Chapter 2
Mr. Kyuzo glanced behind the official looking man at the children again and was daunted by the sheer number of them.
In the letter, they hadn't stated how many children would take part in this 'experiment' but he had envisaged maybe three or four, not… not- "How many are there?" he asked, unable to keep the panic from creeping into his words.
"Twenty-three, last time I checked," he said, chuckling to himself seemingly unaware of Kodai's alarm.
"Oh... my! B-but, the-the letter! It didn't, it didn't say how many-" Mr. Kyuzo stuttered.
The man, now fully aware of the professors' issues, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another envelope and handed it to him.
He studied it in his hands: Long, thin and addressed to him! He opened it and pulled out a check made payable to him for- "Whoa! ¥810,600!"
That's a lot of money. Although, after the initial shock, he considered the fact that he was now the official carer of 23 children and for all the trouble he's being put through, he could see how this was a reasonable amount.
"Yes sir. We hope you see this as a practical sum of money? This is to cover the overall care of the children over the period of three months. If the experiment is proven worth-while after this time, then we can meet again to discuss further arrangements. This is our card and an instruction manual, if you will-"
He thrust a small laminated card and a booklet at least 200 pages thick towards Mr. Kyuzo, who nodded, "call us if you have any further questions or problems, okay?"
All Kodai could do was nod again which made the Government man apprehensive about just walking away and leaving him with 23 children.
Mr. Kyuzo finally found his voice and offered for the man to come up stairs and have a drink, but the Government official declined, saying he had a long drive, leaving Mr. Kyuzo trudging back towards his apartment with 23 young kids trailing behind.
On the way passed the Japanese restaurant, all the children kept walking, except one; the young girl, probably one of the older ones, paused by the door, gazing at the menus.
She turned and looked at Mr. Kyuzo who gazed back at her.
"Nooo- nooood- nooooood-le?" she said in a little voice. "Yes. Yuuuuuummmm," he exaggerated, "my favourite."
She then shuffled up to him, surprising him by taking his hand and pulling him towards the stairs to follow the others up into the lounge room.
When they reached the top of the stairs, the other children had already let themselves in and Kodai found them all sat in his lounge room: on the floor, on the couches, perched on the coffee table.
The young girl found her place on someone's lap and 23 sets of eyes gazed up expectantly at him.
Thinking that telling them he didn't realise there would be this many coming so there would be no where for some of them to sleep would be a bad idea, he stuttered and stammered, not knowing how to start.
Then that little girl stuck her hand in the air, pointing to a bag strapped to her back and, glancing around, he realised that they all had their own backpacks.
He walked over to the girl and asked her her name.
She just looked confused and cocked her head to the side.
Realising she obviously doesn't understand, he gently inches the backpack from her back and pulls the zip open.
Inside is a bed roll; a green plastic lunchbox covered in cat stickers; a photograph of a family, obviously hers, with her mum, dad, older brother and her holding a kitten; and a luggage tag with her name: Suzuki Gonkura and her address.
His address! But one thing was for certain: his English back ground was not going to help much in his now-obvious task of teaching these 23 children to speak English…