Disclaimer – I own nothing but my issues and kinks. And you don't want to know about them.
A/N – Way back in December 2004, when I was still relatively new to writing YGO fanfic, I started a little flashfic about the relationship between Yuugi Mutou and Anzu Mazaki (Yugi Moto and Téa Gardener in the dub). Their friendship fascinated me – not least of all because I'm a sucker for bashed characters, and from what I'd seen at that point Anzu/Téa was almost universally disliked. I've since learned that there's a contingent of the YGO fandom devoted to her, but back then I'd never come across it. Neither had I come across any fic that detailed her friendship with Yuugi without featuring some element of romance – be it with each other, or giving one of them the role of a shoulder to cry on while the other went off and got the smoochies. The point is, I wanted to know what made the dynamic between them tick – beyond all the friendship speeches and life-threatening melodrama. Why were they friends, I wanted to know. What the hell made them look twice at each other in the first place? They don't exactly move in the same circles – Anzu's dream of becoming a dance engrosses a lot of her motivation beyond helping her friends, and Yuugi spent a lot of his childhood locked away playing games. Even if they met, their characters are so different that I found it difficult to understand why they'd like each other at all, let alone develop the strong bond we see in the manga/anime/dub. So I set myself the task of picking apart the beginning of their story and putting it back together again in a manner I could understand past the official explanation; to wit, 'You (Yuugi) brought your Gameboy to school, I (Anzu) broke it, but you didn't get mad, you just brought another one for me to play on and we've been friends ever since'.
At least, that was the intention. I honestly meant to finish the fic, but I made the mistake of starting it around the same time as the panic set in about my dissertation. You know – the panic that comes when you realise you have ten thousand words to write and only a page of roughly scribble notes to work from. I had to get my bum in gear, and by the time I came back to this fic I'd been distracted by other projects.
I'd like to say I'll finish this. I really would. But it looks unlikely. Still, I was proud enough of what I did write that I felt like posting it now. It's not the best rendition in the fandom, but it was my effort. And for all those who want to throw the lack of broken Gameboy bit at me; it would've come up later, honest. I had it all planned out. Curse this short attention span of mine! Curse it with the fire of a thousand suns!
The title was originally A Wheel in Constant Motion, after a line in a Leann Womack song made more famous, I think, by Ronan Keating's 2004 version. However, I later changed this to Dandelion Days, after a little-known song by the comedian Mike Gayle, who wrote it as a part of his act in the late eighties. The song is all about childhood, and is called such because, as a child, Gayle's most abiding memory was of a field of dandelions – a hardy little plant, not the most beautiful, butmost assuredlyresilient, and pretty much the only greenery that could grow in a city.
As a side note, all the secondary characters' names mean something. Belgian chocolate brownies to anyone who can figure them out.
Dandelion Days
© Scribbler December 2004/October 2005
'Time is a wheel in constant motion, always moving us along' – I Hope You Dance, by Leann Womack.
At ten years of age, Anzu Mazaki was already a master of self-distraction.
Her mother, Meron Mazaki, was not an easy woman to please; and her father, Zakuro Mazaki, no longer tried to please her.
Perched on the end of her bed, in a room squeezed into the farthest corner of their house, Anzu could still hear them arguing downstairs. It was the usual repertoire – her father's inadequate income, her mother's habit of spending it all on junk, the area they lived in, the rising price of fish sticks – which would eventually lead to horrible accusations on both sides. Possibly her father would spend the night on the couch, but it was more likely he'd just go out for a few hours to cool off.
Head bent over her geometry homework, Anzu concentrated hard in an effort to ignore them. It wasn't difficult. She was hopeless at math, to the point where her teacher had suggested getting a tutor. The straight lines and funny angles and unintelligible squiggles in her text book were worse than gibberish, because she knew there was some sort of logic in there. It was just impossible for her to see it. But she had a big test coming up, and a string of fails meant she had to pass this one or flunk completely.
So, no pressure.
Taking a break, she turned her CD player on and pressed 'shuffle' on the remote. Across the room, the small-but-expensive stereo system made a series of whirring noises and played a song chosen at random. It was a sweet ballad from some up-and-coming teenybopper type, all about lost love and blue skies and when will I see your face again?
The voices downstairs escalated. A door slammed.
Anzu turned the volume up.
It was late evening, and had her homework not been due the next morning she would have been watching cartoons and thinking about going to bed. She often thought she'd like to stay up really late, just to see what it felt like, but she always fell asleep. Sometimes her father would carry her upstairs over his shoulder. Once, she'd been so tired he'd got her into her pyjamas, tucked her in, kissed her goodnight, and she hadn't opened her eyes once. He liked to tease her about it now and again, when she was acting especially grown up. Then his eyes would twinkle, he'd wag his finger and say "Waffle marks", and that would be all it took to make her blush. It was no fun to be reminded you couldn't even stay awake until the wee hours when you were already ten – practically an adult!
Without really thinking about it, Anzu tapped the tip of her pen against her lip in time with the music. It was just fast enough to keep a rhythm, but slow enough she didn't splatter ink up her nose. Miss Kyoshi refused to let them use ballpoints, and pencils were for babies. The gold-edged fountain pen had been a present from her father last birthday, to go with the leather-bound diary from her mother. The diary sat unused on the dresser, next to the rolled up poster of the Russian Ballet, kept there because her mother would have apoplexy if she stuck blue-tack to the tasteful pastel walls.
Another door slammed. Someone tromped up the stairs. For a moment Anzu worried they were going to tell her to turn her music down, but her parents were more interesting in ripping strips from each other.
They loved one another, really. They just had differences. That was all. Grandma Mazaki said the world would be a very boring place without differences in people.
"Some provider you turned out to be!" her mother called from the top of the stairs.
"And I'm sure we'd all be living in Buckingham Palace if you hadn't dropped your baton in that Miss Okayama pageant thing you're constantly bringing up." Her father's voice was still muffled. Anzu guessed he was at the foot of the staircase. "Go on, say it. You always go there in the end."
"If anyone dropped the baton around here, it was you!"
Anzu hopped off her chair, plugged in her earphones, and slipped them over her head.
Pure teenybopper.
Bliss.
The next morning found Mrs. Mazaki frying eggs and humming the same three bars of an old song as she pranced around the kitchen table. She was wearing a light purple shirt that was such a bad idea when working with oil, and had already got raw egg white on the front of her Capri pants. She brushed absently at it, greeting Anzu with a cavalier salute.
"Hey, honey. Just making some eggs. You want some?"
Anzu shook her head and went to the cupboard. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach, but she was just tall enough to pull out a box of cereal without it falling on her head. She stuck her hand in and ate a piece of marshmallow dry.
Mrs. Mazaki wagged a finger. "Get a bowl. And I know exactly how many cans there are in the fridge, young lady, so no trying to sneak one. You drink orange juice at breakfast, not Diet Coke."
"Yes, Mom," Anzu parroted, fixing herself up with a bowl more marshmallow than flakes. They had only skimmed milk, of course. Mrs. Mazaki swung between different diets and no diet at all, but never changed to semi-skimmed or whole milk unless they were all out of skimmed at the store. Even then, she refused unless she didn't have time to shop anywhere else.
Anzu sat down and started eating. The smell of bacon made her regret passing up her mother's offer, but the sight of fat sliding around the pan strengthened her resolve. Only skinny girls got to be the best dancers. Only skinny girls could be lifted up high.
"What's your schedule at school today?"
"Drama and science this morning. Literature and math this afternoon. Where's Dad?"
"Oh, he's somewhere." Mrs. Mazaki spiralled her hand at the wrist. She was in a chipper enough mood that the argument hadn't been a really bad one. If Anzu's father hadn't come home it would have been Ryvita spread with cottage cheese and a glass of iced water. Her mother's eating habits were an entire language, keyed into her emotional state.
"Oh." Anzu bent her head to eat. "I have dance class after school today."
"You want I should drive you?"
"Nu-uh, I can get the bus." Getting the bus all by herself made her feel grown up and special. "But Miss Odori says my fees are due soon."
"Right, right, sure. I'll write you a cheque."
Anzu smiled. Dance class was the brightest spot in her not altogether horrendous day.
She loved going to Miss Odori's studio. She'd attended ballet classes when she was younger, but then they'd had to move and it was too far to get to her old place all the time. 'Downsizing' her mother called it. Anzu didn't fully understand what that meant, but she did understand that going to Miss Odori's was very different than anything she'd done before.
Miss Odori didn't believe in training only to be one type of dancer. She gave classes in tap, jazz, ballet, modern and interpretive dance, and even some flamenco. Anzu had stayed behind once, when her father forgot to pick her up, and watched the older girls flapping and stamping around in circles. Flamenco was a very ferocious sort of dancing, not at all like the fluidity of ballet, or the staccato bursts of tap. She thought that one day she might like to try it, but Miss Odori didn't teach anyone under sixteen because parents might complain at some of the more daring moves.
In her mind, Anzu twirled circles and clicked those funny little castanet things like a pro.
"I'll need it this morning, if I'm taking the bus."
"Hmm?" Mrs. Mazaki looked at her daughter with something too long to be a blink. "Oh, yes. Right. Just let me… yes." She turned down the gas and went to rifle through the bureau for her chequebook. When she returned she had a pen behind her ear and a sheet of A4 pressed between her lips. "Your father and hish filing shyshtem," she muttered, sitting down with another pen she had to shake first to make work. "Who'sh it – hang on. Who's it made payable to, again?"
"Miss Pati Odori."
"Right. Should've guessed, really, shouldn't I?" She scribbled her signature and tore off the cheque without filling in the stub. She never did. It was something Mr. Mazaki threw at her when he was running out of ammo, but she never made the effort to deprive him of bullets.
"Thanks, Mom," Anzu said sincerely. She contemplated giving her mother a kiss on the cheek, but decided neither party would appreciate the rub-off of base coat. So instead she finished her cereal, slotted her bowl into the dishwasher, and went back upstairs to get ready for school.
"Are you driving me?"
Mrs. Mazaki looked up when Anzu re-entered the kitchen. "Hm?" The sheet of A4 was in her hand, her fried eggs still in the pan, untouched. The gas had been turned off. "Oh. Isn't your father up yet?"
"He's in the bathroom, having a shave."
"Looks like it's my turn, then." She patted her pockets. The Capri pants were so tight it was easy to see they held no car keys.
"I think they're in the dish on the bookcase, Mom."
"Of course, of course. Let me just get my coat and run a brush through my hair, sweetheart, and we'll get going."
"But what about your eggs?"
"My - ? Oh. Yes. Those. Well, can't have everything, can we? I'm sure your father will appreciate them when he comes down. Now shoo, and let me get ready."
Anzu hugged her books to her chest as she entered her fifth grade drama class. She hated being late, but her mother's definition of 'running a brush through her hair' also included a wide range of feminine things she neither understood, nor wanted to. The result was that she had arrived at school right on the bell, with a dash across campus still to go. Even though she lived only a few miles from school, she would be marked tardy.
"Miss Mazaki," said Mr. Kibishii, peering through the grey strands dangling from his eyebrows. "So nice of you to join us. I hope we weren't interrupting a more interesting part of your busy schedule?"
Anzu felt colour creep into her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kibishii," she apologised, bowing at the waist. A thick curtain of hair obscured the class, but she could still hear them tittering. Never was a sight more enjoyed by kids than that of a peer up shit creek without a paddle.
"Have you signed in at the office? I've already sent the register up, so I can't mark you here if you haven't."
Fortunately, the office was between here and the entrance, so she'd called in on the off chance she was too late for roll call. She explained without looking up.
"Very well," Mr. Kibishii sniffed. He was one of those men whose receding hairline had been reimbursed with an overabundance of body-hair. It sprouted from his nose, his ears, his chin, his eyebrows, and a whole host of other places that didn't bear thinking about. His shirt rested a good inch above his actual skin. "Do we have a free seat for you?"
Drama class was one of those freestanding modules that prided itself on being disorganized. Anzu reckoned that was how Mr. Kibishii got away with Saturday Night Fever clothes and eyebrows Tarzan could swing on. However, this had the upshot of teaching in the school theatre – a shabby space with moth-eaten curtains and not enough seating. It seemed a great idea on paper – drama equals theatre, and there was already a problem about double-booking classrooms after they widened the curriculum this year. Lessons took place away from their usual form rooms and teacher, on the very stage itself, using chairs dragged from the prop room. There was usually a shortage, since the audience's were nailed down and not to be used by order of the admin office.
When Mr. Kibishii looked around, hands clamped on the underside of each chair, as though the students were frightened they would be taken away if they let go.
"Ah, yes," he said at last, pointing to where the backcloth didn't hang right and an old curtain rail lay where it had fallen three weeks earlier. "Please take that seat over there, Miss Mazaki. Luckily, we weren't too far into things, and I'm sure the rest of the class wouldn't mind me going over the beginning again. There are some stunning dust motes to be counted, after all, and Miss Fujioka, would you please stop picking your nose?"
Anzu looked at the only free seat – a small bench last used in a production of Romeo and Juliet two years ago. Everything about drama class smacked of 'make do and mend'. Her sole thought – Yuck! – had nothing to do with Nen Fujioka's disgusting habits, or even Mr. Kibishii's repulsive wardrobe. Rather, it had everything to do with the figure already perched on the bench.
Yuugi Mutou, the class nerd.
Actually, there was no need to limit him to the one class. He was the school nerd, acknowledged by the entire student body as totally hopeless. It was the one thing everyone agreed upon. He was pale and scrawny, as if he lived underground, safely removed from the sun. Although everyone had to wear a uniform, Yuugi Mutou had a unique ability to make even their simple dress shirt, pants and blazer look dishevelled and mismatched, like he'd found them at the bottom of a bargain bin. He generated an internal scruffiness field that could rumple a helmet.
Maybe it was his size, or his undernourished appearance. Maybe it was his hair, which shot up at odd angles and couldn't decide on a colour. Popular opinion said he'd hit his head as a toddler, and that was why the front bit grew paler than the rest. The really gory kids said his dad had dropped him on his head. Others said he'd got it wedged between the railings where they parked bikes at the mall. There was no basis for these rumours, but they made for interesting stories.
Maybe it was the fact that he threw up during an all-school assembly in third grade, thus earning the nickname 'Pukey Mutou'.
Above all, Yuugi Mutou was a loner. He came to school alone. He left alone. He was the last kid picked in gym, and the last picked when special projects required partners. He ate alone at lunchtime, and always seemed to make an effort at not being noticed, like a mouse crouching at the entrance to its bolthole before going out to forage. He did more than embody the word 'pathetic' – he made it his personal motto.
And now he was looking at her like he expected her to push him off the bench to make room.
Several other kids sniggered as she passed. One boy even made kissy noises, but she silenced him with a poisonous look. By the time she reached the bench her cheeks were hot and her fingers were starting to cramp around her books.
Yuugi Mutou looked up at her like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Then he smiled – a nervous twitch of the lips, more testing than sincere. He scooched over to make room for her, but he'd placed his own books next to him when he sat down. They went tumbling to the floor with a loud 'whump', startling the hesitant smile right off his face. He was on his knees picking them up before she could blink.
"Sorry," he said, like knocking over his books was some great insult to her. "Sorry."
Anzu wrinkled her nose. Weird kid. Then she sat down, making sure to arrange herself so there would be a good six inches of dead air between them.
"Mr. Mutou," sighed Mr. Kibishii when, after several seconds, she was still the only one on the bench. "Do you wish to ask something? Are you wanting to visit the little boys' room?"
Anzu didn't think she'd ever heard a bathroom break sound so much like a snub before.
Yuugi stood up, blushing furiously. His books, the same size as hers, seemed twice as big in his hands. "No, I was… I was just… Sorry, Mr. Kibishii." He sat down and balanced everything on his lap, fishing about for a pen in his blazer pocket. There was a stain of darker blue at the bottom where ink had leaked right through.
Nerd. The thought didn't so much pop into her head as arrive there on a train full of all the other stories she'd heard about him – none of them flattering.
When he turned his face to her, when he gave her that little hesitant smile again, it was all she could do to hang onto her manners and not just blank him completely. Talking to Pukey Mutou was bad enough, but doing it voluntarily was social suicide. And she didn't have time or energy to deal with that right now – if ever.
"Hi, Anzu," he whispered shyly.
Across the room, Nen and Eki Fujioka giggled at her.
"Hello," Anzu replied, focussing on a point just above his head. She could just about see his smile twitch into a brittle line.
"Miss Mazaki," Mr. Kibishii cut in obligingly, "is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
The fading warmth in her cheeks exploded into a proper blush. "No, Mr. Kibishii."
"Well then, could you please refrain from your private conversation with Mr. Mutou until I've finished? You may well find what I have to say informative. It's been known to happen. And you especially should be paying attention if you want to pass this class."
"Yes, sir," she said softly, voice cracking in humiliation.
Her gaze dragged between the floor and the teacher for the rest of the lesson.
Not once did she turn her head to look at Pukey Mutou.
Anzu played with her food, looking but not seeing, eating but not tasting. She was thinking about dance class, and the new moves she'd been trying to master for the last fortnight. Miss Odori made them seen like poetry. By comparison, each time she tried them Anzu had all the finesse of a gazelle with broken legs and a serious concussion. Or at least, that was how it felt.
Her habit at times like that was to replay things in her mind, trying to figure where and why she'd gone wrong. At night, lying in her bed, it was a lullaby. She drifted off to sleep thinking of arabesques and pink ribbons. In the day, it was a little less acceptable. Four teachers had written on her last report that she needed to concentrate more in class. She'd actually been making an effort this year, too.
But lunch was different. At lunch she could lose herself.
So it came as a complete surprise when someone plunked down next to her. She looked up, blinking, realising in the same moment that there was a portion of rice tucked into her cheek. It had gone mushy and cold, but she swallowed it anyway.
"Hey."
Mikata Teki, sometime friend of Anzu's, opened her bento box with a flourish. "Oh, yeuch," she exclaimed loudly, not replying to the greeting. Everything Mikata did was geared towards noise and excess, even down to the non-regulation beads strung through her shock of dark hair. "You'd think dropping hints for, like, forever would get me what I want in my lunch, wouldn't you?"
Anzu said nothing. There was nothing really to say to that. Instead she just took another bite of her food and chewed thoughtfully.
Mikata picked up a rice ball and examined it. "So," she said casually. A little too casually, perhaps. "I hear Eki Fujioka put her name down for the social committee."
"She did?" She hadn't heard that, but even if she had, Anzu knew it was better to feign ignorance around Mikata. It gave her a sense of self-importance to think that she knew gossip you didn't.
The rewarding sharp smile told her she'd figured right.
"Uh-huh. She thinks that just because she helped make the streamers for the Winter Informal, that gives her carte blanche to … to invade other people's territory."
"So you don't want her on side, then?"
"Hmm, let me think." Dropping the rice ball, Mikata picked up a set of chopsticks and pressed the ends to her lower lip. "Short answer: no. Long answer: hell no. I have to get in all the practise I can if I want a shot at getting on the high school's social committee. They don't just take anyone, you know. You have to have, like, credentials for this kind of stuff. You have to have experience. With references and everything."
Mikata's mother was a social butterfly whose parties dwarfed those of her neighbours. All her life, Mikata had been groomed to do the same. She was quite intelligent, in a shrill kind of way, but her main aim in life was to marry and become a 'kept girl', whatever that meant. With that in mind, it simply wouldn't do to have a daughter whose organisational skills couldn't even keep a ring binder in check.
However, Mikata's devotion to this plan meant that her skills stretched to social gatherings and not much else. If you needed a party for thirty people created from scratch, and had only an hour in which to do it, then Mikata was the person to call. Anything and everything to do with academia, however, and she was lost.
"Wouldn't Eki help make things easier?" Anzu asked. Mikata was good at what she did, but she was still ten years old, and ten was not a good age to be organising school events. It was slightly amazing there was a social committee at all – but, she supposed, it was all in preparation for the ever-so-nitpicky Domino High version.
"Pfft, yeah. Easier for her. She just wants my spot. I worked hard to lead this committee. You know that I even beat out some sixth graders to do it?"
Anzu nodded at the info she'd heard sixty billion times. Mikata could and did talk to anyone. She was good with people, as befitted a hostess in the making. Anzu, on the other hand, was not so good with people. She thought she would like some close friends, but she wasn't sure she could let enough of herself out to make those kinds of friends. She needed to keep parts of herself private. All of which led to her being excessively grateful that Mikata bothered with her, and she was willing to indulge the other girl's foibles to maintain that interest.
Mikata was still stewing. "And she thinks she can just waltz in and take it all away? Well, not while I'm around."
"What're you going to do? If she's put her name down then you have to accept her. The rules say so." It was one of the compromises the student body had made just to get a social committee – no discrimination. The school passed it off as part of the equality criteria so they could check off more boxes at inspection time.
"Yes. But that doesn't mean I can't make it unpleasant for her to be on my team. To everything, there are icky jobs nobody wants to do." Another sharp smile. "So, anything new with you?"
"Not really." Anzu took another bite, chewed, and swallowed.
"Aw, come on. Throw me a bone here. I told you my news, now you tell me yours."
There was a limit to what Mikata termed 'news'. What Anzu had done, or was going to do in dance class didn't count. What her parents had said to each other last night was never going to pass her lips. Still… "Ever have a bunch of junk in your head, and you know it all means something really huge if you could just work out how to fit it all together, but you don't know how to do that?"
Mikata frowned. "Not really. Why, you crushing on someone?"
Anzu nearly choked. "No!"
"Oh. You know someone who's crushing on someone?"
"No."
"Oh. Only, that kinda sounds like what it's like for me when I'm crushing on someone."
Anzu had never had a crush on anyone – except maybe that boy from the commercial for strawberry-flavoured popcorn. She picked off individual pieces of rice and laid them in a little pile in the empty part of her bento box. "I'm not crushing. I was just… thinking. About stuff."
"What stuff?"
"Lots of stuff."
"Well, good for you. If you figure out exactly what, then tell me." Mikata waved furiously at a figure coming through the doors to the lunchroom. She snapped the lid back on her own food without touching a bite and hustled in that direction, flinging a quick, "See you around, Anzu," over her departing shoulder.
"Yeah." Anzu pressed her thumb into the pile of rice grains, squashing them flat. "See you."
"Yes, Anzu. That's it."
Miss Odori emphasised a lot of her words. Anzu swelled, heart fluttering a little with each rise in her voice.
Miss Odori – a short, slender and impossibly graceful woman topped with a blonde chignon – folded her arms and surveyed the line of leotarded girls. Anzu felt her eyes travel from left to right, resting several seconds longer on those whose legs weren't quite straight enough, whose arms were just that little bit off kilter to the rest of their bodies.
"You're all improving – knee straighter, Warutsu. That's it. You're improving, all of you."
Praise from Miss Odori was like gold dust.
Anzu kept her face impassive, as she'd been taught, but inside she beamed.
She would do a lot for that gold dust.
Miss Odori's dance studio was just off Mono Highway, on an upper floor in one of the snazzy new buildings that made up part of Domino City's revamp project. There had been some big thing about it in the news – about how that whole area of the city was being given a face-lift to make it match the newer quarters. If you pressed your face against the glass you could just make out the long strip of asphalt, and the tiny specks of colour that had people driving around in them.
Anzu liked it here. It was a light and airy space, made bigger by the mirrors that lined the walls and ceiling. The music never seemed to quite fill it all, and when they practised without, you could hear dozens of footsteps echoing back and around. It made the entire experience seem more real, somehow – more tangible. There was something inexplicably comforting to be found in the synchronised movements of a dozen teenage girls, all focussed on the same tasks and muddles.
Miss Odori clapped her hands. The girls and the music stopped. Class was over.
Anzu sighed and came back into her own head.
In the changing room she settled to the task of becoming herself again, instead of Anzu the Dancer. She always thought of that with a capital letter, the same way Anzu Mazaki had a capital letter. There was a process to it that she'd developed over years of classes, since the time she decided to keep her desire to be a professional dancer a secret. The leotard and tights peeled away, letting out the thoughts she couldn't attend to while engrossed in the step-step-step of working out – homework, TV shows she wanted to watch, books to read, food.
She never thought about food while she was dancing. Other girls complained right in the middle of class about being hungry. She always got surprised when they did that, because she'd half forgotten she even had a stomach, let alone that it needed filling.
Her father was waiting downstairs. She stepped out of the elevator and into his arms.
"Hello, munchkin," he said, hugging her tight. "Have a good day?"
She nodded into his shirt. Then she paused, eyes round. "Oh! I forgot to give Miss Odori her cheque!"
Her father nodded, eternally understanding, and took a few steps backwards towards the sliding glass doors. "You'd better shoot it up to her. I'll wait in the car. I'm parked just outside."
"Okay." She sailed into the elevator and rode it impatiently back up to the second-to-top floor, where the next class was already getting ready. Much older girls of sixteen and seventeen stretched and flopped about, shaking out ankles and wrists in preparation to begin.
Anzu looked around. Yes, there was Miss Odori, over by the upright piano.
"Miss Odori! Miss Odori!"
Miss Odori looked up and smiled. "Anzu. Forget something?"
"I thought you might want this." Anzu thrust the only slightly crumpled cheque at her.
Miss Odori glanced at it and gave a little laugh that sounded not unlike the musical box Grandma Mazaki sent down three birthdays ago. "You thought right. And by the way, good work today. You're really coming along nicely."
Anzu's grin was nearly enough to split her face. "Thank you, Miss Odori," she said, and meant it.
Miss Odori spiralled a hand at the wrist. Nearby, Anzu could feel the gaze of one or two older students. They were just as hungry as her for praise, and perhaps a little resentful that she, a little squirt from the baby class, was getting the gold dust where they weren't.
"Don't thank me," Miss Odori replied, shaking her head. "Credit where credit's due. You've obviously been practising."
She had. Every Wednesday in gym, stretching and toning her muscles so they'd work right, and every evening in her bedroom, until someone banged on the ceiling and told her to stop it.
The windows were open, a cool breeze drifting into the never-stuffy room. The snarl of traffic was distant enough to seem almost soft.
Miss Odori glanced over Anzu's head. "Well, I'd best give these girls their money's worth. See you on Friday, Anzu."
Friday. Tap class.
"See you, Miss Odori."
Her father was where he'd said he'd be. He was also on the phone, which he hadn't mentioned, but she supposed someone had called him from work. They did that during meals, sometimes. Then he'd have to leave the table, and when he came back his food – if it had been hot – was cold.
That guess deteriorated when she opened the door to the passenger side and caught the tail end of a sentence she'd heard far too many times.
" – think we're made of money?"
"Hi, Daddy," she said, loud enough for her mother to hear on the other end of the line – if, indeed, it was her mother. If not, one of her father's work colleagues no longer had any reason to doubt his claims of a daughter.
"Hi, sweetie," he replied absently. There was spittle on the mouthpiece that he would wipe off when he disconnected and realised it was there. Sure enough, after bidding goodbye to whomever he was talking to, he swiped a hand over and sponged it off on the side of his coat. "So, now the financial bits and pieces are taken care of, how was your day?"
She shrugged. "It was okay. We're growing mould in science."
He grimaced. "Mould?"
"Mmhm. On bread, cheese and strawberry jam. We put them in little dishes, and we put the dishes in little bags, and we put the bags in the cupboard. We check on them each lesson and write down what's happened. The bread and cheese have turned blue, but the jam's all green and fuzzy."
"Nice to see tax money being well spent."
"What was that, Daddy?"
"Nothing, sweetheart."
Anzu prattled on about a hundred and one other inane things she'd done and seen and heard, none of which really mattered, but which gave her something to say. The radio was broken, and she felt the need to fill the air with noise to match the madhouse jangle of city that they passed.
In the dying sun, glass skyscrapers shone like 8 x 10 glossies. When she looked out the window she could see their car reflected back, all wibbly and strange. Her face was little more than a cream-coloured smudge, features imprecise, and she looked away again, still talking.
She was three lives down, with the evil skunk's citadel still to scale. Pausing at the base of a wall to take stock, Anzu ducked a volley of rotten fruit and thought up a dozen new and inventive curses for the soldiers who'd thrown them.
Anzu was not a careful gamer. She tended to mash buttons, lean to either side when she wanted to turn, and hope for the best. Once or twice she'd accidentally input complicated codes that jumped her three levels ahead, or boosted her extra lives by ten, but she'd never been able to repeat anything on purpose. As a result, mind-numbing fight games were best suited to her – the kind where all she had to do was press every available button as fast as she could. However, since her mother read an article in a magazine about how juvenile delinquency was increased by pound-them-to-bloody-pulp games, she'd been prohibited from such things. Mrs. Mazaki had taken all those she already had and forced her father to sell them on Ebay, replacing them with a selection of things like Maths is Fun and Chippy the Cheerful Woodchuck.
As it turned out, Chippy the Cheerful Woodchuck was marginally more brutal than Mrs. Mazaki gave it credit for. If a sneaky Bananarang didn't take your head off, then an Acorn Shell would blow your feet from under you. And that was to say nothing of soldiers with Berry Grenades, and the odd snapping turtle with a terrible bite and a taste for woodchuck.
"Anzu!"
Hitting pause, Anzu craned her neck and yelled, "What?"
"Phone for you."
She scrambled for the cordless.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Anzu."
She didn't recognise the voice. "Um, who is this?"
"It's me."
"Uh… no, still drawing a blank. You'll have to give me a clue."
"It's Yuugi Mutou. You know – we sat together in drama class today."
She frowned, struck by two equally valid and serious questions. One, why was Pukey Mutou calling her? And two, how on earth had he got her phone number? Her parents weren't listed, and she very rarely gave it out to anyone.
However, instead of demanding answers to these questions, she said carefully, "Yes, I remember."
"Oh, good." Yuugi sounded immediately relieved. "I was a little… never mind. So, how's it going?"
"It's going… fine. Look," she made an effort to say the right name, "Yuugi, as much as I like using the cordless, I have to ask: why are you calling me so late in the evening?"
"Well, I called earlier, but your Mom said you were at dance class." His voice dropped, not going quiet so much as softly embarrassed for missing her. "I didn't know you danced."
"Yeah, uh, but why were you calling then? Did you - " She paused, a horrible thought coming to her. Oh no. No, it couldn't be. Wasn't her rep already in the toilet? Was Pukey Mutou now going to try borrowing her homework to copy? Did she have some ancestor hiding in her family history who'd choked the emperor's hamster, and now the entire line was paying for it with social incompetence? She swallowed, hard. "Did you want something?"
"Well, I couldn't find you at lunch. And you left school so quickly today, we never got chance to talk about our topic, so I thought – "
"Wait, wait, wait: topic? What topic?"
"The… the topic for our project."
"What project?"
Yuugi was sounding more and more worried by the second, but the uneasiness in his voice was only a fraction of what Anzu was feeling. She'd been in drama class today. She didn't remember anything about a project, let alone one with a partner. Or was it with a group? She didn't know. Surely she'd remember something like that?
"The project Mr. Kibishii told us about today, in class. The… you weren't there when he said at the beginning, but he reminded everyone at the end. He said for everyone to sign up on the board and say who their partners were."
Board? What board? Cold panic filtered into Anzu's veins, but she made a valiant effort not to show it. "I guess it must have slipped my mind. I never signed up. So we can't be in the same group."
"We're not. We're partners. There were only two of us left when I went back to check at the beginning of lunch, so Mr. Kibishii put us together. I thought… I thought you knew. When Mikata gave me your number - "
"Mikata Teki? She gave you my phone number?"
"Yes. You didn't go back to check with everyone else, and she was passing by, and everyone knows you sometimes hang out with her, so I just figured… I thought you wouldn't mind, being as how so much of our grade is hanging on this project… I'm sorry; I think there's something wrong with my phone. It's making a funny noise."
"No, no, that's mine," Anzu lied, and continued smacking her forehead rhythmically against the wall. "Our phone's really old. It's always making weird noises. Best cure is to give it a rest for a while – let the static settle."
"Oh. Oh, okay." Yuugi didn't sound like he believed her, but he didn't actually question her, either. There was probably something to that, but she was in no mood to think about it. "I… I guess I'll talk to you at school tomorrow. We can chat about our ideas then."
"Yeah. Sure. Fantastic. G'bye." Anzu pressed the button to terminate the call, pushed the aerial back in with her chin, then flung open her door and clattered downstairs.
Her father was just coming out of his study, cup of coffee and newspaper in hand. He blinked when his daughter skipped the last two steps and landed in front of him. "Whoa, peanut. Where's the fire?"
"Where's Mom?"
"In the lounge, I think. Why?"
Instead of answering, Anzu dashed through to where her mother was curled up on the couch with a glass that had once held red wine, judging by the pink residue. One of her soaps was on the television, and unlike Mr. Mazaki it took a few seconds for her to wrench away and notice her daughter.
"Anzu, honey, what's the matter? You look pale."
"Did someone call for me while I was out today?"
"No. Oh, wait. Yes. I wrote it down… somewhere. Sorry, I guess I forgot to give you the message."
"Your wonderful filing system strikes again?" said Mr. Mazaki from the doorway.
Mrs. Mazaki shot him a filthy look and made to get up off the couch. "His name was Boat-something, I think. A nice boy, very well mannered. Boat-oh, maybe? I want to say 'lugie' for his first name, but I'm sure that can't be right."
Anzu's mouth was dry. She'd hoped he was lying, and was just a sad little freak with nothing better to do than panic her on a school night. "Yuugi?"
Her mother snapped her fingers and sank back into place, mystery solved. "That was it. Yuugi Mutou. We saw Miss Kyoshi right after his parents did, last Parents' Evening. Very good at geometry, as I remember. Glowing report card for math."
Anzu was willing to overlook her mother's stunning ability to say exactly the wrong thing. She was too busy thinking about how on earth she'd managed to accidentally miss some gigantic project that apparently made up a good proportion of her final grade for a whole freaking class.
"Anzu, are you okay? Was that who called just now? That Yuugi boy?"
"Got yourself a boyfriend?" Her father ruffled her hair and wandered from the room, apparently unconcerned her social structure was crumbling around her.
Her standing wasn't exactly top-notch anyway, without chipping away at it by spending time with Vomit Kid Extraordinaire.
Anzu excused herself and went slowly back to her room. She needed to check what was going on. It was imperative she fixed this.
For once, she couldn't wait for morning to come so she could get back to school.
The first thing she did was check the board outside the theatre. It wasn't en route to her form room, which meant she had to arrive at school early just so she'd get to roll call on time, but she figured it was a small sacrifice.
Please be a mistake. Please be a mistake. Please be a mistake. Please be a mistake.
It wasn't a mistake.
The sheet had been printed on that strange old rolling-printer paper with the holes down either side. Groups were of four or fewer, and there were half a dozen columns full of names in different scripts.
And at the very end was hers. She recognised Mr. Kibishii's spidery handwriting, the kind he used when he was rushed or not really concentrating. He'd spelled her name wrong, but there was no mistaking that it was her name, and that she and Yuugi Mutou were the only wagons in their little trail party.
She had to wait until morning recess to corner Mikata, who was giggling with friends in the lee of the jungle gym. They'd brought thick fluffy towels and spread them on the ground so they wouldn't get stains on themselves. Usually Anzu would avoid Mikata when she was with her more popular friends, but today it was either butt in or wander and possibly run into Yuugi.
She stood on the periphery of their clique and waited for a lull in conversation. She stuck out like a sparrow in a flock of flamingos, but when she cleared her throat Mikata turned to look at her with genuine surprise in her eyes.
"Anzu?"
Anzu tossed her fringe from her face the way models did on haircare commercials. "Hey, Mikata. Can I talk to you for a second?"
A sly look passed between the three other girls. One of them actually looked at Anzu's regulation blue skirt and neatly pressed blouse and pulled a face.
Mikata looked at them apologetically and got to her feet, smoothing her skirt down. The hem ended nowhere near her kneecaps. A small chain jingled on her left hip. "Sure. Take five, girls. But don't go anywhere. I've got some gossip that is so totally going to make your toes curl that you do not want to miss it."
One of the girls – Anzu called her Pigtails because it seemed the most appropriate name – raised an eyebrow and nodded.
Permission to leave granted, Mikata drew Anzu out of earshot and flashed her a prickly smile. "So, Anzu, what's up?" There was no decorative show of friendship, only civility and a delicate undercurrent that she'd rather be somewhere else.
Anzu shifted uneasily. "Um, Mikata… see, the thing is… I know we're friends, and I totally trust you and everything, but… um…"
"Do you know you have split ends? I have some special conditioner that would totally sort that out for you." She tugged at them, turned them over and examined them like the ladies in the hairdressing salon down the street.
"Um, that's nice. But I was actually wondering… did you give my phone number to Yuugi Mutou?"
Mikata smiled again, and this time it was sharp instead of prickly. "Little Pukey? Yup. And you know, I don't care what others say. Personally, it think it's wonderful you're finally starting to think of boys as something other than icky stinky things that always win at dodgeball. Though I must admit – aiming a little low, aren't you?"
"What? No! I mean, no I'm not aiming low. I'm not even aiming at all. I don't – you think – ? He's my partner for drama class, that's all."
"Uh-huh, sure."
Anzu kicked her brain, hard. "Pukey Mutou is a horrible little snotball, and if I hadn't missed my teacher telling us about this stupid project, I'd like to never get within three squillion feet of him." She remembered a phrase her mother sometimes used. "I'm only going through with this under duress."
Mikata arched an eyebrow. It had been plucked into a perfect curve, and looked quite strange. "If you say so."
Anzu heaved a breath. She couldn't afford to snap – not at Mikata. "So, you did - "
"I gave him your phone number, yes. He was so adorable, coming up and apologising all the time. He looked like he was about to pee himself with fright from talking to me. As if I'm that scary?"
It was a rhetorical question. Anzu was glad.
"Did the little creep actually call, then?"
"Yeah. He called."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Geez, Anzu, you have no clue. What. Did. He. Say?"
"He just told me about this dumb project. Do you have to do one for you class?"
Mikata shrugged. "Think so."
"Can you tell me what it's about?"
She looked at Anzu and arched that perfect eyebrow again. Not even Mrs. Mazaki had eyebrows that good, and she had a toiletry ritual a mile long. "I think you're forgetting the way this works."
And that was it. That was the end of the conversation.
Once again reminded of her place in their relationship, Anzu ambled away just slow enough to hear Mikata rejoin her group.
"How can you talk to her, Miki? She's so weird she makes my brother look normal."
"Miki likes to do her bit for the needy. Daddy calls it 'philanthropy'."
"Depends who the needy is, huh?"
They laughed at that – high-pitched giggling that stung Anzu's ears and made her shove her chin onto her chest.
She kept her eyes to the ground until the bell rang and she could escape to class.
Lunch was an interesting affair. Anzu spent it underneath the bleachers in the gym. Students weren't really allowed in there, but she didn't want to go outside and the brass band was making enough tuneless noise that nobody could hear her eating and reading.
Literature class was fun. Miss Kyoshi threw in science fiction and fantasy stuff to break the monotony of set texts, so doing the required reading wasn't a backbreaking task. Anzu wasn't a fast reader, but she got by. She would never possess the one thing Miss Kyoshi had a weakness for – academic brilliance – but… she got by.
She got by lunch.
She got by final bell.
She got by jumping into her mother's car and zooming willy-nilly through traffic.
She got by flopping in front of the television.
She got by dinner.
She got by her father sniping at the overcooked rice.
She got by reading the penultimate two chapters of her book.
She didn't get by when the phone rang.
"Anzu! Call for you!"
"I got it, Mom!" she yelled and performed the same scrambly dance for the cordless that she had the night before. And she was rewarded with the same voice on the other end.
"Hey, Anzu. It's me, Yuu - "
"Hello, Yuugi. Sorry I missed you at school today. I was a little busy with stuff. You understand." It wasn't a question – she told him that he understood, and he accepted it. It was a kind of power imbalance she wasn't used to, but she'd seen Mikata and co. do it enough to know just where to put her inflection.
"Oh sure, yeah, I understand." There was an expectant pause. "So, uh… you want to talk about the project?"
"Fill me in on the details. I'm a little hazy with the fine print."
"You mean you want me to tell you what we're supposed to do?"
"Yes. I want you to tell me what we're supposed to do." Her tone turned snappish, the way it couldn't around Mikata – or anyone else for that matter. Yuugi Mutou found himself the unfortunate recipient for a day's worth of barely contained pre-pubescent frustration.
"Oh. Okay. Uh, we're just supposed to take one of the texts from our sheet and do a presentation on it. And we have to write about how we did the presentation – like, how we chose which text to do, any problems we had, and how we got past them. That sort of thing."
"Sheet?"
"We… were given them at the start of the semester - "
"Hang on." Anzu tucked the phone under her ear and jostled through the cubbyhole where she kept her school things. It wasn't especially well stacked, and a few things fell out, but she eventually turned up a grubby piece of pink paper she'd forgotten about until Yuugi mentioned it. "Does it start 'From the Mouths of Babes: Grade Five Drama'?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
She scanned the names of the texts. Nothing too horrendous, although there were a couple she'd rather not have to work on. "Are we supposed to say which one we're doing?"
"I don't think… oh, wait. Yeah, we do. Mr. Kibishii said to write it all down on that sheet on his door."
"Perfect." Anzu sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. "And I'll bet no two groups can do the same one."
"Uh-huh."
"Any ideas which texts are already gone?"
"I wrote it down." There was the sound of moving around, and some creaky noises she assumed meant he'd put his phone aside while he looked. "Here it is." He listed far too many of the names Anzu wouldn't have minded doing.
She screwed up her mouth. "That only leaves the translated plays."
"Yeah… I thought about putting us down for one of the others while they were still available, but I didn't know which one you would've liked, and then I couldn't find you to ask…" Yuugi trailed off. "So… which one do you want to do?"
Anzu found a pen and crossed out all the texts no longer on offer. Of those left, all four were part of the syllabus 'translated plays' – famous plays from around the world that had been translated into Japanese. The school was required by the education bureau to put them in, but they were usually difficult, a lot of the deeper meanings lost in translation, and it was hard for teachers pick ones that were suitable for a fifth grade level.
Mr. Kibishii had plumped for two Shakespeare, something from Russia called 'Three Sisters', and a play by some dude called Oscar Wilde, entitled 'The Importance of Being Authentic'. She thought there was maybe something lost in the translation on that one. It didn't sound quite right.
Each and every one of them sounded yucky.
"I don't know," she mused. "Which do you want to do?"
"Well… the Shakespeare ones don't sound too bad… There's lots of information about him on the Internet. And in the library."
"Right. Cool. Because I've never heard of Oscar What's-His-Name, or the other one."
"Chekov."
"Whatever."
"So you want to do either 'The Tempest' or 'Anthony and Cleopatra'?"
"Wasn't Cleopatra that Egyptian queen?"
"Yeah."
"So who was Anthony?"
"Her lover. He ran the Roman Empire."
"All by himself?"
"Well, he had help. I think there were three leaders. Um…" More shuffling.
Anzu's brows pulled together. "You have notes on this stuff already?"
"Huh? Oh. No. My grandfather's an archaeologist and he sometimes leaves books at our house by mistake. I just thought that maybe we still had one about ancient Rome."
"And do you?"
"No. Just a couple about Syria and the Ming Dynasty."
"Just a little light reading, then."
Yuugi made a strangled noise. It might have been a laugh, but he stopped it so fast it sounded more like a drowning kitten being plunged back into the bucket. "Uh, yeah," he said seriously.
Anzu pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. "So what's 'The Tempest' about?"
"Well, this duke gets set adrift because his brother grabs the … throne, I think. And he finds this magical island – the duke, not his brother – and lives there for a few years until a ship with his brother and the rest of the King and court pass by. Then he whips up a storm, shipwrecks them and pretty much sets all his magic on them while they can't fight back or get away."
"You read this already?"
"Actually, I found a synopsis online."
"Fine, fine." Tiny ballerinas pirouetted around the inside of Anzu's head. Her thoughts felt choked and dry. She licked her lips. "Look, how about we just flip a coin for it and figure out the rest later?" She grabbed one from where she'd been meaning to put it into her piggybank and tapped it against the receiver. "Heads or tails?"
"What? Uh, tails. I think. Yes, tails."
"Okay. Tails for what?"
"Oh! Um, tails for 'The Tempest'."
She rolled her eyes, but flipped and caught the coin, slapping it unseen onto the back of her wrist. "You called tails, and it came out… tails. Congrats. Break out the magic wand, we're hunting magical islands."
And if I could find a disappearing nerd spell, that'd be just swell.
"'The Tempest first appeared in print as the first play in the 1623 Folio of Shakespeare. Throughout the play's history, it has been variously regarded as a highlight of Shakespeare's dramatic output, as a representation of the essence of human life, and as containing Shakespeare's most autobiographical character, in the form of Prospero the magician-ruler.'" Yuugi looked up. "Anzu?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Anzu looked around, her paper still blank. "Go on."
Yuugi cleared his throat and continued reading from the massive book. He'd brought it from home that morning. Anzu hadn't asked how or why he'd had it lying around. She was much too busy being horrified at him tottering towards her under its weight. It was at least the same girth as he was, and she was willing to bet her shoes it weighed almost as much as his scrawny body. She'd waited until lunch to cram both him and it into the very back of the school library and take up a seat where she could watch the door.
"'The 1623 text appears to have few omissions or corruptions, though the play does include stage directions that are unusually detailed when compared to Shakespeare's other plays'," Yuugi read. He was putting undue bounce into his voice, like a teacher trying to make a boring lesson less mind numbing.
Anzu's stomach rumbled. There was a strict 'no eating' rule in the library. She couldn't even sneak a rice ball, since optimum door surveillance meant the librarian had an unobstructed view of her through the aisles.
Yuugi broke off and looked up again. "You know," he said quietly, "we could go outside and do this."
"No, no. It's okay." Under the table, Anzu punched her stomach. "I'm fine. We can stay here."
"You sure you don't want to - "
"Here's fine."
There was no realisation on Yuugi's face. Instead, a kind of resigned confirmation took its place. He set the book down, its spine screaming. "Anzu. I know I'm not… quite the person you would have picked to work with."
Anzu broke off staring over his head. It was pointless anyway. His weird hair kept getting in the way. "What?"
"I know you don't really want to be my partner." He said it so matter-of-factly it was a little unexpected.
"Don't be silly."
"I'm not. But that's okay. I understand."
She paused. "You … do?"
"Sure I do. I just… I thought maybe…" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Look, if you'd like to go eat your lunch, I can finish up making some notes here."
She raised an eyebrow. "You serious?"
"Totally. Go on. I can … no, not at your locker." He shook his head again, as if talking only to himself. "Um … I can give you a copy of the notes in class tomorrow. You can write down some ideas, too, if you like."
Anzu was already on her feet, packing her things away. "Thanks, Yuugi. See you later."
The librarian glared at her on the way out. She resisted the urge to make a face in reply.
"Anzu! Phone!"
Oh, nutbunnies. What does he want now?
But it wasn't Yuugi Mutou on the phone. It was Mikata.
"Guess what?"
"I don't know," said Anzu, draping herself across her bed. "What?"
Mikata, obviously having forgotten their last talk, went on in a fevered voice, "Eki Fujioka handed around cupcakes at the social committee meeting. Homemade cupcakes."
"Were they nice?"
"That's not the point! The point is she's trying to win over my committee with handouts! And you know what's worse? They're totally buying it!"
Anzu wasn't entirely sure why Mikata had phoned her with this news. Probably because all her other friends were busy, she thought, and then reprimanded herself. "Maybe you could do something, too?"
"Tch, yeah. Be serious. Everyone will think I'm just copying her. No, I need to be original. Inventive. Got any ideas?"
"You could … uh, you could get them to think about fund-raising for the school disco."
"Selfless finance! Yeah, that could work. Preparation is an organiser's best friend. You're a sweetie, Anzu. What?" Mikata moved her mouth away from the phone. "No, Mom. No, I'm on the – well, you too! No, I didn't mean … ah, forget it." She moved closer again. "Got to fly. See you at school tomorrow, 'kay?"
"Okay." Anzu started levering herself upright.
"Oh, and Anzu?"
"Yeah?"
"It really doesn't do you any good to be seen alone with Pukey Mutou. People start getting the wrong idea." The line clicked and went dead.
Anzu turned the phone off and flopped onto her back. She spent a moment staring at her pretty pink ceiling. Then she covered her face with her hands and groaned.
She felt like she was alone on a glacier.
There were people all around her, of course. It was difficult to get through an entire class without other students and a teacher. Still, Anzu felt quite alone in her seat. She'd arrived extra early, bullying her dad into the car while he was still chewing breakfast, so she could pick a seat far away from Pukey's usual spot.
She had to keep reminding herself to think of him as 'Pukey'. It made things easier.
Even so, she could feel people looking at her, then looking at him and smiling.
It made her want to scream.
At lunch she dashed into the girls' bathroom and stayed there until she felt sure nobody could be waiting outside without looking suspicious. Thus having avoided Pukey's attempts to talk to her, she dashed for the bleachers in the gym and huddled into the farthest corner to eat. The light wasn't very good, but there was just enough for her to finish the battered copy of 'The Tempest' she'd booked out of the library at the end of her street.
It wasn't so bad, really. Her exposure to Shakespeare had been watching a dubbed version of Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet' on TV last Christmas. 'The Tempest' was very different. There were no beaches, no guns, no Leonardo Di Caprio; but there was magic, and a deformed human-monster-thing, and a butler who drank too much and cursed a lot. She wondered whether Mr. Kibishii had realised all this when he picked it.
'Tempest' turned out to mean 'big storm'. The guy who'd edited the book reckoned the title referred to both the storm that Prospero, the magician, rustled up, and the political problems the whole plot revolved around. Anzu couldn't understand everything he said – not even with the handy notes at the back – but she retained enough that by the time the bell rang she wasn't so upset at the thought of doing a presentation on it.
Then she remembered whom she had to do the presentation with, and she dragged her heels so much she was late to class.
Luckily, regular class seating was alphabetical, and there was a Misra, a Moko and a Muji between her and Pukey.
She started when, halfway through math, a folded piece of paper landed on her desk. Miss Kyoshi was facing the board, writing something long and complicated. Carefully, Anzu unfolded it.
'Sorry I missed you after drama. I have the notes. Do you want me to give you your copy at the end of school? –Yuugi'
Anzu glanced over her shoulder. Nen Fujioka grinned broadly at her and made little kissy motions. Anzu felt her cheeks go hot. She scribbled furiously over the words, then crumpled the note into a ball where Nen could see it.
Beyond Nen, she caught sight of Pukey on the end of the row. He dipped his eyes, but she knew he'd seen her. Inexplicably, it made her stomach clench in a way that was not nice at all.
Even though she tried, she didn't learn a thing in that class.
She was expecting Pukey to find her after class. Instead, she found three pages of carefully written notes stuffed through the air vent of her locker. They were all crumpled. One was even torn. She smoothed them out using the door and noticed a few lines of pencil in the uppermost corner. The rest of the notes were in blue ink.
'Anzu. Sorry I couldn't give these to you in person. I had to go. Hope they help.'
It wasn't signed this time.
She slipped them into her folder and walked towards her mother's car.
To Be Continued … eventually.