A white shirt and a red plaid skirt were disposed on a neatly made bed. Hisako didn't really understood what she was supposed to do. The room around her was a single bedroom with bland white walls, and had no furnitures except a small bed, a narrow closet and a desk.
Was she a new pupil ?
She saw other children in uniform when entering the building.
Was this whole situation a big misunderstanding ?
She put the clothes on and left the room, trying to find someone able to tell her what is going on.
The kids she met in the corridor were looking at her like she was from another planet. They were heading to the lower floor and Hisako decided to follow them.
She entered a immense dining room, beautifully decorated. The children were noisy, and she listened attentively to them, hoping to hear a french word from one of them. But they were all talking in japanese. This was probably the worst day of her life.
She had no one to talk to, and had no idea about how to get out of there. She hoped her family wouldn't worry too much about her disparition, but the embassy agents probably already informed her parents. At least she hoped so.
Her tummy started growling, and she decided to try to get some food, despite not knowing a word of japanese.
She approached a girl about her age, and tried to ask her how to get some food. Hisako asked the question in english, but the japanese little girl had no trouble understanding it. She looked surprised, but she perfectly understood her question and responded with a bright smile (and a lot of hand gestures). Hisako was relieved. There was nice kids on this school. This was the only good news that day.
Hisako managed to get some food, and was surprised by how good it tasted. It was only mashed potatoes with chicken, but the cook was surprisingly good at his job. A few kids had a lot more dishes on their table, and Hisako wondered how to get that many food. The boy on the other table said loudly "That's because of the star rank !", as if he was reading her mind.
"It's the star on your shirt that gives you food and bedroom", added a little child while pointing the star mark on his collar, trying to speak english despite knowing only a few words.
Hisako spend the night considering the situation. She ended up in a japanese school because some stupid bureaucrats – who never met her – decided that blood ties and nationality were more important than love, family and freedom. She didn't knew how to speak japanese, and didn't knew a lot about english either. English sounded familiar to her, but she only learned it because an old,crazy,american hippie woman spending a few weeks in the community decided to educate her and other kids about the Vietnam war and Monsanto. This gave her quite a lot of vocabulary about Alter-globalization, colonial issues and ecology, but she had no clue how to ask for confiture de fraises sur du pain grillé, or coquillettes au jambon.
Hell, how could she survive ?