Hatsu opens the door and looks at me.
I haven’t been outside this giant embassy at all yet. I go to the door. Then hesitate. “Bye,” I say to Carolina. “Have fun.”
Carolina looks at Botan, who is busy twisting the bottom edge of her skirt, then looks back at me, frowning. She jumps up and hugs me. “You have fun, too.”
“Thank you.”
“Come back. Please. Right away.”
“Of course I’ll come back! As soon as school lets out.” I squeeze her tight; this is her first day on her own, too. “You know I’ll come back. Always.”
“Nonna said we have to be best friends.”
“Nonna’s right. Go play now. Have fun.”
I follow Hatsu out the side door to the gate. A man opens it for us. Hatsu bows her head to him, so I do, too. As we walk along the edge of the road, I’m glad to be walking steady; I don’t feel like I’m still rocking on a ship, like I felt most of the weekend, after a month at sea.
Out on the ship’s deck, I overheard Papà learning Japanese, and I heard lots of talk about war. News came through telegrams. Italy invaded Somaliland in Africa. One city, then another. Swift victories. Nothing about anyone invading Italy. And the news about Japan was good: Japan will conquer all of China soon, just like the man from Foreign Affairs told Papà.
I’m glad to finally be in Tokyo and see that Japan is safe. The people on the street are ordinary, not soldiers. I look closely at everyone we pass; no one carries guns.
I smile up at Hatsu, hoping for a smile back, but she looks straight ahead, over a big envelope she clasps to her chest, filled with everything she needs to enroll me. If the school officials ask me anything that isn’t in those papers, I won’t understand. The idea makes me a little sick. Maybe Hatsu’s worried about that, too, and that’s why her eyes are so intense.
A group of girls around my age walks ahead of us, dressed just like me. At the second corner, they turn right. We turn right. As we walk, I draw a mental map of the route in my head.
We’re on a big street now, with sidewalks. Back home there are no sidewalks on my way to school. The girls ahead of us chatter and laugh. We walk past streets and little alleys. Cars and bicycles zoom by, horses pull carts that clatter, and my book bag thumps against my back. Then we turn right, onto a small street. Oh no, I lost count of the blocks! How will I ever know where to turn if I have to walk alone?
But that must be the school, at the end of the next block. Hatsu runs ahead, and I race after her. She stops one of the girls in the group and says a lot to her, then points at me. The girl glances at me and shakes her head. But another girl, shorter, nods to Hatsu and comes over to me. She says something; I smile and try to repeat it. She points at herself and says, “Aiko.” Then she points at me and raises her eyebrows. So I say, “Simona.” She gives me a quick head bow, and I bow, then look back at Hatsu.
Hatsu nods to me, and we follow Aiko through the main door. Hatsu flaps her hand at me: Go with Aiko. She smiles, waves, and goes into an office.
I watch Aiko walk up to a set of lockers, take off her street shoes, and put them inside. Then she takes out white cloth slippers and puts them on. She says something to me and points at the very last locker. I take off my shoes and put them in the locker. But there are no slippers in there. I stand in my socks, feeling exposed. Aiko looks doubtfully at me. She chatters and points at my book bag. I look inside. White slippers! Hatsu did good.
We go down a hall and into a big room where children are sitting on the floor. Aiko sits, so I sit beside her. A man stands on a low platform at one end of the room and talks at us. Everyone nods or laughs or speaks in unison. After the assembly I follow Aiko into a classroom. Aiko bows to the teacher and says something. The teacher nods. Aiko takes a seat at a wooden desk. There are two seats at every desk, and the desks are pushed together edge to edge, so that everyone sits in tight rows.
The teacher stares at me a moment. She looks at a piece of paper on her desk, then holds it up to look closer. Now I can see what’s on it. She reads, “Simona?” I can’t understand how that writing led her to know my name—it looks nothing like my name. I nod and smile. The teacher raps her knuckles on her desk, and everyone stops talking and looks at her. She says something to them. Then they all say something to me. I don’t know what it means, but I repeat it. They laugh as though I’m stupid. I press my lips together hard and look down. The teacher points me to the closest empty seat.
That’s how the morning goes. I learn all the words I can without looking anyone in the eye. Some words are clear from how people behave—words for book and chair and desk. For girl (or maybe student?), and teacher. For blackboard and chalk. I repeat other words even though I can’t figure out what they mean.
I love math class; it’s just like the math I had last year. I’m good at it. And in another class I copy the symbols that the teacher writes on the blackboard. Some are hard to do; some are simple. It’s fun, almost like doing art. In one class the girls sing, and I just listen. And in the fourth class I have no idea what’s going on, so I watch and wait.
When the bell rings for the fifth time, a few girls leave the room, and the others open little boxes. There’s food inside. Bento—that’s what those straw boxes are called. Aiko catches my eye. She points at my book bag. But I know there’s no bento box in there.
When I shake my head, Aiko comes over, peeks into my book bag, and takes out a cloth bundle. “Furoshiki,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s annoyed at me. “Furoshiki.”
So that’s what this cloth is called. I untie the furoshiki, and there’s a rice ball, cucumber strips, and carrot chunks sitting in the middle. I know rice balls from home. I take a bite, but it’s nothing like in Italy—no cheese inside, no tomato, no peas. I take a nibble. Sweet. I nibble till it’s all gone. Then I eat the vegetables, which turn out to be pickled. They’re good. Did Papà pack this for me? Or Hatsu?
The bell rings; we go to our lockers, put on our street shoes, and go outside. It’s recess. I sit with my back against the sun-warmed wall and watch the girls skip rope. No one looks at me, not even Aiko.
We walk inside to marching music. Everyone takes ugly old cloths out of their book bags and gets to work rubbing off their desk. There’s an old cloth in my book bag, too. I rub our desktop, while my deskmate rubs our chairs. Then we all push our desks and chairs to the edges of the room, and some students sweep with brooms while others wipe the blackboards and clean the chalk trays. I help carry the trash to a big basket.
When we finally put on our shoes again to go home, I’m too tired to be anxious. And I have a plan: If Hatsu isn’t waiting to walk me home, I’ll follow Aiko. She has to live somewhere past the embassy, because that’s where she came from this morning. It won’t be hard.