hat's scary, smells bad, and tastes good?"

They liked this riddle so much that even though they knew the answer, Totto-chan and her friends never tired of saying to one another, "Ask me the riddle about what's scary and smells bad!"

The answer was, "A demon in the toilet eating a bean-jam bun!"

The way the Tomoe Bravery Test ended would have made a good riddle too. "What's scary, itches, and makes you laugh?"

The night they set up tents in the Assembly Hall and went camping, the headmaster announced, "We're going to hold a Bravery Test one night at Kuhonbutsu Temple. Hands up if you want to be a ghost."

About seven boys vied for the privilege. When the children assembled at the school on the appointed evening, the boys who were going to be ghosts brought costumes they had made themselves and went off to hide in the temple grounds.

"We'll scare you to death!" they said as they left.

The remaining thirty or so children divided themselves into small groups of about five and set off for Kuhonbutsu at staggered intervals. They were supposed to walk right around the temple grounds and the graveyard and then come back to the school.

The headmaster explained that although this was a test to see how brave they were, it would be perfectly all right if anybody wanted to come back without finishing the course.

Totto-chan had brought a flashlight she had borrowed from Mother.

"Don't lose it," Mother had said.

Some of the boys said they were going to catch the ghosts and brought butterfly nets, while others brought string saying they were going to tie them up.

It was dark by the time the headmaster had explained what they were to do, and groups had been formed by playing "stone, paper, scissors." Squealing with excitement, the first group set off out of the school gate. Finally it was time for Totto-chan's group to go.

The headmaster said no ghosts would appear before they got to Kuhonbutsu Temple, but the children weren't too sure about that and proceeded nervously until they reached the entrance to the temple, from where they could see the guardian Deva Kings. The temple grounds seemed pitch dark in spite of the moon being out. It was pleasant and spacious there by day, but now, not knowing when they would encounter one of the ghosts, the children were so terrified they could hardly bear it. "Eee!" someone would scream as a tree rustled in the breeze, or "Here's a ghost!" as someone's leg touched something soft. In the end it seemed as if even the friend whose hand one was holding might be a ghost. Totto-chan made up her mind not to go all the way to the graveyard. That's where the ghosts were bound to be waiting, and anyway she felt she now knew all about bravery tests and could go back. The others in her group made the same decision at the same time--it was reassuring not to be the only one--and they all ran back as fast as their legs could carry them.

When they got to the school they found the groups that had left before them already there. It seemed that almost everybody had been too scared to go as far as the graveyard.

Just then, a boy with a white cloth over his head came through the gate crying, accompanied by a teacher. He was one of the ghosts and had been crouching in the graveyard the whole time, but nobody had come and he got more and more scared and finally went outside and was found crying in the road by the patrolling teacher who brought him back. While they were all trying to cheer the boy up, a second ghost came back crying with another boy who was also crying. The one who was the ghost had also been hiding in the graveyard and when he heard someone running toward it, he leaped out to try and scare him and they collided head-on. Hurt, and frightened to death, the two of them came running back together. It was so funny, and with the great relief that came after being so scared, the children laughed their heads off. The ghosts laughed and cried at the same time. Soon one of Totto-chan's classmates, whose surname was Migita, arrived back. He was wearing a ghost's hood made of newspaper and he was furious because nobody had come into the graveyard.

"I've been waiting there all this time," he complained, scratching the mosquito bites on his arms and less.

"A ghost's been bitten by mosquitoes," someone said, and everyone began laughing again.

"Well; I'd better go and bring back the rest of the ghosts," said Mr. Maruyama, the fifth grade home-room teacher, setting off. He rounded up ghosts he found standing bewildered under street lights, and ghosts who had been so frightened they had gone home. He brought them all back to the school.

After that night Tomoe students weren't frightened of ghosts any more. For, after all, even ghosts themselves get frightened, don't they?