Raiding the grasshoppers

Sometimes, I wonder what the Minister’s counselor is on. And I’m actually thinking about asking him his supplier’s name.

When he called me last night to give me the address I was expected to be tomorrow morning, I confess it wasn’t very scrupulously competent of me not to check where he was sending me. I scribbled it on a bit of torn paper and get rid of it on my desk without further ado. Needless to say this morning I dig for it around twenty minutes in order to find it–I’m quite prone to believe moles and stickies to be close cousins. Or maybe the mayhem on my desk finally came alive and attempted to take in what I tossed out to him. The late giving rise to a quite interesting zoological hypothesis.

As soon as I arrived, I admit I suspected a defect in my note taking skills, and felt obliged to call back the Minister’s office –God they hate so much when I ask anything. My interlocutor looked very angry at me, dare to say very close to bawl me out.

“Kondo Satoru speaking. I’m at the meeting place but… I think I made a mistake. That’s a kindergarten.”

*insert windbag on its last legs sigh here* “No, there is no mistake. They asked for your services.”

Big dismayed silence (mine). Toddlers and I are like, Nutella and sashimi. In theory they do not fit really well together. In practice, they are a disaster.

“The Minister asked that you don’t do any old thing, for once. Won’t be hard for you, this is a mild case.”

Click.

So you’re sending me to the nursery school with zero information, zero contact and zero clarification, piece of cake, dream on that, you oyster face?

Well then. If something really dangerous was hidden in this school, the average age would probably have climbed up in the polls, but it seems not to be the case… and from where I am, I don’t feel anything more than the youngsters’ aura.

“Who’s the one you’d pick up?”

Stuck behind her desk, the receptionist looks as relaxed as a climbing plant stake. My face seems to panic her –Didn’t know I was so ugly- and I finally understand I do not ring any bell in her and she’s desperately ransacking her mind to find which brat I am related to.

“I’m sent by the Minister’s private office, Miss. Mixing up instant coffee and starch does not do any good to you. You’d better stop.”

“Ah, Kondo-san!”

The institutor rushes toward me, all smiles out –let me feel like being a kind of kid easily softened by a smile- and bows at me, so low that I wonder if he’d like to polish my boots with his tongue… at least that would have been funny.

“You’re right on time, children are in the playground, and you’ll have plenty of space to take a look and do the first move.”

Kids less than six years old gathering together are like a swarm of grasshoppers, you pray that you would not be their next target… like, first move, thanks! I’d rather have a coffee. Said grasshoppers still are playing around us, not disturbed at all.

“I was expecting you a little sooner, I let them outside so they’ll let you be. They’re a bit nervous, you know…”

“Clearly, Shimi-san, why did you call me for?” I cut off, arms crossed. I’m not at all bothered by him blabbering about his mornings, full of joy and short-legged trolls. Not at all.

“That.”

Coming closer to the building, he points what seems to be his class door, facing open to the playground, made of plastic, scratched nearly eight inches high from the ground. Resting on the amount of scratches and the depth, these look not new. I kneel and touch the deepest scratch but feel nothing, neither good nor bad.

“Started a week ago or so. At first I thought a child made them with a toy rake, but…”

“But Hannibal Lecter is not attending your class. These were hardly made with a plastic rake, for sure. Did the children tell you something?”

“They… They say that when they arrive soon in the morning, they hear something like a whimper, crying. I tried to come sooner and pricked up my ears, but I never saw nor heard anything. We’d like to avoid the parents getting involved in this. What could it be, according to you?

“No idea. A yôkai would rather smash the door open, I think… looks like something tried to enter the classroom.”

When I stand up, I feel a gaze weighting on me and turn slightly. And I find myself facing a kind of miniature black long tangled hair Sadako, in atrocious lemon yellow overalls and red shoes, glancing at me with a bewildered look. From what I feel, she has some kind of aura… I wonder if she’s powerful enough to “see” like I do –“those who see” is a common term used to talk about extra-sensorial-abled persons.

“Naoko! Don’t stare at people! What do you want?”

“Did you come to repair the door?”

Looking at the brat, I sigh.

“You’re right girl, I’m the handyman. Shimi-san, I’d like to enter the classroom, if you’re okay with that.”

By touching the door I feel a fleeting sensation, nearly primal. Kind of a rough feeling, raw… not necessarily bad but it’s so quick I can’t grasp it. Not very surprising, I’m in a school, hundreds of hands touched this door, some of the kids maybe let muddled sensations printed in it and I was granted the remains.

Inside, nothing more. No aura, no ghost dozing off on teddy bears, no yôkai crawling in the neon lamps. Just an ordinary empty room…

"Did something happen before?” I ask, stopping by to look at drawings pinned up on the wall. I study them while Shimi thinks about it.

“No, nothing out of the ordinary.”

There’s only common stuff, all the drawings look similar up to the colors: houses, suns, trees… but one of the drawings pictures a.. sort of… black mess, totally vague, in which I can make out a pair of triangles and a kind of line coming straight out of it. Signed: Naoko.

“So, about the children?”

The institutor glares at me with an offended look… People are so damned annoying, when they sob me about their problems but irk when I come to solutions clearly out of their “good vs bad” conception – as if they were anywhere but in Disney movies-.

“Don’t you dare imply that a child…”

“I do not imply, I ASK. Answering questions is your job, isn’t it? Mine is to ask them. I’m not part of your brood, so stop looking stern and answer. There is nothing in your classroom nor in the playground, therefore if that is not something coming from the inside, it means that somebody brings it with him. Maybe you do practice black magic?”

Looking how quick his face has changed, I think I’ve just met a friend. Looks like my voicemail will boo me again…

***

“What do you want?”

Me trying to charm a girl is as funny as a legless cripple on a trampoline: always wondering when he falls flat on his face. And the receptionist does not look either convinced by my attempts to pry information out of her.

“Look, there’s a problem, kind of, with the bra... children, I really, really would like to know if you heard something lately? Say, a week ago? Maybe one bringing an old toy to school, or back from a family trip?”

She snorts.

"I don’t see what is the point for you to ask.” Maybe that’s what I’m paid for? “The kids are quiet actually, there was only Naoko last Monday…”

Hey… micro human-shaped lemon interested by me has got into trouble last week…

“She arrived red-eyed, she did not want to tell anything to us and her parents just asked us to let her be.”

I smile, thinking. Don’t come closer, you curious nosy-nosed. May be a mild case, but matches quite well. In my job area, one is often very skeptical about coincidence. The receptionist stands up, visibly better at ease than when I arrived.

“And I will not give you their address. That does not concern you.”

“Yes it does.”

My hand sinks on her desk and fishes the file box, causing her to sharply squeak. She tries to catch my sleeve.

“Stop it, you can’t do that!”

“Yet it looks like I could. Stop pulling at my shirt, it’s already a rag, you’ll finish it off.”

Naoko…

Naoko Kondo??

The kanjis are the same. And the address…

Looks like I have a little niece. Well, thinking about that, I recall that my brother has reproduced. More than one time… bringing his offspring back home tonight, no wonder I’ll please my bro very much…

I give back the file box to the receptionist, her back to the wall. I smile at her again.

“If you would lend me your phone, you’ll be a sweetheart.”

To be continued... 

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