Approximately 398 eyeballs stared at us. Time for round two.
"Rock, paper, scissors, one two GO!"
To tell the truth, I didn't know what I was going to throw until I threw it. There was a part of my brain below the level of conscious thought, a lizard nerve center that only understood warm and cold, predator and prey. That level of my brain was moving far faster than the rest of me, slithering along with ancient grace, calculating dozens of steps ahead of my opponent and back- trying to pinpoint the exact number of steps that Muritaro would take, and trump him by a single layer. All of this happened in an instant and in an instant my choice was made for me.
I looked down. Muritaro had thrown scissors. I had thrown rock.
His eyes widened. The crowd of kids screamed, mostly above the range of adult hearing, like bats. Muritaro scowled and tried to hold it together. I leaned in close while the students were still roaring, and whispered hotly, "Tell me what I want to know, now, before the rest of the kids settle down and hear it. I know what you stole and I want it back."
He glared at me. "I don't understand your bad foreigner Japanese."
I made it slow. "I. Want. What. You. Stole."
He stared hard. I stared harder. You may be a tough kid, I thought, but you'll need another decade of hard knocks before you can stare me down.
We locked eyes. I was bent to his level and I had the look of some humped beast from the smoking caverns of Hell. The kids watched and went silent all at once, like the sudden onset of deafness after an explosion. Muritaro squirmed. He tried to look away but my gaze held his eyes like toothpicks in a pair of olives.
"I know you stole," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "It's over."
His lip trembled. His eyes squinted up. His hands shook. Every ALT experiences this at some point, but it was the first time I'd ever been happy to see a kid about to cry.
"I'M SORRY," he cried in English, and started up the waterworks. I waited. With eyes clenched shut he dug a grimy fist around in his pocket and dropped something in my outstretched hand. It was a lump of pencil eraser the size of a ping-pong ball, cratered with tooth marks like a disgusting rubber asteroid.
"What's this?"
"I stole it from Keitaro! I'm sorry, Keitaro!" Muritaro sobbed and stumbled off the stage, right into a group of his cronies. He embraced one of them, apparently Keitaro, and continued apologizing violently. In moments the whole gang was a teary slobbery mess.
I stood on stage holding the eraser, blood roaring in my ears like the monsoon on the roof. What in the name of good hygiene was this all about? I followed Muritaro down the stairs and approached the heaving mass of emotional kids.
"Muritaro! This isn't what I want! Your brother told me you stole from a teacher?"
He looked up, eyes red and watery. "That wasn't me," he said tearfully, "That was my other brother. He's in high school."
High school? Other brother? How many delinquent sons did this family have? I felt my heart sink, then sink again like an aftershock. I'd been so sure that I'd find the cards here at Kurosho- and what's more, I didn't even go to the high school! That was Steve's territory, if you could call it that, and it was completely outside of my experience. The high school!
I walked back to the teachers' office in a daze. Kids parted for me like a silent sea; in the spidery halls, there was no noise but for the distant pounding of the unabated rain. I collapsed down on my miniature desk chair all in a heap. The high school! I was out of ideas, and the unaccustomed feeling had shocked me like a dip into the mizuburo at the onsen. That means cold pool, if you don't know. Mizuburo, I mean, not onsen. My thoughts were scattered, fragmented and lost.
I was stumped. I made myself focus and thought about breaking and entering, armed police raids, insidious blackmail schemes, fake names. The high school! The cards might as well have been on Mars.
I thought about Miss Takahashi. I thought about having to tell her the class was ruined, in front of all of the parents and in front of assistant principle Noguchi. Inconceivable- with her delicate nature she'd probably die from shame, and then I'd have to go disembowel myself in a forest somewhere.
Marui-Sensei plopped down on his long-suffering chair next to me. "Jackson-Sensei! I heard you had quite an event in the gymnasium!"
"Yeah."
"Big stickers." He whistled appreciatively.
"Yeah." I'd left the sticker on the stage. Forget it. Muritaro would have a consolation prize.
Marui-Sensei leaned back and his chair groaned alarmingly. "Too bad we couldn't have you run an activity like that for the school festival. I'm sure it would be popular."
"Yeah."
Then it hit me like the kancho you never saw coming. The school festival! The school festival was that Saturday, and that meant that Monday would be a day off for the teachers and the students. That meant I'd be desk-warming at the Board of Education all day, which normally entailed a chance to catch up on some manga. Steve would be at school as always, though- and if I moved quickly, maybe I could get myself assigned to go with him as a special guest teacher. Why couldn't I? Everybody knew that I was as productive as a paralyzed tree sloth when I was at the Board of Education. Surely I'd be welcome to do some extra work out of the goodness of my own heart.
That's it, I thought- just get myself invited to the high school, find the elder Morita, and recover the cards. Easy as eating a fresh sembe cracker, something I'd had plenty of experience with, living in Kuroyama. Easy as can be. I cracked my knuckles and felt the weight fall from my heart like iron shackles.
These things always seem so easy when we conceive of them, don't they?
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