used below refers to the on-reading of the character. Just
so nobody gets confused by me trying to make this story
accessible to those who don't know Japanese.)
(Technical note II: All the on-readings mentioned below are
real, though I'm not sure if I got Yomi's new word right.)
One sunny May afternoon, the Azumanga Daioh girls were in
their science class. The topic of the day was human health,
and somehow the topic got onto something that none of the
students (not even Chiyo-chan) had ever heard of before:
'suitoushou' (water on the brain).
Osaka stared straight ahead, her eyes glazing over. Kagura
could sense the warning signs...Osaka was lost in thought.
Again. Even though Kagura always made fun of Osaka for
being a stupid "Bonkura" (not that Kagura herself was any
better as a student) Kagura admired Osaka's wandering mind.
That girl is going to invent something completely random
someday, Kagura thought. Or at least change the way we see
the world.
"What's 'suitoushou' mean?" Osaka finally asked.
"Well," explained the science teacher, "it means there's
too much fluid around the brain. Here, let me write it if
that helps." And the teacher wrote the word on the
chalkboard:
suitoushou sui (water) + tou (head) + shou (illness)
Osaka stared at the board.
"So what would happen if somebody got a 'ho' (ear of grain)
on their brain? What would that be called?" Osaka asked
innocently.
The teacher just stared at Osaka like she'd lost her mind.
Actually, poor Osaka was used to being on the receiving end
of such a stare.
"Ah...I suppose that would also be called 'suitoushou',"
the teacher said, since 'ho' (ear of grain) would also be
'sui' as part of a compound word.
"What about a comet? A comet could smack into somebody's
head anytime, you know," Osaka continued.
"That'd be a 'suitoushou' as well," said the teacher,
realizing where this was going.
"Um...what about a lead weight?" Osaka wanted to know.
"Another 'suitoushou'..." thought Kagura. "FINALLY there's
a name for Osaka's strange mind," she said aloud.
"Actually, Osaka, sometimes I think your condition is
called 'fuyuunou' (not having a brain)," Yomi stated.
"Osaka, quit bein' so stupid!" yelled Tomo from across the
room. "Or I'm gonna take a 'tsuchi' (mallet) and give you
yet another 'suitoushou' myself!"
Osaka finally stopped making puns. She turned to Tomo and
tilted her head to one side. "Huuhhh? Is that contagious?"
"Apparently so," thought Sakaki, who'd also had her own
vocabulary expanded by the punnish interchange.
"Tomo, you moron, 'tsuchi' would turn into 'tsui', so it'd
be 'tsuitoushou'," Yomi countered. Anything to get Tomo to
shut up. And Osaka too.
"Actually, both 'tsui' and 'sui' would be correct,"
explained Chiyo-chan, "because 'tsuchi' could turn into
either one in a compound word. But 'tsui' is more common."
"QUIT BEING SO DAMN PERFECT!" Tomo and Yomi shouted
together. After a second of thought: "AND CUTE!"
"I wish I was cute," thought Sakaki sadly.
"Tomo, I made your favorite sushi today," answered Chiyo-
chan.
"All is forgiven!" Tomo happily exclaimed.
Back to Osaka, who (thankfully) had run out of puns for now
and decided to concentrate on something else. A semi-normal
discussion of water on the brain (after all this time,
they'd agreed that's what 'suitoushou' REALLY referred to)
began and lasted through the entire period. The pun-loving
Osakan was relatively quiet throughout that period.
Until break time.
"Naa, Chiyo-chan," Osaka suddenly greeted her best friend.
"I been thinkin'."
"Aren't there laws against that?" asked Kagura with a
playful grin, watching from the sidelines.
"If water gets on people's brains, does that mean it washes
their brains clean?" Osaka wanted to know. It made sense
that she'd ask the smart one.
"Are you still on that?" said Tomo. "Geez, even you don't
stay on the same subject for THIS long!" Tomo got up.
"Whatever, I'm outta here!" She stood up and walked away,
muttering "where's Yomi?" as she left.
"Well," said Chiyo-chan, "the teacher said it's not really
water. It just looks like water. And besides, it's supposed
to be in that spongy stuff, not on your brain." Even Chiyo-
chan had been confused by this part of the lecture. The
teacher had wisely chosen to stay away from technical
terms.
"No water on the brain?"
"Right!"
"So...what IS supposed to be on the brain?"
"Nothing. It just sorta sits there."
"But...but if there's never any liquid on the brain, then
how does it get clean?"
"Huh?" By now Chiyo-chan was thoroughly confused. But she'd
learned to expect this of her friend long ago.
Chiyo-chan patiently waited for Osaka to finish her
ramblings. "Maybe I'll learn something too," thought Chiyo-
chan. That was how she liked to learn--by talking to other
people.
"I mean, it'd be like the inside of a computer," Osaka went
on. "You can't open it up, but it's gotta get clean
somehow."
"Uh-huh..." said Chiyo-chan, not knowing that computers can
be opened up.
"Are there special cleaning tools for people's brains?"
Then Osaka got an idea. "Hey, if I stick a Q-Tip way down
in my ear, d'you think I'd be able to clean my brain?"
"N-No, don't do that, it's dangerous!" Chiyo-chan warned.
"And I have the bad feeling she'd do it if nobody told her
not to," she thought to herself.
"But what if my brain collected dust and I couldn't clean
it?"
Kagura had no snappy comments. That last question was just
too random.
At that point Yomi and Tomo walked up to Osaka, Chiyo-chan,
and Kagura.
"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" asked Yomi.
"Osaka's still on that 'suitoushou' thing," replied Kagura,
"and she's confusing the hell outta poor little Chiyo-
chan."
Chiyo-chan, by the way, was desperately taking notes on
Osaka's latest confusing statements in case Osaka went off
on a tangent.
Osaka brightly turned to Yomi. "Hey Yomi!"
"Hey, Osaka."
"You drink lots of water, right?" asked Osaka, referring to
Yomi's latest diet.
"Uh, yeah, why?"
"Since you got so much water...you got any water on your
brain?"
Yomi was completely mystified.
"Nah, Yomi's got fat on her brain," Tomo smoothly replied.
"Excuse me?" Yomi turned to Tomo. "I've been working out,
just so you know."
"This is gonna get messy," muttered Kagura.
"Fu...to...ru!" said Tomo, sing-song. (F...A...T!)
"Excuse me while I put you in a headlock with these
'flabby' arms of mine," said Yomi, advancing on Tomo.
"Hey, I wasn't talking about your ar--ack!" Tomo's defense
was cut off by Yomi's headlock. "Ack...can't breathe...
need...air..."
"Muscle is heavier than fat, isn't it?" said Yomi. She
rolled her eyes. "Get comfortable, Tomo, you're gonna be
like this for a while."
"I'm squashed against your--aaackk!"
"Uh, Osaka?" said Kagura. "Please continue." Kagura was
always entertained by the chaos around her.
"Not sure if that would work, though," replied Osaka.
"If what would work?" Now it was Kagura's turn to be
confused.
Apparently Osaka had kept on thinkin' but hadn't kept on
talkin'. So once she started talkin' again, she switched
back to vocalizing her thoughts. Without explaining the gap
in between.
"Trying to use Pledge or Swiffer on people's brains," Osaka
replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"I guess a Swiffer handle wouldn't fit in a person's ear."
"So does that mean Pledge would work?" Now Kagura had fully
joined the conversation.
"I guess so," said Osaka, "since you could just spray it
and it'd be able to go in there on its own."
At this point Chiyo-chan had given up all hope of trying to
understand Osaka's latest tangent while Kagura marveled at
the things her friend thought of.
"I don't know," Kagura finally said. "I just don't know."