t was the first time Totto-chan had ever been to a temple fair. In the middle of Senzoku Pond, near her former school, was a small island with a shrine dedicated to Benten, the goddess of beauty and music. On the night of the annual fair, as she walked along the dimly lit road with Mother and Daddy, the night was suddenly ablaze with lights as they reached the fair. Totto-chan poked her head inside each of the little stalls. There were strange sounds everywhere--squeaks and sizzles and pops--and all sorts of enticing aromas. Everything was new and strange.

There were toy pipes, which you "smoked" by inhaling peppermint. They were decorated with pictures of cats and dogs and Betty Poop. There were lollipops and cotton candy. There were bamboo guns - tubes through which you pushed pieces of a certain kind of plant stem to make a loud pop.

A man by the side of the road was swallowing swords and eating glass; and there was a man selling a sort of powder you rubbed on the rim of a bowl to make it resound. There were magic golden rings that made money disappear, and pictures that developed when exposed to sunlight, and paper flowers that blossomed when dropped in a glass of water. As she walked along, her eyes darting this way and that, Totto-chan suddenly stopped.

"Oh, look!" she cried, seeing a box full of yellow baby chicks all cheeping away.

"I want one!" she said, pulling Mother and Daddy over. "Please buy me one! Please!"

The chicks all turned toward Totto-chan and raised their little heads to look at her, wiggling their tiny bottoms and cheeping even louder.

"Aren't they cute?" Totto-chan thought she had never seen anything quite so appealing in all her life, and she crouched down beside them.

"Please," she begged, looking up at Mother and Daddy. But to her amazement, her parents quickly tried to drag her away.

"But you said you'd buy me something, and this is the only thing I want!"

"No, dear," said Mother quietly. “These poor chicks are going to die very soon."

"Why?" asked Totto-chan, starting to cry.

Daddy drew her aside so the vendor couldn't hear, and explained, "They're cute now, Totsky, but they're terribly weak, and they won't live long. You'll only cry when it dies. That's why we don't want you to have one."

But Totto-chan had set her heart on having a baby chick, and wouldn't listen.

"I won't let it die! I'll look after it!"

Mother and Daddy kept trying to drag Totto-chan away from the box, bur she looked longingly at the chicks, and the chicks looked longingly at her, cheeping even louder still. Totto-chan had made up her mind that the only thing she wanted was a chick. She beseeched her parents, "Please, please buy me one.

Mother and Daddy were adamant.

"We don't want you to have one because it will only make you cry in the end."

Totto-chan burst out crying and started walking home with tears streaming down her cheeks. Once they were back on the dark road, she said, sobbing convulsively, "I've never wanted anything so much in my whole life. I’ll never ask you to buy me anything ever again. Please buy me one of those chicks!"

Finally Mother and Daddy gave in.

It was like sunshine after rain. Totto-chan was all smiles now as she walked home carrying a small box containing two baby chicks.

The next day, Mother had the carpenter make a special slatted box, fitted with an electric light bulb to keep the chicks warm. Totto-chan watched the chicks all day long. The little yellow chicks were very cute. But, alas, on the fourth day one of them stopped moving and on the fifth day the other did, too. She stroked them and called to them, but they didn't give a single "cheep." She waited and waited but they never opened their eyes again. It was just as Mother and Daddy had said. Crying to herself, she dug a hole in the garden and buried the two little birds. And she laid a tiny flower over the spot. The box they had been in now seemed awfully big and empty. Catching sight of a tiny yellow feather in the corner of the box, she thought of the way the little chicks had cheeped when they saw her at the fair, and she clenched her teeth as she cried soundlessly.

She had never wanted anything so much in her life and now it was gone so soon. It was her first experience of loss and separation.