[xover][Kodocha/Alice Academy/RoD] Sana's Alice, Chapter 2, part A.
By Henry J. Cobb
Gakuen Alice is the creation of Higuchi Tachibana. Kodomo no Omocha is the
creation of Miho Obana. Read or Dream is the creation of Hideyuki
Kurata. This parody is not intended to cause any damage to these
properties.
Chapter two: Paper kitten, part B
As I entered my room my bed looked really inviting. I took off my shoes
and summoned a Babbit, "Wake me for dinner and do my homework," I tossed my
schoolbooks on the desk, tossed my school uniform over the chair and got
into bed.
"Yes mam," Babbit turned off the light, then flew over and switched on the
desk lamp.
I thought for a moment how he had found the switch in the dark, but then
realized that he ought to have some sort of sonar, being a bat and all.
Then I drifted off.
I woke to the sound of growling and it took me a moment to work out that it
was my own empty tummy, "Hey, why didn't you wake me for dinner?"
"Tried," Babbit looked up from one of my textbooks, "But you wouldn't
listen."
"You are so unreliable. I should have brought that dancing pig alarm clock
Mama bought me."
"You never listened to that either. Don't worry, breakfast service starts
in 53 minutes."
"What, no count of seconds?"
"I'm not a robot."
I tossed my underwear at him, then went to use my shower. It was smaller
than Hotaru's and a tiny fraction of the size of our bath at home. When I
got out there was a towel waiting for me and clean underwear and a school
uniform had been laid out on my bed. I suppose there was no need for
Babbit to ask me what I wanted to wear, as long as I was a student at this
Academy.
"Give me a hand with this," I held my hair out of the way.
"You really are too young to worry about wearing a bra."
"When Akito started getting in his cheap thrills I resolved to cover up."
"You don't have to worry about him here."
"Of course I'm worried," I put on the uniform, "He looked so miserable that
last day, like he couldn't live without me."
"You could write him a postcard," Babbit tied the bows on my pigtails.
"And Mama too. I promised her. How many postcards did I bring?"
"Fifty."
"Then write a card to every student in my old class and I'll be back to
sign them at lunch. I need to think about what I'll say to Akito and Mama.
But now I'll go see if there's a foodcart or something outside to carry my
tide until breakfast."
"That's tide you over and you don't have any of the Rabbits they use here."
"It doesn't cost anything to look."
Outside the dormitory it was a little nippy in my short skirt and while the
sky was lightening it was still some time until dawn. I didn't see any
food service, but there was a young boy in an Elementary School outfit
sitting on a bench all alone. He couldn't have been more than four years
old.
He looked up at my approach then ran to me, "Auntie Mikan!"
I knelt down to hug him, "So, are you my nephew?"
He pushed away from me, "You're not Mikan."
I could see that his hair was as gray as that girl's in my class. Were
they related? "No, I'm --"
"Why are you pretend to be Mikan?"
"I'm not pretending, I'm --"
"You'll be sorry!" Small ghosts boiled off of him and closed in on me.
"Yi!" I crouched down and covered my head.
"Vroom! Vroom!"
I looked up.
Babbit was flying through the ghosts and slicing them apart with his wings,
"Even for ghosts these guys aren't very substantial."
The last ghosts faded away as the boy pointed up at Babbit, "What's that?"
"I'm Babbit and who are you?"
"I'm Yoichi."
"And I'm Sana Kurata. I see that you have a Alice that's a lot like mine.
So you know my sister Mikan?"
"Uh huh," Yoichi was still looking at Babbit, "That's neat. Can I have
it?"
"Well I guess you can borrow him, for today. If you promise to behave."
"I promise."
I nodded, Babbit flew down and Yoichi grabbed him.
"Oof!"
"Careful, or you'll pop him."
"I'll be careful. Lemme show him to the other kids," The boy walked off.
"Sana!" A short girl with short red hair was waving to me from the dorm.
I walked up to her, "And how can you be so sure that I'm not Mikan?"
"Mikan doesn't hand out Babbits," She held the door open for me.
"Point. Well it's good to see that at least somebody from the
kindergarten class knows me. Are you Anna's little sister?"
"I'm in the same class as you, I'm not that short and I'm not related to
the Umenomiya family, as far as I know."
"As far as you know?"
"Like you, I'm an orphan. My name's Anita King."
"Oh, you're that girl with the cold."
"I've been out of it these last few days, but when Anna told me how mean
the other kids were to you I begged her for something so she and Nonoko
made me a combination chicken soup, decongestant and energy drink. It
tastes awful, but it works. I haven't been able to eat anything for days
and now I'm starving. Let's go get in the front of the line for
breakfast," she grabbed my hand and pulled me along to the cafeteria.
The door was locked so we stood outside. She looked around then asked,
"You really liked your show, didn't you?"
"Yeah, it was a blast."
"I'm sorry I brought you here."
"Oh, I'm sure they'll be open in a few minutes."
"I mean to the school. I kept asking Mr. Narumi for more Sana stuff and I
guess he got curious and found you out. I really didn't mean anything by
it. I didn't think you were really an Alice."
"No. It's my fault for using my Alice on TV. Nobody else forced me to do
it."
"But you're my hero and I still feel bad about it, even though it's great
to finally meet you in person."
"So you were watching my show and you've seen Mikan around the school?"
"Only from a distance. I was in class A until this quarter. I thought she
looked a bit like you, but seeing you up close it's just amazing."
"Don't the students transfer up at the start of school year?"
"Most of them do, but I was held back a quarter because of my grades,
especially Japanese. But then last year I saw your TV show with Babbit and
I imagined for a moment that you might be an Alice girl living an ordinary
life and so at peace with your Alice that you could sing a duet with it. I
knew you really couldn't be an Alice, but that inspired me to be that girl
myself and now here you are. It's kind of weird."
"What's so difficult about Japanese?"
"It's not my native language. I think I'm from the UK."
"You think?"
"The first thing I can remember is being alone, cold and hungry in an
abandoned church. Mr. Narumi came and I tried to hide, but he told me to
come out so I did."
"Yes, he has that effect."
"He said that I had an amazing power and that he worked for a school that
would help develop it. I asked him if he'd feed me and he gave me a candy
bar so I followed him here. That was five years ago, but I didn't do much
in school until I saw your show."
"Five years ago in the UK, didn't something happen?"
Babbit popped up, "There was a terrorist attack that set fire to London."
"A fire...", Anita looked down for a moment then back up, "Hi Babbit."
"Hello Miss King."
"Just call me Anita. My name's the only thing about my life from before
that I remember, so I want all my friends to call me by it."
At that moment the cafeteria door unlocked and that robot, Ms. Takahashi
opened it, "Good morning Misses King and Kurata. Please do not use your
Alices in the cafeteria. I have had enough problems with that bat with
class A this morning," She turned around and went back to the serving
area.
"Oh sorry," I clapped my hands over Babbit, but I must not have done it
hard enough because instead of popping he drifted down to the floor.
"Ouch! Well I may not ever travel to Australia myself, but she's already
wearing me down under," He pointed a wing up at Anita.
"Oops!" Anita tucked her skirt hem between her legs and backed up a step.
"They make Babbit panties?"
"With the dress code it's about the only thing we get to choose for
ourselves."
"They make Babbit panties?"
"I don't think they're made anymore, they weren't able to get me any last
time I asked."
"I am so going to kill my former agent when I get out of here!"
"Wow! I'm as famous as Hello -", Babbit was cut off as I stomped him out
of existence.
We were the first students in line and I noticed that while my breakfast
was Japanese, Ms. Takahashi gave Anita an American style breakfast with
granola, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and two cartons of milk.
When we got to our table I saw that Anita's tray somehow had three cartons
of milk on it, but I wasn't the only one who noticed.
"So Miss One-star, what's with the three cartons of milk?" Sumire asked.
"One is for the cereal, one is my beverage choice and the other one must
have fallen on by accident."
"A likely story. You used your Alice to grab it, didn't you? Well, I'll
just confiscate that," Sumire grabbed one of the cartons, opened it and
started lapping at the milk with her tongue.
"Ugh gross."
"So, do you want it back?"
"Not now that it's got dog germs in it."
"I'll have you know that a dog's mouth has fewer germs than a human's."
"So you admit to being a dog?"
"Humph!" Sumire walked away with the carton.
"Hi Sana and Anita!"
"Oh, good morning Anna and Nonoko."
The two girls sat at our table then Anna whispered to me, "Don't worry
about Sumire and Anita, they do this kind of stuff every morning. I think
Anita gets the extra milk for Sumire. Sumire won't switch to the American
meal plan because the Japanese meal plan has more fish."
Anita was just pulling a fourth carton out of her pocket when Nonoko put
her hand over the shorter girl's forehead.
"You've still got a fever Anita. You ought to stay in bed."
"I can't lie around when they're doing all that stuff to Sana, especially
that devil Hotaru. And anyway I'm hungry. Feed a cold and feed a fever
after all."
I half expected Babbit to pop up at that, but I didn't say it and I suppose
he was following the rules for once, "So you have an Alice for stealing
milk cartons?"
"Don't believe a word Sumire says. It's all lies. This is my Alice,"
Anita pulled a white paper card out of her pocket and started folding it.
In just a few seconds she turned it into a miniature model of Babbit,
including a crinkle outline of a heart on its chest. Then she sat back,
pointed at it and commanded, "Fly."
The paper Babbit flapped its wings then fell on its face.
Anita looked down at her creation, "The teachers say that a Paper Master
ought to be able to create small winged creations that fly, but even my
paper airplanes crash. It's all I can do to make unfolded cards fly
straight when I toss them."
"Still, it's very cute."
"You can have it. I've got enough Babbit stuff in my room already."
"Thanks."
"That's the truth. When I first entered Anita's room last night I saw
posters and toys from Kodocha all over the place. Why didn't you tell us
about Sana before?"
"I was just a new student in the class and I didn't see what the point was.
You only watch cooking shows and Nonoko only watches science programs.
It's not like I expected Sana to ever show up here."
Ms. Takahashi walked into the cafeteria, "Hurry up, it's time for your
first period classes."
Anita walked with me, "If any of those bullies try to hassle you today
Sana, I'll show them," She tossed an index card and split a stone by the
path.
"Uh, I'm sure we can resolve our difference without violence."
In class Anita took the seat next to me and pulled out a laptop computer
from her bookbag, which didn't seem to have any books in it. She seemed to
be the only one in class to have a laptop. She borrowed my notebook to
copy down my notes from the previous day, "You wrote all of this
yesterday?"
"Babbit took over starting in third period."
"Yeah, his writing is much neater and clearer. I didn't know he could do
that."
Mr. Narumi showed up at the start of first period, "Now class we need to
select a partner for Sana to show her around the school."
"Well I", Yuu began as Anita frantically waved her hand, but Hotaru stood
up.
"I'm sorry Hotaru, but as a first year student yourself, you're not
qualified."
"Actually I rose to suggest Mr. Nogi," Hotaru pointed at me, no past me to
that boy Ruka who had controlled my Alice yesterday.
"An excellent idea."
Ruka just sat there, like a deer in the headlights, but the rest of the
class was shocked.
"Why would she?" Anita looked from Ruka to Hotaru.
"And one more thing sir," Hotaru addressed Mr. Narumi as he turned for the
door, "I've discovered another interesting facet to Sana's Alice. If I
may?"
"Go ahead."
"Sana, send Babbit up here."
I nodded and he flew up to her.
She spent the next minute in rapid fire questions in various foreign
languages that Babbit gave short answers to, then finished in Japanese,
"Thank you Babbit."
"Very impressive indeed, but did Babbit catch you on the Latin?"
"Yes he did sir. Our new language expert is Sana."
Babbit flew back and I asked him, "How did you do that and how did she know
you could do that?"
"I've got a knack for languages. It must be part of the perfect memory.
She probably did a search on Kodocha and noticed that you were triple
credited for actress, special effects and translations."
"You've been translating our shows?"
"You did promise to become famous worldwide."
What else had he been doing behind my back?
At lunch I sat with Anita, Nonoko and Anna again, "So why was everybody so
shocked when Hotaru suggested Ruka?"
Anna looked around, "Promise not to tell?"
"Cross my heart."
"A lot of this is rumor so take it all with a big grain of salt, but Hotaru
is Ruka's girlfriend, or at least she seems to want to be."
I could see that Hotaru was sitting with Ruka and talking to him, but he
seemed to be ignoring her, "It doesn't look that way."
"Well they were in the play together, along with your sister, and they had a
big kiss onstage. Also they had the last dance together, at least
halfway."
"They half danced together?"
"Hotaru cut in with Natsume halfway through it and left Mikan with Ruka.
The rumor is that Ruka has or had a crush on Mikan before Natsume claimed
ownership of her. Ruka and Natsume were best friends but Mikan managed to
use Ruka against Natsume twice while she was fighting to be in the class."
That sounded a lot like how I had leveraged Tsuyoshi's crush on me against
Akito, using their long term friendship, "So the three of them were in a
play together?"
"Yes, as a prince and two princesses."
"Ruka was the prince who had to decide between them?"
"No, Hotaru was the prince and Ruka and your sister were the princesses.
Hotaru rewrote a few fairy tales together into a story about Alices,
without calling it Alices."
"That sounds like what Mama does."
"You know your and Mikan's mother?"
"No, my adoptive mother, Misako Kurata, the author."
"I've got one of her books."
Nonoko and Anna both looked at Anita and after a moment Nonoko spoke,
"You've got a book?"
"Yeah, the new one with Sana in it."
Anna leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Anita hates books. Even her
textbooks had to be scanned into the computer to get her to read them."
Our Physical Education class was held outside and Anita and I sat under a
tree after sprints.
A leaf fluttered down from the tree and Anita pushed me to the side, "Watch
out!" She pulled two cards from her shirt and swiped at a figure that came
down from the tree.
It was Sumire with her cat and dog features, and she blocked Anita's cards
with her hands then kicked Anita in the stomach.
Anita rolled back then got to her feet, "Okay, let's do this."
"Stop stop stop!" I stood between the two girls, "This is crazy. I saw
Anita's card cut stone. Can you imagine what that would do to a person?
Wait, you blocked her cards with your hands?"
"Not my hands, this," Sumire held up one hand and something shimmered a few
centimeters past her outstretched fingers.
"Sumire was taking it easy on me Sana."
"How can you say that after she kicked you?"
"She had her shoes on. Her toe claws are deadly, almost as bad as her foot
odor."
"As usual you can only talk tough, short stuff."
"Why are you two doing this?"
"I used to be ashamed of my Alice," Sumire turned to me, "But the one thing
your sister showed me was that even the most pathetic Alice can really
amount to something if properly trained. Anita and I have the only close
combat Alices in our class so we practice surprising each other to test our
reflexes."
"But that was a cheap shot, waiting until I was distracted by Sana to jump
me."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll show you right now, I'll..." Anita shook her head then collapsed.
"What?" Sumire knelt down by the other girl, "She's burning up. Get a
teacher!"
"Babbit go!" I summoned a Babbit and he flew over to the teacher who was
coaching some other kids.
An ambulance was summoned and Anita was taken off to the Academy hospital.
Hotaru caught up with me as I walked back to the dorm that afternoon,
"Anita will be fine. She's being released back to her room this evening."
"Oh, that's great."
"But you still look so down. I've got something that will pick you up,"
She stepped away and then pointed back at me, "Bungee her."
"What?"
That boy with the buzzcut, Moju, was waiting by the path. He made a
grabbing motion with his hand and I was lifted up by an invisible force,
"You think you're so great just because you've been on TV. Well, I'll show
you what real power feels like."
"Remember that falling, not heights is her phobia," Hotaru took a seat on
a bench and pulled out a notebook, "So you may need to bounce her around a
bit."
"Stop being so bossy," He waved his arm up and down.
I couldn't take my eyes off the ground as I bounced in midair, "Babbit, get
him."
"With pleasure," A Babbit appeared and flew down to him, "Are you
ticklish?"
"Keep away from me," The boy gestured with his other hand and Babbit was
tossed back.
A dozen Babbits appeared all around him, "Coochie coochie coo!" "Coochie
coochie coo!" "Coochie coochie coo!"
"Get off me," Moju used both hands to defend himself from the attack.
I dropped, "Help!"
Suddenly scores of Babbits appeared in a pile on the ground under me. As I
landed most of them popped, but some were sent flying in all directions.
Hotaru pulled out a flyswatter and deflected one that was heading towards
her so that it flew behind her and smacked into Mr. Jinno's face as he
walked by.
"Hello sir," the Babbit said.
Mr. Jinno held up the Babbit by the wing, "What is the meaning of this?"
Hotaru looked up from her notebook, "I just training Miss Kurata in the use
of her Alice."
"This is not the time or place for such things. Be more careful,"
Mr. Jinno gave off an electric shock and the Babbit popped.
That evening I signed the cards I had forgotten to do at lunch and was
sitting there thinking what to say to Mama when a car pulled up to the
dorm. I looked down and saw Anita get out so I ran down the stairs.
Ms. Takahashi was walking up the stairs with Anita, "Now this time I'm under
orders to keep you in your room for three days.
"Until Sunday?" Anita waved to me.
"Yes and no sneaking off this time young lady. You gave us quite a scare
today."
I tagged along and stopped outside Anita's room.
"Come on in," Anita grabbed my hand.
"I want you to go right to bed young lady and I'll bring your breakfast in
the morning," Ms. Takahashi didn't even notice me as she turned away,
"Please use the intercom if you suffer a relapse."
I followed Anita inside her room and asked, "What was that about?"
"Visits are against the rules, but Ms. Takahashi never notices them. It
must be a bug in her program, but the students don't mind. I've got to lie
down, but please stay for a bit."
"Okay," I sat in her chair and looked around her room. She seemed to have
every Kodocha poster ever released along with some Babbit themed items even
I hadn't seen before. And sandwiched between two toy Babbits was the only
book in the room, "My Daughter and I".
"Yeah, I'm going to read that someday. You should have seen the look on Mr
Narumui's face when I asked for a book. Sana, would you mind putting that
disk in the DVD player?"
"No problem."
Anita worked a remote control from her bed and skipped through an episode.
I noticed that it was last year's Halloween episode. She fast forwarded to
the moment I dreaded.
On the TV Babbit and I were singing "I don't want to know dustiness. Keep
away that holy water. I'm going to be Bat-tized in your blood."
Anita paused the display, "That's it, the first time I saw you. On the
screen I thought I saw a girl and her Alice and she made it seem so easy,
like it was the most natural thing in the world. I really put an effort
into studying Japanese, just so I could understand what you were saying."
"So you have the entire run?"
"Just the past year, and your best of collections."
"Well let me show you some much better episodes than this one."
We went through several disks until finally Anita went to sleep snuggled up
next to me on her bed. I didn't want to wake her, so I used the remote to
turn off the TV and slept there.
In the morning I tried to sneak back to my room, but Hotaru was waiting by
my door.
"You seem to have a problem sleeping alone."
"You've been spying on me," I unlocked my door.
"Can I schedule Yuu for tonight? I think he's got a crush on you, or maybe
it's just because you look so much like your sister. Why not find out?"
"It wouldn't be proper for a teenage boy and girl to sleep together in the
same room," I wasn't about to admit to her that I had already slept over
in Akito's room, but that's all we did, sleep.
"The Academy won't mind at all, get ready and I'll explain on the walk over
after breakfast."
Babbit was sitting on my desk and pointed an accusing wing at the cards I
hadn't sent.
"One minute!" I dashed into the shower, and a few minutes later with one
towel wrapped around me and another around my hair I wrote the card for
Mama.
Mama, sorry about not writing first thing but my life's really insane
here. It's a lot more challenging than I'm used to, but I keep finding
new things about myself. For example it seems that I have a twin
sister, but she's not here right now.
The people who are here are very much unique and no two of them are the
same. Just in my class there's this girl Anita who's a wizard at
origami and Hotaru who's always full of the strangest ideas. I wonder
if you were like that when you were eleven.
I'll write again soon, love Sana.
I tucked the cards in my bookbag, along with the blank one for Akito. I
just didn't know what I could say to him yet.
"Don't forget the homework I did."
"Thanks Babbit. I don't know what I'd do without you." I looked in the
mirror and saw my sister's face. Enough of that. I undid my twin pigtails
and tied back my hair in a single ponytail. "No more clone pig for me!"
Babbit bit at his lip until I left my room, but I could hear him giggling
behind the door.
That morning Hotaru was as good as her word and didn't use her scooter.
"So what's this about the Academy not minding?" I asked her, "Don't they
have a reputation to uphold?"
"Apparently their Mission is more important to them. There's one girl in
the Middle School who gets breaks from class to nurse her baby, a few of
the senior class girls are showing and nobody is ever reprimanded about
it."
"She can't be more than fifteen. That's not all that much older that us.
What is going on here? And what's about this Mission? Isn't the Mission
of the Academy to train children with superpowers so they don't harm
anybody?"
"And where do all of these superpowered children come from anyway? Take
our dorm. Are the girls and boys rooms in separate buildings, different
floors, or at least distinct wings?"
"No, they're kind of mixed together."
"They alternate by star class. Just look at the first floor. There's
Natsume's room, then mine, then Yuu, then Sumire, then Ruka and so on. Why
would they do that? You've seen Ms. Takahashi's blindspot with respect to
visits and the other schools are even less supervised."
"Are you spying on me all of the time?"
"Just keeping an eye out for you so you don't waste your time with a boy of
a much lesser Alice ranking. At least the Academy has spared you from
going out with a non-Alice anymore, and just in time it seems."
"How dare you! Whoever I see is nobody's business but my own and you and
this Academy can just stay out of my life. Why would they care anyway?"
"The children of two Alices tend to be stronger Alices and they're all sent
back here where they only see other Alices day after day and the cycle
repeats over and over again, getting stronger each time. All of these
superpowers are not the result of natural evolution, but rather the product
of a clever design. And it's been going on for quite a while now. How do
you think Japan became the number two economy in the world so quickly after
being defeated so totally by the Americans?"
"Well if we had all of these superpowers, why didn't we defeat the
Americans back in the war?"
"Because the school's patron asked them not to and sent the students back
to the Academy instead of wasting them on suicide attacks. You may doubt
my words now, but if you look around you'll see that everything about this
Academy supports what I say. Even the partner system is always girl-boy
and they're never reassigned as long as the relationship looks like it
might have a chance. I keep Sumire's brother on a long string so I don't
have to put up with some other fool."
"Wait, Ruka is your boyfriend right? So why did you get him assigned to
me?"
"I'll catch him on the rebound. Even Sumire can have her go at him first.
It might be very useful to have a catgirl with a pheromone power around.
Or a skunk boy. Whatever, I'm sure their kid will be cute."
"You'd steal somebody's boyfriend away? After they've had a baby? You're
crazy."
"Oh my. Whatever was I thinking? Who will provide for the child's
kindergarten, elementary school, Middle school, high school and college
scholarship, not to mention the food, lodging, clothing and allowance for
all of those years? I suppose it will just have to be you, me and all of
those other Alices in the top one percent of taxpayers, and we're not even
in middle school yet."
"Your gadget Alice makes it easy for you to make money wherever you are.
I'm not sure I'll have a career when I get out of here."
"I forgot that the entertainment industry is all about contacts. Have you
heard of that Japanese corporation with the robots, music players, TVs and
other electronics that owns those worldwide recording and movie labels?
The guy who built Ms. Takahashi works there. I'll introduce you to him next
time he visits. Not that you need an introduction. A simple graduate of
Alice Academy on your resume will get you hired on the spot."
"They hire a lot of Alices?"
"How do you think they became so successful?"
When I entered the classroom, Ruka stared for a moment, blushed and turned
away.
"What's his problem?"
"That hairstyle," Anna peeked back at Ruka, "It's the same one your sister
had as a princess in the play."
"Speaking of which," Hotaru didn't look up from her book, which was "My
Daughter and I", "Mr. Narumi has been bugging me to write a sequel to that
play. I'll do it if you'll reprise Mikan's role."
"Oh, so you want me to play the princess because of my looks, voice and
trained grace?"
"Not exactly. You'll be a mute, deformed, shambling, undead monster.
Don't tell anyone, but it'll be a cross between Frankenstein, Pinocchio and
Sleeping Beauty."
"Wow," Nonoko rested her chin on her hand, "That sounds interesting."
"And why would I agree to do anything like that?" I stood over Hotaru.
"Because for the next seven years the only acting experience you'll have is
in school plays and you crave the limelight like a vampire craves blood,"
Hotaru didn't look up at me, but simply flipped the page of my mother's
book.
"Hisss!" I summoned a black cape to wrap myself in. I went to the back of
the class and crouched down in my seat.
A Babbit appeared, "What's up Sana?"
"Her logic, my pretty. It burns like holy water," I banished the cape,
"Remind me to share my notes with Anita tonight," I handed him my notebook
and a pencil.
"Will do boss."
"You are such a clown," Sumire crossed her arms.
"Don't worry about her," Yome stage whispered back to me, "Ruka thinks
you're much cuter than Sumire and wonders how he'll costar with you, given
that his character is dead dead, instead of undead."
"What!" Sumire looked over at Ruka, "Say it isn't so."
"Um well, I..."
"Don't worry Ruka," Hotaru put away the book, "I'll write you a new part
and Sana will get the kiss with you this time. And a slow dance. That
will take a lot of practice, because while Sana's had dancing lessons, you
haven't," She nodded to Yuu and he went to open the door for the first
period teacher.
Mr. Jinno entered the classroom at the start of third period, put his books
down next to the math homework papers we had turned in, took out an
extendable aluminum pointer and faced the class. "As you are all aware,
Miss King collapsed during physical education yesterday. I have become
aware that one student here was responsible for this. Will that student
stand please."
I sneaked a peek at Sumire. She was looking cool, but I knew she was going
to get it.
"Let me make myself clear," Mr. Jinno continued, "We found a foreign
substance in her bloodstream."
Anna stood, "Sir."
"Yes Miss Umenomiya?"
"It was my fault sir. I took one of Nonoko's potions without her knowledge
and added it to the soup I gave Miss King."
"Thank you. One week's suspension from cooking privileges."
"Thank you sir. It won't happen again."
"I certainly hope not," Mr. Jinno turned back to the pile of homework and
pulled out my paper, "Well Miss Kurata, you seem to have finished all of
the assignment and it looks like you have all the answers correct. Could
you come up here and show the class how you did problem number four please?"
He handed me the chalk and I wrote down the problem as he read it off.
Then I summoned a Babbit pin on my collar and bent down to whisper to it,
"Where do I start on this?"
Zap!
The Babbit pin popped and I held my hands to my chest as I collapsed to my
knees. I blinked away the spots in front of my eyes then when I finally
dared to breathe again I looked back at Mr. Jinno who was still pointing his
aluminum wand at me.
"There is a fine line, Miss Kurata, between using your Alice to assist in
your education and using it to cheat. Please do not cross it again. Now
work the problem out by yourself this time."
"Y-yes sir."
At lunch I asked Anna, "Why did you take the fall for Sumire?"
"I'm thankful Sumire kicked Anita," Nonoko didn't look up from her lunch,
but she didn't seem to have much of an appetite for it.
"What?"
"After Anita collapsed I went back to the lab and checked my formula. I
had made a deadly mistake. If Anita had waited until she was back in her
room before fainting then nobody might have seen her until the next
morning. And the one thing this Academy can't do is raise the dead.
Thanks for covering for me Anna. I'll go apologize to Anita today, if
she'll ever listen to me again."
"I would have been punished anyway as I was a part of it. If you had told
him that you were in on it he might have ordered us to never collaborate
again and you always bring out my best work. From now on we test on us
first. Right?"
"Yes," Nonoko shook Anna's hand.
"Is this a suicide pact?" I asked the pair.
"Well, I hope not, but with Anna's cooking you can never be too certain."
"What would your boyfriends think?"
"We haven't got any boyfriends yet, but maybe when we're just a little bit
older Mr. Misaki will take another look at us."
"That's our science teacher, right?"
"Isn't he dreamy?"
I wanted to bring up the things Mama had told me about my crush on Rei, but
with the look on Anna's face I just couldn't break her chicken before it
hatched.
I caught Mr. Narumi at the end of lunch and handed him my big pile of
postcards, except for the blank one with Akito's name on it.
After Alice class I rushed back to the dorm, but Sumire and Nonoko had
gotten to Anita's door first.
"I'm the one who kicked her. I should talk to her first."
"No, it's my fault for mixing up the formula in the first place."
"Excuse me, coming through," I pushed past them then closed the door
behind me.
"Hi Sana," Anita was sitting at her desk, watching my show on DVD, "What's
up?"
"They're arguing over who gets to apologize first for killing you."
"Lock the door. I'd rather talk to you."
"I brought the notes from class today, but I can't stay long. I've got to
go do my homework."
"Oh? Did he zap you?"
"Yeah."
"He's going to get a paper cut so bad when I get back to class."
"Can't they track that?"
"Not really. Ms. Serina can track Alices, but only when she's using hers.
It was a big deal when your sister started sniffing out Alices even when
they weren't active."
"Mikan can smell Alices?"
"Well it wasn't smelling or hearing. It was like she has a second sight.
Natsume paraded her around campus blindfolded and she was able to name
people by their Alices."
"Healing, killing, smelling, it sounds like a big mess. So what was her
Alice anyway?"
"They call it the Nullification Alice and when I first heard about it she
was only supposed to be able to defend herself against other Alices and she
wasn't very good at that. But she got much better very quickly. But let's
get your grades up so that Mr. Jinno doesn't zap you again."
We started on the math homework, but quickly became stuck so Babbit popped
up and helped us through it.
As I was gathering up my papers, Anita looked over her DVDs then said, "Did
they ever catch that Akito guy?"
"What?"
"The you said was the devil, the worst student in Japan."
"Oh that. That was just a joke. He's a boy in my old class. He's kinda
nice, but he had a rough childhood. His mom died -- when he was very
young."
"I wonder what it's like to have a mother?"
"But speaking of Akito, I've got to send this card to him."
"He's the only one from your old class that you feel like writing to?"
"I've written to everybody else, but I don't know what to say to him."
"He's that important?"
I nodded and I guess I blushed a bit.
"What are your plans then?"
"What?"
"Will you wait for him, no matter what, for seven years?"
"Yes."
"Then tell him that."
As Anita looked on I picked up a pen and wrote the card.
Akito, you troublesome boss monkey and lone wolf.
This is a great school and full of fascinating people, but the only one
I want to see is you. This is the first place where I've ever felt
ordinary and average, but the only one I want to be special to is you.
I'm going to get or make a seven year calendar and mark off every day
until I can return to you. Please do the same.
Remember, Mommy's watching.
-With deepest love, Sana.
"I though you said his mother is dead."
"I'm sure she's watching from somewhere," I didn't want to bring up the
time when I had pretended to be Akito's mom. Looking back on it, it felt a
little strange for a girlfriend to do that.
On Sunday Anita was finally cleared to leave her room.
I met her at her door, "Come on, I've got something to show you."
She followed me to the Elementary School, "Uh Sana, we don't have to go
back here until tomorrow."
"Come on, it's great."
Once we were inside I had her put on a blindfold then lead her to the spot
I wanted to show her.
"Sana, there's a lot of paper nearby. Is this the supply closet?"
"Even better," I took off her blindfold, "See they've gotten in all of
Mama's books."
Anita looked around the library and started screaming.
"What?" I held up my arms as books started flying around. The books began
to fall apart and the pages flew out on their own. One of the pages flew
past my face and cut my cheek, "Ow!"
"Sana!" Babbit popped up in front of me and then was cut down by a flying
page. "Use", more Babbits popped up and were cut down, "Your," "Magical,"
"Girl," "Sana," "Shield!"
"Yes!" I summoned up my shield, only bigger and thicker than I had used on
the air and hid behind it as pages gouged into its front.
Finally the storm passed and I looked out over my shield. All of the books
had been shredded into a half meter thick layer of paper across the
library. Some of the shelves had been destroyed while the others were
scared from cuts and in the middle of it Anita was kneeling on her hands
and knees, breathing heavily.
"Are you okay Anita? That's some power you've got there."
"Sana, your face. I cut you. No, not again," She turned and ran away on
top of the piles of paper.
I tried to follow, but it was like walking through a snow drift.
Mr. Jinno appeared at the door, "Who brought Anita into the Library again?
Oh Miss Kurata. I should have known. This is your final warning young
lady. The next time you cause trouble we will be forced to take corrective
action."
"I can pay for the repairs sir."
"I'm sure that you could, but what would we say on the bill we handed your
accountants? Instead you will apologize to your classmates for the extra
trip they'll need to make to the Middle School until we get this fixed."
I went back to the dorm and knocked on Anita's door, but there was no
answer.
I sat at the desk in my room and ignored Babbit as he tried to help me with
my homework.
He looked up from my mostly blank paper, "Well it looks like you're not the
only Alice to make Babbits around here."
"What?" I turned to the window and saw another Babbit fly up to my window
and perch there. It's movements seemed less smooth than Babbit's usual
hovering.
I went over to the window to study it. It was a robot with hard plastic
parts that swiveled on obvious joints. Suddenly the red heart on its belly
vanished and was replaced by a scrolling display that read, "Follow me to
Hotaru's lab."
"Sure," I went outside.
The robot Babbit was circling outside, but then went down a path and I
followed it to another building nearby.
A robot around the same size as Ms. Takahashi was sitting there on the
roller balls it had instead of legs, "Halt, who goes there? Miss Sakura,
Miss Imai is waiting for you," He rolled aside and pointed to the door.
"Uh, thanks," I opened the door then followed the robot Babbit inside.
One of the doors down the corridor opened and the Babbit flew in, sat down
on a desk next to Hotaru and turned off.
"I've got the copyright on Babbit you know," I looked around Hotaru's
lab. It was huge and had a lot more junk than her room, including some
giant robots and strange vehicles shaped like animals parked near the
garage doors at the far end.
"Your lawyers aren't allowed in here and I've got pizza," Hotaru pointed to
a box from my favorite pizza delivery company.
I opened the box, took out a slice and started to munch away at it,
"Chocolate syrup, tomato paste, three cheeses, bell peppers, onions,
mushrooms, sliced black olives, jalapenos, pineapple and five species of
meat, if you count the anchovies. It's a Sana Special!"
"It's to thank you for destroying the library."
I stopped eating, "This is poisoned, isn't it?"
"No," She grabbed a slice and took a bite out of it, "But you do have
strange taste."
"Well excuse me."
"I am grateful for your vandalism. All that library had was a bunch of
kiddie books and out of date hand me downs from the other schools. This
way I don't have to bother making up excuses to use the Middle School
library for the next week."
"But how did you know what goes on the Sana Special? Do you have a mind
reading device?"
"No need. You put it on your blog back in July."
"And how did you get delivery here?"
"I made a new oven design for them and asked for a pizza a week for the
next year. The school couldn't turn down a sponsor and they've got an
online ordering service. Simple enough."
"Wait! You've got Internet access. Please, please let me use it. I won't
use much bandwidth, just chats with Mama and IM with Akito."
"No."
"What?"
"Contact with the outside is strictly forbidden for students. Especially
troublemakers like you. And isn't it about time you gave up on that boy?"
"Never!" I reached for another slice of pizza.
"Perhaps you just want somebody a little more mature. We can visit the
Middle School next week and I'll shop you around to some of the boys
there."
"Do your worst. It won't matter to me."
"There's one thing I can't figure out. Here I am doing my level best to
convince you that I'm watching your every move and controlling everything
around you and you don't freak out. Mikan would love to have that much
attention from me, but what's your excuse?"
"I don't know. It just seems familiar somehow. It's like I've known
somebody like you all my life."
"Thanks. I'll include that in my calculations."
Monday morning the first period teacher looked at Anita's empty seat and
explained that she had suffered a relapse.
At the start of third period, Mr. Jinno glared at me then started his
lesson.
I cast my eyes down to my notebook and followed Babbit's writing, "Wait,
what does that bit mean?"
"Miss Kurata!"
"Sorry teacher, I just didn't understand that last part."
"Come here."
Mr. Jinno reached into his pocket and pulled out a bracelet.
I heard a noise behind me and turned to see that Hotaru had ducked behind
her desk.
All of the other students looked at her then hid behind their desks.
Mr. Jinno locked the bracelet on my right wrist then jumped back. He
waited a moment then said, "Miss Kurata, I have had enough from you, your
sister and your entire family. Why couldn't you have been a nice well
behaved student like Miss King's mother?"
"You know who Anita's mother is?"
"I misspoke. I meant Miss Umenomiya's mother."
I looked at Yome, "Is that true?"
He looked away.
"A wise choice Mr. Kokoro. Now Miss Kurata you will return to your seat.
You will be quiet. You will study and you will learn."
As I returned to my seat I saw that most of the other students glanced at
me with horror, Hotaru glared at Mr. Jinno and Sumire refused to even look
at me.
Babbit wasn't there and I noticed that the Background Babbit wasn't running
in the back of my head, so I tried to start it and nothing happened.
Next chapter: Skating with the dead
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