’m penciling in my eyebrows when the smog alert siren starts blaring. It’s happened every day since summer vacation started, so it’s no surprise. “May I have your attention,” this woman’s voice drawls over a loudspeaker. “An air pollution advisory has just been issued,” and the siren continues to drone on, like some kindly old dinosaur groaning away.

Most of these advisories happen in the morning, usually just as I’m about to leave for cram school. Nobody does anything because of them. Everyone kind of goes, Oh, that again. What I’d like to know is where they hide those speakers. To me, that’s creepier and weirder than anything about smog.

I live in a crowded residential area on the outskirts of Suginami-ku in Tokyo. It used to be a nice, laid-back neighborhood, but all the old, larger houses got torn down, replaced by smaller single-family homes and apartments. When I was little, several neat but tiny buildings went up where there used to be plum orchards and farm fields. They slapped fancy names on these—Estates or whatever—to help sell units. Nice-looking families moved in, and on weekends you’d see them out walking their dogs or driving around in expensive foreign cars. But the paved roads that run through the neighborhood, which must have been just dirt farm paths at one time, are so narrow that I heard the family two houses down from us had so much trouble parking their Mercedes-Benz in their garage that they ended up getting rid of it.

The siren keeps on droning. Right in between one of its groans, I hear a loud sound, something breaking next door. Our houses are so close that if you open the window, you can hear the parents yelling at each other, or the phone ringing. I’m thinking maybe a window broke. Seven years ago the boy who lives in the house diagonally across from us kicked a soccer ball that shattered a window in our house in the room where we keep our Buddhist altar. The kid completely ignored what happened, and later on he was transferred to a school in Kansai. I remember the abandoned soccer ball sitting there under the eaves of my house forever.

Anyway, the sound I’d heard was just like that time. There aren’t any little kids living next door, so it’s weird to hear something shatter so loudly, and the whole thing was kind of alarming. Maybe a burglar broke in. My heart beating like mad, I listened carefully but didn’t hear anything else. Total silence.

The neighbors moved in two years ago. We’ve had hardly anything to do with them. Sometimes, when I take the neighborhood association bulletin to them, I’ll press the intercom bell and the mother will come out, this phony smile pasted on her face. All I know for sure is that there’s a mom and a dad, and a boy the same age as me who lives there. Sometimes the mother is out front, sweeping with a bamboo broom. She has on silver-framed glasses and this bright red lipstick you know is going to leave marks on any teacup she uses. Get rid of the glasses and the lipstick, though, and I don’t think I’d recognize her.

Once when the woman next door saw me in my school uniform she asked, “Are you a high school student?” When I said yes, she said, “So is our son,” and named the prestigious high school he attended, smiling happily. When I told my mom this, she clicked her tongue and looked disgusted. The woman was obviously bragging about her son and Mom must have thought she was insulting us, since I was going to a less-than-stellar private girls’ school. But I just thought the woman next door was simple and naive, and I felt sorry for the boy for having such an embarrassing mother.

This son of hers was a lanky, stoop-shouldered boy with small, gloomy eyes. Reminded me of a worm. He had a sluggish way of walking with his head tilted to one side, and zero in the way of spirit. Even when our paths happened to cross at the station he’d avoid looking at me and edge off into the shadows of the building. Like if he stepped into the shadows he could hide from the world. In that sense he was just like his father, who looked like a typical office worker. The father ignored me as if I didn’t even exist. Once I went out to get the evening paper when he was just coming home. I nodded to him but he gazed off into the distance like I was invisible.

“I wonder what that guy does for a living, anyway,” my mother once said. “Kind of stuck-up with that ascot of his.” Who cares about ascot ties? was my reaction. To me people are divided into two groups: the nice and the un-nice. And the family next door was definitely in the second category. If my grandmother were still alive she would have sniffed out all kinds of gossip about them, but my mother couldn’t be bothered, so the only details we knew about them were that their son looked like a worm, the mother wore red lipstick, and the father, an ascot.

Still, I couldn’t figure out what that sound was. A burglar could break into their house for all I cared, but I didn’t want him coming into ours. I started to panic. My parents were both at work, I had slept in late and was about to have some cup ramen before heading out to summer cram school—I was a senior in high school—and the last thing I wanted was for some burglar to flee into our place. Dad always said that the scariest thing was a thief who gets cornered and turns violent.

I heard another crash, this one louder than the first. It rang in my ears, and I flinched and messed up my left eyebrow. Maybe I should redo it, I was thinking, staring into the mirror, when my cell phone on the table buzzed.

“Yo!” It could only be Terauchi. “Dude, it’s me.”

“I just heard this weird sound from next door—maybe a robber or something. What should I do?”

But Terauchi wasn’t paying any attention.

“That essay on Mori Ogai we’re supposed to write? I’ve done over a hundred pages, right? Just kidding…But I think it’s going to turn out okay, know what I mean?” She rambled on like this for a minute or so.

“Terauchi. Listen to me. A burglar might have broken into the house next door.”

“Duuuude!” Terauchi was finally surprised and her usual greeting now turned into an interjection. Terauchi was a cute-looking girl, but her voice was really low and cool. Among my friends, she was the smartest and the most interesting.

“I just heard glass shattering,” I said. “Someone breaking in, maybe.”

“Probably just the husband and wife having a fight.”

“At this time of the morning?” I said. “The guy next door should be at work.”

“Well, maybe the wife lost it and smashed a teacup or something. It’s gotta be that,” she declared. “You know, one time when my mom got into a fight with my dad’s mother she went nuts and tossed both of their teacups and plates out the second-story window.”

“Your mom’s kind of extreme.”

“You got that right,” Terauchi said. “She just casually tossed the plates and cups out, aiming at the stepping-stones in the garden. See, Dad was using the plates Yukinari used as a baby. Anyway, Toshi-chan, I wanted to see how you’re doing with your essay.”

Toshi-chan. My name’s Toshiko Yamanaka, the characters for Toshi meaning “ten and four,” because I was born on the fourth day of the tenth month, October. Obviously not a lot of thought went into naming me, but since I’ve hardly ever met anyone with the same characters, I don’t mind the name that much. Terauchi’s first name is Kazuko, which she can’t stand. Her grandfather in Akita gave her the name, apparently. My friends all call one another by their first names or by nicknames, except for Terauchi, who insists that we call her by her last name.

“The thing is, I haven’t done it yet,” I admitted.

When we got to be seniors our Japanese teacher assigned us to write an essay on Ogai’s story “The Dancing Girl.” Terauchi was always good at exams and assignments. Whenever we had to write a book report, she copied parts of some published essay on the book without the teachers ever catching on. I was a little too honest—honest to a fault, you could say—to try to get away with something like that. So unfortunately it took me a lot of time to finish up assignments and my grades were never as good as hers. I never thought of what she did as dishonest; I was kind of vaguely worried that someday her cleverness might really her get in trouble. I worried about her because I liked her so much.

She went on, rumbling in her low voice: “I was thinking of, like, doing a psychological analysis of the main character.”

“Including Elise?”

“Nah—not her. Her name’s in katakana. What’s his name—Oda?”

I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

“That’s not it,” a different voice replied. Now it was Yuzan on the phone. “She’s gonna do a psychological profile based on the Chinese characters used to write the name. Can you imagine getting away with that?”

“Yuzan, I didn’t know you were there,” I said.

I must have sounded a little disappointed. I wasn’t exactly happy to find out that she and Terauchi were hanging out without me. It made me feel left out. I really liked Terauchi, but Yuzan was harder to deal with. She had such extreme likes and dislikes. She hated smokers violently, for instance. Human garbage, she said. Which was kind of unfair from the smoker’s viewpoint. On the other hand, if she liked somebody she’d stand up for them, no matter what. Extreme and hard to read—that was Yuzan.

“Terauchi wanted to do homework together. I told her we’re not in grade school anymore. Duh!”

“I bet that it was your idea,” I countered.

Yuzan just laughed this off. Her voice was even lower than Terauchi’s, and when she wore her school uniform she looked like some guy doing a lousy job of dressing in drag. Her personality and the way she spoke were totally like a guy; but her name, Kiyomi Kaibara, was very feminine. The nickname Yuzan, of course, came from Yuzan Kaibara, the father character in the manga Oishinbo. When she was in junior high, her mom died after a long stay in the hospital. Since then Yuzan’s lived with her father and grandparents. Yuzan and I were only children, the only ones in our group. After her mother died, Yuzan started acting even more eccentric, even more like a guy. Terauchi said Yuzan must be a lesbian, but I couldn’t really see it. Even if she were, I wouldn’t know, I guess, because I wouldn’t be her type. I switched the phone to my other hand and heard this sort of grabby sound as Terauchi came back on.

“That’s the story, dude.”

“Fine, whatever—but should I just ignore what’s going on next door?” I asked.

“That’s their business, not yours. Don’t you think so?”

Terauchi’s cool reply made me feel better. “I guess you’re right,” I said. “Well. I gotta go to cram school. Talk to you later.”

“See ya,” she said, and hung up. I switched off the AC and checked my left eyebrow in the mirror again. I didn’t like what I saw, but didn’t have time to redo it, so I set off. I was wearing jeans and a black sleeveless shirt. A nothing sort of look, but something I felt comfortable in.

It was blindingly hot outside. I slipped on the new sandals I’d bought at the bargain shoe store that was a two-minute walk from our house, and unlocked my bike, which I’d left next to the front door. The handlebars and seat had baked in the sun and my hand sizzled when I touched them. Just then the front door of our neighbors’ house slammed shut and their front gate creaked open. Someone was coming out. Anxious, but curious, I turned around. It was Worm, dressed in jeans and a navy blue T-shirt. There was a tiny white Nike swoosh on the chest of his shirt. He was carrying a black backpack I remembered seeing before. Thank God. It wasn’t a burglar after all. He’d been at home. Relieved, I looked at him and our eyes locked. He looked happy and excited somehow, like he was going off on a date. That kind of look didn’t suit him, and I quickly turned away. It was a strange feeling, like I’d seen something I shouldn’t have.

“Sure is hot.”

This was the first time he’d even spoken to me. I nodded vaguely. So that’s the kind of guy Worm is. The kind who talks about the weather—and to somebody like me who’s the same age. Humming a song, he squinted up at the sun. He looked so healthy that the nickname Worm no longer seemed right.

“I heard some loud sound from your house a few minutes ago and it startled me.” I had to say something.

Still squinting up at the sky, he tilted his head. “Yeah? You must be mistaken.”

“Sorry,” I said.

Worm bounded off like he was heading off on a school outing. Embarrassed, I straddled my bike, shoved my bag into the front basket, and, without a glance backward, started pedaling toward the station. Soon I passed Worm, but I didn’t say hi.

My cram school is near the south exit of a large station that connects up to the Chuo Line, four stops down the line from the station near my house. I was still thinking of Worm, actually about the sound I’d heard next door, and I got snagged by one of those people with clipboards asking you to fill out questionnaires. I’m usually careful enough to keep at least thirty yards between me and them, but this time I blew it. The questionnaire guy was dressed in a serious-looking outfit, white dress shirt and black pants, with the kind of black-framed glasses that are popular now.

“Are you a student?” he asked me.

“I’m in a hurry.”

“It won’t take long. You’re in college?”

“That’s right.”

“A four-year college or community college?”

“Four-year. The education department at Tokyo University.”

I stood there with this can’t-be-bothered look on my face. The guy looked surprised for a second, then scribbled down “Tokyo University” in crappy handwriting. A sneer came to his face, like maybe he thought I was bragging. Or like he’d seen through my lie.

“May I ask your name?”

“Ninna Hori.”

“How do you write it?”

“Hori is the character for ‘moat,’ and Ninna is written the same as the ninna in the Ninna Temple in Kyoto.”

“The Ninna Temple?” the man muttered, and I used his moment of hesitation to make my escape. This was the first time I’d said I was a Tokyo University student. Usually I tell people I’m a secretary in an office, but with the crummy outfit I had on and my aggressive attitude, it seemed to fit. Whenever you have to write down your name and address for a questionnaire or membership form or at a store, it’s best to use a phony name and address. Terauchi taught me that. The first time I did it I felt kind of nervous about lying, but after I’d used the name for a while, Ninna Hori started to feel like a real second name. In our four-girl group all of us have a second fake name that we used when we rented a karaoke box. You have to be careful, Terauchi always warned us, or you’ll wind up in some database. Then adults will control you.

The next person who tried to grab me was a creepy-looking woman. As I sped up to get away, the woman, eager for the chance to interview someone, rushed forward and almost tripped up. She had a mound of black hair, chopped off in a bowl cut, and no makeup. Her upper lip was dripping sweat. White sweat stains showed in the armpits of her faded black blouse. It was steaming out, so I could hardly blame her for that, but it was so hot and uncomfortable all I could think of was shoving her out of the way.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m studying fortune-telling and wondered if I could have a moment of your time?”

Fortune-tellers. They’re all over the place. No way it’s going to be free. I put on the impassive face I practiced in the mirror. “I’m in a hurry,” I said.

“Pardon me.” At seeing my determined face, the fortune-teller turned away and started wandering around f

or her next victim. It’s not easy for a young girl to get past the crowds outside of a station without something happening. When I mentioned this to my mother, she sighed and said, “It wasn’t like that in my day. So many dangers out there now.” She’s got that right. In Tokyo today young girls are seen as either easy marks for sales or as “marketing leaders” to help companies get a grasp on what new products are going to sell. They want to get our opinions for free. Which makes us another kind of easy mark, I guess.

Not to mention all the stalkers and perverts, all the horny men, both young and old, who call out, “Hey, babe, how much?” I’ve never actually run into perverts myself, but there’s a rumor that Terauchi’s had problems with them since she was in elementary school—she’s run into them on the train commuting to school. Terauchi’s so unique, almost scary smart, but since she’s also pretty, everyone from adults to college guys underestimates her and makes a move on her. I figure these perverts are the reason she shows no interest in men, and why she sometimes has this gloomy look on her face, talks the way she does, and gets all depressed. Let’s face it: the world is twisted. And rotten.

* * *

I rushed into the classroom in my cram school, the one for English for Top-Tier Private Colleges. I was a little late and in a hurry. The school had a rule that if you’re late they won’t let you in.

Four people who looked like college students, two guys and two girls, were standing in front of the blackboard, smiling at the students seated in front of them. I could tell at a glance they weren’t teachers and weren’t cram school students, either. Teachers are older and frumpier, students younger and less confident. Both the teachers and the students at this cram school lacked the same exact thing: affection for others. No room for that in a cram school. But these four guys and girls in front of us had these permanent smiles, as if they were the hot lifeblood that flowed through this cruel battleground. One of the girls, the collar of her white shirt pulled out over her gray power suit, spoke up:

“It’s summer vacation already. Now’s the time you’ve got to do your best and don’t let yourself give up. There’s still time. It’s only the beginning of August. So no more complaining, just do the very best you can. If you don’t, believe me—come next spring you won’t be smiling. The spring when I became a senior in high school I was told to forget about getting into the university I was hoping for. It’ll never happen, they told me. But, no exaggeration, that summer I spit up blood. I never worked so hard in my life. And I got into the Japan Academy of Arts. It gives you tremendous confidence, confidence that you can build on for the rest of your life. So I want you to give it everything you’ve got.”

The girl paused, and gazed around the room.

“We’re going to come around to each of you, so feel free to ask us anything.”

The cram school had a system called My Tutor, which involved having college students hang around the classroom. They were supposed to be graduates of the cram school, but I wasn’t buying it. During our short breaks they’d go around the classrooms, giving us little pep talks. The point being that having real-life college students among us was supposed to get us focused on taking entrance exams. Cheer us up. To me, though, they looked like Disney dolls, with toothy pasted-on smiles. I’d just barely slipped into my seat when the power-suit girl sidled over.

“You would be—Miss Yamanaka, correct?” the girl said, glancing at the list in her hand. “English isn’t your subject, I take it. You have a fifty-two average. You’ve got to work harder if you expect to pass. Are you studying hard?”

It annoyed me to have everyone hear my average.

“My name is Ninna Hori.”

The girl looked suspicious.

“Are you registered for this class, Miss Hori?”

“Yes, I’m signed up.”

Keeping a perfectly straight face, I put my electronic dictionary on top of the desk.

“Really? Hmm. That’s strange.” The girl was taken aback. “I’ll have to get the right list. Which colleges are you hoping to get into?”

“Sophia, or Keio.”

“Then you’ll have to do better in English. What’s your average?”

“About fifty-eight,” I lied.

“You’ll need to be at least five points higher than that,” the girl said, gazing at me closely. I could see the contact lenses pasted to her slightly popped eyes. “Anyhow, don’t give up. If you study like you’re going to die, it’ll work out. Vocabulary, vocabulary. Memorizing vocabulary’s the only way.”

What did she mean, study like you’re going to die? She said she spit up blood, but is that for real? Is studying really worth dying for? I couldn’t accept it, and I guess that was one of my weak points. One of the other tutors, a guy in a white shirt and tie, was standing next to the prematurely bald guy in the seat in front of me, patting him on the shoulder.

“You’ve got to get your average up a bit,” he said. “I know you can do it.”

The balding guy, embarrassed, gave some vaguely positive reply.

“I studied twelve hours a day and raised my average by ten points,” the tutor said.

“Really?”

You study twelve hours a day and your average goes up only ten points? Overhearing their conversation despite myself, I got depressed. While this was happening, the girl who’d counseled me went over to the quiet girl who sits behind me. The whole charade was disgusting. This was no better than getting caught by somebody at the station shoving a questionnaire in your face or trying to read your fortune.

They smile like mad but inside they couldn’t care less about me. They’re in it for the money. Or out to pick up somebody. Unlike Terauchi, I’ve never been openly propositioned, but I can understand the feeling that you’re being targeted. If you fall for their lines you’ll lose money and wind up suffering. It’s a little like how, unless you watch yourself and try to stay under the radar, you get bullied. The world laughs at losers. But does that mean the ones who target other people and bully them are okay? No way. But everybody seems to forget that.

The sense of danger we all feel is something my mother can’t comprehend. My mom’s generation still believes in beautiful things like justice and considering other people’s feelings. My mom’s forty-four and runs a home nursing service with a friend of hers. She goes out herself to people’s homes, so she’s interested in things like social welfare and problems related to the elderly. Coming from me it might sound weird, but she’s a pretty nice person. She’s smart and knows how to stand up for what’s important. She’s genuine, and what she says is almost always right on target.

Dad works for a software company, and though he’s usually out drinking, he’s serious and a good guy. But even a nice mom and dad like this can’t really sense how their child’s been assaulted by commercialism ever since she was little, how she’s lived in fear of being eaten alive by the morons around her. They just don’t get it.

Mom always lectures me about not being afraid of getting hurt, but all she can imagine is the kind of hurt she’s experienced herself. She has no idea of the threats that surround kids these days, how much we’re bullied, how much hurt this causes.

For instance, since we were little kids we’ve been exposed to calls from people trying to get us to hire tutors, or cram schools trying to get us to enroll after phony free counseling sessions. You think that’s going to raise your GPA? No way. That’s something you have to do on your own. Walk around Tokyo and all you see are people trying to sell you something. Tell them okay and before you know it you’ve bought something. Make the mistake of telling them your name and address and now you’re on a mailing list. Some old guy pats you on the shoulder and before you know what hits you you’re in a hotel room. Stalkers’ victims, the ones they kill, are always women. When the media was going nuts over schoolgirls getting old guys to be their sugar daddies for sex, that was the time when high school girls like us had the highest price as commodities.

It sucks. It totally and absolutely sucks. That’s why I became Ninna Hori. Otherwise I couldn’t keep myself together, couldn’t survive. It isn’t much, but it’s the least I can do to arm myself. All these thoughts went through my mind as I fanned myself with the thin little textbook.

I somehow managed to stay awake till the end of class. I looked for my cell phone, thinking I’d call up Terauchi for a random chat, but my phone wasn’t in my bag. I was talking with Terauchi before I left the house, so maybe I left it on the table. I was disappointed, but I didn’t worry about it. I joined the horde of students streaming down the hallway hurrying home, when somebody called out from behind me.

“Toshi-chan!”

It was Haru, who’s in my class at school. She’s in one of the few Barbie Girl groups at our school. Now that summer vacation was here she was even tanner than before, her hair dyed almost totally blond, her nails manicured an eye-catching white. She had on heavy blue eye shadow and oversize false eyelashes, plus a gaudy red spaghetti-strap dress with pink polka dots. We used to be pretty good friends back in junior high, before she became a Barbie. Our freshman year of high school she even invited me to go karaoke singing with some college students.

“You came all the way from Hachioji?” I asked.

“I did,” she said, fingering the strap of her cell phone with those nails that weren’t what you’d expect to find on a student studying for college entrance exams. “The Kakomon Master Course here’s supposed to be pretty good.”

A fat boy from our cram school walked by, sweat dripping from his forehead, and openly sneered at Haru. You idiot, I thought. You have no idea how gutsy Haru really is.

“I’m taking the composition and English classes in the Top-Tier section,” I told her.

“Good luck,” Haru said. “Catch you later!”

Haru teetered down the stairs of the cram school on her platform sandals. The guys in the cram school made way for her. Like a timid queen, she stealthily walked down the middle of the stairs, and when she got to the landing, she waved to me. Like the fake names my friends and I use, Haru’s disguise is her weapon. By becoming a Kogyaru or Yamamba or whatever they’re called, I think Haru found a place where she could be totally accepted. Barbie Girls, Haru included, go to tanning places to get ultraviolet rays so their skin turns light brown, use oil pens for eyeliners, and glue on their eyelashes so they’re permanently curled up. They’re the ones who, more than anyone else, play around with their bodies.

My second weak point is that I feel put off by those kinds of outrageous outfits and makeup. Me, I just want to wear ordinary clothes and not stand out.

My face was dripping sweat. In the bicycle parking lot my bike was nowhere to be seen. It must have been stolen. It wasn’t much of a bike, so why, of all the bikes in the world, steal mine? It was locked, too. I ran all around the huge parking lot, but no luck. Hot and angry, I ducked into a convenience store to cool off. I bought a plastic bottle of oolong tea and set off down the steamy road. In the twelve minutes it took to walk from the station my sandals gave me a terrible blister. Pissed off, I finally arrived home. The second-story window of the house next door reflected the orangish setting sun. Strange, I thought, none of the windows seemed broken. I remembered that sound I’d heard earlier and stood there, puzzled. I got the evening paper from the mailbox, held the cool bottle of tea to my burning forehead, and gazed again at the neighbors’ house. The sliding doors to the Japanese-style room on the first floor were half open. Which was kind of weird, since the woman next door was such a stickler for keeping the place neat. Her windows always sparkled, and there was never as much as a single piece of litter in front of her house. Whatever, I thought, dying of thirst. I stepped inside my saunalike house, switched on the AC units in all the rooms, and drank down the oolong tea in a single gulp.

I rinsed out the empty tea bottle and tossed it in the recycling bin as I glanced at the table and realized my cell phone wasn’t there. I must have taken it with me and dropped it. I calmly reviewed what I’d done since leaving home. I’d taken the phone with me and put it in my bag when I got on the bike. Then I parked the bike at the parking lot, went to cram school, and attended two classes. That’s when I noticed the phone was missing, so I must have dropped it at either the station or the school. Or else it fell down into the bicycle’s basket. I called the cram school and asked if anyone had turned in a cell phone, but they curtly told me no. I tried calling my cell phone number, but nobody answered. My bike and my phone. This sucks. I was beat, so I trudged upstairs to my sweltering room, flopped down on the bed, set the AC to high, and closed my eyes.

I dozed off until seven p.m. I heard the siren of a patrol car or an ambulance, but it just stopped nearby. The way it stopped all of a sudden was a little alarming, but I didn’t worry about it. There’s a chronically sick old person living nearby, so ambulances are often driving down our narrow lane. I couldn’t sit around thinking about that. Mom would be home soon and I had to close the shutters and get the bath ready. I could imagine her unhappy tone of voice if she found out I didn’t do any of my chores, so I dragged myself out of bed. Right then our phone rang.

“Dude.”

“Terauchi, I lost my cell phone.”

“Yeah, I called you and this weird guy answered.”

“What kind of guy?”

“A young guy. When I said, ‘Dude,’ he yelled, ‘Stop joking, you dummy.’ Totally pissed me off.”

I told her how I’d lost my cell phone and how my bike got stolen.

“He must have got your cell phone from the bike. You should get the service cut off right away. Forget about your bike, or else try to steal it back.”

She was right. I hung up and ran downstairs, thinking I’d call and get the phone service cut off. The whole thing made me angry. All of a sudden I heard the rattle of a key and the door swept open. It was my mother. She had on white pants and one of my old blue T-shirts, and the basket-type bag she likes to carry around in the summer slung over her shoulder. She didn’t have on any makeup and her face was sweaty and flushed.

“Oh, you’re here. Thank goodness!”

She looked relieved. But she also looked pale and upset.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You don’t know? There’s a police car outside the neighbors’. Apparently the woman next door was murdered. Her husband found her when he came back from work. I was so worried that something had happened to you, too.”

Since morning I’d had this bad feeling, and now it felt strange that it had actually materialized into something. I felt like bragging to everybody about what a great sixth sense I have.

“The police said they’ll be over soon to talk to us. How frightening! How could something like this happen? And in our neighborhood. What should we do? Should we call your father? I guess we’d better let him know.”

Mom always kept her cool but now she was definitely flustered. I sat down on the sofa in the living room and started to think about the bad feeling I had when I heard the smog siren and then that crash came from next door. Was that the instant the woman was murdered? Could Worm have done it? I recalled how cheerful he seemed as he hummed and gazed up at the sun.

“Toshiko, the police want to talk with you.”

I looked up and there at the front door stood an elderly man in a white polo shirt and a middle-aged woman in a black suit, both of them gazing into our house. I didn’t like the look in their eyes. That’s when I decided not to tell them anything about what I’d seen and heard.

Their questions seemed endless. I told them that I left the house to go to cram school about twelve, and didn’t hear anything or see anybody. Their questions implied that they thought it was right about that time that the woman was killed. In other words, it looked like my testimony was key. One final question, they said. It was obvious that the police were suspicious of Worm.

“Have you seen the boy next door today?”

“No,” I said.

I pictured Worm’s expression. His happy, excited face. What was that all about? Did he feel liberated by killing his mother? Or was he just plain crazy? I wasn’t so much afraid of him as curious to know what he’d been thinking. I was sure that he would never tell adults how he felt then. Maybe he wouldn’t even know how to explain it. Or else if he tried, it would be so simple he’d hesitate to go into it. I think I know how he feels. Probably he just felt his mother was a pain. A real pain. If you told adults that was the reason you killed your mother, they wouldn’t believe you. But it’s the truth. The whole world’s a pain. Such a pain, you can’t believe it. Still, freaking out over it like he did was stupid. When high school girls like us freak out, people are always able to overpower us before we do something stupid, like hijacking a bus or running around with a knife. Which is why girls arm themselves beforehand so they don’t get caught up in something like that. Boys probably aren’t so good at protecting themselves.

“Were you friends with the boy next door?”

“Not at all. We didn’t even say hi when we ran into each other. It’s like we’re, you know, strangers. Like we’re living in two different worlds.”

“Different worlds? How so?” asked the female detective in the black suit. She had on white sunblock makeup and her hair was done up, like when you wear a kimono. It was tied back by this girlish hair tie made of red and purple ribbon with millions of tiny flowers on it. She looked kind of silly, but her eyes were sharp, like she was seeing right through my lies. I got nervous, sure that she would figure out I was lying.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I didn’t want to know anything about Worm’s world. I live in a world where I think I’m right, a world that frightens me, and not since I was little was I naive enough to think that other people’s worlds were the same as mine. When I did once blurt out that everybody must agree with me on this, I caught hell for it. People won’t stand for others being different from them. Since I’m a little different from other people, I learned this early on. At school people form little four-five person cliques, but I never wanted to be with them or get to know them. Actually, I wasn’t able to. In my class there are all kinds of people—Barbie Girls like Haru, nerds, and kids that fall into easy-to-classify groups because they’re in clubs. Fortunately for me, I ran across some girls I could get along with so I could enjoy high school life okay, but it must be awful for kids who don’t get along with anybody. We’re different from our parents, a completely different species from our teachers. And kids who are one grade apart from you are in a different world altogether. In other words, we’re basically surrounded by enemies and have to make it on our own.

“Tell me, since you’re both in high school, how does the neighbors’ boy strike you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is he handsome, or the type who’s popular with girls?”

The female detective smiled, and I could see her white overlapping teeth through her bright red lips. Lipstick was smeared on her teeth. I remembered the woman next door with her bright red lipstick, and though I didn’t have any feelings for her one way or the other, I suddenly got frightened thinking that Worm had murdered her. I couldn’t figure out why he’d do something like that, and it gave me a weird, spooky feeling. I was sitting there staring into space when the female detective rested her hand on my knee.

“Well?” she said.

It felt hot and awful to have someone else’s hand on me like that, and I shifted to the side so her hand slipped off my jeans.

“To tell you the truth…”

“Please, go right ahead. He’s the victim’s son, so there’s no need to hold back. We’ll forget we heard it from you.”

If you’re going to forget it, then why even ask? I thought. But my mom was watching me with a worried frown, and the older detective looked all serious as he was scribbling notes, so I went ahead and told them.

“Well, he’s kind of gross,” I said. “Nerdy, and sort of gloomy, like you never can figure out what he’s thinking. Like a withdrawn loner who just studies hard all the time.”

A withdrawn loner who just studies hard all the time. That seemed to strike a chord. The two detectives shared a glance and stood up. My words seemed to make them label Worm a typical nerdy guy from a family that pushed its kid too hard to succeed in school—so he flipped out.

They questioned my mom, too, as she sat there at one end of the sofa. What kind of woman was the lady next door? How did the family seem to get along with each other? Any hint of domestic violence? I noticed that even before they began, the police had a set pattern of questions. It was after nine p.m. when they finally finished. All the lights were on next door, so they must still have been combing the place for evidence. I could picture Worm’s father, in shock, leading the police from room to room. I let out a deep sigh. He’d always treated me like I didn’t exist, but still it seemed outrageous for this to happen to him.

* * *

“This is terrible,” my mother said. “The police haven’t said anything but it’s pretty obvious they suspect the son. They told me the father’s a doctor who works in a hospital. We’re neighbors and yet I didn’t even know that. I wonder if they forced their son to study all the time to get into med school.”

I was looking at the TV guide in the evening paper and didn’t reply.

“How can you be so easygoing at a time like this?” my mother suddenly yelled at me.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with us,” I said.

“True, but you knew the lady next door, didn’t you? And now she’s dead. Whether the son did it or not, I feel sorry for him and the mother. I even feel sorry for the father, that stuck-up man with the ascot. His own son killed his wife, can you imagine? How could they ignore things until it came to this?”

“So what?”

I don’t know why I lashed out at her. What she said made sense, but something just wasn’t right about it, which really bothered me.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” my mom said.

Her eyes were fixed. The front door opened and Dad came in. He had on a crummy light brown jacket and a black briefcase under his arm. His navy blue polo shirt was all sweaty. His eyes had the same fearful look as Mom’s. She must have called him and he’d rushed home. He always says he’s busy, but if he needs to he can come home right away. He turned to Mom first.

“Man, what a shock,” he said. “The police just questioned me outside. I didn’t know anything. They were amazed when I told them I didn’t even know they had a son the same age as Toshiko.”

Mom looked at him with this look that said, You’re always out drinking and never come home, that’s why. The whole thing was too much, so I tossed the newspaper on the table and was about to go upstairs to my room. Dad looked over reproachfully at the scattered paper.

“Toshiko. What happened to your bike? It’s not outside.”

“Yeah, what happened was…I parked it in the parking lot at the station but it got stolen.”

“Why don’t you report it? The place is swarming with cops.”

Dad chuckled at his little joke but soon turned serious.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We wouldn’t find it anyway. Sometimes people just use bikes and bring them back to the parking lot. Whoever took it will bring it back.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Dad didn’t seem to care one way or another. You’re so careless! Mom would normally have yelled at this point, but she was preoccupied, boiling noodles, slicing ham, preparing a late supper for us. As I walked up the stairs I could hear my parents talking, keeping their voices down so I couldn’t catch anything. I stopped halfway up the stairs to eavesdrop.

“The inside of the house is apparently a wreck,” Dad said. “The glass door to the bathroom was shattered when the woman was thrown against it, and she was covered in blood.”

“I don’t doubt it. They said her skull was bashed in by a baseball bat.”

“What could possibly have made him do it?”

“He must have gone crazy. He took off his bloody T-shirt, they said, and put it in the laundry. He must have calmly changed his clothes and then gone out. I can’t believe it—a wimpy little boy like that.”

“Boys are strong,” Dad said. “He might be skinny, but boys that age are stronger than you’d imagine. And they don’t know how to control themselves. I’m sure glad we had a girl.”

“What a terrible thing to say. That’s kind of self-centered, don’t you think?”

Chastened, my father said, “Guess you’re right. Sorry.”

I sat down on my bed and called my cell phone from my room phone. “Hi,” a young guy answered. Damn, I thought. In the background I could hear the roar of trains going by. He was outside.

“You’re the person who found my cell phone.”

“I’m not sure if ‘found’ is the right word,” he said.

The guy seemed hesitant. His voice sounded similar to the one that had said, “Sure is hot.”

“Where did you find it?” I asked.

“In the bike basket.”

Was this the person who stole my bike? My blood began to boil.

“Did you steal my bike?”

“Stole, or borrowed—I’m not sure how to put it.”

“That’s my phone and I want it back. If you don’t return it you won’t be able to use it anyway ’cause I’ll stop the service. And I want you to give my bike back. I need it.”

“I’m sorry,” the guy apologized.

“One other thing. Are you the boy next door?”

All of a sudden the phone clicked off. I hit redial but he didn’t pick up. I kept on calling, my knees shaking. I was starting to suspect that the guy who stole my cell phone and bicycle was Worm. Finally I left a message.

“This is Toshiko Yamanaka. I want you to return my cell phone and bike. My home phone number is under Home on the cell, so call me there. Between nine a.m. and noon I’m home alone, don’t worry. Please call me. I’ll tell you something else, ’cause I think you’re the boy next door. The police are looking for you. I think you know why. It has nothing to do with me, but it was a shock to hear about your mother. I feel sorry for her. I probably won’t say anything to them, but I don’t really know what I should do.”

I left this message on the phone, and felt depressed afterward.

* * *

That night I couldn’t sleep well. I dozed off and had some weird dreams. The one I remember the most is this:

The woman next door was in my house, cooking dinner. Worm and I were in the living room, watching TV and laughing till tears were streaming down our faces.

Worm and I were brother and sister, apparently, and the woman next door was our mother. Far away a smog alert siren sounded. Worm said, “It’s hot, so let’s have fried rice…. Fried rice sounds good.” I went to the kitchen to wheedle the woman into making it for us. Mom, I said, make some fried rice for us, okay? The woman stared at me from behind her silver-framed glasses, then took out a wok and pointed at the bathroom. He pushed me against the door over there, she said, so I’m not going to cook for you. But Mom, the door to the bathroom isn’t glass, so it’s okay. There must be some mistake. It seemed to be a dream where I knew what Worm had done, but I was doing my best to calm her down anyway.

I woke up all sweaty and looked around my room trying to figure out where I was. It had been light out for some time, apparently. The sun had come up as always and a new day was beginning. It looked like it was going to be another hot one. Another day like all the others, but since yesterday morning my world had imploded. That crashing sound I heard when the smog alert sounded echoed over and over in my mind. I hadn’t seen the bloody face of the woman next door, but I could imagine how awful it must have looked, her glasses flung aside. The dream I had must have been suggestive—telling me that I was knowingly aiding and abetting Worm after his “matricide.” Maybe I’d be seen as an actual accomplice in the murder. The fact scared me silly. If Worm was caught, wouldn’t they think that I’d lent him my phone and bike to help him get away? I suddenly felt like Worm had forced some awful thing into my hands. Now it had liquefied and was dripping down between my fingers. I was terrified—of the police, and the adult world. The warmth of the female detective’s hand on my knee came back to me, and I shuddered.

I should have told my parents everything, before this got completely out of hand. I’d just about made up my mind when I heard Mom downstairs getting breakfast ready. She was grinding coffee beans. The same old world as always. Relieved, I got out of bed. My mom might have a different take on things than me, but at least she was a buffer between me and the police and the adult world. I was happy I had a mom and dad like that. Just then I heard voices outside, so I opened the window and peeked out. The narrow street outside our house was packed with people. People lugging TV cameras, newspaper reporters, a woman who looked like a reporter, and police. The reporter was from one of those TV tabloid shows. I ran downstairs.

“Good morning. You’re up early.” My mom, her face gaunt, was stirring eggs.

“Mom, did you see all those people outside?”

“They’re from a tabloid show,” my mother said, her face dark. “I hate having all these people crawling about. They must be hoping the son will come back home. How vulgar. I mean, they don’t even know yet if he’s the one who did it. And besides, he’s a juvenile. All this racket’s driving me crazy. Sorry, but could you go out and get the paper?”

I didn’t have a bra on and was wearing a T-shirt and shorts I used for pajamas, but I said okay. I was curious to see how the papers were covering the incident and to see what the people from the TV tabloid show were like. As soon as I stepped outside, the hum of the people talking stopped cold. I was walking over to the newspaper box next to the front door when a woman reporter thrust a microphone in my face.

“Excuse me, I just have a couple of questions about the people next door. What sort of family were they?”

So this is a reporter? The other people stood there, holding their breath, waiting for my reply. Here I was, dressed like this, on national TV. I got all jittery and started inching backward, newspaper in hand. As soon as I reached the door I leaped inside. The tabloid show was on TV in our living room. Dad was sitting in front of the TV, his face swollen, chuckling to himself.

“Hey, you were just on TV.”

The screen showed the road in front of our house with the caption “Live from the Scene” in white. You could see our house and the one next door, lit by the morning sun. It looked cramped yet showy at the same time. Ah, I thought, stunned, too late now. Now that it was such big news, I had to keep quiet about what I knew. That ominous sound, meeting Worm right afterward, the contented look on his face, the fact that he stole my bike and cell phone. I didn’t think I’d be telling anybody about any of these things. The word accomplice ran through my mind again.

My dad folded up the newspaper and said, “I wonder why it happened. When I was young there were times I wanted to kill my old man and some of my teachers—but I never thought of killing my mom. It was like she was part of a totally different world from me. I never thought my mom was controlling my life or anything. Have you ever thought that?”

“Never.”

Which was a lie. I think about it every time I fight with my mom, and there are tons of people I hate so much that I wouldn’t mind taking them out. Even Terauchi and Yuzan—sometimes I hate them and want to kill them. But killing them wouldn’t get me anywhere—that’s the conclusion I always come to. If I’m going to have to pay for it in the end, I might as well let them live.

“The man next door apparently worked at the Kanto Fukagawa Hospital,” Dad said. “In internal medicine. The poor guy. What was the son’s name, anyway? It’s not in the paper.”

“Of course not. He’s a juvenile,” I said, depressed. Dad gulped down his coffee and exhaled, spewing coffee breath all over the place.

“I guess it’ll be a big story for a while.”

Mom called out from the kitchen: “Those people will be out there until the boy comes home. What should we do?”

“Just carry on as always,” Dad said.

“If we could do that, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“We’ll just have to work around it. We’re not involved.”

But your daughter is! I wondered how astonished my dad would be if he knew that.

* * *

After my parents went to work I watched some of the tabloid shows on TV. They were all the same. Is he involved in his mother’s murder? The high school son vanished. Midsummer madness—what happened with this seventeen-year-old? While I was watching TV we had two sets of visitors. The first was this middle-aged couple who said they were the older brother and sister-in-law of the man next door. We’re so sorry to cause you all this trouble, they said, bowing and scraping like crazy, and handed me a heavy box of sweets. I opened it and found thirty mizuyokan sweets inside.

The second set of visitors were the detectives from the day before. The old detective, wiping the sweat off with an oversize handkerchief, asked, “About the boy next door…we have a witness who saw him walking on the road to the station around noon yesterday. You told us you went to the station at about the same time. Didn’t you see him?”

“I was riding my bike.”

Damn! As soon as I said this I realized I shouldn’t have. They’ll find out my bike isn’t there. Unconsciously I looked down.

“Didn’t you overtake him on your bike?”

The female detective asked this. This day she had on a white blouse and a heavy cloisonné brooch near her collar. Like yesterday, her hair was loosely done up. The color of her face and the skin of her neck were five degrees off. I shook my head.

“I didn’t notice him,” I said.

“Aren’t you going to cram school today?”

“Yeah, I am.”

The phone rang. The two detectives motioned for me to get it. Heart slamming in my chest, I went to answer it. For all I knew it might be Worm. Whoever was on the other end didn’t respond.

“Hello? Hello?”

The two detectives, standing at the entrance, looked at me suspiciously. I looked away and just started talking.

“Oh, Terauchi? Did you see the TV show? Sorry to have worried you. We have some guests now so I’ll call you back.”

The person on the other end finally spoke.

“The cops are there, aren’t they. I’ll call back later.”

It was Worm. I hung up like nothing was going on. This was like something out of a movie.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

I went back to the two detectives. The man, apparently farsighted, was squinting at his notebook. “The person who saw the young man stated that he was wearing a navy blue T-shirt and jeans,” he said, “and was carrying a black backpack. The person who saw him was a housewife who lives behind your house. She was pushing her baby in a stroller to a park nearby. She said she passes in front of the boy’s house every time she goes to the station, so she’s seen him a number of times. This housewife also said that she saw someone who looked like you pass her by on a bike. Are you positive you didn’t see him?”

“Really? Well, it must have been just around twelve, because I took the 12:05 express.” I looked casual as I said this, and the two of them wrote it all down. I’m glad I didn’t have to lie about that. Facts pile up like this, one after another. They’d find out soon enough that Worm had broken the lock on my bike and stolen it.

“If anything changes, or you remember anything else, please call this number. We’ll be coming every day, so if you’d like, you can tell us later.”

The female detective handed me her card, which had rounded edges, and I mumbled a word of thanks. After they left I felt on edge. The phone rang again, and thinking it might be Worm, I answered in a low voice.

“Toshi-chan—is that you? What’s the matter? You sound upset.”

The voice was the opposite of Terauchi’s—clear and bouncy. This was my friend who went by the nickname Kirarin. Me, Terauchi, Kirarin, and Yuzan. This was the group I was in throughout junior and senior high. Kirarin’s real name was kind of odd—Kirari Higashiyama—and even though she didn’t like it, we all called her Kirarin. She was cute, cheerful, a well-brought-up, proper young girl. The name Kirarin was perfect for her, and she was the only one in our group who could fit in nicely wherever she went.

“You lost your cell, didn’t you, Toshi? Last night the guy who picked it up called me.”

“What time was it?”

“About ten maybe?” Kirarin said lightly. “I went to a movie and was on the train back when he called. I couldn’t really talk a lot, but it was fun and I ended up talking about all kinds of things. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—the guy’s got a lot of nerve.”

I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say. Kirarin went on. “I told him you need your cell phone and he’s got to give it back. And he’s like, Sorry, I understand, I’ll definitely give it back.”

“Apologizing to you isn’t going to help. He’s got to tell me he’s sorry.”

“Totally.”

Kirarin laughed cheerfully. Come to think of it, she’s the only one of my friends I’ve never felt like killing. It’s like I was always praying that she’d stay as cute as she was and always be the one who smoothed things over among us.

“But hey—why aren’t you in cram school?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you about that later. I gotta go. I’ve got to ask Yuzan if she got a call, too.”

“Let’s all get together during summer vacation,” Kirarin said. If Worm had phoned Kirarin he might have called Yuzan, too. Both their names were in my contacts list, so he was just having fun calling them at random. What a jerk. I called Yuzan right away.

“Yeah, hello…” Yuzan said, her voice low and cautious.

“It’s me. Toshi.”

“Hey, Toshi. There wasn’t any caller ID, so I was wondering who it was. I heard you lost your cell phone?”

“The guy called you?”

“Yep. I thought it was you, but it was a guy. What a shock. We must have talked for thirty minutes.”

I didn’t know what to say. What could Worm have talked about for a half hour? And with my friend? It made me really angry—I couldn’t believe that she talked with him that long. This was the guy who killed his mother with a baseball bat! The guy who smashed her against a glass door! Who stole my bike and cell phone and ran away! It gave me the creeps how mellow he seemed about the whole thing. When I’d recovered enough to talk, my voice was sharp.

“Listen, Yuzan. How could you talk for a half hour with the guy who stole my phone?”

“Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But you know, he’s pretty funny. He was telling me all about killing his mother, so I told him I murdered my mom three years ago and he fell for it. Then we talked about exams and life, all kinds of things.”

“But your mom was sick. That’s why she died.”

I must have sounded kind of depressed, because what happened to Yuzan’s mother and what Worm did were so very different. Yuzan seemed upset and didn’t say anything. Losing her mom hurt her more than any of us could imagine and we all knew never to bring up the subject. Here I was rubbing salt in her wound. So how could Worm, who killed his own mother, and Yuzan have so much to talk about? I felt like I’d taken on a stupid, even comical role because I knew everything that was going on and I felt so upset by the whole thing. It was so idiotic. I had no idea what to do.

“I’m really sorry, Yuzan. Anyway, I want him to give me back my bike and cell phone.”

“Understood. I’m going to see him today, so I’ll get them back.”

“Where is he? I’ll go with you.”

“No, I can’t tell you. I promised.” Yuzan clammed up. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I told her everything that had happened since the day before. She listened without saying a word.

“So what’s the problem?” she said. “It’s not our business. Worm killing his mother has nothing to do with us.”

“I know,” I said, angry. “I don’t care about that at all. I just want my bike and my phone back.”

“Okay. I’ll make sure he gives them back.”

The phone clicked off. As I set it down, all sticky after talking so long, I thought, Damn! I happened to see a headline in the paper: “Housewife Murdered in Broad Daylight.” The article didn’t mention the missing son much, but anybody reading it would see that he was under suspicion: “The son’s bloody shirt was tossed into the laundry basket, and the police are searching for the boy in order to question him about the incident.” The incident? I couldn’t care less about that. I just wanted my bike and phone back. Behind this, though, a thought weighed heavily on me, namely that Worm had talked so much with Kirarin and Yuzan, not me or Terauchi. In other words, he didn’t think either I or Terauchi was worth talking to. I got irritated, realizing that I felt Worm had betrayed me. I mean, who cares about him, anyway?

The smog alert groaned out again. I was wondering why I didn’t hear that woman’s usual languid announcement, so I looked outside. There were even more reporters than before, all sweating and staring at the house next door. A random thought occurred to me. There aren’t any hidden speakers for the smog alert. They must use a PR truck that drives around and makes the announcements.

* * *

That night, around ten, the doorbell rang. Mom had just taken a bath and, thinking it might be the police again, she frowned as she went to the front door.

“Toshiko, it’s Kiyomi. A little late, don’t you think?”

“I know, but she’s got something she’s got to tell me.”

“It’s hot out, so have her come inside.”

Mom was taking out some cold barley tea from the fridge as she said this, a dubious look on her face. Dad was still out late, as always. One day after the shocking murder and he was back to his old routine. I went outside and was hit by the stifling, muggy air. I could feel the moisture on my AC-cooled skin grow sticky. There weren’t any reporters now, and the road was deserted. Yuzan was standing in front of our gate, holding my bike. She had on a T-shirt and Adidas shorts, Nike sandals and a backpack. If you saw her from far away you might take her for a short high school boy. She was huffing and puffing so much she must have ridden all the way here.

“Sorry to come so late,” she said, out of breath.

“It’s okay. Thanks for bringing it.”

I put the bike inside our gate. As I did, my arm rubbed against Yuzan’s bare arm. Her arm was all sweaty. Startled, I pulled away and our eyes met.

“Is that the guy’s house over there?” Yuzan motioned with her chin. Worm’s house was dark and still. Until last night the place had been crawling with investigators, but now it was deserted, like a discarded, empty shell.

“Yeah, that’s it. I think his room’s on the corner there, on the second floor.”

I pointed to the pitch-black window. Yuzan gazed at it for a while, then sighed and looked away.

“Yuzan, where did you guys meet up?”

“In Tachikawa. It sure was a long way to come here.”

“What’s he doing in Tachikawa?”

Yuzan took out a plastic water bottle from her pack and took a drink.

“He says he’s hiding out in a park there. Said he used to swim in the pool there when he was little. Said he used to have a good time, so he wanted to see the place again. He must have spent the day hanging out around the pool, ’cause he’s totally tanned.”

I tried to imagine Worm at the pool with his mom wearing her silver-framed glasses, and his dad with his ascot, but I just couldn’t picture the three of them together like that.

“What’d he say?”

Yuzan screwed the cap back on her water bottle. “Said he feels like he’s in a dream. Like the past, too, is all a dream.” She gazed back up at the empty house and I decided to go ahead and ask her something: “Did you feel the same way about your mother?”

“Um.” Yuzan nodded. “Sometimes I can’t even believe she ever existed.”

Yuzan and Worm shared this emotion, I could tell, something I would never be a part of. This didn’t make me sad exactly—it was more a feeling that my own world was too simple, too smooth, too boring and worthless. The most I could do was have another name, Ninna Hori.

“Oh, I’ve got something for you. He told me to say he’s sorry.”

She carefully extracted my cell phone from a pocket of her backpack. I switched it on and found that the battery was almost dead.

“Well, gotta run,” she said.

Yuzan started walking off toward the station.

“What did he say he’s going to do? Keep on running?”

“Yeah. I gave him my own bike and cell phone, so he says he’s going to run as far as he can.”

I looked at Yuzan, astonished. She passed by me and stared up again at the deserted house next door. I stood there, clutching my cell phone, wondering if Worm would get in touch, suddenly realizing I was hoping he would. I didn’t want to be an accomplice, but I did want a taste of adventure, like what Yuzan was doing. Kind of a lame attitude, I know, but that’s the way I am sometimes. That realization put me in a gloomy mood for the rest of the night.