postponed.
They were starting over.
As she walked toward the bay, she stared at the terraced pagoda peaks of the school, and her heart began to hammer in her chest. Her throat went dry. Her new uniform skirt itched, her ribbon tie hung askew because she hadn’t fastened it right, and her book bag felt heavy even though it was only the first day of classes.
Yes, she had wanted this for as long as she could remember, wished for it the way other girls wish to grow up to become princesses. But she hadn’t given enough thought to what it would be like being the only gaijin girl-the only foreigner, the only westerner, the only American-at a private school with a view of the Sea of Japan. Made her feel pretty stupid, considering how many hours she and her dad had spent talking about it, but nothing could have prepared her, really.
The first few weeks, she’d felt like Dorothy after she’d just crashed her house in Oz. Adjusting to life in Japan had been hour by hour, an evolution-maybe even a metamorphosis- wandering around Miyazu City and the bay with her camera or sitting down by the Turning Bridge with her guitar. Now, with school starting, it would begin all over again. The gaijin girl. The few other students she’d met in town had been polite but not exactly welcoming. When she’d tried to talk to them about manga or music, searching for common ground, the conversations had been short.
They’re gonna love you, her father had said, so many times. Once they get to know you. Once school starts.
Lonely and unsure, Kara had still found her love for Japan growing. Ama-no-Hashidate-the natural spit of land that connected the two sides of the bay-had a beauty like nothing else she’d ever seen. Whether on a perfect blue day or a cool, misty morning, the view transported her to another place, another age. And the city might not be Tokyo, but it came alive at night with music and color. During the day, the ancient places still echoed with the clang of swords and the chants of holy men.
She’d make it. Kara wouldn’t allow herself to conceive of another possibility.
Picking up her pace, she strode down the street. Now other students were streaming toward the school from all directions. A pair of girls ran past her in a grim race. Two boys stood leaning against a railing, talking excitedly about baseball. When one of them noticed her, he tapped his friend and their conversation stopped as they watched her walk by.
A trio of girls stood on the corner across the street from the arched entryway to the school grounds. They wore their skirts too short and had their hair done up in high pigtails. One of them wore voluminous, loose, white socks that bunched around her ankles, a style that had gone in and out of fashion for years. The other two were listening intently to the third, a tiny, petite girl whose features seemed far more mature, in spite of her size. She spoke earnestly to her friends, but when they saw Kara, the tiny girl whispered something Kara could not hear and all three of them giggled, hiding their smiles behind their hands.
Ignoring them all, she crossed the street and went under the archway.
Kara paused and glanced back at the other students she had passed. None of them seemed in much of a rush except for a boy with glasses, who careened down the street on his bicycle and under the arch.
Kara stepped aside as he rode past her. His expression was frantic, but he spared her a glance and a bright, brief flash of a friendly smile, which made her feel a million times better.
Monju-no-Chie School had been built perhaps two hundred yards from the bay, set on a slight rise. The main building faced northwest toward the neighborhood where Kara lived, so as she approached she had the perfect view. The grounds were elegantly groomed, the paths meandering as though never intending to reach their destination.
To her right, a long drive ran parallel to her path, toward the parking lot on the west side of the building. Jutting off to her left was a narrow, abbreviated road used as a scenic overlook; beyond that, a long stretch of uninterrupted bay shore that provided the school with an extraordinary view; and then thick woods that ran up the slope and bordered the school grounds to the east. Over there, between the school and the woods, was an ancient prayer shrine that had intrigued her the one time her father had let her go exploring the grounds after they had first arrived. She liked to think about the monks who might have brought offerings there and what spirit those offerings had been meant to appease.
With a few minutes to spare, she followed the gravel walkway that led around to the left, where the woods came closest to the school building. As she walked, she noticed a secondary path she had not seen before, trampled by years of student feet. It cut away from the gravel and down toward the edge of the bay. She followed it toward the water, shivering as she entered the shade provided by the trees. Up ahead, she saw what appeared to be another shrine, but it didn’t look anything like the one she’d seen before.
Intrigued, Kara kept walking, hoping she was not already breaking some school rule. The bay lapped against the shore here and the view made her smile. She felt as though she could see the whole of the Sea of Japan if she concentrated enough.
As she approached the shrine, she noticed a scattering of flowers at the base of one tree. Descending the slope, she realized that there were other things there as well, drawings and photographs, small stuffed animals, and a Hello Kitty T-shirt. There were notes as well, many of them written to someone called Akane, and there were candles. At the center of this more recent shrine Kara saw a photograph. She crouched down to look at it, resisted the urge to reach out and touch it.
The dead girl had been very pretty. Just like back home, a teenager had died, and her friends had come out to this spot to remember her. For several minutes, Kara studied the things that had been left behind, but then she began to worry that others might see her and think she was intruding. Propriety was so important, and she didn’t want to risk offending anyone because that would reflect badly on her father.
She turned back up the path, wondering how the girl had died. With a glance toward the flow of students making their way up to the school, and the way so many of them still gathered at the front steps and on the grass, she decided she still had a few minutes and went along the path that ran between the school and the woods to check out the ancient monks’ shrine.
Someone had burned candles there recently. It was a peaceful spot, and she took a couple of minutes to try to force herself to de-stress. Her father said everyone would love her. That might be too much to hope for, but she told herself the opposite was just as unlikely. They couldn’t all hate her.
Kara had never been so nervous.
She turned and stared up at the pagoda towers of the school, a fresh wave of anxiety crashing over her. She tapped the fingers of her right hand against her leg in time to a rhythm that played somewhere in the back of her mind. She chewed her lower lip, fidgeted with her ribbon tie.
“You’ll be fine.”
Kara glanced to her left and saw a figure standing in a shadowy, recessed doorway set into the side of the school building. At some point the door had been painted over, and whoever had done the job had painted the door handle and right over the lock. No one would be getting in that way, and it didn’t look like anyone used it as an exit, either.
The girl who stepped out from that shadowed, arched doorway had her sailor jacket on inside out, revealing patches and badges she had sewn into the lining, some of which Kara felt sure said some pretty rude things in Japanese. Her hair was chopped short, a bit spiky and wild, and where it framed her face it hung several inches lower than at the back of her neck. In her left hand she held a cigarette, dangling it between two fingers.
It took a moment before Kara realized the girl had spoken to her in English.
“Do you think so?” she asked, in Japanese.
The girl lifted her cigarette to her lips and drew in a lungful of smoke, then let it curl out lazily as she replied, still in English. “It does not matter what I think. They will leave you alone. More alone than you want to be.”
“How do you know?”
“That is what they do to anyone who is different.”
“I would be grateful if you would speak to me in Japanese,” Kara said, in that language. “My name is Kara.”
“Sakura,” the other girl said. With a great show of reluctance, she took a final puff of her cigarette and then crushed it out underfoot. Slipping off her jacket, she turned it right-side-out, then bent and picked up the cigarette butt, slipping it into her pocket.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sakura.”
