AS SOON AS THE child entered the room, she knew: The time has finally come.
She wasn’t sure why she was so certain.
But her heart trembled, and whispered to her.
You’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time.
The pain that recurred so often – the feeling of her arm being yanked hard – came back to her.
Akiko Kitajima was a member of the NPO Kokoro no kyoshitsu. As well as serving as a counsellor for several local schools, she had been involved with this alternative School from its inception.
Like many of the children who came to it, she’d also attended Yukishina No. 5 Junior High.
There was a time back in junior high when Akiko had stopped going.
It was in the autumn of her third year, while at her grandmother’s funeral, that Akiko first met Ms Samejima.
Samejima-sensei. Yuriko Samejima-sensei.
She’d lived in the neighbourhood, near Akiko’s grandmother, since the days when Akiko was very young, and had apparently helped Akiko’s grandmother with her shopping and other errands. Ms Samejima was quite an intense lady, and at the funeral she wailed far more loudly than any of the deceased’s own relatives. Akiko and her family were taken aback, for Akiko’s grandmother had never mentioned this friend. When Ms Samejima came up to Akiko and asked, ‘Are you Akiko-chan?’ Akiko was in for an even bigger surprise.
They may have never heard a word from Akiko’s grandmother about Ms Samejima, but she certainly seemed to know all about Akiko.
She took her hand and looked intently at Akiko. ‘I hear you’ve dropped out of school?’ she said, holding her hand even tighter. ‘You poor child,’ she said, tearing up.
Ms Samejima had never met Akiko’s mother before, but she didn’t hesitate to speak her mind. ‘You’ve never paid her any attention,’ Ms Samejima said, and Akiko’s mother paled and stared at her.
‘Who do you think you are?’ she fired back. ‘What gives you the right to speak to me like this?’
Samejima-sensei’s response could not have been more brazen.
‘I am this girl’s grandmother’s friend, that’s who I am. Akiko, your grandmother was always so worried about you. And she asked me to help you if anything ever happened to her. She told me this as her last request, and that’s why I’m saying what I’m saying.’
Ms Samejima ran a little school for kids who found they couldn’t keep up and were starting to drop out of school, all for a low monthly fee. She urged Akiko to visit it, but Akiko refused, thinking the old lady was a busybody.
But Ms Samejima didn’t give up so easily. She took Akiko to the school she’d dropped out of and convinced the teachers to let Akiko repeat the year. ‘Let her study hard for one more year,’ Ms Samejima said, ‘and then she can decide if she wants to go on to high school, or what it is she wants to do. I’ll supervise her all the way.’
And with that, the deed was done. She would repeat her final year.
But still Akiko could only see her as a busybody middle-aged woman butting in where she wasn’t wanted. She was sure that even if she repeated the year, it would all end up as it had before. She had zero desire to go back to school.
At least that was her attitude until April, when her extra year of school began.
As she was about to start her second time around in ninth grade, she finally decided to allow Ms Samejima to help her.
She knew she was in trouble. She couldn’t keep up with schoolwork. She didn’t even know what it was she didn’t know. And she simply felt that this was the time to ask for help.
And she started to want to study again.
She’d thought there was no one who could help her, but now she saw that there was Ms Samejima, offering a hand. It came as a sudden realization.
That was when she started to feel a sharp pain running down her forearm.
It felt as if someone was pulling her arm hard.