You're only young, but you're gonna die.
—AC/DC
"Hell's Bells"
YOU MAD?
Chapter Two
There is an old saying that goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
What if you had been fooled nineteen times? (And yes, she had counted.)
Twelve-year-old Hojo Satoko sat on the edge of her seat, knowing that at any moment the new guy Keiichi would meet his strange fate at the classroom door.
Satoko liked to play pranks on him. She had started out with having blackboard erasers drop on his head, leaving a musty-smelling powder in his brown hair. Then she decided that one was a bit too simple and predictable (he was catching on, his eyes straying upward just before he rolled in), and switched to a twine trip-wire. Just as simple a gag, perhaps, but — oh, laws! — you should have seen his face the first time he fell for it!
Satoko clapped both hands over her mouth, struggling to restrain that huge laughter that wanted to come out. What came out instead were some snuffles and snorts. She had to lean over and lock her throat to keep it in. Next to her, her friend Furude Rika, a pleasant kittenish girl, turned her head to look at her. She's checking to see if I've gone bughouse, Satoko thought. Wondering if I'm really a few fries short of a Happy Meal…These thoughts did nothing to help her giggles.
Oh man, that look on Keiichi's face when he first tripped over the twine — that had been a Kodak moment. After his ankle met the trip-wire, Maebara Keiichi seemed to fly exactly like Superman across the front of the classroom. His arms were straight out in front of him, the way Superman always held his arms out in the comic books. Only Superman looked like flying was about as natural as taking a bath or eating lunch in the backyard. Keiichi had looked like someone had shoved a hot poker up his ass.
Satoko was now all but silently shrieking into her hands. She remembered his mouth flapping open and closed, fish-like, how huge his eyes had been…and how, in that awesome moment, she had finally placed a name to the color of them: opal.
That cooled her mirth off. She sat up straight, cheeks pink from laughing too hard.
If he thought the trip-wire was outrageous, today he was really in for some happy-crappy.
(happy-crappy your uncle said that after going up the side of your head he'd ask you if you believed that happy-crappy)
The classroom door slid open, and Satoko held her breath.
When Keiichi stepped inside his first thought was that today Satoko had decided to nail him with a bucket of water. He gasped as something wet doused his hair and splattered on his shoulders; a plastic pail, the kind you bring with you to the beach, bounced off his head and landed on the floor, where it rolled in small circles.
In that gasp he realized she had actually bombed him with a bucket of smells.
The whole class laughed at Keiichi, some of them trying to do it through pinched nostrils, but as usual Satoko's famously huge laugh stood out from the pack.
"OHHHH-HO-HO-HO!" Her right hand came up to her mouth, pinky out, something that had become automatic at this point. Her laughter had just started to taper off, but all she had to do was replay that look on Keiichi's face — he looked as if he had crapped his pants — and it came back out, roaring, refreshed.
"Ohh, Keiichi-san, you gotta admit you really are a sucker sometimes."
"That's it, you little weasel!" Blushing angrily, Keiichi came toward her in lunging steps. "I'm about to make you a weird smell coming from the broom closet!"
"It'll be better than what you smell like! Whoo! Don't come closer!" Wincing, she waved a hand in front of her nose. "You're making everyone sick!" Rika was coughing into her sleeve, and Shion's eyes were streaming a little.
The smell Satoko had gotten Keiichi with could be described maybe as "electric." It dazzles the nasal passages the same way bright light will dazzle the eyes. It was the clean yet thunderous odor of perfume.
"Ohh hohoho! Chanel No. 5 certainly is a foul essence!" Satoko cupped her chin in her thumb and forefinger. "It definitely suits you."
"Alright! Someone call for a hearse and pick a plot!"
The class (which was mostly made up of little squirts) was whipped into hysterics as Keiichi took after Satoko. The two of them crashed around the classroom, making laps around its perimeters, dodging and feinting and thundering about like a couple of dinosaurs. Their banter was now dumbed down to shrieks, laughter, and snarling.
Mion observed all this tomfoolery with an expression of mixed anxiety, amusement, and concentration. Without thinking, she passed through the doorway and slightly aside, knowing that Rena would break up this scrap. She always did. Yes, Rena would throw herself between them and wouldn't move out of the way until they agreed to make up. If things got really nasty she might throw her famous Rena Punch. That would definitely set discord to harmony.
When Rena didn't appear by her side Mion looked around over her shoulder. Then she remembered Rena was not here today. This morning Keiichi met Mion by himself at the watermill. They both supposed Rena had actually come down with that summer cold she had mentioned yesterday.
Mion's gaze drifted to her twin sister, Shion, who lived in a flat in Okinomiya. Shion's head whipped around as she followed frick and frack's blundering fight around the classroom. She chewed her nails as she did so. Mion supposed Shion could
(throw a chair)
put a stop to this if she wanted to.
(that or she could strap one of em to a crucifix and stab her to death)
Oh, no, stop it. Mion put her hand to her head. That was only a dream.
(or nail down his fingers the way a kid nails a butterfly to a bug collection)
Stop it! Now her head ached, a drill of pain which centered itself in the top left half of her skull. She had fancied her sister a murderer! What an asshole!
The teacher, Chie-sensei, had stopped the spat, of course, and from there they had homeroom.
Though Satoko dumping a pail full of perfume 9which may or may not have been Chanel No. 5) on Keiichi had been funny at the time, as the day went on and the smell lingered it became first annoying and then maddening. Jokes were never supposed to last this long. Never. Students shot Satoko sour looks that reminded her of those bad old days, when classmates would pitch their voices just below Chie-sensei's hearing and mutter, "Teach you to build dams, Hojo." They might threaten violence or even death ("You're dead, you dam-loving cooze," they would snarl), but as long as she stayed by Satoshi's side they wouldn't—
Oh, but it hurt to think about Nii-nii.
She shook those thoughts away as easily as a dog shakes water off itself (and that was a relief, since ignoring those memories wasn't always that easy). She vowed to catch Keiichi with a better trap next time. Today she just hadn't thought this far ahead — which she rarely did.
She tried to focus on Chie-sensei whilst she droned on and on about an upcoming unit quiz for elementary students, chapter five test for high school students, blah blah blah. None of this jobba-nobba was important to Satoko, who was a junior high student. She began to fidget, wanting to stir up some excitement but deciding by the black looks on her classmates' faces that she had done enough for one day. (Second thoughts, like thinking ahead, were as rare for Satoko as a solar eclipse.)
Her thoughts broke apart a little and started to drift, and her garnet-colored eyes drifted with them. On the other side of the classroom she saw Keiichi leaning an elbow on his desk, his tanned cheek lifted by the heel of his hand. His eyes were glazed, but Satoko knew he was paying attention…or she hoped he was.
Flunking that test, I wouldn't put it past him. She snorted and forced her eyes forward. He'll have to take a retake, and guess who will have to make sure he studies for that! Well, it took a village to raise a child.
Some child — he's three frocking years older than me! She felt her throat get hard. She didn't know what this helpless anger at Keiichi was about. Why do I have to be the one to worry about his grades?
She didn't; she knew that. Let him go to Mion or Shion or Rena if he needed help that badly. But somehow this revelation did nothing to calm her. On the contrary, she felt a little scared of the idea of him asking one of them for help. She didn't know why. She didn't care why.
She decided this: at club activities she would remind him to study, study, study. That would relieve her fear at least a little. In the meantime that fear would sit like a heavy cold weight in her gut, and the perfume (which, she realized, smelled quite a bit like fear) would make that weight even colder.
Once upon a time, in 1980, in a wee village far away from civilization, nine-year-old Hojo Satoko quite literally dropped in on Sonozaki Mion, Ryugu Rena, and Furude Rika playing Black Jack while trying to escape a bully. And lo, they were a club.
The club went without a name to this day. Everyone rejected Mion's idea to call it the SOS Brigade, or the Saving the World By Overloading It With Old Geezers Sonozaki Mion Brigade. Rena suggested the Evil Cookies Club. Dee-nied. The Nipah Things Are Nipah Club? Uh-uh. The Satoko Fanclub? Ix-nay.
The penalty system was a lot more softcore before Satoko joined (and her brother with her shortly after). Back the the penalty had been loser buys everyone lunch at Angel Mort or something like that, and back then the loser had usually been Rena. After Satoko joined penalties were upgraded to drawing on your face or licking a toilet seat. Satoko, who became the club's new loser upon joining, once drank a glass of pineapple juice, lemonade, chocolate milk, baebeque sauce, sardines, yogurt, and feta cheese all blended together by Mion for her penalty. In 1981 Satoshi was tape-recorded singing "Don't Stop Believin," both the male and female parts.
"Just a smalltown girl," he had sung in a quavering falsetto, "livin in her lonely wo-orld. She took the midnight train going aaanyyywheeere…"
And then, less than a year after his disappearance, there was Keiichi.
Yesterday his penalty had been to wear his underwear on his head like a hat on the walk home. He reappeared in the classroom with a pair of shorts on his head, the legs standing out like the ends of a jester's cap. They were bright blue with yellow ducks on them. Satoko had been relieved to note that there were no skidmarks on them. Keiichi was a fuzzbrain, but he wasn't gross. Give him that.
He had been hobbling a little as he walked in, and his hands had kept tugging at the flap of his zipper. Seeing that had made Satoko's cheeks flash hot as she realized, He's pulling it away because it hurts his — his —
She had shaken her head and forced herself to look away.
The others meanwhile had laughed their heads off. Even Rena, who said she looked a little ill and who looked a lot ill, had giggled into her palm, though it looked like it hurt her to do that.
Blushing, Keiichi had yelled, "Yeah, laaaaugh! It's a riot! Just wait till I win! You'll all be wearing your panties on your heads and your bras on the outside!"
"Are you sure, Keiichi-san?" Satoko had said, still not looking at him. "By then we could be wearing bloomers instead of panties."
Today, however, there was no club. It was one of their unwritten rules (as if they had written ones): don't have club if all members aren't present and accounted for. Now Satoko had more free time than she knew what to do with. Rika had gone off to the library in Okinomiya. At the time of the day when she would normally be playing Old Geezer with her friends Satoko was instead lying on her futon, listening to the rattling thrum of the cicadas outside and the occasional hum of the appliances inside. She hoped Rena would get better soon.
She will. Satoko rolled onto her stomach and grabbed a book of Rika's which had been lying nearby. Nobody dies from the flu.
She tried to read the book, gave up after three pages. It was called 1984. Boring as hell. No plot in three pages, just a lot of rambling. How could Rika read garbage like this without going insane?
What if these stupid books really did make her crazy? That made Satoko laugh a little, to imagine Rika, who was normally so pleasant and calm, come bursting into class with a steely killer's glint in her eyes. She would pop up her nines, yell, "Nipah in hell, faggots!" and bust a cap in someone's sorry ass. And it would all be George Orwell's fault.
You know you're bored if you're picturing stuff like this.
Rena lay in her futon, dressed in her blue pajamas, down with the worst flu she had had…ever. Except at this point she was seriously doubting it was the flu she had.
She felt bad. She felt pretty darn terrible, if she did say so herself. Could the flu really make someone feel so cruddy? Could it?
Rena felt hot in the worst way. This wasn't hotness from the outside, like Hinamizawa on a ninety-five degree day, but hotness from the inside. She felt like she had swallowed the sun. Her poor tired heart didn't get a day off despite the heat advisory in effect for all parts of her body, as declared by the National Fever Service in her brain. She could feel its heavy beat in her throat and wrists, and in these parts of her was pain refreshed with every beat.
Heck, every part of her hurt. Her cheek was on fire with agony. A steady dull ache groaned deep inside her bones. The groan became a sharp, flashing shriek whenever she moved. So Rena lay as stiff and still as a poker, her arms by her sides, listening to her labored breathing (which sounded louder to her ears than ever before). There was a glass of water right next to her, and Rena was quite thirsty, but she would have to move to get it.
No, this wasn't the flu. She was quite sure of that. She didn't know how she was sure; just instinct, she supposed. She did know she was bitten by a rat and that was why her cheek hurt so bad. What day had that been…? She couldn't remember. She knew she couldn't tell some boy about that rat bite. Why had that been? And who was that boy? She couldn't remember that either.
It wasn't all bad, though. There was some good. There was Oyashiro.
Rena instinctively knew Oyashiro had something to do with this platinum-stack of awful she was feeling, as he always had something to do with the goings-on in Hinamizawa. That could mean one of two things. It meant either this was a test and if she suffered through with it long enough Oyashiro would reward her, or Oyashiro had some plan of which she was a part. Maybe it had something to do with the upcoming Cotton Drifting Festival. Whatever it was, she knew if her dear friend Oyashiro was behind this, then that was fine, that was pretty much okey-dokey.
Remember Oyashiro-sama, she commanded herself.
In the meantime she would wait and pray. So help her, Oyashiro-sama, thine will shall be done.
Somewhere in a grove of trees Satoko wordlessly studied a big book open on the ground before her. She was squatting over it with her hands on the insides of her legs like a catcher. Sweat ran down her face in rills. She armed some off her forehead.
The book she was looking at wasn't the kind that drove you insane. It was practical, useful reading. The title of it was 101 Things To Do During Summer, and you didn't need no foo-foo "synopsis" to know what this baby was about.
Satoko was reading up on how to set a tiger trap.
What you needed was a good, strong rope, a stake, something very heavy, and bait.
There was a stake in the shed at the Furude shrine. There were also cinder blocks — those would do for something heavy. She had to make a run to the market to buy enough rope. The vendor had given her a suspicious look before finally accepting her money. As he handed her the rope he snarled, "You need a haircut."
Why is it, she wondered on her way home, that grownups are so sore about selling kids stuff that isn't candy or manga? She supposed it was because they were scared. She also suspected this vedor had been particularly sore on her because her family name was Hojo.
For bait…she settled on a tuna fish sandwich. She didn't know what tigers ate, but they were big cats, weren't they? Everybody knew cats loved fish.
Setting up the traps was hard work, and today was one of those Hinamizawa summer days where the heat seems to drape everything like a blanket. Still, Satoko was determined to see this through — she always saw things through to the end (except books). She had had that 101 Things book since she was little, and once Satoshi had helped her to build a paper boat—
Oh, but let's not think about that now.
Five minutes later she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. The rope looped over a tree limb. One of it was tied in a lasso, with the sandwich in the center of the lasso and the stake through the knot. A bag of cinder blocks was tied to the other end of the rope and dangled in midair, a heavy lot of cement committing suicide by hanging. What you did was you pulled the stake away when you heard the tiger, and the cinder blocks would pull the torso around its leg or something.
Satoko felt uncertainty at first, then a sense of glee, and finally an entirely new feeling — one that was at the same time weird, terrifying, and exhilarating. Power. That was what it was. Power. It was going to work, by the laws, and it was going to work better than she thought it could.
Satoko grabbed the twine attached to the stake and camped out on the other side of the shrubs. A few minutes later she was joined by Rika.
"What are you doing, sir?"
"Hey, Rika. I'm trapping a tiger."
The small girl craned her neck to get a better view of the trap. She had The Shining in the crook of one arm. "I don't think there are tigers in Japan, sir."
"Yeah, huh? Then where are they?"
Rika thought it over. "…I don't know, sir."
"Besides…" Satoko held up 101 Things To Do During Summer. "…would a tiger trap be in this book if there were no tigers in Japan?"
Rika nodded sagely. "A good point you make there, sir."
"So, how was the library?"
"Oh, you know. Fine, I guess."
Maybe it was just her, but Satoko thought Rika sounded pretty damn glib. Her voice sounded overbright, the voice of an actress giving a very good performance.
"I just had to renew this," Rika finished, pointing at The Shining. Her eyes were averted and she had roses of color blooming in her cheeks.
Satoko eyed her carefully for a moment before nodding. She knew Rika was hiding something. She also knew Rika hid a lot of things and never talked about it. Wild horses wouldn't drag out why she sometimes spoke in a low voice, or why she stayed up past midnight talking to herself, or how she knew how things would turn out at the end of a game.
"How did you know where to find me?" Satoko asked.
"I didn't, sir," said Rika in that same glib voice. "Took me a while to find you, sir. Nipah!"
Satoko grunted.
Rika craned her neck again. "Is that a sandwich, sir?"
Satoko grinned. "Laws, yes. Tuna. Tigers'll do anything for tuna. Matter of fact…" Her face brightened as she heard the sticky sounds of eating. "There's one right now!"
Rika squinted. She got on tip-toe. "Satoko, that's not—"
Too late. She had yanked the twine.
There was a huge WHUMP! and a drilling screech.
Satoko frowned. "That's not what a tiger…" She stood up and marched into the clearing with Rika behind her. "Oh, what the fack!" she yelled angrily, her hands on her hips. "Keiichi-san!"
Whining piteously, Keiichi swung upside-down, his leg caught in the lasso. He had lost his sandwich in the trapping and now it lay dismantled and grimy in the dirt.
Satoko shook her fist at him. "Keiichi-san, that trap was supposed to be for a tiger!"
He hoisted an eyebrow at her. "There aren't any tigers in Japan, Satoko."
"Then has this whole book been a lie?" She thrust out 101 Things.
"Maybe it's self-published, sir."
Keiichi's eyes clouded over and he called, "Ever gonna let me down? I'm dizzy."
"Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on." Her anger dissipated a little and Satoko started to laugh. Howling with mirth, she went to the other side of the tree to untie the cinder blocks. "Keiichi-san, it's disturbing that you would eat a sandwich off the ground."
"Aww," he grumbled uncomfortably. He was just getting used to seeing the hard blue sky on the bottom part of his vision when the taut rope loosened and the ground flew up to meet him. He fetched his head a good one, rolled over, and lay on his back, watching the world wash over in gray.
Satoko came back into the clearing, dragging her sack of cinder blocks. She regarded Keiichi with a serves-you-right expression on her face.
"Satoko!" he bellowed, sitting up and nursing a goose egg on the back of his head. "You coulda killed me!"
"Yes, and I'm exhausted!" she yelled sarcastically. "I could sure use a little help next time!"
He was still glowering at her, his pride as wounded as his head, when he felt a gentle hand ruffle his bangs. He looked around at Rika, who favored him with a sunny smile.
"You've been very good, Keiichi, sir," she told him.
"Oh, Rika is such an angel!" he gushed, then gave Satoko a look that plainly said Others might learn from her example.
Satoko watched Keiichi as Rika patted his head. That heavy coldness was back in her stomach, fluttering. Whatever. Rika always does stuff like this. It doesn't mean anything. And anyways, what was it to Satoko if it meant something to him?
Nothing, that's what it is.
Yet that coldness stayed in her gut.
Her eyes strayed to the lump on his head and she grimaced. Yikes, but that had to hurt. Do you believe that happy-crappy? She walked over behind him and lightly touched it.
He hissed, his shoulders twitching. "Oww! Satoko!"
"Be sure to put alcohol on this later."
"Stop touching it—" He fell silent as Rika lightly grabbed his shoulder. He looked at her.
"She's only like this because she worries about you, sir."
Keiichi raised an eyebrow at her. Then he noticed the 101 Things laying on the ground. He leaned as far over as he could, and his fingertips brushed the book. He pulled it closer and began to flip through it. Then he sat still as his eyes — opal, they were — scanned one page closely. He smiled. "Do either of you know what a 'cofferdam' is?"
The D-word made Satoko flinch. She saw Rika's small face harden.
"No, sir," she responded, and Satoko knew she was feigning ignorance.
"Well, apparently, it's easy to make." He flipped the book over so they could see. There was a picture of a river with its banks swollen to the size of a giant pool and the title "How to Build a Dam" at the top.
He was smiling. "This should be fun, huh?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Oh, no it ain't, Keiichi, and you're about to find out why.
This chapter...Meh, I think it's okay. Satoko's harder to write for than I thought. I tried to tap into my inner twelve-year-old.
Has anyone ever heard of the Lavender Town Syndrome rumor surrounding the Pokemon Green game? It's falsely rumored that hearing the Lavender Town song made little kids go crazy and kill themselves, because there were different frequencies in the song which only kids could hear. I just think some overzealous Higurashi fans made this up, because the name of Lavender Town in Japanese is Shion Town. They probably thought, Oh, how fitting. The scariest town is named after the scariest Higurashi character. What if that town haunted people in real life? Obviously, this rumor is fake. I'm just wondering what everyone thinks of *starts giggling* Lavender Town being called Shion Town.
Thank you for your reviews and subscribing to alerts and stuff.
NEXT CHAPTER: Focuses on everyone's favorite palm-sized raging alcoholic. Keiichi learns about the dam project of 1979, Rena goes progressively more insane, and the days get closer to the Cotton Drifting.
