Goro walked off towards the small science lab, swinging his bag and Kazuko’s as he went.
“Nope. She’s not here.” He called out, before suddenly letting out a high-pitched scream.
“What’s up?” called Kazuo, running in after to find Goro standing by the side of Kazuko, who was lying still on the floor.
“What’s happened?” asked Goro, trembling. “She’s not… dead… is she?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” said Kazuo, taking her wrist in his hand and checking her pulse. “She seems fine. Can you grab her legs?”
“What for?”
“So we can carry her to see the nurse, of course! I think she’s fainted.”
When the three of them reached the nurse’s room, there was no one there. So Kazuo and Goro lay Kazuko down on the bed.
“I’ll go look for a teacher,” said Kazuo. “You open that window and find a way to cool her forehead.”
Goro was clearly frightened, and he nodded without a word. Then, after Kazuo had left, he composed himself for a moment, opened the window and dabbed his handkerchief in water before placing it on Kazuko’s head.
“It’s probably exhaustion,” Goro mumbled to himself sheepishly. “It’s ridiculous for them to ask the three of us to clean a room that big!”
“Come on Kazuko! Wake up!” said Goro with tearful eyes as he dabbed the handkerchief in water again and placed it back on her forehead.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Kazuo returned with Mr Fukushima, who’d been the last person left in the staff room.
“Yes, I think she’s just fainted,” he said after giving her a quick examination.
Together, they waited in silence for several minutes. Then finally it looked as if Kazuko was starting to wake up.
“Oh my. What happened?” she said.
“You fainted in the laboratory,” replied Kazuo.
Immediately Kazuko’s memory came flooding back, and after taking just a moment to regain her composure, she began to tell the others all about her encounter with the shadowy figure.
“Wow, that’s really something,” said Kazuo. “But when we found you on the floor, there weren’t any test tubes or bottles of chemicals around. And there wasn’t anything on the floor either.”
“And we didn’t smell anything,” added Goro.
“Really?” said Kazuko sitting up on the bed, clearly surprised. “That’s so strange. I’m sure I… I want to check the room again. Come with me.”
Mr Fukushima raised his hand.
“Hey now, not so fast. You should take it easy after fainting like that. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, if you’re sure, then I will come with you.”
Together, they returned to the science lab. But when they got there, sure enough, there was nothing to be seen. Nothing on the table. And not even a shard of glass where the broken test tube had been earlier.
“But that’s so odd,” said Kazuko in bewilderment.
“That smell you mentioned,” asked Mr Fukushima, “could you tell what it was?”
“Well, it was a sweet smell. But how can I describe it…”
Then the answer suddenly dawned on her. “That’s it! It was lavender!”
“Lavender?”
“Yes! I remember when I was in elementary school, and my mother used to let me smell her lavender perfume. It was the same smell!”
But Kazuko knew there was something else about the smell. Something she couldn’t quite remember. But something that was somehow very important.
RUMBLING AND SHAKING
Kazuko didn’t feel her normal self for several days after the incident in the science lab. She wouldn’t go so far as to say that she was feeling ill or anything. It was just that her body seemed to have an odd lightness to it, like a sort of floating sensation that left her feeling ungrounded. Like she might suddenly do something crazy. But this strange feeling was more mental than physical, and Kazuko couldn’t help but wonder if it might have been caused by the lavender-scented chemical in the laboratory. In fact, she was almost sure of it.
On the third night after the incident, Kazuko finished her homework and climbed into bed at eleven. She’d been playing basketball in the afternoon, and her body was exhausted, but her mind was still sharp and wide awake, so she was having trouble getting to sleep. And as she lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking of the incident in the lab, there came a great rumbling noise, and Kazuko’s bed began jolting up and down.
“Earthquake!” said Kazuko to herself. Within moments the room began shaking sideways and letting out disturbing creaking sounds. This was no minor tremor. This was a big one.
Kazuko had always hated earthquakes. So she jumped out of bed, ran out of her room without changing out of her nightgown and scurried along the hallway, with its windows that were now creaking, too. But the very moment when she opened the front door, the creaking and rumbling came to an abrupt end. Hearing steps behind her, she turned around to see her mother and younger sisters standing in the doorways of their rooms, looking pale and surprised.
“We’d better go in the garden,” said Kazuko, “in case there’s an aftershock.”
And within moments they were all standing shivering in the breeze in the garden. Sure enough, several aftershocks came along within minutes, but they weren’t too big. So once they’d decided it was safe again, they all returned to the house and went back to bed. But again, Kazuko found it difficult to sleep. After all, her heart was now racing from all that drama. But after lying there for several minutes more, she felt her eyelids starting to become heavy.
Suddenly, just as she was finally drifting off, there came a loud and piercing scream from the road in front of their house.
“Fire!” came a single voice. Then came the voices of many: “Fire! Fire!”
What were the chances of so many incidents in one night! Kazuko was getting sick of it by now, and felt like crying in frustration. She jumped out of bed again and went over to the window, pushing open the lace curtains that hung there.
Outside, about two blocks away, she could see the chimney of a bathhouse enveloped in smoke. Oh my goodness! she thought to herself.
As two fire engines passed Kazuko’s house, their sirens blaring through the night, she hastily pulled a light overcoat on over her nightgown and left her room to investigate.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked her mother from behind the door to her room.
“There’s a fire near Goro’s house!” she replied. “I’m going to see what’s going on.”
“Don’t be daft! It’s too dangerous!”
But Kazuko pretended not to hear her mother’s warning. Instead she quickly pulled on her wooden sandals and ran out into the night to where a bunch of onlookers had already gathered. It seemed as if the fire had started near the back door of the bathhouse, so it hadn’t spread to the Asakura General Store yet.
“Please, everyone, stay back!” shouted the police at the growing mass of sleepy spectators. “You’re getting in the way of the firefighters!”
“I felt an earthquake earlier,” said a man standing next to Kazuko to one of his friends. “It must have
