ijima’s face was delicately chiseled for a boy and beautiful. His eyes were as sharp as a finely honed blade; the bridge of his nose thin. His attractiveness left one feeling both lack and excess. And, to be sure, with Kijima some things were missing, while others were overly abundant. Perhaps it was a combination of pride and self-consciousness. At any rate, this unbalance made Kijima look at once both pathetic and insolent.

“What! Can’t answer?”

Kijima bit his lip in anger. Earlier, when I’d been surrounded by the other students in the class, I’d nodded to each question with a vague smile or answered with a word or two, passive and meek. It was only to Kijima that I stubbornly refused a response. I suppose this irritated him.

“I don’t reply to strangers who address me so impertinently.”

When Kijima realized I was rebuffing him, a contemptuous smile crossed his lips.

“So how would you like to be addressed, Your Royal Highness? Why should I respect someone as obtuse as you? My father brought home some files the other day and I saw your test scores. You’ve got to be the dumbest person ever admitted to the Q School system. The only reason they admitted someone as stupid as you is because of your looks. Did you know that?”

“Who let me in?”

“The school did.”

“No. The school did not let me in. Your father did. Professor Kijima.”

My words hit home. Kijima’s slender frame trembled and he stepped back.

“Your father has his eye on me, you know. Ask him when you go home, why don’t you? How tough it must be for you to have your own father as your head instructor.”

Kijima stuffed his hands in his pockets and glowered at the floor. He shifted from foot to foot nervously. Having an elder sister who looks nothing like me may damage my image, but for Kijima it was worse. His own father would be discredited as the head instructor and would become the source of gossip. Kijima would lose his standing in the classroom. Both he and I faced the same dilemma. Kijima thought it over momentarily and then looked up. Having at last come up with an appropriate riposte, his face was flushed with victory.

“We’ve got specimens of butterflies and other insects all over the house, on account of my father being a biologist. It’s not surprising he’d want to add you to his collection. You’re a strange species.”

“I suppose your father refuses to add you to his collection. You’re hardly worthy of attention.”

I’d hit Kijima’s sore spot. His beautiful face turned crimson and then blanched white with anger.

“That’s what everyone thinks. They think I’m a lousy student.”

“I’m sure they do. That’s the way rumors work.”

“So are you a gossip?”

“And you aren’t? You’re the one who ran off to look at my sister and came back with the others to make fun of me.”

Kijima looked like his words had gotten stuck in his throat. I wasn’t by nature the kind of person who struck first—not like my sister. But for some reason I had felt compelled to go after Kijima. Why? It was simple. He hated me, just as much as my sister did. And so I hated him too. This was a first for me. With Kijima there was no des

ire. And on that score alone, Kijima was the only man I’d ever met who was different. Perhaps he was a homosexual. The suspicion would occur to me much later.

“So why’d you throw the letter back to me without reading it? Did you think I’d written you a love letter? Do you think all men are in love with you?”

“Hardly.” I shrugged my shoulders the way I’d seen Johnson do. “Besides, I knew you’d written about my test scores.”

“How’d you figure that out?”

I tilted my head to the side. “Because I hate you,” I hissed.

It was going to be fun to attend this school and watch what would transpire. I left Kijima where he was—standing glued to the spot—and headed down the hall at a brisk clip. As I proceeded swiftly along the corridor, curious faces rose up and then receded into the background. Each classroom door I passed was clustered with the faces of gawking students.

“I hate you too.”

Kijima was racing after me. I could hear him panting like some demon. I refused to respond, annoyed.

“I just have one more question for you. What is it you want? Here, I mean. Are you here because you want to study? Is it so you can play around in the clubs? Both?”

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to look at Kijima straight on.

“Well, let’s see…. I guess it’s sex.”

Kijima stared at me in disbelief.

“So, you like it?”

“I love it.”

Kijima ran his eyes appraisingly over my face and body. He looked like he’d just come upon a rare species of animal.

“If that’s the case, you’ll need a partner. I can help you.”

What? The gaze I turned back to Kijima said as much. I caught a glimpse of a T-shirt just beneath the collar of his white shirt. His gray uniform trousers were neatly pressed. Nothing was amiss, and yet he gave the impression of being somehow disheveled.

“I’ll be your manager. No, your agent.”

That’s not a bad idea, I thought. Kijima’s beautiful eyes flashed with light.

“You’ve already been approached by the cheerleading squad. You’ll get invitations from other clubs as well. You’re so noticeable, you’ll want to be a star. I bet you don’t know which club would be best for you. But I can ask around. I can find out what kind of acquaintances you can make in each club.” Kijima looked back at the group of students who had gathered in a corner of the corridor to watch us converse. “Just look at them. There’s one each from the ice-skating club, the dance club, the yachting club, the golf club. They all want to have an exotic creature like you to join so they can show you off—and not just to the boys in the high school and college clubs but also to those in other schools. They want everyone to know that Q School is famous for its beauty. They’ve already got the brains and the money. All they lack is the beauty.”

I interrupted Kijima’s little speech. “So which club should I join?”

“Well, if it’s sex you want, you need a club that’s good for sex. And since cheerleading is the flashiest, I would think it’d be the best. And look—Nakanishi already came personally to recruit you, so you can’t afford to snub her.”

I put up no resistance; becoming a toy was my destiny anyway. Nevertheless, I was curious as to why Kijima would be so interested in helping me. “Earlier you said you’d help me. What’s in it for you?”

“If I were your manager, I’d earn respect.” He grinned wickedly. “In less than half a year I’ll be moving to the men’s section of the school. The competition gets even worse there. We’ll have to contend with students coming in from the outside. And it won’t be just grades that matter. Every little thing will be a contest. But I’ll be sure to come out on top. Know why? Because I’ll have you. You’ll be my weapon. All the boys in the high school will want to be with you. The students here—male and female—all think the world is theirs for the taking, just because they have money. I’ll coordinate the transactions. How does that sound?”

Actually, it didn’t sound bad at all. I nodded.

“Okay. And what’s your take?”

“I get forty percent. Too high?”

“I don’t care. There’s just one condition. You mustn’t ever call me at home.”

Kijima looked down at my brand-new uniform shoes.

“You live with an American, don’t you? I take it he’s not a relative.”

I shook my head no. Kijima dug a date book out of his pocket.

“A lover?”

“Sort of.”

“You don’t look a bit like your sister and you don’t live with her. You are a complicated one.”

Kijima wrote something in his date book and then tore the page out and handed it to me. “Let’s always use this as our contact base. It’s a café in Shibuya. Be sure to stop by after school.”

And so, just like that, Kijima became my first pimp. Even after he moved on to the boys’ high school and I to the girls’ he continued to introduce me to other high school and university students. He had discriminating tastes. Once he arranged for me to join the rugby team at their overnight training camp—acting on special request for the club president and vice president. Another time he set me up with the teacher who supervised the yachting club. And I didn’t just sleep with students in the Q School system: I was also available to students, alumni, and even teachers at other schools. Whoever it was, wherever, every man I came across wanted to sleep with the beautiful young star cheerleader. For his part, Kijima set it all up beautifully, so there were no complications afterward. I continued working with Kijima until I went out on my own.

The day Kijima and I clinched our deal we bought Cokes at the school store and sat on a bench by the pool, where we toasted our alliance. The newly established synchronized swimming team was practicing in the pool, under the direction of a coach who’d been brought in from outside the Q School system. Kijima took one look at the transparent nose clips the team members wore and burst out laughing.

“The coach is an Olympian. She charges fifty thousand yen for one lesson, and she teaches three times a week. Unbelievable. But that’s not all. The coach of the golf club is a first-class pro who played in the British Open. I guess they figure if they can hook up with the Q School system now, they can get their kids in later.”

“What about your father? Has he similarly benefited?”

“Yes.” Kijima avoided my gaze. “He made an agreement off the books to tutor a girl in the high school. Her family sent their driver to pick him up for each lesson. He was paid fifty thousand yen for just two hours. We used the money to take a vacation to Hawaii. All the students know about it.”

I remembered Kijima had said the students here believed they could have anything for a price. Surely I’d be able to make a killing here as a young prostitute. I looked up at the September skies of Tokyo, where the summer heat still lingered. They were a smoggy gray and seemed to be wrapped in the warmth emitted by the metropolis.

Kijima finished his Coke and looked over the high school playing fields. Girls in navy-blue shorts streamed across the grounds. Kijima tapped my shoulder. “I’ll show you something funny. Come with me.”

“What is it?”

“Your older sister’s gym class.”

“I’m not going to go. I don’t want to talk to my sister.”

“Come on. Just take a look. It’ll be fun. There are a lot of famous people in your sister’s class.”

A bizarre form of rhythmic exercise class had just gotten under way. A judge of some kind was standing in the middle of the field and students were moving around her in a circle, as if it were a kind of summer festival dance. The teacher raised a tambourine and started to shake it fiercely. As soon as she started, the girls dancing in the circle around her began undulating in weird movements.

“Legs on the third beat, hands on the fourth!”

They stepped to the beat of the tambourine and moved their arms in unison. I wouldn’t call what they were doing exercises, but it wasn?

??t dance either. They looked ridiculous. I suppose you could say it looked like a folk dance with extra steps added.

“That’s rhythmic exercise. It’s been the pride and joy of Q High School for Young Women for generations, so you’d better get used to it. You’ll be doing it before long too. Anyone who’s ambitious learns to do it.”

“Ambitious? For what?”

“Ambitious for good grades. You need good grades to get into the university—and students enter this high school so they can go on to Q University. But you have to be able to do more than just study. Unless you’re the best in this rhythmic exercise routine, your overall grade point average will suffer.”

Kijima’s reply was laced with sighs, as if even having to explain as much to me was an excessive burden. He jiggled his legs nervously.

“So they’re ambitious for something as stupid as that?”

“Well, most people in this world don’t have the luxury of being as beautiful as you. They have to rely on something else.”

It was all a battle of endurance. If you could last, you could get what you wanted. But I couldn’t tolerate such long ordeals. If it were me I’d quit in no time. I didn’t believe in endurance.

I wondered if my sister had an ambitious streak. I stared hard at the circle of dancers. My sister went around any number of times, but she couldn’t keep up with the steps, and before long she quit. The students who couldn’t keep up had to leave the circle and watch from the sidelines. My sister folded her arms across her chest with apparent disinterest. She watched the students who were concentrating all they had on getting the steps right. She’d messed up on purpose. I saw through my sister’s strategy.

“Now feet on the seventh beat and hands on the twelfth.”

The movements grew even more complicated. One after another the students misstepped and had to leave the ring. They sat alongside my sister, watching the ones who remained. Before long there were more watching than dancing.

“Check it out, those two are in a dead heat!” Kijima mumbled to himself, barely able to hide his disgust.

Two girls were left. They danced around the teacher, reacting to her increasingly complicated instructions like acrobats. All the students’ eyes were on them. In the distance, even the students in the junior high section had turned to watch. Kijima and I crept closer to the dancers’ circle, careful not to attract my sister’s notice.

“Feet on the eighth beat; hands on the seventeenth.”

One of the students was of slight build with a nicely symmetrical figure. She looked very agile. She danced with amazing precision, as if not even thinking of what she was doing. It seemed she had even greater agility in reserve.

“That’s Mitsuru. She’s best in the school. She always wins. Everyone knows she’s aiming for medical school.”

“And the other girl?”

I pointed to a skinny girl who was moving jerkily like a puppet on a string. Her hair was thick and heavy, and the expression on her face and the way she moved her body made it look like she had reached the limits of her ability. She seemed to be in pain.

“That’s Kazue Sat. She’s an outsider student. She wanted to join the cheerleading squad but was shot down. She made a real stink about it too.”

The skinny girl looked over at us as if she had heard what Kijima said. When she saw me she froze. Applause welled up from the onlookers. Mitsuru had won.