The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  Standing around talking wasn’t my favorite thing to do, so I told Koizumi I’d see him after class, and he hurried to put on his school slippers, ready to preserve his perfect punctuality and attendance record.

  I arrived at my own shoe locker and, sweeping aside the hesitation I felt, opened it.

  All it contained were my dingy school slippers; there was nothing in the way of letters from the future.

  For once I would’ve been happy to have someone telling me what to do, but Asahina the Elder apparently wasn’t feeling generous. I wondered if the first thing she said the next time I saw her would again be “It’s been quite a while.”

  During class that day, Haruhi was so restless that it seemed as though she would float away if she hadn’t been tied down. And she wasn’t the only one who was so distracted; I was right there with her. I had my bet with Koizumi, after all. So how many of the freshmen that had come by yesterday were crazy enough to return after hearing Haruhi’s speechifying?

  The one that worried me was the girl in an overlarge uniform, which both drooped from her shoulders and looked as though it had just gotten back from the cleaners. Given her reaction the previous day, she was the only one I figured would come back. There was nothing particularly special about her, save for her smiley-face barrette. Despite her youthful, childish demeanor (which seemed somehow different than Asahina’s) she’d stayed totally calm in the den of thieves that was the clubroom. That might have been the only reason I remembered her. What other freshmen had come? I couldn’t remember any of their faces, but that only proved that there hadn’t been anything particularly notable about any of them.

  Our school wasn’t especially strict, but there weren’t usually many freshmen who broke the uniform code. Occasionally someone would wear garish red socks or make some kind of prohibited alteration to their uniform, but that didn’t last long once the student council’s conduct enforcement squads got moving. Haruhi wouldn’t give the time of day to students who went that far, considering them beneath her contempt, and turning up her nose at anyone who decided to even halfheartedly imitate them.

  What Haruhi was on the lookout for wasn’t students who were participating in some kind of Batesian mimicry, but rather those whose innate qualities shone through. It was an internal attribute. Asahina seemed like an exception, but even she was no mere mortal, and proved that Haruhi’s ability to see a person’s true nature bordered on the godlike. I was sure she’d had a look over the entering freshmen once the new school year started, and having failed to find a single one who piqued her interest, that meant there would be no Haruhi abductees this term, which gave me a comfortable, pleasant feeling.

  Even if there was someone who could pass the entrance examinations Haruhi was administering, it was clear that they would be 100 percent normal in every way. So essentially they’d be just like me, and a freshman to boot, which meant there’d be a new member on whom I could foist all the menial labor that Haruhi made me do.

  And yet the truth was I still wasn’t really looking forward to it.

  Incidentally, as far as the math quiz went, I nailed it—thanks, I should say, to Haruhi. While it was frustrating to have to ascribe the first time I’d felt confident on a test in quite a while to knowledge received directly from the brigade chief, it was too late to quibble. I just hoped Haruhi took care to avoid suffering the fate of Prometheus’s latter years after he taught humans the secrets of fire.

  Of course, I’d like to see any god try to chain Haruhi up.

  I don’t know what strange wind it was that was blowing, but when the chime that ended class hours sounded, Haruhi didn’t immediately dash off to the clubroom, instead remaining seated in the classroom. She then headed up to the teacher’s lectern to avoid getting in the way of the other students on cleaning duty, and called me over.

  What’s up? I asked. There wasn’t supposed to be a test tomorrow, but did she have information about a pop quiz or something?

  “I’m waiting for the new students to assemble in the clubroom,” said Haruhi with a grin. “A good performer always shows up late. Or doesn’t show up at all. There’s something wrong with the idea of me sitting there as freshmen trickle in. So I’ll burst in at the last moment, making the kind of grand entrance a brigade chief should make. And in the process, I can fail anyone who shows up later than me.”

  Had this been her plan all along? Just how late did she plan on showing up, I wanted to know. Was she going to use Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days” as her entrance music?

  “I don’t normally care about that kind of stuff, but that’s actually a pretty good idea. Too bad; I should’ve brought a cassette player from the clubroom.”

  Good thing I hadn’t shot my mouth off earlier during lunch. Just the thought of having to follow Haruhi around lugging a boom box with me was enough to make me cry. I wasn’t a pro wrestler’s evil manager, and I definitely wasn’t going to take orders like an obedient luchador.

  I tried to look as tired as I felt, and Haruhi looked up at the clock. “I think being thirty minutes late is about right. Having to wait is part of the test. Although making the brigade chief wait definitely deserves a severe punishment. Are you listening, Kyon? I’m talking about you, you know.”

  Yeah, I knew—that was why I was constantly getting fined, I told her. Fully half of my allowance went straight into her and Asahina’s stomachs.

  “That’s what you get. Time is money. All it takes is five minutes to look back and speculate over hundreds of years of history, so you’re getting off cheap!”

  Seemingly having reminded herself of something, Haruhi reached into her bag and produced her world history textbook.

  “What are you choosing for your humanities elective? I decided to do world history, so you should do the same. It’s better to decide these things early. World history’s great, you know. You learn way better words there than in Japanese history. I mean, doesn’t ‘Treaty of Westphalia’ sound way better than ‘Laws for the Military Houses?’ ” she said, continuing on in a manner unbefitting a Japanese citizen. “While we’re killing time, I’ll go over the stuff we learned last year. Oh c’mon, don’t make that face. Since you’re a brigade member, I’ll even waive my tutoring fee.”

  Given how crazy she was for thinking someone would want to be subjected to a course they hadn’t even asked for, I thought my expression was pretty reasonable. The phrase “with extreme reluctance” comes to mind—and it was indeed with extreme reluctance that I pulled out my history textbook, opened it to the page Haruhi rattled off, and set my mental clock to the Mesopotamian era.

  “It’s easy; all you have to do is memorize it. And you don’t really have to remember the exact years. You’ll be doing great if you just get the basic time line in your head so you know what certain historical figures were thinking and doing and when. Take the pyramids, for example—they were either built because ancient people had way too much time on their hands, or because they wanted to leave their descendants with something to attract tourists.”

  I supposed that no matter what era you were in there were charismatic people who were just going to say and do whatever they wanted without asking the people around them, I said. From the perspective of modern history, there was such a person in front of me at that very moment.

  “I’d never build anything that got in the way that much. But now that you mention it, I would like to leave some sign of the SOS Brigade’s existence somewhere on the school grounds. I better start thinking about the design. Maybe some kind of stone somewhere. Marble, do you think? Or granite?”

  It seemed as if she wanted the SOS Brigade’s name to endure through history. Maybe that’s what the pyramids were for too. Were the ancient Egyptians so desperate to leave some trace of their existence behind that they went to such efforts to carry and place those great stones? I wondered.

  “That’s it, Kyon!” Haruhi’s eyes sparkled as though facing a particularly bright student. “That kind of thinking is why h
istory’s important. It’s way better for your brain than just cramming for tests. That’s also part of how you remember stuff. You get it, don’t you? Thanks to me, of course.”

  Fine, fine. I admitted she was a good teacher. She’d really helped me out during last year’s finals. That little glasses-wearing kid was going to be pretty smart indeed. Smart enough to invent a time machine.

  I had no doubt as to whether he was taking good care of that turtle, and that he wouldn’t say anything about it to Haruhi. I kind of wanted to know what name he’d given it, but I couldn’t really ask Haruhi. Maybe I’d have a chance to ask him directly.

  Whether or not it was her pride as brigade chief and concern for her subordinates that motivated Haruhi to help me, the least studious of the SOS Brigade members, in any case she seemed more insistent than Mr. Okabe that I not stray from the path of academic study. This was why an academics-obsessed PE instructor wasn’t much use as a homeroom teacher.

  Still, doing overtime history study in the classroom as it was being cleaned up—even going to the length of standing and facing the lectern—it was certainly an odd study style. I endured Haruhi’s unilateral lecturing, circling proper nouns in the textbook with a red pen, meekly and powerlessly accepting everything I was told as pure fact.

  In the face of such a potent opponent’s active assault, the poor victim could only let itself be swallowed into the whale’s belly along with all that water. Eventually I would be digested in Haruhi’s stomach.

  At the moment I didn’t particularly want to pass through her digestive tract and become part of her body, so I would need to step up and pack some world history knowledge into myself, for my own sake.

  “The people and places that show up on the tests are basically fixed, so just memorize these. If you just get so you’re able to remember and write down names you have a vague recollection of, you’ll do all right on tests. The best thing is to really get so you love history, but I don’t expect you to do that. You’re pretty much terrible at memorizing anything connected to studying, after all. Maybe you should ask Yuki for help next time. I bet she can recommend some good historical novels.”

  Did she even have any historical fiction on her shelves? I seemed to remember she at least had some mythology, I told Haruhi.

  “That’s a good enough place to start. It’s natural to want to know more about something you’re interested in. Doesn’t matter what, having the wisdom to stick your chest out and say proudly ‘This is my obsession!’ is the important thing. Got that? This is the most important time in your life, because whatever your passions lead you to learn now will be with you for the rest of your life. Somebody said that, long ago. And it’ll determine your path in life. Your brain cells are most active in your mid-teens, you know. If you don’t explore a bunch of different interests while you can, you’ll regret it later.”

  Haruhi spoke as though she were an adult ten years older, looking back on her past experiences, then launched into her world history lecturing. The facts she was interested in were more trivial than anything covered in class, but they were far more interesting than the conveyor-belt lectures the teachers delivered, and the fact that the contents were so readily carved into my brain was a testament to Haruhi’s ability to deliver wisdom to total ignorants.

  She had the authority of a commanding officer. The title of brigade chief was no mere show. Her mental acuity was better than that of any prime minister in history. Although I’ll admit she wasn’t very democratic.

  I spent half an hour there at the lectern listening to Haruhi’s lecture, and our fearless brigade chief only put down her red pen once she felt that the appointed hour had drawn nigh. Classroom cleanup was long over, and the only people left in the classroom were Haruhi and me.

  “That should be enough,” Haruhi said, putting the textbook back in her bag. “The freshmen should be in the clubroom now. C’mon, Kyon—time to go make a grand entrance and get a look at the faces of whoever’s got enough pluck and guts to show up. My intuition tells me maybe six people will be left. I made yesterday’s test pretty easy, so losing five people sounds about right.”

  If that was true, then Koizumi was going to lose the bet, and I wondered if things would go so well. If half the original lot showing back up was a success, then anything less than that would suggest that there weren’t very many eccentrics in this year’s freshman class. And from what I saw, the number of freshmen who would come back out with a straight face out of nothing more than a sense of curiosity was close to zero. And if it was zero, I could stop worrying about all this stuff and return to my normal, everyday life.

  Haruhi shooed me out of the classroom and dragged me to the clubroom, where I saw Nagato listlessly absorbed in a book, Asahina in her school uniform rather than her maid outfit, pouring tea into paper cups, and Koizumi amusing himself with a game of solitaire—

  —Along with the out-of-place figures of exactly six students.

  Three boys, and three girls.

  It was no time to rejoice over having won my bet with Koizumi. Was this for real? If there were really so many students intrepid enough to want to join the SOS Brigade, this was going to be complicated.

  In any case, the brigade chief puffed her chest out in satisfaction, then spoke in a voice as strident as any trombone in the brass band club.

  “Very well! I underestimated you. I was sure only one in ten would come back, but it seems that’s not the case. This year’s freshmen are promising indeed! Now, then—” Haruhi tossed her bag at me, heading directly for the brigade chief’s desk. “I now proclaim the second phase of the SOS Brigade entrance examination open!” she declared, producing a “Chief Examiner” armband from within her desk.

  “It’s a written test. No, don’t worry about it too much. It’s more of a personality test or survey. It won’t directly affect your acceptance, but it will be used for reference. I’ll be responsible for handling all personal information, so don’t worry—it will never be shared with the faculty or student council. Not even the other brigade members.”

  Haruhi’s eyes were like a boiling undersea volcano. She really did act just like a geyser.

  “So, Kyon, Koizumi, and Mikuru, you should all leave the room for a bit. Oh, Yuki can stay. Hurry, get to it! Freshmen, sit evenly around the table. Oh, I guess we’re short on chairs. Kyon, go get some more.”

  I had to do as I was told. Dictators are dictators because their orders are always followed without dissent. Haruhi had treated the literature club room as her own private property for nearly a year now. I hoped the student council would push back a little to stop her from putting a sign up proclaiming it hers even after she graduated.

  Then Koizumi, Asahina, and I headed into the hallway and stared at the closed door to the clubroom with a variety of expressions. If Nagato was allowed to remain in the room, Haruhi must’ve decided she wasn’t going to get in the way. Did Haruhi just think of Nagato as SOS Brigade furniture?

  “I’ll go get some water,” said Asahina, holding the kettle as though it were a precious thing and trotting off, the pitter-patter of her school shoes fading away down the staircase. I watched her go off on her errand, then to buy a little bit of time I tossed my bag back into the clubroom before heading off to do exactly what I’d done the previous day—namely, asking other clubs to lend us folding chairs. If I’d known I was going to have to do it again, I wouldn’t have returned them.

  Anyway, I figured I’d hit up the computer club first, but Koizumi raised a light hand. “If you’re looking for chairs, I’ve already collected some. There was quite a bit of time before you and Suzumiya arrived, after all. I made the rounds and collected what I could. They’re over there; you didn’t seem to notice.”

  I ignored his teasing tone and calmly looked, and indeed, leaning up against the wall of the old school building were five folded chairs.

  “You should’ve said something about them before we got kicked out of the room, Koizumi. We almost wasted a bunch of t
ime.”

  Koizumi’s face came close alongside mine. “We waited for a full half hour before you showed up. Just what did you and Suzumiya use that time for? I have to admit I’m rather interested.”

  His face made it seem as though he thought it was an incredibly rare event, like the orbits of Mars and Earth were overlapping for the first time in tens of thousands of years. We didn’t do anything. Haruhi never did anything for such superficial reasons.

  I coughed. “She seems to think that being able to make other people wait is a form of status. She was purposely waiting for the freshmen to arrive. All I did was go along with her.”

  “And yet the fraction of times she’s been late to our train station rendezvous point is exceedingly low. It’s as though she’s pouring out her heart just to be able to wait for you. One can’t help but imagine that while she might make other people wait, she’ll never make you wait.”

  He was sure being stubborn. The one time I’d managed to get there first, the three of them didn’t show up. That was the only time. And even then I’d wound up paying the check. I was pretty sure she never planned on spending any money on me.

  “I’m not sure you can confidently state that. When it’s just the two of you, even Suzumiya won’t just make you pay for everything. Worst case, you’ll just split the check. I don’t know what she was like before, but as far as the current Suzumiya goes, that’s the truth. Why don’t you just give it a try?”

  What did he mean by “try,” I wanted to know.

  “It’s quite simple. Pick a day and give Suzumiya a call. All you’ll have to do is ask if she’s free on Sunday and if so, if she wants to go out with you. You’re welcome to ignore Asahina, Nagato, and myself. Why don’t you go somewhere, just the two of you?”