Chapter 02
OGINOME RINGO loved the word “fate.” Especially when it referred to “a fated meeting.” A single encounter could alter the course of your entire life. Such special meetings could not be mere chance. Surely, such a thing was fate, she believed. Of course, life was not made up of fortuitous meetings alone. There were plenty of unpleasant, sad things as well. It was quite painful to consider that such misfortunes were also fated, entirely out of one’s power to influence. And yet, she believed:
“Even sad and painful things must have some meaning to them. Nothing happens without reason in this world.”
She stood at the corner of the subway station. She pulled a small mirror from her school bag and coated her lips in a pale pink lip balm. It had been advertised as making your lips, “as moist and glossy as a ripe apple,” and caught her eye. Then, she combed her fingers through her hair, swiftly arranging it. Her heart ached with joy and nerves. But at the same time, it was a surprisingly blessed pain.
A girl from another school took up position beside her, chattering on her cellphone. Cradling her phone with her shoulder, she opened up a gaudily decorated folding compact, at least twice as large as Ringo’s, and began applying additional mascara to her already overemphasized eyelashes.
“Yeah, I’m off to my date with Takashi. It’ll be fine. I’ve got my triple lace strategy today.”
Ringo glanced at the girl out of the corner of her eye. Her face was slathered with so much makeup, one might think she was about to step out on stage. Her hair was too bright to be called brown. She had visible cleavage, and the buttons of her blouse were open enough for her lacy bra to peek through. Her skirt was daringly short, and her thighs were bare. If anyone at Ringo’s all-girls school were to dress like that, they would probably be stopped the moment they walked through the gates by the teachers who hung around for morning greetings.
“Huh? My triple lace strategy? Well, you know…” She cackled, and her boisterous voice permeated the space.
Ringo checked herself over again in her little mirror and nodded, a faint smile on her face. She was fine. Even if she wasn’t wearing that much makeup, even if she didn’t have mascara on top of false lashes, and even if her chest was rather modestly flat, she wasn’t bad at all.
She put her mirror into her bag and walked to her usual place. She already felt painfully nervous, her diaphragm clenched so tense it was hard to breathe. It was coming so soon now that she couldn’t contain herself, but she put her hand to her chest and steadied her breath. Every step of the way had been just as she intended.
Yes, Oginome Ringo was a believer in fate.
Roasted smelt, natto, and eggs. And some miso soup. Then the pickles. The three of us crowded around the table and said a proper blessing. Another fine morning, no better or worse than any other. Still, that penguin hat, sitting atop the cabinet, bothered me, and with the mysterious penguins sitting beside us, it probably could not be called a typical morning at all.
“Come to think of it, what should we be feeding these things?” I had unthinkingly only prepared enough breakfast for us three humans. “What’d you all give them yesterday?”
“We never fed them!” Himari gasped in realization, her brows pinched up in the middle of her forehead. “They must be starving!”
“They eat fish, right? They’re penguins,” said Kanba, not seeming especially concerned as he continued shoving food into his face. He looked fatigued.
“These guys aren’t typical penguins, though.” I looked at the penguin who stared at me. I had never heard of penguins who could be shipped in cold storage. Invisible penguins wandering around Tokyo in the middle of autumn seemed even rarer.
“The lady at the aquarium said they usually give them sardines and scad and mackerel,” my sister said. Today, Himari’s hair, usually worn in a loose ponytail, was pinned up with sparkling rhinestone pins, and she wore an autumnal violet dress. She preferred the kind with skirts that gave a gentle silhouette.
“Sardines, scad, and mackerel…” I repeated, carefully confirming that Himari was her usual self. I looked at each of the penguins. Sardines, scad, mackerel. Feeding them would cost a lot, wouldn’t it? The price of blueback was pretty high lately. That aside, even butter and vegetables and other things would be nothing to sneeze at. Suddenly, my gaze stopped on the penguin next to Kanba, the biggest eater in our household. Somehow, I got the notion that this penguin would be the biggest eater as well.
Now that I thought about it the three penguins seemed to bear an unsettling resemblance to myself, Kanba, and Himari, in personality and mannerism.
“Here you go,” said Kanba, suddenly picking up some smelt from my plate and offering it to the penguin. Without hesitation, the penguin chomped down the smelt, so readily it seemed it might eat Kanba’s whole hand as well. “Oh, looks like they eat smelt too.”
I was so wrapped up in thought that I forgot to be angry about Kanba stealing from my plate. At the very least, these were living creatures. Even if no one else could see them, and even if they looked nothing like typical penguins, as long as they were in our house, we needed to feed them. But we had no way of affording the extra cost.
“I wonder if we couldn’t just give them some cheap dog food or something,” I muttered, sighing.
“Survival Tactiiiiiiiic!!!”
As I shot up in shock and turned to look at Himari, my vision was obstructed by a gust of white frills and lace. That sweet smell spread again through my nostrils. That familiar rhythm thumped so loudly that I was sure the whole house, maybe the entire world shook with it. I opened my eyes a crack to see Himari appear from out of the flood of dazzling light, the penguin hat atop her head, looking for all the world like a queen. Her black, enameled boots sounded wildly.
We were once again in that alternate space.
“Surely, you worthless nothings have been told!” Himari stuck her right foot out swiftly, her eyes shining red.
“So that… wasn’t a dream,” I said.
Unlike me, who looked around wildly, my brother calmly squared off against Himari.
“You must obtain the Penguindrum!” Himari shouted in a voice that seemed to rumble from the pit of her chest.
“Where is it, then? This Penguindrum,” asked Kanba.
“Today, at 8:10 A.M., board the train headed to Ogikubo. Enter the third car and stand by the second door. At East Kouenji Station, Oginome Ringo will board,” she said, her voice melodic and sonorous.
“Oginomeringo?” I repeated, like an incantation.
“Follow her and search her person. This girl possesses the Penguindrum. Probably.”
The pseudo-Himari swiftly averted her eyes.
“Wait a minute, what’s this probably?!”
“Hold up, are you seriously gonna tell us to do this when you don’t even know for sure?” Kanba stepped in, coldly demanding the same information I’d asked for.
“What? Is that too much for you to stomach? Do you not care what happens to your sister?”
Shocked, I looked at Kanba. He wore a look of regret, but it did not seem that he had any more interest in talking back.
“W-We gladly accept your task, oh Lady of the Hat.” I bowed my head seriously for the first time in my life.
“Lady of the Hat?” Himari, nay, the Lady of the Hat, furrowed her brows for a moment, but then continued. “Very well. You will be certain to locate the Penguindrum. Should that fail to happen, consider your sister’s life forfeit!”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Kanba’s face twisted, and he ground his teeth.
“But for you to expect us to take responsibility on such vague information, is…” I started to say, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a penguin pressing a mysterious button.
“…isn’t very, aah! N-nooo!!”
A square-shaped hole opened up under my feet, and I fell at once into a space devoid of color or sound. A terrible void. Even a subway tunnel was not as dark and quiet as this.
“Shall we initiate the Survival Tactic?!” Far above, I heard the clear voice of the Lady of the Hat issuing a decree.
I fell straight down into the darkness. The Lady of the Hat, or rather, Himari. I wonder if she’d been angry because I suggested feeding the penguins cheap dog food?
There was no way that hat could be controlling her.
Kanba and I sat side by side near the door on the train we’d been instructed to find. Kanba nodded off, but I was on edge, throwing quick glances around the crowded train and checking the time on my phone.
Himari definitely died right in front of us, and then came back to life thanks to that thing. As if this was some malicious game that God cooked up, that thing instructed us to locate the “Penguindrum” in service of some “Survival Tactic.”
“Hey Kanba, what kind of person do you think this ‘Oginome Ringo’ is?”
“Well if she’s ridin’ the train this time of day, she’s either an office lady or a student,” he replied, cracking his eyes open and rubbing them sleepily. “Either way, all that matters is we get the Penguindrum.”
The announcement for East Kouenji Station came through the air, and we looked at each other and got to our feet, moving near the doorway. Just then, the train arrived at the station, and commuters on their way to work and school came flooding in, and soon the train was full. It took an enormous effort to make sure that my brother remained right beside me.
“Aniki, we’re never gonna be able to tell who’s who like this!” I said frantically.
“We’re fine. We’ve got them here for that exact reason.” He looked back at me, his face tense.
“I see.”
Those little penguins might actually be useful here, I thought. However, when I finally spotted the penguins again amidst the crowd, they were pincered between the riders’ legs, squished up and stuck aloft.
“This is impossible for them,” I replied softly.
Kanba let out a deep sigh.
The penguins appeared to be attempting to return to us, making sorrowful faces. Their black eyes stared pleadingly as they were crushed between the legs of high school girls and women in pants suits. The way they were looking at us, it was like we really were their owners.
One of them pushed up tight against a high school girl’s back, levering its body out through the gaps between the riders. It rolled out onto the floor and ran for me, looking at me with a desperate expression. When I instinctively held my hands out, it balled itself up, and embraced me, burying itself in my stomach.