wo days after they camped in the Assembly Hall, the day of Totto-chan's great adventure finally came to pass. It was the day of her appointment with Yasuaki-chan. And it was a secret that neither Mother nor Daddy nor Yasuaki-chan's parents knew. She had invited Yasuaki-chan to her tree.

The students at Tomoe each had a tree in the school grounds they considered their own climbing tree. Totto-chan's tree was at the edge of the grounds near the fence beside the lane leading to Kuhonbutsu. It was a large tree and slippery to climb, but if you climbed it skillfully you could get to a fork about six feet from the ground. The fork was as comfortable as a hammock. Totto-chan used to go there during recess and after school and sit and look off into the distance or up at the sky, or watch the people going by below.

The children considered "their" trees their own private property, so if you wanted to climb someone else's tree you had to ask their permission very politely, saying, "Excuse me, may I come in!"

Because Yasuaki-chan had had polio he had never climbed a tree, and couldn't claim one as his own. That's why Totto-chan decided to invite him to her tree. They kept it a secret because they thought people were sure to make a fuss if they knew.

When she left home, Totto-chan told her mother she was going to visit Yasuaki-chan at his home in Denenchofu. She was telling a lie, so she tried not to look at Mother but kept her eyes on her shoelaces. But Rocky followed her to the station, so when they parted company, she told him the truth.

"I'm going to let Yasuaki-chan climb my tree!" she said.

When Totto-chan reached the school, her train pass flapping around her neck, she found Yasuaki-chan waiting by the flower beds in the grounds that were deserted now that it was summer vacation. He was only a year older than Totto-chan, but he always sounded much older when he spoke.

When Yasuaki-chan saw Totto-chan, he hurried toward her, dragging his leg and holding his arms out in front to steady himself. Totto-chan was thrilled to think they were going to do something secret, and she giggled. Yasuaki-chan giggled, too.

Totto-chan led Yasuaki-chan to her tree, and then, just as she had thought it out the night before, she ran to the janitor's shed and got a ladder, which she dragged over to the tree and leaned against the trunk so that it reached the fork. She climbed up quickly and, holding the top of the ladder, called down, "All right, try climbing up!"

Yasuaki-chan's arms and legs were so weak it seemed he could not even get on the first rung without help. So Totto-chan hurried down the ladder backward and tried pushing Yasuaki-chan up from behind. But Totto-chan was so small and slender that it was all she could do to hold onto Yasuaki-chan, let alone keep the ladder steady. Yasuaki-chan took his foot off the bottom rung and stood beside the ladder, his head bowed. Totto-chan realized for the first time that it was going to be more difficult than she had thought. What should she do?

She wanted so badly to have Yasuaki-chan climb her tree, and he had been looking forward to it so much. She went around and faced him. He looked so disconsolate that she puffed out her cheeks and made a funny face to cheer him up.

"Wait! I've got an idea!"

She ran back to the janitor's shed and pulled out one thing after another to see if she could find something that would help. She finally discovered a stepladder. It would remain steady so she wouldn't have to hold it.

She dragged the stepladder over, amazed at her own strength, and was delighted to find that it almost reached the fork.

"Now, don't be afraid," she said in a big-sisterly voice. "This isn't going to wobble."

Yasuaki-chan looked nervously at the stepladder. Then he looked at Totto-chan, drenched in perspiration. Yasuaki-chan was sweating profusely, too. He looked up at the tree. Then, with determination, he placed a foot on the first rung.

Neither of them was conscious of the time it took Yasuaki-chan to reach the top of the stepladder. The hot summer sun beat down, but they had no thoughts for anything except getting Yasuaki-chan to the top of the stepladder. Totto-chan got underneath him and lifted his feet up while steadying his bottom with her head. Yasuaki-chan struggled with all his might, and finally reached the top.

“Hooray!”

But from there it was hopeless. Totto-chan jumped onto the fork, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't get Yasuaki-chan onto the tree from the stepladder. Clutching the stepladder Yasuaki-chan looked at Totto-chan. She suddenly felt like crying. She had wanted so badly to invite Yasuaki-chan on to her tree and show him all sorts of things.

But she didn't cry. She was afraid that if she did, Yasuaki-chan might start crying, too.

Instead she took hold of his hand, with its fingers all stuck together because of the polio. It was bigger than hers and his fingers were longer. She held his hand for a long time. Then she said, "Lie down and I’ll try and pull you over.”

If any grown-ups had seen her standing on the fork of the tree starting to pull Yasuaki-chan--who was lying on his stomach on the stepladder--onto the tree, they would have let out a scream. It must have looked terribly precarious.

But Yasuaki-chan trusted Totto-chan completely. And Totto-chan was risking her life for him. With her tiny hands clutching his, she pulled with all her might. From time to rime a large cloud would mercifully protect them from the blistering sun.

At long last, the two stood face to face on the tree. Brushing her damp hair back, Totto-chan bowed politely and said, "Welcome to my tree."

Yasuaki-chan leaned against the trunk smiling rather bashfully. He said, "May I come in?"

Yasuaki-chan was able to see vistas he had never glimpsed before. "So this is what it's like to climb a tree," he said happily.

They stayed on the tree for a long time and talked about all sorts of things.

"My sister in America says they've got something there called television," said Yasuaki-chan with enthusiasm. "She says that when it comes to Japan we'll be able to sit at home and watch sumo wrestling. She says it's like a box."

Totto-chan didn't understand yet how much it would mean to Yasuaki-chan, who couldn't go very far afield, to be able to watch all sorts of things at home.

She simply wondered how sumo wrestlers could get inside a box in your own house. Sumo wrestlers were so big! But it was fascinating all the same. In those days nobody knew about television. Yasuaki-chan was the first to tell Totto-chan about it.

The cicadas were singing and the two children were so happy. And for Yasuaki-chan it was the first and last time he ever climbed a tree.