Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window (16 page)

"Bite it," said Totto-chan. "If it's bitter, it means you're ill."

The headmaster bit some. Then he turned the bark over and studied it carefully.

"Does- it taste bitter?" asked Totto-chan, concerned, looking at the headmaster's face. “It hasn't any taste at all."

As he returned the bark to Totto-chan, he said, "I'm fine. Thank you.” "Hooray! The headmaster's healthy! I'm so glad."

That day Totto-chan got everybody in the school to bite a piece of bark. Not a single child found it bitter, which meant they were all healthy. Totto-chan was very glad.

The children all went and told the headmaster they were healthy, and to each child the headmaster replied, "That's good."

The headmaster must have known all along. He was born and bred in the heart of the country in Gumma Prefecture, beside a river from which you could see Mount Haruna. He must have known that the bark would not taste bitter, no matter who chewed it.

But the headmaster thought it was nice for Totto-chan to be so glad to find that everyone was healthy. He was happy that Totto-chan had been brought up to be the kind of person who would have been worried and concerned about anyone who might have said the bark tasted bitter.

Totto-chan even tried pushing the tree bark into the mouth of a stray dog walking near the school. She almost got bitten, but that didn't daunt her.

"You'll know whether you're sick or not," she shouted at the dog. "Come on, bite it!'Cause if you're healthy, then that's fine."

She succeeded in getting that dog she didn't know to bite a piece. Skipping around the dog she cried,

"Hooray! You're healthy, too!"

The dog bowed its head, as if thanking her, and ran off.

Just as the headmaster guessed, the bark-seller never showed up in Jiyugaoka again. Even, morning, before she left for school, Totto-chan took the precious piece of bark
from her drawer--it now looked as if an energetic beaver had been at it--and chewed some of it, calling out as she left the house, "I'm healthy!"

And, thankfully, Totto-chan was in fact healthy.

A new pupil arrived at Tomoe. He was tall for an elementary school boy, and~ broad. Totto-chan thought he looked more like a seventh grader. His clothes were different, too, more like grown-up ones.
That morning in the school grounds the head-master introduced the new student. "This is Miyazaki. He was born and brought up in America, so he doesn't speak Japanese very well. That's why he has come to Tomoe, where he will be able to make friends more easily and take his time over his studies. He's one of you now. What grade shall we put him in! What about fifth grade, with Ta-chan and the others!" "That's fine," said Ta-chan - who was good at drawing--in a big-brotherly voice.

The headmaster smiled and went on, "I said he wasn't very good at Japanese, but he's very good at English. Get him to teach you some. He's not used to life in Japan, though, so you'll help him, won't you? And ask him about life in America. He'll be able to tell you all sorts of interesting things. Well, then, I’ll leave him with you."

Miyazaki bowed to his classmates, who were all much smaller than he was. And all the children, not only the children in Ta-chan's class, bowed back.

At lunchtime Miyazaki went over to the head-master's house, and all the others followed him. Then what did he do but start to walk into the house with his shoes on! All the children shouted at him, "You've got to take off your shoes?"

Miyazaki seemed startled. "Oh, excuse me," he said, taking them off. The children began telling him what to do, all talking at once.

"You have to take your shoes off for rooms with tatami-matted floors and for the Assembly Hall. You can keep them on in the classrooms and in the library.

"When you go to Kuhonbutsu Temple you can keep them on in the courtyard but you have to take them off in the temple."

It was fun learning about the differences between living in Japan and living abroad. Next day Miyazaki brought a big English picture book to school. They all clustered around him at lunchtime to look at the book. They were amazed. They had never seen such a beautiful picture book More. The picture books they knew were only printed in bright reds, greens, and yellows, but this one had pale flesh-colored pinks. As for the blues, they were lovely shades, mixed with white and gray--colors that didn't exist in crayons. There were lots of colors besides the standard twenty-four in a box of crayons, colors that were not even in Ta-chan's special box of forty-eight. Everyone was impressed. As for the pictures, the first one was of a dog pulling a baby by its diaper. What impressed them was that the baby didn't look as if it was painted but had soft pink skin just like a teal baby. They had never seen a picture book that was so big and printed on such lovely, thick, shiny paper. In her usual sociable way, Totto-chan got as close to Miyazaki and the picture book as she could..

Miyazaki read the English text to them. The English language sounded so smooth that they listened enraptured. Then Miyazaki began to grapple with Japanese.

Miyazaki certainly had brought something new and different to the school. "Akachan is baby," he began.

They all repeated it after him. “Akachan is baby.”

"UtsukuSHII is beautiful," Miyazaki said next, stressing the "ku." "UuukuSHII is beautiful," repeated the others.

Miyazaki then realized his Japanese pronunciation had been wrong. "It's utsukuSHII, is it? Right?"

Miyazaki and the other children soon became good friends. Every day he brought various books to Tomoe and read them to the others at lunchtime.

It was just as if Miyazaki was their English tutor. At the same time Miyazaki's Japanese quickly improved. And he stopped making blunders like sitting in the tokonama, the alcove reserved for hanging-scrolls and ornaments.

Totto-chan and her friends learned lots of things about America. Japan and America were becoming friends at Tomoe. But outside Tomoe, America had become an enemy, and since English had become an enemy language, it was dropped from the curriculum of all the schools.

"Americans are devils," the government announced. But at Tomoe the children kept chanting in chorus, "Utsukushii is beautiful." And the breezes that blew across Tomoe were soft and warm, and the children themselves were beautiful.

Amateur Drama

"We're going to put on a play!"

It was the first play in Tomoe's history. The custom of someone giving a talk at lunchtime was still going on, but imagine performing a play on the little stage with the grand piano the headmaster always played for eurythmics and inviting an audience. None of the children had even seen a play, not even Totto-chan. Apart from Swan Lake, she had never once been to the theater. Nevertheless, they all
discussed what sort of program they should put on for their end-of-year performance.

Totto-chan's class decided to do Kanjincho (“The Fund-Raising Charter”). This famous old Kabuki play was not exactly what you would expect to see at Tomoe, but it was in one of their textbooks and Mr. Maruyama would coach them. They decided Aiko Saisho would make a good Benkei, the strong man, since she was big and tall, and Amadera, who could look stern and had a loud voice, should play Togashi, the commander. After talking it over, they all came to the conclusion that Totto-chan should be the noble Yoshitsune, who, in the play, is disguised as a porter. All the others would be strolling monks.

Before they could begin rehearsing, the children had to learn their lines. It was nice for Totto-chan and the monks, for they had nothing to say. All that the monks were required to do was stand silently throughout, while Totto-chan, as Yoshitsune, had

to remain kneeling, with her face hidden by a large straw hat. Benkei, in reality Yoshitsune's servant, beats and upbraids his master in a clever attempt to get the part past the Ataka Checkpoint by posing as a band of monks collecting funds to restore a temple. Aiko Saisho, playing Benkei, had a tremendous part. Besides all the verbal thrust and parry with Togashi, the checkpoint commander, there was the exciting bit where Benkei has to pretend to read out the Fund-Raising Charter when ordered by the commander to do so. The scroll he "reads" from is blank, and he brilliantly extemporizes an appeal for funds in pompous ecclesiastical language: "Firstly, for the purpose of the reiteration of the temple known as Todaiji ...”

Aiko Saisho practiced her "Firstly" speech every day.

The role of Togashi, too, had lots of dialogue, as he tries to refute Benkei's arguments, and Amadera struggled to memorize it.

Finally rehearsal time came. Togashi and Benkei faced each other, with the monks lined up behind Benkei, and Totto-chan, as Yoshitsune, kneeling, huddled over, in front. But Totto-chan didn't understand what it was all about. So when Benkei had to knock Yoshitsune down with his staff and strike him, Totto-chan reacted violently. She kicked Aiko Saisho in the legs and scratched her. Aiko cried and the monks giggled.

Yoshitsune was supposed to remain still, looking cowed, no matter how-much Benkei beat and hit him. The idea is that while Togashi suspects the truth, he is so impressed by Benkei's ruse and the pain it must cost him to ill-treat his noble master, that he lets them through the checkpoint. To have Yoshitsune resisting would ruin the whole plot. Mr. Maruyama tried to explain this to Totto-chan. But Totto-chan was adamant. She insisted that if Aiko Saisho hit her she would hit back. So they made no progress.

No matter how many times they tried the scene, Totto-chan always put up a fight. "I'm terribly sorry," said Mr. Maruyama to Totto-chan finally, "but I think we had
better ask Tai-chan to play the part of Yoshitsune."

Totto-chan was relieved. She didn't like being the only one who got knocked about. "Totto-chan, will you please be a monk?" asked Mr. Maruyama. So Totto-chan stood
with the other monks, but right at the back.

Mr. Maruyama and the children thought everything would be fine now, but they were wrong. He shouldn't have let Totto-chan have a monk's long staff. Totto-chan got bored with standing still so she started poking the feet of the monk next to her with the staff, and tickling the monk in front under his armpits. She even pretended to conduct with it, which was not only dangerous for those nearby but also ruined the scene between Benkei and Togashi.

So eventually she was deprived of her role as a monk, too.

Tai-chan as Yoshitsune, gritted his teeth manfully as he was knocked over and beaten, and the audience must surely have felt sorry for him. Rehearsals progressed smoothly without Totto-chan.

Left by herself, Totto-chan went out into the school grounds. She took off her shoes and started to improvise a Totto-chan ballet. It was lovely dancing according to her own fancy. Sometimes she was a swan, sometimes the wind, sometimes a grotesque person, sometimes a tree. All alone in the deserted playground she danced and danced.

Deep in her heart, however, there was a tiny feeling that she would like to be playing Yoshitsune. But had they allowed her to, she would surely have hit and scratched Aiko Saisho.

Thus it was that Totto-chan was not able to take part in the first and last amateur drama at Tomoe.

Tomoe children never scrawled on other people's walls or on the road. That was because they had ample opportunity for doing it at school.

During music periods in the Assembly Hall, the headmaster would give each child a piece of white chalk. They could lie or sit anywhere they liked on the floor and wait, chalk in hand. When they were all ready, the headmaster started playing the piano. As he did so, they would write the rhythms, in musical notation, on the floor. It was lovely writing in chalk on the shiny light brown wood. There were only about ten pupils in Totto-chan's class, so when they were spread around the large Assembly Hall, they had plenty of floor on which to write their notes as large as they wanted without encroaching on anyone else's space. They didn't need lines for their notation, since they just wrote down the rhythm. At Tomoe musical notes had special names the children devised themselves after talking it over with the headmaster. Here they are:

(musical symbol) was called a skip, because it was a good rhythm to skip and jump to.

(musical symbol)was called a flag, because it looked like one. (musical symbol) was called a double-flag.
(musical symbol) was called a black. (musical symbol) was called a white
(musical symbol) was called a white-with-a-mole, or a white 'n' dot. (musical symbol) was called a circle.
This way they learned to know the notes well and it was fun. It was a class they loved.

Writing on the floor with chalk was the head-master's idea. Paper wasn't big enough and there weren't enough blackboards to go around. He thought the Assembly Hall floor would make a nice big blackboard on which the children could note the rhythm with ease no matter how fast the music was, and writing as large as they liked, Above all, they could enjoy the music. And if there was time afterward, they could draw airplanes and dolls and anything they wanted. Sometimes the children would join up their drawings just for fun and the whole floor would become one enormous picture.

At intervals during the music class, the headmaster would come over and inspect each child's rhythms. He would comment, "That's good," or "it wasn't a flag-flag there, it was a skip."

After he had approved or corrected their notation, he played the music over again so they could check what they had done and familiarize themselves with the rhythms. No matter how busy he was, the head-master never let anyone else take these classes for him. And as far as the children were concerned, it wouldn't have been any fun at all without Mr. Kobayashi.

Cleaning up after writing rhythms was quite a job. First you had to wipe the floor with a blackboard eraser, and then everyone joined forces to make the floor spick and span again with mops and rags. It was an enormous task.

In this way Tomoe children learned what trouble cleaning off graffiti could be, so they never scribbled anywhere except on the floor of the Assembly Hall. Moreover, this class took place about twice a week, so the children had their fill of scribbling.