My intention of course, had been to wake up early and call Mother Kaede to
warn her about Ayame. But intentions are only as good as the people who
hold them, and I guess I must be worthless because I didn't wake up until
my mother shook me awake, and by then it was seven thirty and my ride was
leaving without me.
Or so they thought. There was a huge delay when Dumber discovered he'd lost the keys to the car, so I was able to drag myself out of bed and into some kind of outfit- I had no idea what. I came staggering down the stairs, feeling like somebody had hit me on the head a few times with a bag of rocks just as Shippo- err... Dumb, was telling everybody that if he missed another Assembly, the teachers had threatened to hold him back a year.
That's when I remembered the keys to the car were still in the pocket of my leather jacket where I'd left them the night before.
I slunk back upstairs and pretended to find the keys on the landing. There was some jubilation over this, but mostly a lot of grumbling, since Dumber swore he'd left them hanging on the key hook in the kitchen and couldn't figure out how they'd gotten to the landing. Dumberer said, "It was probably Shippo's ghost," he leered at Dumb, who looked embarrassed.
Then we all piled into the car and took off.
We were late of course. Assembly at school begins promptly at eight o'clock. We got there at around two after. What happens at Assembly is, they make everybody stand outside in these lines separated by sex, boys on one side, girls on the other- like we're Quakers or something- for fifteen minutes before school officially starts, so they can take attendance and read announcements and stuff. By the time we got there, of course, Assembly had already started. I had intended to duck right past and head straight to mother Kaede's office, but of course I never got the chance. A teacher I didn't know jotted down in her little book about me, but I could see that getting to the principal's office was going to be impossible, due to yellow caution tape strung up across every single archway that led up to the courtyard- and, of course, all the cops.
I guess what had happened was, all the priests and priestesses and stuff had gotten up for morning worship, and they'd walked outside and seen the statue of Buddha with his head cut off, and the bench where'd I'd been sitting, all twisted and tipped over, and the door to Mr. Walden's classroom in smithereens.
Understandably, I guess, they freaked out and called the cops. People in uniform were crawling all over the place, taking fingerprints and measuring stuff, like the distance Buddha's head had traveled from his body, and the velocity it had to have traveled to make that many holes in I door that was made of three-inch-thick wood, and that kind of thing. I saw a guy in a dark blue windbreaker conferring with Mother Kaede, who looked really, really tired. I couldn't catch her eye, and supposed I'd have to wait until after the Assembly to sneak away and apologize to him.
At assembly, the teachers told us vandals had done it. Vandals had broken in through Mr. Walden's classroom, and wreaked havoc all over the school. The vandals had rudely beheaded Buddha, but left the really valuable stuff alone. We were told that if any of us knew about this horrible violation, we were to come forward immediately. And that if we were uncomfortable coming forward personally, we could do it anonymously.
As if! Hey, it hadn't been my fault Ayame had gone berserk. Well, not really anyway. If anybody should be going to confess, it was HER.
As I stood in line- behind Sango, who couldn't hide her delight over what had happened; you could practically see the headline forming in her mind; Buddha Loses His Head Over Vandals- I craned my neck, trying to see over to the seniors. Was Kouga there I couldn't see him. Maybe Mother Kaede had gotten him already, and sent him home. He had to have recognized that the mess in the courtyard was the result of demonic, not human, agitation, and had acted accordingly. I hoped, for Kouga's sake, that Mother Kaede hadn't resorted to the head lice.
Okay, I hoped it for my sake, I admit it. I really wanted our date on Saturday to go well, and not be canceled due to head lice. Is that such a crime? A girl can't spend all her time battling demonic disturbances. She needs a little romance, too.
But of course, the minute Assembly was over I tried to ditch homeroom and hightail it to Mother Kaede's office, a teacher caught me and said, just as I was bout to duck under some of the yellow caution tape, "excuse me, Miss Higurashi. Perhaps back at your home it is perfectly all right to ignore police warnings, but here in Tokyo it is considered highly ill- advised."
I straightened. I had nearly made it, too. I thought some uncharitable things about that teacher, but managed to say, civilly enough, "oh, I'm so sorry. You see, I just need to get to mother Kaede's office."
"Mother Keade," she said coldly, "is extremely busy this morning. She happens to be consulting with the police over last night's unfortunate incident. He wont be available until after lunch at the earliest."
I know it's probably wrong to fantasize about giving a priestess a karate chop in the neck, but I couldn't help it. She was making me mad.
"Listen," I said. "Mother Kaede asked me to come see her this morning. I've got some, um, transcripts from my old school that she wanted to see. I had to have them FedExed all the way from home, and they just got here, so..."
I thought that was pretty quick thinking on my part, about the transcripts and the FedEx and all, but then the stupid teacher held out her hand and went, "give them to me, and I'll be happy to deliver them to Mother."
Damn!
"Uh," I said, backing away. "Never mind. I guess I'll just... I'll see her after lunch then."
The teacher gave me a kind of Aha-I-thought-so look, and then turned her attention to some innocent kid who'd made the mistake of coming to school in a pair of Levi's, a blatant violation of the dress code. The kid wailed, "they were my only clean pants!" but the teacher didn't care. She stood there- unfortunately still guarding the only route to the principal's office- and wrote the kid up on the spot.
I had no choice but to go to class. I mean, what was there to tell Mother Kaede, anyway, that she didn't already know? I'm sure she knew it was Ayame who'd broken Mr. Walden's window. She probably wasn't going to be all that happy with me anyway, so why was I even bothering? What I ought to have been doing was trying as much as possible to stay out of his way.
Except... except what about Ayame?
As near as I could tell, she was still recuperating from her explosive rage the night before. I saw no sign of her as I made my way to Mr. Walden's classroom for first period, which was good: it meant Mother Kaede and I would have time to draw up some kind of plan before she struck me again.
As I sat there in class trying to convince myself that everything was going to be all right, I couldn't help feeling kind of bad for poor Mr. Walden. He was taking having the door to his classroom obliterated pretty well. He didn't even seem to mind the broken window so much. Of course everybody in school was buzzing about what had happened. People were saying that it had been a prank, the severing of Buddha's head. A senior prank. One year, Sango told me, the seniors had strapped pillows to the clappers of the church bells, so that when they rang, all that came out was a muffled sort of splatting sound. I guess people suspected this was the same sort of thing.
If only they had known the truth. Ayame's seat, next to Ayumi, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker- now assigned to me- was still inoperable thanks to the dent her body had made when I'd thrown her against it.
It was sort of ironic that I was sitting there thinking this when Ayumi raised her hand and when Mr. Walden called on her, asked if he didn't think it was unfair that no memorial service was being held for Ayame.
Mr. Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet on his desk. Then he said, "don't look at me, I just work here."
"Well," Ayumi said, "don't you think it's unfair?" she turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. "Ayame went here for ten years. It's inexcusable that she shouldn't be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign."
Mr. Walden looked vastly amused. "A sign, Ayumi?"
"That's right. I believe what happened here last night- and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Kouga- are all connected. I don't believe Buddha's statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about her not having a funeral here."
This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Ayame's empty chair. Normally, I don't talk much in school, but I couldn't let this one go by. I said, "So you're saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Ayumi?"
Ayumi had to twist around in her seat to see me. Well," she said. "It could have been..."
"Right. And you think it was angels who broke down Mr. Walden's door, and cut off that statue's head, and wrecked the courtyard?"
Ayumi stuck out her chin. "Yes," she said. "I do. Angels angered over the fact that Ayame never had a real memorial service."
I shook my head. "Bull," I said.
Ayumi raised her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"
"I said bull, Ayumi. I think your theory is full of bull."
Ayumi turned a very interesting shade of red. I think she was probably regretting inviting me to her pool party. "You don't know it wasn't angels, Kagome," she said acidly.
"Actually I do. Because to the best of my knowledge, angels don't bleed, and there was blood all over the carpeting back here from where the vandal hurt himself breaking in. that's why the police cut up chinks of the rug and took them away." Ayumi wasn't the only who gasped. Everybody kind of freaked out. I probably shouldn't have pointed out the blood- especially since it was mine- but hey, I couldn't let her go around saying it was all because of angels. Angels, my butt. What did she think this was anyway?
"Okay," Mr. Walden said. "On that note, everybody, it's time for second period. Kagome, could I see you a minute?"
Sango turned around to waggle her eyebrows at me. "You're in for it now, sucker," she hissed.
But she had no idea how true her words were. All anybody would have to do was take a look at the Band-Aids all over my wrist, and they'd know I had firsthand knowledge of where that blood had come from.
On the other hand, they had no reason to suspect me, did they?
I approached Mr. Walden's desk, my heart in my throat. He's going to turn you in, I thought, frantically. You are so busted Higurashi.
But all Mr. Walden wanted to do was compliment me on my use of footnotes in my essay, which he had noticed as I handed it in.
"Uh," I said. "It was really no big deal, Mr. Walden."
"Yes, but footnotes..." he sighed. "I haven't seen footnotes used correctly since I taught adult education class over at the community college. Really, you did a great job."
I muttered a modest thank you. I didn't want to admit that the reason I knew so much about my essay topic was that I'd once helped a veteran direct a couple of his ancestors to a long buried bag of money he'd dropped during it. It's funny the things that even demons want for their family.
I was bout to tell Mr. Walden that while I'd have loved, under ordinary circumstances, to stick around and chat about famous events, I really had to go- I was going to see if anyone was guarding the way to Mother Kaede's office- when Mr. Walden stopped me cold with these few words: "it's funny about Ayumi bringing up Ayame that way actually, Kagome."
I eyed him warily. "Oh? How so?"
"Well I don't know if you're aware of this, but Ayame was the sophomore class vice president, and now that she's gone, we've been collecting nominations for a new VP. Well, believe it or not, you've been nominated. Twelve times so far."
My eyes must have bugged out of my head. I forgot all about how I had to go and see Mother Kaede. "Twelve times?"
"Yes, I know, it's unusual, isn't it?"
I couldn't believe it. "But I've only been going her one day!"
"Well, you made quite an impression. I myself would guess that you didn't exactly make any enemies yesterday when you offered to break Ayumi's fingers after school. She is not one of the better-liked girls in the class."
I stared at him. So Mr. Walden HAD overheard my little threat. The fact he had and not sent me straight to detention made me appreciate him in a way I'd never appreciated a teacher before.
"Oh, and I guess pushing Kouga Prince out of the way of that flying chunk of wood- that probably didn't hurt much either." He added.
"Wow," I said. I guess I probably don't need to point out that at my old school, I wouldn't have exactly won any popularity contests. I never even bothered going out for cheerleading or running for homecoming queen. Besides the fact that at my old school cheerleading was considered a stupid waste of time and at home it isn't exactly a compliment to be called a queen, I never would have made one either. And no one- no one- had ever nominated me before for anything.
I was way too flattered to follow my initial instinct, which was to say, "thanks, but no thanks," and run.
"Well," I said, instead, "what does the vice president of the sophomore class have to do?"
Mr. Walden shrugged. "Help the president determine how to spend the class budget, mostly. It's not much, just a little over three thousand dollars. Ayumi and Ayame were planning on using the money to hold a dance over at the Tokyo Inn, but..."
"Three thousand dollars?" my mouth was probably hanging open, but I didn't care.
"Yes, I know it's not much..."
"And we can spend it anyway we want?" my mind was spinning. "Like, if we wanted to have a bunch of cookouts down at the beach, we could do that?"
Mr. Walden looked at me curiously. "Sure. You have to have the approval of the rest of the class, though. I have a feeling there might be some noises from administration about using the class money to mend the statue's head..."
But whatever Mr. Walden had been about to day, he didn't get a chance to finish. Sango came running back into the classroom, her brown eyes wide.
"Come quick!" she yelled. "There's been an accident! Mother Kaede and Kouga Prince..."
I whirled around fast. "What?" I demanded, way more sharply that I need to. "What about them?"
"I think they're dead!"
A/N: Wow, I updated faster than I expected...
Well in the next chapter, is a short, funny little mix up between Shippo, (Dumb) Kagome, a teacher, and Ayame herself. It's not REALLY funny, but it'll make you smile at least.
Or so they thought. There was a huge delay when Dumber discovered he'd lost the keys to the car, so I was able to drag myself out of bed and into some kind of outfit- I had no idea what. I came staggering down the stairs, feeling like somebody had hit me on the head a few times with a bag of rocks just as Shippo- err... Dumb, was telling everybody that if he missed another Assembly, the teachers had threatened to hold him back a year.
That's when I remembered the keys to the car were still in the pocket of my leather jacket where I'd left them the night before.
I slunk back upstairs and pretended to find the keys on the landing. There was some jubilation over this, but mostly a lot of grumbling, since Dumber swore he'd left them hanging on the key hook in the kitchen and couldn't figure out how they'd gotten to the landing. Dumberer said, "It was probably Shippo's ghost," he leered at Dumb, who looked embarrassed.
Then we all piled into the car and took off.
We were late of course. Assembly at school begins promptly at eight o'clock. We got there at around two after. What happens at Assembly is, they make everybody stand outside in these lines separated by sex, boys on one side, girls on the other- like we're Quakers or something- for fifteen minutes before school officially starts, so they can take attendance and read announcements and stuff. By the time we got there, of course, Assembly had already started. I had intended to duck right past and head straight to mother Kaede's office, but of course I never got the chance. A teacher I didn't know jotted down in her little book about me, but I could see that getting to the principal's office was going to be impossible, due to yellow caution tape strung up across every single archway that led up to the courtyard- and, of course, all the cops.
I guess what had happened was, all the priests and priestesses and stuff had gotten up for morning worship, and they'd walked outside and seen the statue of Buddha with his head cut off, and the bench where'd I'd been sitting, all twisted and tipped over, and the door to Mr. Walden's classroom in smithereens.
Understandably, I guess, they freaked out and called the cops. People in uniform were crawling all over the place, taking fingerprints and measuring stuff, like the distance Buddha's head had traveled from his body, and the velocity it had to have traveled to make that many holes in I door that was made of three-inch-thick wood, and that kind of thing. I saw a guy in a dark blue windbreaker conferring with Mother Kaede, who looked really, really tired. I couldn't catch her eye, and supposed I'd have to wait until after the Assembly to sneak away and apologize to him.
At assembly, the teachers told us vandals had done it. Vandals had broken in through Mr. Walden's classroom, and wreaked havoc all over the school. The vandals had rudely beheaded Buddha, but left the really valuable stuff alone. We were told that if any of us knew about this horrible violation, we were to come forward immediately. And that if we were uncomfortable coming forward personally, we could do it anonymously.
As if! Hey, it hadn't been my fault Ayame had gone berserk. Well, not really anyway. If anybody should be going to confess, it was HER.
As I stood in line- behind Sango, who couldn't hide her delight over what had happened; you could practically see the headline forming in her mind; Buddha Loses His Head Over Vandals- I craned my neck, trying to see over to the seniors. Was Kouga there I couldn't see him. Maybe Mother Kaede had gotten him already, and sent him home. He had to have recognized that the mess in the courtyard was the result of demonic, not human, agitation, and had acted accordingly. I hoped, for Kouga's sake, that Mother Kaede hadn't resorted to the head lice.
Okay, I hoped it for my sake, I admit it. I really wanted our date on Saturday to go well, and not be canceled due to head lice. Is that such a crime? A girl can't spend all her time battling demonic disturbances. She needs a little romance, too.
But of course, the minute Assembly was over I tried to ditch homeroom and hightail it to Mother Kaede's office, a teacher caught me and said, just as I was bout to duck under some of the yellow caution tape, "excuse me, Miss Higurashi. Perhaps back at your home it is perfectly all right to ignore police warnings, but here in Tokyo it is considered highly ill- advised."
I straightened. I had nearly made it, too. I thought some uncharitable things about that teacher, but managed to say, civilly enough, "oh, I'm so sorry. You see, I just need to get to mother Kaede's office."
"Mother Keade," she said coldly, "is extremely busy this morning. She happens to be consulting with the police over last night's unfortunate incident. He wont be available until after lunch at the earliest."
I know it's probably wrong to fantasize about giving a priestess a karate chop in the neck, but I couldn't help it. She was making me mad.
"Listen," I said. "Mother Kaede asked me to come see her this morning. I've got some, um, transcripts from my old school that she wanted to see. I had to have them FedExed all the way from home, and they just got here, so..."
I thought that was pretty quick thinking on my part, about the transcripts and the FedEx and all, but then the stupid teacher held out her hand and went, "give them to me, and I'll be happy to deliver them to Mother."
Damn!
"Uh," I said, backing away. "Never mind. I guess I'll just... I'll see her after lunch then."
The teacher gave me a kind of Aha-I-thought-so look, and then turned her attention to some innocent kid who'd made the mistake of coming to school in a pair of Levi's, a blatant violation of the dress code. The kid wailed, "they were my only clean pants!" but the teacher didn't care. She stood there- unfortunately still guarding the only route to the principal's office- and wrote the kid up on the spot.
I had no choice but to go to class. I mean, what was there to tell Mother Kaede, anyway, that she didn't already know? I'm sure she knew it was Ayame who'd broken Mr. Walden's window. She probably wasn't going to be all that happy with me anyway, so why was I even bothering? What I ought to have been doing was trying as much as possible to stay out of his way.
Except... except what about Ayame?
As near as I could tell, she was still recuperating from her explosive rage the night before. I saw no sign of her as I made my way to Mr. Walden's classroom for first period, which was good: it meant Mother Kaede and I would have time to draw up some kind of plan before she struck me again.
As I sat there in class trying to convince myself that everything was going to be all right, I couldn't help feeling kind of bad for poor Mr. Walden. He was taking having the door to his classroom obliterated pretty well. He didn't even seem to mind the broken window so much. Of course everybody in school was buzzing about what had happened. People were saying that it had been a prank, the severing of Buddha's head. A senior prank. One year, Sango told me, the seniors had strapped pillows to the clappers of the church bells, so that when they rang, all that came out was a muffled sort of splatting sound. I guess people suspected this was the same sort of thing.
If only they had known the truth. Ayame's seat, next to Ayumi, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker- now assigned to me- was still inoperable thanks to the dent her body had made when I'd thrown her against it.
It was sort of ironic that I was sitting there thinking this when Ayumi raised her hand and when Mr. Walden called on her, asked if he didn't think it was unfair that no memorial service was being held for Ayame.
Mr. Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet on his desk. Then he said, "don't look at me, I just work here."
"Well," Ayumi said, "don't you think it's unfair?" she turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. "Ayame went here for ten years. It's inexcusable that she shouldn't be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign."
Mr. Walden looked vastly amused. "A sign, Ayumi?"
"That's right. I believe what happened here last night- and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Kouga- are all connected. I don't believe Buddha's statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about her not having a funeral here."
This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Ayame's empty chair. Normally, I don't talk much in school, but I couldn't let this one go by. I said, "So you're saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Ayumi?"
Ayumi had to twist around in her seat to see me. Well," she said. "It could have been..."
"Right. And you think it was angels who broke down Mr. Walden's door, and cut off that statue's head, and wrecked the courtyard?"
Ayumi stuck out her chin. "Yes," she said. "I do. Angels angered over the fact that Ayame never had a real memorial service."
I shook my head. "Bull," I said.
Ayumi raised her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"
"I said bull, Ayumi. I think your theory is full of bull."
Ayumi turned a very interesting shade of red. I think she was probably regretting inviting me to her pool party. "You don't know it wasn't angels, Kagome," she said acidly.
"Actually I do. Because to the best of my knowledge, angels don't bleed, and there was blood all over the carpeting back here from where the vandal hurt himself breaking in. that's why the police cut up chinks of the rug and took them away." Ayumi wasn't the only who gasped. Everybody kind of freaked out. I probably shouldn't have pointed out the blood- especially since it was mine- but hey, I couldn't let her go around saying it was all because of angels. Angels, my butt. What did she think this was anyway?
"Okay," Mr. Walden said. "On that note, everybody, it's time for second period. Kagome, could I see you a minute?"
Sango turned around to waggle her eyebrows at me. "You're in for it now, sucker," she hissed.
But she had no idea how true her words were. All anybody would have to do was take a look at the Band-Aids all over my wrist, and they'd know I had firsthand knowledge of where that blood had come from.
On the other hand, they had no reason to suspect me, did they?
I approached Mr. Walden's desk, my heart in my throat. He's going to turn you in, I thought, frantically. You are so busted Higurashi.
But all Mr. Walden wanted to do was compliment me on my use of footnotes in my essay, which he had noticed as I handed it in.
"Uh," I said. "It was really no big deal, Mr. Walden."
"Yes, but footnotes..." he sighed. "I haven't seen footnotes used correctly since I taught adult education class over at the community college. Really, you did a great job."
I muttered a modest thank you. I didn't want to admit that the reason I knew so much about my essay topic was that I'd once helped a veteran direct a couple of his ancestors to a long buried bag of money he'd dropped during it. It's funny the things that even demons want for their family.
I was bout to tell Mr. Walden that while I'd have loved, under ordinary circumstances, to stick around and chat about famous events, I really had to go- I was going to see if anyone was guarding the way to Mother Kaede's office- when Mr. Walden stopped me cold with these few words: "it's funny about Ayumi bringing up Ayame that way actually, Kagome."
I eyed him warily. "Oh? How so?"
"Well I don't know if you're aware of this, but Ayame was the sophomore class vice president, and now that she's gone, we've been collecting nominations for a new VP. Well, believe it or not, you've been nominated. Twelve times so far."
My eyes must have bugged out of my head. I forgot all about how I had to go and see Mother Kaede. "Twelve times?"
"Yes, I know, it's unusual, isn't it?"
I couldn't believe it. "But I've only been going her one day!"
"Well, you made quite an impression. I myself would guess that you didn't exactly make any enemies yesterday when you offered to break Ayumi's fingers after school. She is not one of the better-liked girls in the class."
I stared at him. So Mr. Walden HAD overheard my little threat. The fact he had and not sent me straight to detention made me appreciate him in a way I'd never appreciated a teacher before.
"Oh, and I guess pushing Kouga Prince out of the way of that flying chunk of wood- that probably didn't hurt much either." He added.
"Wow," I said. I guess I probably don't need to point out that at my old school, I wouldn't have exactly won any popularity contests. I never even bothered going out for cheerleading or running for homecoming queen. Besides the fact that at my old school cheerleading was considered a stupid waste of time and at home it isn't exactly a compliment to be called a queen, I never would have made one either. And no one- no one- had ever nominated me before for anything.
I was way too flattered to follow my initial instinct, which was to say, "thanks, but no thanks," and run.
"Well," I said, instead, "what does the vice president of the sophomore class have to do?"
Mr. Walden shrugged. "Help the president determine how to spend the class budget, mostly. It's not much, just a little over three thousand dollars. Ayumi and Ayame were planning on using the money to hold a dance over at the Tokyo Inn, but..."
"Three thousand dollars?" my mouth was probably hanging open, but I didn't care.
"Yes, I know it's not much..."
"And we can spend it anyway we want?" my mind was spinning. "Like, if we wanted to have a bunch of cookouts down at the beach, we could do that?"
Mr. Walden looked at me curiously. "Sure. You have to have the approval of the rest of the class, though. I have a feeling there might be some noises from administration about using the class money to mend the statue's head..."
But whatever Mr. Walden had been about to day, he didn't get a chance to finish. Sango came running back into the classroom, her brown eyes wide.
"Come quick!" she yelled. "There's been an accident! Mother Kaede and Kouga Prince..."
I whirled around fast. "What?" I demanded, way more sharply that I need to. "What about them?"
"I think they're dead!"
A/N: Wow, I updated faster than I expected...
Well in the next chapter, is a short, funny little mix up between Shippo, (Dumb) Kagome, a teacher, and Ayame herself. It's not REALLY funny, but it'll make you smile at least.