he children at Tomoe were sad for a long time, thinking about Yasuaki-chan, particularly so in the morning, when it was time to start class. It took a while for the children to get used to the fact that Yasuaki was not just late, but wasn't ever coming again. Small classes might be nice, but at times like this it made things much harder. Yasuaki-chan's absence was so conspicuous. The only saving grace was the fact that $$$seats were not assigned. If he had had a regular desk, its being vacant would have been awful.

Recently Totto-chan had begun to think about what she would like to be when she grew up. When she was younger she thought she wanted to be a street musician or a ballerina, and the day she first arrived at Tomoe she thought it would be nice to be a ticket seller at a station. But now she thought she would like to do some kind of work that was unusual but a little more feminine. It might be rather nice to be a nurse, she thought. But she suddenly remembered that when she had visited the wounded soldiers in the hospital she had noticed nurses doing things like giving injections, and that might be rather difficult. So what should she do! Suddenly she was transported with joy.

"Why, of course! I've already decided what 1 am going to be!"

She went over to Tai-chan, who had just lit his alcohol burner.

"I'm thinking of becoming a spy," she said proudly.

Tai-chan turned away from the flame and looked at Totto-chan's face for some time. Then he gazed out of the window for a while, as if he were thinking it over, before turning to Totto-chan again to say in his intelligent, resonant voice, slowly and simply, so she would understand, "You have to be clever to be a spy. Besides that, you've got to know a lot of languages."

Tai-chan paused a moment for breath. Then he looked straight at her and said bluntly, "In the first place, a lady spy has to be beautiful."

Totto-chan slowly lowered her eyes from Tai-chan's gaze and hung her head. After a pause, Tai-chan said thoughtfully in a low voice, this time without looking at Totto- chan, "And-besides, I don't think a chatterbox could be a spy.”

Totto-chan was dumbfounded. Not because he was against her being a spy. But because everything Tai-chan said was true. They were all things she had suspected. She realized then that in every respect she lacked the talents a spy needed. She knew, of course, that Tai-chan had not said those things out of spite. There was nothing to do but give up the idea. It was just as well she had talked it over with him.

"Goodness me," she thought to herself, "Tai-chan's the same age as I am and yet he knows so much more."

Supposing Tai-chan told her he was thinking of being a physicist. What on earth would she be able to say in reply?

She might say, "Well, you're good at lighting alcohol burners with a match." But that would sound too childish.

"Well, you know that kitsune is 'fox' in English and kutsu are 'shoes,' so I think you could be a physicist." No, that wasn't good enough, either.

In any event, she was quite sure Tai-chan was destined to do something brilliant. So she just said sweetly to Tai-chan, who was watching the bubbles form in his flask, “Thank you. I shan't be a spy, then. But I'm sure you will become somebody important."

Tai-chan mumbled something, scratched his head, and buried himself in the book that lay open before him.

If she couldn't be a spy, then what could she be, wondered Totto-chan, as she stood beside Tai-chan and stared at the flame on his burner.