss Bobtail. Hitomi-sensei seemed to think that I didn’t have any friends, but in fact, I had wonderful friends. Friends who would play Othello with me. Who would walk with me. And I had friends who would talk to me about books.

  That was why, even if I had no friends at school, and even if my father and mother were too busy to ever play with me, I was not lonely.

  My first meeting with Granny was not as fraught as the day I met Skank-san and Miss Bobtail. When I say it was not fraught, I mean that I was not sad or in pain at the time.

  If you climbed the hills through the trees near my home, you would find a clearing, and there in that clearing was a wooden house. One day, I came upon this house, and spent a long time looking at it, thinking how wonderful it was and how unusual for our area. After some time, I knocked on the front door, wondering if the place was abandoned. It was terribly quiet, but an old woman with a lovely smile opened the door.

  From that day on, we would be friends.

  Today, the spacious wooden house was as wonderful as always.

  “How are the sweets you make so tasty, Granny?”

  “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn how to make things taste good. That’s all,” Granny said nonchalantly, sipping her tea.

  As I nibbled on the madeleines she had made, I tried to unravel the secret of their deliciousness. Miss Bobtail lounged in the sun flooding the plank floor corridor that ran between the living room and the open field.

  “I found that book you were telling me about,” I said, sitting at the low table in the tatami-floored room. “The Little Prince. It’s in the school library, so I tried reading it.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Mm, I liked how it was written, but it was kind of hard.”

  “Was it? You really are sharp, Nacchan.”

  “I’ve thought so too, but I’m not really there yet. I didn’t get it at all.”

  “It’s important to know what you do not know. The worst thing you can do is to think that you understand something when you really don’t.”

  “Is that how it is?”

  “Even not understanding it means it left some impression on you, didn’t it?”

  “That’s true. I think having a
cat to talk with suits me better than a quiet sheep in a box.”

  Granny laughed softly and looked at the little one sleeping on the floor. “Such wonderful praise from you, and all she does is sleep.”

  “That’s fine. She always does what she wants.”

  Miss Bobtail yawned, her tail swaying back and forth. It was contagious, and I opened my mouth in an unseemly manner to let out a yawn of my own. Then, I decided to talk to Granny about the same thing I had discussed with Skank-san—the conversation from school. When I told her the whole story from start to finish, Granny laughed out loud, just like Skank-san had.

  “I see, I see. That sounds dreadful, making you run in the yard and stay after school.”

  “It wasn’t. I mean, I hated P.E., but it wasn’t so bad staying after. I do like Hitomi-sensei.”

  “She sounds like a wonderful teacher.”

  “Yeah, she is. Even if she kind of misses the mark. Hee hee, I had this same conversation with Skank-san.”

  “Did you win at Othello today?”

  “Only one time. But even then, I still lost twice. I wonder if I’ll get better at it someday.”

  “You will. You have the power to see the future, after all. That’s an indispensable power when it comes to games.”

  I knew that Granny would never tell a lie, so I was thrilled to hear this. There was a wonderful smell around her, not like incense. A wonderful smell unlike other adults. When I told her that once, she smiled and said “That’s because I’ve already graduated from being an adult.”

  “That means that Skank-san has the power to see the future, too,” I said.

  “I wonder. Unlike children, adults are usually creatures who look back into the past.”

  “But Skank-san is better than me.”

  “That’s because she’s lived longer, Nacchan. She knows how to win better than you.”

  Granny talked often about how long people had lived. But she was right, she had lived at least seven times as long as me, which was probably why her madeleines were much better.

  I reached out to grab a second one, but then withdrew my hand. If I were to have two madeleines on top of the Yakult and the ice cream, I wouldn’t have any room for the dinner my mother made.

  I decided to use my brain for something else, to make myself forget about the madeleines.

  “We have an assignment in school,” I said. “To think about happiness.”

  “That sounds like an interesting lesson.”

  “It is. But it’s really hard. It would be fine if we could talk about as many things as we like, but we only have as long as the class period, and I’m not the only one in the class.”

  “That’s true. You have to put all those things in order, and pull your answer out from the middle.”

  “I want to find an answer that will surprise Hitomi-sensei, that everyone in my class will understand.”

  I felt a swelling of pride imagining Hitomi-sensei’s praise. Letting myself get carried away, I started reaching for another madeleine, but I held back at the last moment. Granny saw me and laughed.

  “What’s your happiness, Granny?”

  “My happiness, hm? Lots of things. Drinking tea on sunny days like this, and whenever you stop by this lonely home. However, thinking of a single answer would be difficult. I’ll think about it.”

  “Yeah, think about it. Come to think of it, Granny, are you happy right now?”

  Granny took a sip of tea and smiled. “Yes, I am.”

  She appeared that way, and the feeling spread to me as well. When I looked out to the hall, Miss Bobtail was sleeping happily as well. This old wooden home must be filled with the essence of happiness, I thought.

  “Oh right, can you tell me another book to read?”

  “You said that you already read Tom Sawyer, yes?”

  “Yeah, it was fun.”

  “Well then, how about a story about Tom’s good friend?”

  “You mean Homeless Huck? Is there another book?”

  “Oh, you hadn’t heard, then? It’s called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a lot of fun. If it’s not in the school’s library, you could ask Hitomi-sensei about it.”

  Hearing this wonderful news, I tucked the name of the book away in the same part of my brain where I kept my most important memories.

  We both loved talking about books, and so I never noticed how much time had passed.

  Which was your favorite story from The Little Prince? I liked the one about the Prince and the rose. It was so charming. What about you, Granny? The one about the snake who ate the elephant, maybe.

  As we carried on like this, an orange hue washed over the world outside. I looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was already half past five. I had to get back home by six. I promised my mother that I would.

  I woke my friend with the flicking tail and said my farewells to Granny.

  “I’ll see you next time, Granny.”

  “Take care on the way home, now.”

  “I will. I’ll look for the book about Huck, too.”

  I waved to Granny, who had come to the front door to see me off, and Miss Bobtail and I climbed the footpath down the hill. The path was gorgeous. Orange-colored. I was never sad to say goodbye like this. I always had tomorrow after all, and the day after that.

  “Happiness won’t cooome, wandering my way sooo, thaaat’s why I set ooout to find it todaaay!”

  “Meow meow!”

  I parted ways with my bob-tailed friend and headed home to do my homework. Around half past six, my mother returned home. She was out of the house even on Saturdays and Sundays sometimes, but she was always home at dinnertime. I thought how nice it would be if it was always dinnertime, but then I would have to give up on the yogurt I had at breakfast.

  Today’s dinner was curry rice. Even though I’d already had Yakult and ice cream and a madeleine, I still had seconds of the rice.

  “I wonder if I should go on a diet,” I said.

  My mother laughed. “You don’t need to,” she said, handing me a cookie she had gotten at work.

  I couldn’t help myself. I ate the cookie with vanilla ice cream on top.

  “Maybe having your favorite ice cream with a cookie is happiness,” I said.

  “For me it’s with coffee,” said my mother, sitting in front of me as she dunked her cookie in her mug and ate it.

  And then, as always, I took my bath and I grew tired around ten o’clock. And, as always, I did not talk to my mother, nor to my father who returned after I had gone to sleep, about my conversation with Skank-san.

  Chapter 2

  IF I HAD TO GIVE my mood a color as I donned my indoor shoes at the elementary school lockers, it would be grey. Mostly because of all the unpleasant people I’d run into that morning. At times like these, you’d usually say that you were feeling blue, but I liked the color blue.

  “Oh man, the weirdo’s here!” a voice I did not recognize called from inside.

  I gave a theatrical sigh. “You all really must be stupid if you can’t beat a weirdo like me on tests. How fascinating.”

  Gratified by the looks of anger on the faces of several of my idiot classmates, I refused to converse with them further. Eventually one of them said something like: “Why’re you such a baby?”

  I wanted to praise them for being able to even speak intelligibly, but they left, and so I put on my indoor shoes and went into the building.

  Just then…

  “Morning, Koyanagi-san.”

  A single voice put a halt to my grey-colored shuffling. I turned around to see one of my classmates, and my expression turned dark.

  “Oh! Morning, Ogiwara-kun.”

  “I just finished reading Tom Sawyer yesterday,” he said. “It was really good.”

  “Did you? That’s great. Which scenes did you like?”

  “The part about the paint, I guess. I thought Tom was really cool, too.”

  “Tom really is appealing. And smart.”

&nb
sp; “I liked Huck, too.”

  “Homeless Huck, right? Oh, come to think of it, I’m—”

  I stopped. Not because I was trying to keep my talk with Granny to myself, but because a boy came running up from behind Ogiwara-kun and crashed into him. I turned my back on the startled Ogiwara, but I doubt he even saw it. The boy who had run into him was a close friend, and had most certainly run into Ogiwara in the name of boyish roughhousing, not bullying. No one would bully Ogiwara-kun, nor would he bully anyone. He had a lot of friends.

  I, on the other hand, had no friends in our class and elected to turn my back on this. Other than Ogiwara, everyone else in our class either thought I was clumsy or hated me. Still, I had never once been bullied by them. And so, I decided to make my exit first, upon noticing Ogiwara’s friend. A friendship between boys isn’t something a girl should get in the middle of.

  I needed to stop at the library before I could head to the classroom. The library opened first thing in the morning, which was wonderful for me. I much preferred to spend the raucous period before Hitomi-sensei arrived in the quiet library.

  When I entered, I was greeted by the unique smell of the books and the kind librarian. I asked the librarian if they had The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I’d heard about from Granny the day before. The librarian guided me to a bookshelf and left me to seek out the book myself.

  “If you’re a lover of books, you’ll want to enjoy the heart-pounding feeling of searching for them,” she said.

  I felt the same way.

  I quickly found the book in question and picked it up, my fingertips tingling with excitement. I dropped my bag and took a nearby seat.

  I’m sure that Ogiwara-kun and I were the only ones in our class who understood the incomparable feeling of opening the first page of a book. It would be wasted on the others.

  All alone, I took the first tiny step into the tale of Homeless Huck.