The dusty room buried under mounds of books was empty. Outside the window I saw leaden clouds. A strong wind was beating against it, and the window frame was rattling.

Even after I unwrapped my lunch box and took off the lid, I didn"t feel hungry. As I looked down absently at the arrangement of colorful side dishes, I wondered if it was always going to be like this with Akutagawa, and my chest ached.

Akutagawa had told me at the very beginning, "There are some things I can"t talk about."

He hadn"t lied to me.

When I"d become friends with Akutagawa at the culture fair, I"d been truly happy. I felt as if I"d overcome the cowardly part of myself that had tried to avoid getting close to others up until now. The moment we shook hands, I swelled with joy that our feelings were in sync, and the sun had felt warm as it sank below the horizon.

Akutagawa had always been a good, honest friend. I knew that.

But if I believed what he said, that would make Miu a liar.

When Miu transferred into my cla.s.s in the third grade, the girls said she was a liar and stayed away from her. But really she wasn"t. Miu hadn"t told any lies. Ever since then, I was the only one who had wanted to be understanding of Miu.

But still Miu had said I would never understand and then jumped off the roof. And now she was lobbing incomprehensible questions at me.

"What do you think it is that Campanella wished for?"

When we were kids, the two of us had lain on the carpet in my room and read the picture book of Kenji Miyazawa"s Night of the Milky Way Railroad.

Campanella is a little boy who appears in that story, the friend of the main character Giovanni. Giovanni looks up to Campanella, who has a role like that of the cla.s.s leader. The two of them get aboard a train that runs among the stars and go on a journey.

It was a digest version of the story aimed at kids, so probably some sentences had been pared down and simpler words were subst.i.tuted.

I"d never read the Night of the Milky Way Railroad that Miyazawa had actually written.

Even so, Miu and I had been enchanted by the vibrant ill.u.s.trations, the fantastical scenes that opened up like a kaleidoscope, and the bizarre people Campanella and Giovanni met on the train. We were so absorbed in reading that we didn"t even see the time pa.s.sing.

While we were reading, I felt like I"d become Giovanni. And I thought that the incredibly clever Campanella was like Miu.

What had Campanella wished for?

If I figured that out, would I understand why Miu had jumped?

But what was it Campanella had wished for?

My heart was abuzz, and I couldn"t hold still. I put the lid back on the lunch I"d barely touched and stood up.

The books on the shelves were a conglomeration of old and new mixed together: Ogai Mori"s Dancing Girl was beside Stendhal"s The Red and Black, and next to that was a collection of Mother Goose rhymes. Plus, there were books packed in behind those and books behind those-three layers of them.

I was sure a Miyazawa short story collection that included "Night of the Milky Way Railroad" would be here.

Every time I shifted a book, clouds of dust rose into the air, and I felt sneezes tickling in my nose, and my skin got itchy.

Just then, I heard an achoo! behind me.

"What"re you doing, Konoha?"

Tohko stood there rubbing at her nose, cradling a copy of Sei Shonagon"s Pillow Book in her arms.

"Ugh, it"s so dusty in here."

She opened the window in annoyance.

Instantly a cold wind blew into the room.

"Eek!"

Tohko turned her face away reflexively.

Her braids were leaping about wildly; the ends. .h.i.t me in the face, and I shouted, too.

The stacks of books ruffled in the wind, and it almost seemed like the pages would rip out.

Tohko hurriedly closed the window.

"Whew, that was unexpected. It"s still winter out there, huh?"

"It"s only spring inside your head, Tohko."

"Argh, you"re so eager to say stuff like that!"

She pouted.

But she stopped sniffling, as if the cold north wind had blown the dust clean out, and her mind had cleared.

"I came here to eat lunch. What about you, Konoha?"

"Me, too. I thought I might eat here for once."

"You"re done already? You"re fast."

Tohko looked at my closed lunch box.

"Were you looking for something on the shelves?"

I muttered furtively, "I just got this sudden urge...to read Kenji Miyazawa"s Night of the Milky Way Railroad."

Tohko"s eyes widened as if she thought that was weird.

"Kenji Miyazawa?" she asked.

"Yes..."

"You?"

"...Yeah."

I wondered what was wrong. Tohko inclined her head slightly and stared at me, as if pondering something. She had a powerful intuition about odd things, so perhaps she"d sensed something. That would be a problem. She would stick her nose in if so; that"s the way she was. There were only about ten days left before the National Center Test, so she had to buckle down for the last push.

"I"m gonna head back to cla.s.s."

I hastily bundled up my lunch box and was starting to leave when Tohko called out to me, "Wait."

When I turned around, she smiled like a violet, turned toward one of the many mounds of books, and toddled over to it.

Then, pouting her lips, she fixed an intense gaze on a book in the very middle of the mound of stacked-up books and pulled it out with a "hngh!"

The mound swayed, and panicked, she held it back with both arms and let out a sigh of relief.

Then she showed me the book she"d pulled out and grinned again.

"I found it."

It was a short story collection by Kenji Miyazawa.

Did she know where every book was in these ma.s.sive piles?! For real?!

Tohko lovingly turned the pages as I stood agape, as if I"d just seen a magic trick, and she started to speak in a gentle voice.

"Kenji Miyazawa was a poet and children"s author from Iwate Prefecture, born in 1896.

"Besides that, he also had the t.i.tle of farm director, and he developed fertilizers; walked around the farm village giving instructions on scientific farming methods and strategies; grew tulips, flowering cabbage, and tomatoes, which were unusual for Iwate Prefecture at the time; taught himself to play the organ and cello and gave performances on them; and worked for the advancement of the local culture.

"His most famous works are "Night of the Milky Way Railroad," which is included in this story collection, plus The Restaurant of Many Orders; Matasaburo, the Wind; and Gauche the Cellist-and that"s about it. Of course, you can"t forget the poetry collection Spring and Asura, either. It"s a masterpiece that will fill you up on Miyazawa"s brilliant sensitivity to words."

I listened to Tohko, drawn along by her pleasant voice, like a bubbling brook in the spring.

Tohko"s white fingers flipped through the pages, and she continued to tell her story, practically singing.

"Miyazawa"s works are very rustic and have the aromas of earth and wind and light. They"re transparent and poignant, and they feel familiar. Like standing in a field with a refreshing breeze and scrubbing a tomato flecked with dirt on the hem of your clothes and then biting into it-the still very unripe, the sour, the bitter, the sweet taste spreads into your whole mouth, and it feels like it"s quenching your thirst.

"And then there"s the cuc.u.mber cooled in a stream; the sweet, colorful pears you bite into with the skin still on; the clear lemon soda you drink on the night of a festival-it isn"t just the stories. The way he builds his sentences and his rhythm and the words themselves are unique and delicious!"

She gazed rapturously at the yellowed pages and was about to tear off a corner; then she shook her head, trembling. Her face fell, and her expression filled with regret.

Tohko had once told me that books that weren"t well preserved or that were too sick were bad for her digestion, and if she accidentally ate one, bad things would happen.

Inside, she probably yearned to eat the book more than she could stand, but since it was before the National Center Test, she seemed to be imagining the taste in her mind and resisting the urge bravely.

Instead of eating, she kept on talking.

""Marie Veron and the Little Girl," which paints a picture of the brief interaction between a female singer and the girl who idolizes her against a beautiful, tranquil backdrop, tastes sweetly tart, like wild grapes, and it"s one of my favorites. The bunny h.o.m.oi rescues a lark and receives a treasure, but he gradually becomes convinced that he"s amazing and then founders in "The Sh.e.l.l Fire," which is crunchy like a red-and-white radish with a sharp bitterness and delicious. The ringing of the bellflowers is unique and lingers in your ears.

"It goes "clang, clang, clangerang, clabang-clabang-ang." Putting the way things sound, their characteristics, and state into words like this is called representational speech-in French, it"s called onomatopoeia. Miyazawa"s works are overflowing with cute, mysterious, incredibly delicious onomatopoeia!

""Quaking, shaking, trilling"-that"s the part where the mousetrap is trembling in "Zie Mouse." Then there"s "bwo-boom, bowoom, bowoom, bwoom"-that"s the opening of Matasaburo, the Wind. It"s onomatopoeia that conjures the way the wind is gusting. And then there"s "kree-kree-kree-shh, kree-kree-shh"-that"s the part in "The Twin Stars," where Castor and Pollux grab hold of the tail of a comet and fly across the night sky-"

As she flipped through the pages, Tohko put the amusing onomatopoeia on display.

I wondered what was going on.

For some reason, my chest felt suddenly tight, and it became harder to breathe.

An attack? Impossible. But my chest felt like it was being wrung out like a wet dishrag.

Air-it was getting harder and harder to breathe, and I felt a terror that my body was being crushed under a pitch-black shadow.

Don"t listen.

The thought flitted through my mind.

I didn"t know why, but I was sure it would get worse if I found out any more about Kenji Miyazawa.

Tohko"s lecture went on.

""Yellow Tomatoes"-I like that one a lot, too. A brother and sister named Pempel and Nelly are very close, and they grow tomatoes on their farm. Some yellow tomatoes start growing, and when they see it, they think it"s gold. One day a traveling show comes flamboyantly into town. Pempel and Nelly take yellow tomatoes with them instead of money, but the troupe members throw the tomatoes at them, and the two go home crying. It"s a sad story, but it stays with you. "Pempel was really a good boy, but he did something woeful." "His little sister Nelly was really an adorable, good girl, but how woeful." "How woeful. Really very woeful." "

Tohko shouted, "Konoha!"

When I came to my senses, I was clutching the front of my uniform in both hands, kneeling on the floor, my shoulders heaving.

No-no! Don"t listen! Don"t do it!

"Konoha, can you hear me?!"

Tohko crouched down in front of me. Her cool, soft hands touched mine. She squeezed them in both of her own, enveloping them.

"See? You"re fine."

Her cool, comforting hands. Her murmuring slipping into my ears.

The moment the sound of it penetrated my ears, it was like refreshing drops of rain had fallen, smelling of violets.

"It"s fine, Konoha. Everything"s fine."

My twitching fingers came to rest against Tohko"s palms, and the sweat that had covered me dried. Gradually my breathing grew even.

"Try to breathe in, Konoha."

I sucked in a big gulp of air as directed.

"Let it out."

I exhaled as directed.

"You seem okay."