Chapter 7: The Kite

The kids came to the house for the next Saturday class, because the hall's roof had leaked in the storm.

Akari set up the low table on the veranda and spread out the workbooks.

Six children sat in a row with their legs hanging over the edge.

The youngest, a nine-year-old with a missing front tooth, kept staring at the empty air beside Akari's shoulder.

"Why are you looking there?" Akari asked.

"Nobody's there," the boy said. "But it feels warm."

Akari glanced to her left.

Nagi sat on the boards a metre away, with her knees tucked up under her robe and a look of fierce, quiet delight.

She had not stopped smiling since the first child sat down.

"They cannot see me," Nagi said softly. "But the small ones feel it. Tomoe's pupils did that."

"Sorry, what?" the boy said.

"Nothing," Akari said. "Page twelve."

For an hour the garden was full of pencil sounds.

Nagi listened to every sentence of the lesson.

When a girl got a long division problem right, Nagi clapped her hands once without sound and mouthed, "Good."

Akari had to look at the page to keep a straight face.

Then a gust of wind came down the river.

A red-and-white kite had been tied to the fence by one of the junior-high boys, and the string snapped.

It sailed up, wobbled, and dropped into the water at the bend.

"My kite!" the boy yelled.

He jumped off the veranda and ran toward the bank.

"Stop!" Akari said. "It's too deep!"

The current was already carrying the kite away from the shore, its red tail dragging in the brown.

The boy reached the edge of the bank and stopped, because the water was up to the roots of the grass.

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