her face against the glass and peered into her room, looking first to her night-light, that lent a comforting glow to the room, and then slowly trailing her eyes to the bed.
A JOURNEY BEYOND YESTERDAY
When she saw that there was nobody in her bed, Ka-zuko let out a big sigh of relief. But on the other hand, the bed did look quite untidy — as if someone had been sleeping in it just moments earlier. As her relief subsided, she realized that she had yet another problem to deal with. Her window was locked from the inside, as was the front door and the door to the kitchen, so there was no way for her to get back inside the house. She’d always felt safe, knowing her mother was so cautious. But now that she was standing on the other side, the feeling was quite different.
By now, Kazuko’s legs were shaking, and her teeth were chattering. Inside the house, her room looked so cosy and warm, with a plume of steam coming from a little kettle placed on top of the heater and the windows fogging with condensation inside.
At that very moment, Kazuko felt her body lift in the air. It was the same strange feeling she’d felt earlier at the construction site, only this time she’d made it happen herself. With her own will. Her own power of thought.
As the strange floating sensation grew stronger, Kazuko did her best to keep her mind focused on the inside of her room. Then suddenly, just like before, everything went dark and her ears began to ring.
The very next moment, Kazuko saw a bright light that somehow made her feel dizzy. Then, as the intensity of the light faded, she found herself standing inside her room in the bright afternoon sunlight.
“It’s the afternoon!” Kazuko yelped in surprise. “And I can time-leap! All by myself! Without anyone’s help!”
Having yelled all that out of sheer happiness, Kazuko came to her senses and covered her mouth.
Kazuko stopped panicking and listened carefully. There was not a sound in the house, so maybe Kazuko’s mother and younger sisters were all out. Or had she leapt to yet a different day again? Quickly, she reached once more inside her bag for her notebook. But when she opened it, she saw there were no new notes since Friday the fourteenth, and all the pages after that were blank.
“Oh my gosh,” said Kazuko to herself. “How can I figure this out?”
She glanced around the room, but there was no clock and no calendar to give her a clue, so instead she sneaked out into the hallway. Please be empty! she prayed to herself as she approached the living room.
As slowly and carefully as she could, Kazuko slid open the wooden door with its panels made of paper. Luckily there was nobody there. But there was a clock showing the time as 10:30.
BACK TO THE LAB
Kazuko arrived at school during the ten-minute break between the third and fourth periods. She felt slightly relieved: if she was careful, she wouldn’t have to explain her absence to the teacher. She might just be able to walk back in with the other students and act as if nothing had happened. But the moment she walked back in with her classmates, her plan fell to pieces.
All of a sudden, her classmates ran to gather around her with surprised faces.
“Kazuko!” said Mariko. “Where have you been?”
“What do you mean, where?” Kazuko asked.
Mariko’s voice turned into a high-pitched screech.
“This is no time for kidding around! You just disappeared, right in the middle of the third period!”
“Disappeared?”
“That’s right,” added Goro, who was standing at her side. “You sneaking out like that got everyone worried. I mean, no one even saw you leave the room. Even the teacher up front didn’t see you stand up, and no one heard the door open.”
“That’s right,” Mariko screeched again. “Even I didn’t notice you leave, and I was sitting next to you!”
Kazuo, with his usual dazed look, also joined the conversation.
“It’s almost as if Kazuko used magic! You disappeared, just like smoke!”
Kazuko struggled to piece together what it could all mean. She’d wondered earlier on if there might be a problem of there being two Kazukos if she jumped back in time. So perhaps what they were talking about explained how the problem gets resolved. Could it be that every leap back in time triggers the disappearance of herself from that particular present time? That would explain why the Kazuko everyone was worrying about had disappeared at probably the same moment the future Kazuko had appeared back in her bedroom. But how on earth was she going to explain that to her friends? It wasn’t until days later that she explained everything to them, so there was no way she could expect them to believe her at this moment.
“So, where were you?” Mariko shrieked hysterically yet again, frustrated that something so strange could happen right next to her without her even noticing.
“I didn’t feel well, so I went to the bathroom,” offered Kazuko.
“To the bathroom? With your bag?” Mariko wasn’t having any of it, and her eyes remained fixed on Ka- zuko’s bag, which she was clutching tightly to her chest.
Fortunately at that moment the teacher, Mr Komat-su, entered the room and all the students immediately stopped talking and dashed back to their seats. Kazuko also took her seat and got out her textbook and notebook from her bag — ready to take notes from a class that she’d already sat through once in the past.
By the time the class was over, Kazuko was very relieved to find that her classmates had pretty much lost interest in questioning her about her disappearance. Then, just like before, Kazuko was asked by Mr Fukushima to clean the science lab with Goro and Kazuo.
By the time they finished cleaning, the school had emptied out, and all was silent apart from the occasional sound of a door slamming shut here and there and the distant sound of someone playing Chopin’s ‘Polonaise’ on the piano in the auditorium.
“That’s good enough,” said Kazuko. “I’ll take out the trash. You boys can go wash your hands.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Kazuo and Goro left for the lavatories together, and as soon as they were gone, Kazuko went into the small
