One

I witnessed the kidnapping of Kikyo Miko.

Well, me and the twenty-three other people in first period Latin class at Shikon High School (student population 1,300).

Unlike everybody else, however, I actually did somthing to try to stop it. Well, sort of. I went, "Naraku. What are you doing?"

Naraku just rolled his eyes. He was all, "Relax, Kag. It's a joke okay?"

But, see there really isn't anything all that funny in the way Naruku Onigumo swiped Kikyo from Mrs. Kaede's desk, then stuffed her into his JanSport. Some of her black yarn hair got caught in the teeth of his backpack's zipper and everything.

Naraku didn't care. He just went right on zipping. I should have said something more. I should have said, Put her back, Naraku. Only I didn't. I didn't because... well, I'll get back to that part later. Besides, I knew it was a lost cause. Naraku was already high-fiving all of his friends, the other jocks who hang in the back row and are only taking the class (for the second time, having already taken it their junior year and apparently not having done so well) in hopes of getting higher scores on the verbal part of the SATs, not out of love for Latin culture or because they heard Mrs. Kaede is a good teacher or whatever.

Naraku and his buds had to hide their smirks behind their Paulus et Lucia workbooks when Mrs. Kaede came in after the second bell, a steaming cup of coffe in her hand.

As she does every morning, Mrs. Kaede sang "Aurora interea miseris mortalibus almam extulerat lucem referens opera atque labores," to us (basically: "It's another sucky morning, now let's get to work"), then picked up a peice of chalk and commanded us to write out the present tense of gaudeo,-ere.

She didn't even notice Kikyo was gone.

Not until thierd period, anyways, when my best friend Ayame who has her for class then, says that Mrs. Kaede was in the middle of explaining the past participle when she noticed the empty spot on her desk. According to Ayame, Mrs. Kaede went, "Kikyo?" in this funny high-pitched voice.

By then of course the entire school knew that Naraku Onigumo had Kikyo stuffed in his locker. Still, nobody said anything. That's because everybody likes Naraku.

Well, that isn't true, exactly. But the people who don't like Naraku are too afraid to say anything, because Naraku is president of the senior class and captain of the football team and could crush them with a glance, like Magneto from X-Men.

Not really, of course, but you get my drift. I mean, you don't cross a guy like Naraku Onigumo. If he wants to kidnap a teacher's Cabbage Patch doll, you just let him, because otherwise you'll end up eating you lunch all by yourself out by the flagpole like Yuka the cow or run the risk of having Tater Tots hurled at your head or whatever.

The thing is, though , Mrs. Kaede loves that stupid doll. I mean, every year on the first day of school, she dresses it up in this stupid Shikon High cheerleader outfit she had made at SO-FRO Fabrics.

And on Halloween, she puts Kikyo in this little witch suit, with a pointed hat and a tiny broom and everything. Then at Christmas she dresses Kikyo like an elf. There's an Easter outfit, too, though Mrs. Kaede doesn't call it that, because of the whole separation-of-church-and-state-thing. Mrs. Kaede just calls it Kikyo's spring dress.

But it totally comes with this little flowered bonnet and a basket filled with real robin's eggs that somebody gave her a long time ago, probably back in the eighties, which was when some ancient graduating class presented Mrs. Kaede with Kikyo in the first place. On account of them feelings sorry for Mrs. Kaede, since she's a really, really good teacher, but she has never been able to have any kids of her own.

Or so the story goes. I don't know if it's true or not. Well, except for the part about Mrs. K. being a good teacher. Because she totally is. And the part about her not having any kids of her own.

But the rest of it... I don't know.

What I do know is, here it is, almost the last month of my junior year- Kikyo had been wearing her summer outfit, a pair of overalls with a straw hat, like Huck Finn, when she disappeared-- and I was sitting around worrying about her. A doll. A stupid doll.

"You don't think they're going to do anything to her, do you?" I asked Ayame later that same day, during show choir. Ayame worries that I don't have enough extracurriculars on my transcript, since all I like to do is read. So she suggested I take show choir with her.

Except that it turns out that Ayame slightly misrepresented what show choir is all about. Instead of just a fun extracurricular, it's turned out to be this huge deal-- I had to audition and everything. I'm not the world's best singer or anything, but they really needed altos, and since I guess I'm an alto, I got in. Altos mostly just go la-la-la on the same note wihile the sopranos sing all these scales and words and stuff, so it's cool, because basically I can just sit there and go la-la-la on the same note and read a book since Ayumi, the soprano who sits on the riser in front of me, has totally huge hair, and Mr. Bankotsu, the director of the Troubadours-- that's right: our school choir even has its own name--can't see what I'm doing.

Mr. Bankotsu does make all the girls wear padded bras under our blouses for "uniformity of appearance" while we perform, which is kind of bogus, but whatever. It looks good on your transcript. Being in show choir. Not the bras.

The thing I'm not sure I'll ever forgive Ayame for is the dancing. Seriously. We have to dance as we sing... well, not dance, really, but like move our arms. And I'm not the world's best arm mover. I have no sense of rhythm whatsoever...

Sometimes Mr. Bankotsu feels compelled to point out about three times a day.

"What if they cut off her ear?" I whispered to Ayame. I had to whisper, because Mr.Bankotsu was working with the tenors a few risers away. We are preparing for the very big statewide show choir competetion-- Priestess Midoriko, it's called--- and Mr. Bankotsu's been way tense about it. Like, he's been yelling at me about my arm movements four or even five times a day, instead of just the normal three. "And they send it to Mrs. K. with a ransom note? They won't do anything like that, will they, do you think? I mean, that's destruction of personal property."

"Oh my God," Ayame said. She's a first soprano and sits next to Ayumi. First sopranos, I've noticed, are kind of bossy. But I guess it's sort of understandable, since they also have to do all the work, you know, hitting those high notes. "Would you get a grip? It's just a prank, okay? you weren't this upset over the stupid goat."

Last year's graduating class's prank was putting a goat on the roof of the gym. I don't even know what's supposed to be funny about this. I mean, the goat could have been seriously injured.

"It's just..." I couldn't get the picture of Kikyo's yarn hair getting caught in that zipper out of my head. "It just seems so wrong. Mrs. Kaede really loves that doll"

"Whatever," Ayame said. "It's just a doll."

Except to Mrs. Kaede, Kikyo is more than just a doll. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, the whole thing was bugging me so much that after school, when I got to the offices of the Register-- that's the school paper where I work most days... not to build up my extracurriculars, but because I actually kind of like it--- I blurted out at the staff meeting that somebody ought to do a story on it. The kidnapping of Kikyo Miko, I mean.

"A story," Sango said. "On a doll."

Sango jiggled her can of Diet Coke as she spoke. Sango likes her Diet Coke flat, so she jiggles the can until it gets that way before she drinks from it. I personally find a taste for flat soda a little weird, but that isn't actually the weirdest thing about Sango. The weirdest thing about Sango--- if you ask me, anyway--- is that every time she and InuYasha, the paper's editor, make out in her parents' basement rec room, Sango draws a little heart on her date book to mark the occasion.

I know this because she showed it to me once. Her date book, I mean. There was a heart on, like, ever single page.

Which is kinda funny. I mean that Sango and InuYasha are even a couple. Because I, and pretty much everybody else on the Register's staff, expected Sango to be appointed this year's editor in chief-- including, I suspect, Sango herself. I mean, InuYasha didn't even move to Shikon until this past summer.

Well, that's not quite true. He actually used to live here... we were even in the same fifth grade class. Not that we ever spoke to each other or anything. I mean, you don't talk to the members of the opposite sex in the fifth grade. And InuYasha was never all taht talkative to begin with.

But he and I used to check out all the same "uncool" books, like biographies about Michael Jordan or Little House on the Prairie or whatever, but sci-fi/fantasy books like The Andromeda Strain or The Martian Chronicles or Fantastic Voyage. Books the school librarian would frown at while we were checking them out, then go, "Are you sure this is the kind of book you want, dear?" because they weren't exactly on our reading level or whatever.

Not that we ever discussed them with each other or anything. The books InuYasha and I were reading, I mean. I only went to check on of them out, InuYasha's signature was there, right about mine, on the book's checkout card.

Then InuYasha parents split up, he moved away with his mom, and I didn't see him again until last summer, where the Register's staff was forced to go to this school-sponsored retreat with our advisor, Mr. Myoga, who made us paly these trust games so that we could learn to work together as a team. I was just standing there in the parking lot, waiting to board the bus to the retreat, when this car pulled up and guess who got out of it?

Yeah, that'd be InuYasha. It turned out he'd decided to give living with his dad a try for a while, and he'd sent in some clippings from his old school's paper, and Mr. Myoga had let him on the staff of the Register.

And even though it was a little bit like INuYasha's head ahd been transplanted onto the body of one of Mrs. Kaede's Greek god statues or somthing, because he was like three feet taller and had turned totally buff since he was, you know, ten, I could tell he was still the same InuYasha. Because he had a copy of Dreamcatcher sticking out of his backpack, which I, of course, had been meaning to read.

By the end of the retreat, Mr. Myoga had asked InuYasha to be editor, because he showed such strong leadership abilities and had also written this totally awesome essay during a free-writing session about being the only guy in this cooking class he'd been forced to take after he'd gotten into some trouble in Kyoto, where he'd livid with his mom. I guess InuYasha had been a little bit fo a delinquent there or something. acting out and stuff, and the authorities had put him in this new experimental program for kids at risk.

They'd given him a choice:auto shop or cooking class.

InuYasha had been the only guy in the history of the program to choose the cooking class. Anyway, in the essay, InuYasha wrote about how on the first day of class, the cooking teacher had produced a butternut squash and been all, "We're going to make this into soup," and InuYasha thougth she was yet another huge phony liar, like all the other adults he knew.

And then they ended up making butternut squash soup and it changed InuYasha's life. He never got in trouble again.

The only problem was, he said, he couldn't seem to stop wanting to cook stuff. Of course InuYasha's essay, good as it was, might not have won him the post of editor in chief if Sango had been at the retreat to remind Mr. Myoga-- as she undoubtedly would have, Sango not being shy-- that appointing InuYasha to such an important post wan't fiar, since Sango's a senior and has paid her dues, whereas InuYasha's still only a junior and new to Shikon High and all.

But Sango had chosen to spend her summer at broadcast journalism camp out in California (yes, it turns out there is such a thing-- and Sango is already so good at schmoozing like Mary Hart on Entertainment Tonight that she even got a scholarship to go there), and so she wan't even at the retreat.

Still, she accepted Mr. Myoga's decison pretty graciously. Maybe that's something they teach at TV news camp. You know, how to be gracious about stuff. We didn't actually learn anything like that at the retreat-- though we did have a pretty good time making fun of Mr. Myoga. Like Mr. Myoga had us do this trust exercise that involved getting the whole staff over this log stuck between two trees, seven feet in the air, in the middle fo the woods, leaving no one stranded on the other side (did I mention trust exercises are really, really stupid?) without using a ladder or anything, just our hands, because this giant wave of peanut butter was coming down at us.

Did I mention taht Mr. Myoga's sense of humor is also really, really stupid?

Anyway, when all of us just stood there and looked at Mr. Myoga like he was crazy, he went, "Is that too corny?"

And InuYasha was all, totally deadpan, "Actually, Mr. Myoga, it's nutty."

That was when we knew that InuYasha had all the necessary qualities for the job of editor in chief. Even Sango-- when school started up again in the fall, and she found that she'd lost out on the job she'd wanted so badly--seemed to recognize InuYasha's superior leadership abilities. At least, the first little heart in her date book appeared there only about a week into the semester, so I guess she isn't holding a grudge about it or anything.

"I think that'd be great," was what InuYasha said about my idea. You know, of doing a story on the Kikyo kidnapping. "It'll be funny. We could do one of those missing person's posters of Kikyo, like they ahve in the post office. And offer a reward on Mrs. Kaede's behalf."

Sango stopped jiglling her soda can. When Sang's stops jiggling, it's a sign everybody should duck. Becausse Sango's got a temper. I guess they don't offer any training programs about that at broadcast journalism camp.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.," she said. "A reward? For the return of a DOLL?"

"But Kikyo isn't just a doll," InuYasha said. "She's sort of like the unofficial school mascot."

Which is only true because our real school mascot is so lame. We're the Shikon Roosters. The whole thing is pathetic. Not that it matters, since our school loses every game it plays anywyas, in every sport.

But you should see the rooster suit. It's embrassing really. Way more embarrassing than having a Cabbage Patch Doll for a mascot.

"I think Kag is onto something," InuYasha said, ignoring Sango's scowl. "Hojo, why don't you write something up?"

Hojo nodded and made a note in his Palm Pilot. I kept my gaze on my notepad, hoping Sango wasn't mad at me. I mean, I don't consider Sango one of my best friends or anything, but she and I do eat lunch together every day, and besides which we are the only girls on the paper (well, except for a couple of freshmen, bu, like they even count) and Sango has confided in me a lot-- like the ting with the hearts... not to mention the fact that InuYasha is the phenomenal kisser with, like, excellent suckage.

Oh, and that on SUnday morning, he frequently backs apple crumble.

I love apple crumble. Sango, though, won't eat it. She says InuYasha uses like a whole stick of butter just in the crust and that she can practically feel her arteries hardening just looking at it.

Since Sango was already mad at InuYasha for having agreed to do what she considered such a stupid story in the first place, the fact that he assigned it to Hojo just made her madder.

"For God's sake," Sango said. "It was Kagome's idea. Why don't you let Kag write it? Why are you always stealing Kagome's ideas and giving them to other people?"

I felt a wave of panic, and shot InuYasha a look.

But he was totally calm as he said, "Kagome's too busy with the layout."

"How do you know?" Sango snarled. "Did you even bother to ask her?"
I went, "Sango, it's all right. i'm happy with my position on the staff."

Sango snorted like she couldn't believe me. "Puhlease."

I couldn't say what I wanted to, which is that doing layout is fine by me. That's because I do a lot more for the paper than just that.

Only no one's supposed to know that. Well, no one but InuYasha, anyway, and Mr. Myoga and a few school administrators.

Because one of the things taht had happened on that retreat over the summer was that Mr. Myoga had approached me and asked if I'd be willing to take on one of the most sought-after-and secretive-- postions on the staff... one that for years has traditonally only been held by a senior, but which Mr. Myoga felt I was uniquely qualified for, even though I'm only a junior...

And I'd said yes.