by Rachel Cohn
She looked down at the magazine I’d just shut. “How meta,” she moaned. I had no idea what she meant. But she smiled at me and said, “Hi, I’m . . . guess who? Imogen Kato.” Then she returned her gaze to Chloe and said, “Sorry. The boys’ darn fooling around caused me to drop my computer in the water and now all my data is lost.”
Chloe said, “I’ll have the IT department work on retrieving your data. Meanwhile . . .”
The dean pulled another brand-new MacBook from her file cabinet and handed it to Imogen as if she was giving her a sandwich to replace the one her dog had eaten, and not a thousand-dollar-plus machine the likes of which I never dreamed I’d own for myself.
“Go zai mas,” Imogen said. Besides konichiwa and sayonara—“hello” and “good-bye”—I’d also learned that arigatogozaimashita was “thank you” in Japanese but often got slang-ified to what sounded like go zai mas in casual conversation when people spoke quickly. That was pretty much the extent of my Japanese language knowledge so far, and I wouldn’t learn much more here—classes at this international school were taught in English.
Chloe said, “Elle, Imogen has been assigned as your orientation buddy. You’ll shadow Imogen today before starting your regular schedule next week.”
Imogen returned to Chloe’s office door and held it open for me. “Let’s go, rookie.” She didn’t sound like having me as her charge for the day was the worst chore ever. I thanked Chloe, then stood up and walked out of the office with Imogen, following her outside the administration building. “We’ll start with a quick tour of the grounds. Not all the school tour guides are as popular as me, so consider yourself lucky.”
I said, “I’m pretty awesome, so consider yourself lucky.”
Excuse me, private school girl Elle, who are you now? I had no idea where that confidence came from. Was there something in the water in Japan giving me new superpowers?
Imogen laughed. “You’re spunky. I like you.”
“I like your sweater,” I said. The sweater was so not posh. It looked lived in and loved.
“It’s so Lebowski, right?” Imogen said. I nodded, even though I had no idea what she meant. “I stole it from my father.” We walked along a path lined with green bushes and fresh flowers. “So, what’s your deal here? Mom’s Japanese and Dad’s American, and she finally wore him down to get a job here so she could return to the civilized world of Tokyo?”
“Hardly. I’ve always lived with my mom. She’s American. But she . . .” I paused, deciding whether I was ready to tell this magazine girl that my mother was in jail. I wasn’t. “She was having some problems, so I came to live with my Japanese father here.”
“What’s he like?”
“I don’t know really. I only met him yesterday. Before I came to Tokyo, I’d never been farther from Maryland than a sixth-grade class trip to Williamsburg, Virginia.”
It was hard to imagine how far I was from Maryland now. Not just in distance, but already in experience.
Imogen laughed. She paused, expecting me to say more. When I didn’t, she said, “Are you fucking serious?”
“I’m fucking serious. Last week, I didn’t even know who my father was.”
“Whoa,” said Imogen, sounding as impressed as she was shocked. “Well, if you ever feel like elaborating on that story, I’d love to hear it. Meanwhile, you saved the first part of my day.”
“How’d I do that?”
“Being your guide got me out of stupid yoga class.”
“You have yoga class here?”
“I signed up for morning phys ed yoga because I thought it would be extra sleep time, but they actually expect us to do balancing and standing and really fucking hard inversion poses. There’s barely a second for savasana before it’s time to hit the showers and go to the next class. Namaste, bitches!”
Imogen might as well have been speaking in Japanese for all that I understood her. As she walked us across an outdoor path between buildings, it seemed like all the students who passed us treated her reverently, calling out, “Hey, Imogen!” and gushing over her new hair color and funky accessories, or getting out of her way entirely. She had a cheerful greeting for each and every one of them; no wonder she was so popular.
I said, “You have an American accent. Did you live there?”
“Nah. The fam stayed in San Fran for a few months when my dad was doing an art installation project down in Silicon Valley, but otherwise I’ve always lived in London, where my mum’s originally from, or here in the past few years, cuz my dad prefers Japan to Eurocentric absolutism.”
Right. Whatever that meant. “Where’d your American accent come from, then?”
“It’s a common international school affliction. A lot of non-American kids have American accents here. Your accent becomes fluid when you’re surrounded by people from all over. Like, I have more of a British accent when I’m talking to Mum, and I speak to my dad in Japanese, but he teases me that my accent sounds Australian. When I’m at school, I sound American.”
“Have you always spoken Japanese?” I wondered if she’d learned it after she’d moved to Tokyo from London, and how hard it was.
“Mochiron!”
“Huh?”
“Of course.”
Classes had started, so we were the only people roaming the grounds besides a few latecomers I noticed dashing into buildings. I was still wrapping my mind around the concept of a school that felt like a lush, remote countryside resort but was located in the middle of a huge city—and the fact that I was an actual student here. I feared the instant we walked into a classroom with students, I would immediately be ratted out as “smell bomb,” even though I’d taken a long shower earlier in the morning and used perfumed lotion all over my body right after. I smelled like a freaking gardenia-scented angel.
We reached a silver, three-story building that was shaped in curves and reflected the sun. The sunlight made the UPPER SCHOOL gray lettering on the awning appear yellow and sparkly. “This building looks more like a modern art museum than a school building,” I said.
“I know! When ICS-Tokyo got too big, they had to build a separate structure for the Upper School. The board tried to get Frank Gehry to design it, but they were only able to get some knockoff instead.”
“Uh-huh,” I said knowingly. Was Frank Gehry a famous spaceship designer? Because the building looked like it could lift off from the ground and fly up into space.
Imogen said, “Most Upper School students take phys ed in the morning, so we’ll be able to check out the classrooms.” We walked into the building, which looked like a regular school hall with classrooms and lockers on either side, except everything was shiny, new, and immaculate. Imogen opened the door to the first empty classroom. “This is the technology and robotics lab.”
The classroom had a ceiling-mounted projector facing toward a full screen on one end of the room. On the other end was a whiteboard taking up the entire wall, with mathematical equations written all over it. Lining the remaining walls were cabinets labeled with supplies like routers, motherboards, memory cards, and graphic cards. There was a large table in the middle of the room, with chairs surrounding it, creating a communal feel. The empty wall spaces were covered with posters of robots and communication devices and photos of students with their lab projects.
“This is amazing!” I exclaimed. “Have you built a robot here?”
“I’m not a tech person. Big yawn. Are you into art and music?”
“Theoretically, but I suck at both.”
“Great, then we can skip those rooms. They’re so sincere it makes me sick.”
She led me out of the classroom and down the hall. At the end, we reached a library, visible through long, clear windows. “I can’t take you in because I’m on two-week probation for too much loud talking in there, but the first floor has private study rooms, the second floor is all the books no one reads, and the third floor has the Japan Center, which has pretty much everything you’d want to know about J
apan. And a nauseatingly eager staff of librarians to help you with any research projects.”
We returned outside, where we walked past a football field. Imogen said, “This field’s for American football, soccer, and Aussie-rules ‘footy.’ The South Australian kind of footy, not that Indian rugby knockoff the Sydney and Queensland people play.”
“Obviously,” I said. My know-nothing brain was starting to hurt. It had no idea it knew so little until this walk with Imogen Kato.
A running track rimmed the football field, where students ran and hurdled, advised by a teacher on the sidelines.
“Faster!”
“Higher!”
“Two seconds off from yesterday! I know you can do better.”
“That teacher seems intense,” I said.
“He’s a trainer, not a schoolteacher.”
“There’s an on-site trainer here?”
“Trainers plural. Those track and field bozos asked for a triathlon trainer. Big babies.”
Two girls our age ran off the track and came up to us, breathless. One was Indian, with long black hair streaked with red and pulled up in a messy bun, and the other was a black girl whose hair was braided into beaded cornrows. They had perfect complexions. I swear, a zit spontaneously broke out on my face from just admiring their pretty, smooth ones. Imogen told me, “Elle, meet the Ex-Brats, Jhanvi Kapoor and Ntombi Amathila. Besties, this is my new charge, Elle Zoellner.”
“Hey,” both girls said.
I paused before answering, half expecting them to lob an insult my way just as a rite of passage to the new girl. When none came, I said, “Hey,” back. To show what an amazing conversationalist I was . . . not.
Jhanvi, the Indian girl, asked Imogen, “Did you do the Latin homework?”
“Sane quidem,” said Imogen, pronounced sah-nei kwee-dem.
“What’s that mean?” Ntombi asked.
“No doubt,” said Imogen. To my confused face, she added, “In Latin.”
“Can I copy your answers before fifth period?” asked Jhanvi.
“Of course,” said Imogen. “I’ll leave my homework in your locker.”
Jhanvi said, “Thanks. I was up all night studying for my calculus exam, so I never got around to it.”
A whistle sounded behind them and then the coach yelled at them. “Hey, Jhanvi and Ntombi! This is a class, not social hour. Back to work.”
Both girls rolled their eyes, said good-bye to us, and returned to the track.
Imogen told me, “You’ll meet lots of teachers and staff and students today. But really, the Ex-Brats are the only people who matter.”
Her haughty confidence was equally frightening and inspiring.
“The Ex-Brats? That’s what you call . . . your group?” What word did the cool kids use here for clique or gang or popular crowd? Was there a Latin word for it?
“Yeah. My mom went to this school when she was my age. Her father was a diplomat at the UK Embassy in Tokyo. ‘Ex-Brats’ was what he used to teasingly call Mom’s friends at ICS-Tokyo. So I adopted the expression for mine here.”
“Clever.”
“Aren’t I?”
We reached the other side of the campus and went into the Athletic Building. Classes were going on inside the rooms, so we peeked through the windows in the doors. All the schools I’d gone to in Maryland had one central gymnasium, and that was it for indoor fitness areas. ICS-Tokyo had dedicated yoga, Pilates, dance, and martial arts studios; a fully equipped gym with weights, treadmills, stationary bikes, a basketball court, and a wrestling room. We came out on the other side of the building, where there were eight tennis courts, with middle school boys playing on one court and girls on the other. Several of the girls sitting inside the fence close to our walking path waved at us. “Hi, Imogen!” they called out.
“Hello, my young flock,” she said, and bowed to them. They bowed in return.
Our walk finally led to my personal Holy Grail. The pool. I already knew I a little bit liked ICS-Tokyo. Now I loved it. The pool was a twenty-five-meter competitive swimming pool with ten lanes and glistening water. The familiar old smell of chlorine was intoxicating. Most of the swimmers were congregated in front of a teacher at the pool’s ledge, instructing them in doing leg lifts with foam noodles. A lone dude swimmer on the outermost lane practiced his butterfly stroke, looking powerful and confident.
I wanted to jump in that pool so badly and hide from these worldly strangers who had been everywhere and knew everything while I knew nothing. “I thought there would be more Japanese students here,” I admitted. The student faces I’d seen so far at ICS-Tokyo did not reflect the school’s host country.
Imogen laughed. “Hah! ‘Pure’ Japanese parents usually only send their children to ‘pure’ Japanese schools.”
“But you’re Japanese.” I was so confused.
“My dad’s Japanese but my mom’s British. I’m hafu, not pure. Trust me, if there’s Japanese students here, either they’re hafu, or if they’re ‘pure’ Japanese, then they go to ICS because their parents were brought up abroad and they’re more open-minded about an international education. Or their parents are crazy rich and want their kids to learn English.” That explained Akemi. Imogen paused, and then her naughty eyes lit up, and she conspiratorially leaned in closer to me. “Or they go here cuz their dads are yakked and think ICS is more prestigious.”
Honestly, I’d gotten more of an education about Japan in one hour with Imogen than I’d gotten in a whole binder put together by Emiko, the Harvard Business School graduate. I couldn’t wait to find out the answer to my next question. “What’s ‘yakked’?”
“Yakuza.”
“What’s a yakuza?”
“Not what. Who. Gangsters with rich lives and nice offices.” I chuckled. Imogen really was high-lar-ious. Then she said, “Not kidding. Yakked like that guy’s dad.” Imogen pointed to the lone dude swimming butterfly at the far end of the pool. When he came up for air, I saw it was Ryuu Kimura, the guy I’d accidentally tripped in the car drop-off line earlier.
“He’s a really good swimmer,” I observed.
“Don’t bother with that guy. He’s uzai.”
“What’s uzai?” I wondered if it meant gangster’s-strong-son-with-amazing-biceps.
“Gloomy. Annoying. Ryuu used to date my best friend, Arabella Acosta. Arabella was so destroyed after he broke up with her that she went home to Bolivia to recover. I don’t know what she ever saw in that moody loser. He’s been iced out by the Ex-Brats ever since Arabella left.”
“He does seem intense,” I said, remembering his scowl at the car-pool line and observing his purposeful stroke in the pool now.
“Ryuu’s probably a sociopath. Time and future disturbing news headlines will tell.”
Sane quidem it was a surprise that Imogen’s nemesis was also her science lab partner.
“Not my choice, of course,” said Imogen as we went into her second-period class, AP Environmental Science. “We’re not allowed to pick our lab partners because it gets too, like, political.”
“Can you ask to switch?” I said. I eyeballed Ryuu Kimura sitting alone at their lab table, which had a bench that seated two people. I couldn’t imagine sharing a small lab partner bench every day for a whole semester with someone I despised.
Imogen said, “He’s actually a brain and a really good lab partner, so we have a truce in the classroom. It’s business. And my business is getting an A in this class, and that’s more likely to happen with him as a lab partner.”
“Got it.” I appreciated her logic. I used to get teased in Maryland for taking school too seriously. Here, it seemed like a student could be proud of working hard.
We reached their lab table, and Imogen placed a folding chair at the side of it and sat herself down on it. To Ryuu she said, “Lab partner, meet Elle. She’s my charge. Elle will be taking my regular seat next to you today, so try not to fart or anything while she’s there.”
Ryuu said, “I had a bean
burrito for breakfast. We’ll see what happens.” He looked down at the small space between us on the bench and then his eyes met mine. “Good luck.”
His eyes were so brown and his lashes so black and thick, his mop of black-and-blue-streaked hair was still wet, and he smelled so much like chlorine, I almost wanted to swoon. I could see why Arabella’s heart was broken when this moody but gorgeous boy dumped her.
The teacher approached our table, a tall, blond-haired, skinny dude who looked fresh off an Iowa cornfield. “I hear you’re Elle?” he asked me, extending his hand to mine to shake. “I’m Jim and I teach Upper School science. I’ve been told you’re not in this class on your regular schedule, but I will see you starting next week for fifth-period Marine Science. You’re going to love it! We’re studying the mating habits of the humpback whale. Things get pretty frisky in those GoPro videos we watch!”
I could feel a horrendous blush cover my face. I didn’t want to hear about humping and whales and mating when Ryuu Kimura sat right next to me.
“Great,” I murmured, with no enthusiasm.
Jim handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s our AP Environmental Science syllabus if you want to see what we’re doing in this class and try to get into it next semester. Welcome to ICS-Tokyo!” Jim then returned to the front of the room to begin the lesson.
Ryuu told me, “We’re working on our climatogram biomes today. It’s cool, you’ll like it.” Why was he suddenly being nice to me after practically chewing me out this morning in the car-pool drop-off line?
“Don’t flirt with her,” Imogen warned Ryuu. (He was flirting with me?) “Elle is my personal charge, so back off.”