But the girl was no longer looking at her. Instead, Sakura gazed down toward the bay, or perhaps at the newer shrine- the one for the dead girl-which Kara could sort of make out from this distance, now that she knew where it was.
“Your Japanese is excellent, Kara,” Sakura said, without looking at her. But she had heard, because she no longer spoke English.
Kara gave a slight bow of her head. She knew better than to thank the other girl for the compliment. In Japanese culture, to do so would be incredibly rude and arrogant, implying that she believed she deserved the compliment. Her bow would be the only acceptable show of gratitude.
Sakura offered a thin smile in return. “We should go inside.”
They fell into step together. Sakura seemed very distant, as though she had forgotten Kara was even with her. The girl wore the rebellious attitude like a mask, but Kara had felt for a moment that beneath the sharp edges and hard looks there might be something else, that maybe she might have found a friend here. Now that hope began to diminish.
Sakura surprised her by speaking. “They haven’t caught the killers.”
Kara shivered and blamed it on the cold breeze off the bay. So Sakura had been watching her while she was down by the bay, looking at the death shrine.
They rounded the corner to the front of the school to see many other students going up the front steps.
“That girl, Akane? She was murdered?” Kara asked.
Sakura stopped and looked back the way they had come. “Beaten, and then drowned. It happened in September. The police questioned every student and every teacher. No one knew anything. No one saw anything. But there were so many footprints in the mud that there had to be five or six of them, at least, so there are many liars here. And many killers.”
Kara covered her mouth with one hand, horrified, wondering if her father had known about the girl’s murder, and if so, why he hadn’t said anything.
“Did you… did you know her?”
The breeze from the bay brushed away the slashed curtain of Sakura’s hair, and for the first time Kara saw that as tough as she pretended to be, the girl was very pretty, her features almost delicate. Her eyes were the color of brass.
“She was my sister,” Sakura said.
Then she walked on toward school and up the stairs, joining the orderly stream of students entering the building, leaving Kara staring after her and wishing she had worn her heavy coat after all.
The first of April felt awfully cold.
2
M onju-no-Chie School managed to be both traditional and progressive at the same time. Though tourists were not uncommon in the Miyazu City area, according to Kara’s father, the school had only ever had a handful of gaijin students. Most westerners who attended school in Japan went to one of the international private schools that hosted students from all over the world, or immersed themselves in public schools in large cities.
The school still insisted on fuku sailor uniforms for girls and gakuran uniforms, a military-influenced style, for boys. Perhaps the nearness to the ports of Miyazu City helped explain the embrace of the naval dress. Not that Kara minded. The fuku might be itchy, but she thought the uniforms were really cute.
More than half of the students came from the Miyazu Bay area, and rode bicycles or took the train and then walked from the station. But Monju-no-Chie School had earned an excellent reputation, and privileged families from all over Kyoto Prefecture sent their children to live there. Boarding students resided in a second building located across a grassy sports field behind the main school.
Her father had given her the choice as to whether she would live with him in the small house the school had provided or in the dormitory with the boarding students. Maybe next year, if this grand experiment of theirs worked, she’d live in the dorm. But for now, she wanted to begin and end each day with her dad. Besides, she’d have a lot more in common with the students who came by train and bicycle than with the privileged kids who lived at the dorm.
Who are you kidding? You don’t have anything in common with any of them.
Kara hurried up the front steps, merging with the flow of students. Sakura had already vanished inside the school, and though many of the boys and girls snuck glances at her, none of them seemed ready for conversation. Once again, she was on her own.
Just inside the door, a group of girls clustered around, sneaking shy smiles behind upraised hands, whispering to one another. Kara would have thought their gossip was about her, were it not for the immediate reaction they had to her passing. Most of the Japanese students were far too respectful to outright stare at her, but not these girls. They appraised her frankly, and the tallest girl-her shoulder-length hair veiling one side of her face-cast a dubious glance at her. She turned to her fawning friends and rattled off a snide comment.
“Look at the bonsai,” the girl said. “Cut away and moved far from home. No roots at all. How long before she withers?”
The girls began to laugh, and Kara overheard the tall one’s name-Ume.
She tried to breathe evenly, told herself to keep walking. How many times had her father reminded her how important this first day would be? She had studied local customs, understood that propriety ruled here. But this Ume girl had insulted her, and letting it pass would only make things worse in the future.
Kara turned on her heel and strode directly up to the girl, who must have been a senpai -a senior. Ume had either assumed Kara couldn’t speak the language very well or didn’t care that she’d been overheard. She looked down quizzically.
“Though she is cut away from where she grew, this bonsai is healthy and strong. She will survive, as long as she can keep her roots from being choked by weeds.”
As soon as she had begun speaking, the girls had fallen silent and looked at her in surprise. Kara’s Japanese was not flawless, but her father had been teaching her the language almost since she began to speak.
“ Oo jyozudesune,” Ume replied.
Skillful, a comment on her command of the language. She’d heard it a lot and understood that, though it might be a compliment, an element of condescension went along with it.
Kara bowed her head slightly. At home she’d have called the girl a bitch. But this wasn’t home.
“Grow tall, bonsai,” Ume said.
Despite her earlier rudeness, she had abruptly become the most respectful, pleasant, and welcoming face that Kara had yet encountered.
“Have you chosen a school club yet?”
“Not yet,” Kara said.
“If you like soccer, you would be welcome in our club.”
The other girls looked surprised, even irked. As the other students continued to stream in through the main doors and gather in the corridor, Kara smiled thinly.
“I don’t have the talent for the game. But I will cheer when you play.”
Kara took a deep breath, reminding herself that not everyone would be like Ume. Japanese, her father had taught her, often consisted of saying things that were the precise opposite of what you actually meant.
She followed the flow of students into the genkan -a large, square, functional room lined with lockers. With so many voices speaking Japanese at one time, she found it impossible to interpret what anyone said. But that was all right. Since none of them were talking to her, she’d only have been eavesdropping.
All of the students were taking off their street shoes and stashing them in the lockers. From their backpacks, they all retrieved uwabaki -which meant “inside shoes,” though they were really more like slippers.
A smile touched Kara’s lips. Ever since her father had first told her about this custom, she’d thought it so strange, but sort of fun, too. The idea of all of the students wearing slippers made her think cozy thoughts of home-though there was nothing cozy about the genkan. The boys wore blue slippers and the girls pink. If there’d been even a single other American at the school, she could’ve made a joke about wearing pajamas to school, or
