“K-Kidnap every student?” I repeated.
I thought that maybe echoing Sakiguchi’s words would help me understand them, but no, they remained beyond all comprehension.
I mean, even seven years ago, Yubiwa Academy was probably mammoth.
With all this doom and gloom about the decreasing birth rate in Japan, it stands to reason that there would’ve been even more kids seven years ago than there are now─and even if her words were just tit for tat, kidnapping all the students? There’s such a thing as laying it on too thick.
“Reminds me of, whatchamacallit, that guy who played the flute,” the delinquent said, displaying just how shallow his knowledge really was.
Gimme a… This ignoramus’s theory is the current front-runner?
Which reminded me, earlier Sakiguchi had off-handedly praised the leader’s theory, but now he wasn’t commenting on it at all (he’ll go far, mark my words). Logically, though, if Ms. Towai was the artist, the thirty-three paintings couldn’t possibly have been the antecedents of historical masterpieces.
Not that Sotoin’s preposterous theory even merited serious discussion, but… Fortunately, the president didn’t seem to care about it (or the fact that he himself had proposed it) at all.
He was too riveted by the story of the strange artist who once taught at our school─he looked as if he could barely contain his excitement as he listened to his subordinate’s report.
Maybe he identified with Towai’s eccentricity, as Sakiguchi described it─maybe he sensed a certain aesthetic in it.
As a member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, I couldn’t very well disagree with her insistence that “children need art” either, although I’m sure I can only say that because I wasn’t around to see it for myself.
…Oh, and to give a belated interpretation of the delinquent’s vague comment, I’m pretty sure he was talking about The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
That tale is about music rather than painting, but they’re both creative arts, so close enough─anyway, it’s the story of a man who kidnapped all the children in a certain village by playing on his flute.
I’ve heard it’s based on a true story, too… But, was Sakiguchi saying that this teacher had announced she would carry out a similar mass kidnapping?
Just like an artist.
Artists always seem to be making overblown claims like that─but if she was just trying to get in the last word as the grand finale to her solitary resistance movement, it smelled a bit like sour grapes.
It was an impossible boast to make good on.
It didn’t even constitute a threat.
Probably all she got were a few contemptuous laughs─or so I thought, but Sakiguchi shook his head.
“Ms. Towai carried out her threat.”
She kidnapped all the students.
His voice grave, Sakiguchi turned to the wall of the auditorium.
The wall with the enormous painting on it.
The Auditorium in the Auditorium.
By Kowako Towai.
So? Why was he focusing on the painting right now?
Why had he asked us to come to the auditorium while he told Ms. Towai’s story? If he was only planning to describe her strange behavior, couldn’t we just have stayed in the art room?
The Pretty Boy Detective Club operated in secret (no doubt because secrecy was beautiful according to the club’s aesthetic), and its members normally avoided doing anything that would draw attention to themselves outside the art room.
At the moment no one else was in the auditorium, but if the councilman and the bossman were spotted together, it’d make the front page of the school paper tomorrow─though I’m not sure we even have a school paper.
“You see, originally,” Sakiguchi began, as if in direct answer to my lingering questions, “this painting depicted a meeting of the entire student body of Yubiwa Academy Middle School─but seven years ago, Ms. Towai kidnapped them, leaving not a single one of the painted students behind.”
The painted auditorium was empty.
As empty as the real auditorium was right now, just before the end of the school day.
Not a single student remained.