The rumor of the threatening letter took the school by storm – but saying that would be an overstatement. The rumor did not sow any panic or chaos, and all was quiet all the way until the speech. If you conducted a survey among the students and asked them “Do you think something will happen during the speech?”, responses of “I think so” and “I don’t think so” would be in the minority; the majority response would probably be something like “If I had to choose, I think so”.
During the sixth period on the day before the speech, I learnt about arithmatic mean and geometric mean in math class. I was taught that when A and B are positive numbers, the arithmatic mean is always greater than or equal to the geometric mean. Wondering if that would hold true even if A or B are less than 1, I was having some fun experimenting to see if the relationship is held by substituting A and B with small numbers.
At that time, the window pane rattled. That’s a P-wave, I spontaneously thought. It’s an earthquake, and a bigger tremor is coming soon… A wave of tension swept through the classroom, and then, the tremor struck.
The desks and chairs clattered. There was nothing hanging from the classroom ceiling that would sway around, and there were no cries of distress. The tremor was not strong enough to cause any panic, but it lasted for a long time. Class was suspended during the course of the earthquake, and when it finally ended, class resumed without any special mention to the occasion.
When the lesson ended, homeroom began. Our homeroom teacher made some announcements while looking at a clip board, before finally saying this:
“Kobato-kun and Shimai-kun, please see Koumura-sensei in the staff room after class. There are apparently preparations to be done for the speech tomorrow. Have you heard anything about it?”
Shimai-san and I were sitting far quite apart from each other, but we answered at the same time, with the same slightly annoyed tone of voice.
“Yes.”
After homeroom, I headed to the staff room with Shimai-san. On the way there, she spoke up.
“I heard that those on duty in other classes have to help with preparations for the speech at the gym and elsewhere.”
“So it’s not just us who are roped into it, huh.”
“Though I think it’s only us who have to do it twice.”
“You’re right.”
“This sucks.”
Practically speaking, the platform we had to carry was quite heavy. My hands had actually gone numb the other time while transporting it from the office to the Art Preparation Room. This time, we would be moving it to the gym, which was even further away, so we would need to get some rest midway. At least, it would be good if Koumura-sensei was aware of that.
Just like the other time, Sawami-san and Aotagawa-kun were already in the staff room. I raised my hand to greet them since we’d become acquaintances, but received nothing in response. When the four of us were gathered, Koumura-sensei spoke.
“Good, all of you are here. Shall we go?”
Only Sawami-san and Koumura-sensei talked on the way from the staff room to the Art Preparation Room.
Sawami-san said things like, “That earthquake earlier was quite scary, wasn’t it?” and “Will the speech be canceled at this point?”, bringing up various topics for small talk.
In contrast, Koumura-sensei only gave non-commital replies like “I suppose” and “I can’t say”. The rest of us quietly climbed up the stairs and proceeded down the corridors. As I walked on, I realized that I’d heard many versions of the rumor over the past two weeks, but never actually heard anyone say that they went to see Shimatagai’s objet. Well, even if only one person went to see the objet and was deely impressed by it – even if they thought something like, “I can make something like this too,” the exhibition would probably be considered a resounding success.
Koumura-sensei unlocked the door to the Art Preparation Room. Recalling the paint odor, I took a deep breath. The door opened. Sunlight streaming in from the windows at the back of the room caused a backlighting effect, making the room look dark.
The teacher entered the room, but froze in his tracks. Following him, Shimai-san gasped in surprise.
“Eh?”
What was that about?
I peered into the room over Shimai-san’s shoulder. There was the rack with plaster figures, the art supplies rack, the objet on top…
“Ah.”
I also let out a sound.
An enormous crack had appeared on a part of Shimataiga’s objet, the white sphere.
Shimataiga’s objet was damaged. Exactly as the threatening letter had warned… but was that really so? I didn’t know the exact contents of the letter, so I refrained from jumping to conclusions, and instead scanned the room’s interior.
There was a large crack at the top of the sphere. Looking at it closely, the crack started from the very top, where the damage was the most severe. There, the plaster was peeled away and a hole was opened up, revealing things resembling bamboo strips that formed the sphere. I’d been wondering how plaster could be used to construct a sphere, but it turned out to be made of bamboo strips. It was an unexpectedly uncomplicated method.
A plaster figure had fallen down onto the ground. It was of a bearded man I didn’t know the name of.
I reached out for the fallen figure, which was lying on its side. Its pedestal was quadrilateral and hefty. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that some of its corners had white powder that looked to be plaster. I lifted it up to find no scratches or chips on the figure itself, which was fortunate.
Behind me, Aotagawa-kun muttered.
“Did that fall off?”
I stood up while holding the plaster figure. Indeed, there was an unnatural-looking empty space at one corner of the rack of plaster figures at around the height of my eyes. I put the figure down there, and it was a perfect fit.
Shimai-san tilted her head.
“Could it be from the earthquake earlier?”
Sawami-san spoke in a trembling voice, unable to contain her shock.
“Eh… is that even possible?”
There was only one fallen plaster figure. If it was the case that only one fell, and it happened to strike the objet, that could only be described as a stroke of ill-fated misfortune.
I put my hands around the sphere and slowly lifted it up. Even Shimai-san couldn’t help but let out a frantic yelp.
“Kobato, what are you doing!”
“Just checking.”
After lifting up the sphere, I looked at its underside, as well as the platform’s depression. There was nothing particularly abnormal about them, so I carefully returned the sphere to its original position. That was when I noticed it. The piece of driftwood was gone.
“Sensei, the driftwood is missing.”
But Koumura-sensei did not look surprised.
“Oh, I’m holding onto that.”
“Huh? Why?”
“The branches are thin and look like they break easily, so I kept it away just in case.”
His manner of speaking exuded relief. He was probably thinking that the sphere might have been damaged, but he had at least managed to protect the driftwood.
Once again, I looked around the room.
The Art Preparation Room had one door facing the corridor, which was the one we’d entered from. There was another door at the far right end of the room, which was connected to the Art Room. I put my hand on that door.
I opened the door. It was not locked.
A few people were on the other side of the door, in the Art Room. Since it was after school, they were probably in the Art Club. They looked a little surprised to see me suddenly emerge from the door. I gave them a short bow, then closed the door.
This time, Koumura-sensei was flustered.
“It wasn’t locked? But it should have been…”
Above the door to the Art Room was a small sliding window, and it didn’t look like it had a lock. I reached out to touch it, and managed to smoothly open and close it. The window was roughly two meters high, but one could easily wiggle through using a chair or the like as a stepping platform.
Basically, the Art preparation Room was not a closed room.
What a shame.
Koumura-sensei gave us instructions in a collected voice.
“Ah, for now, bring just the platform to the gym. I’ll bring over the driftwood myself.”
As I was wondering who he was talking to, Shimai-san asked.
“What about the sphere?”
“I’ll deal with it. Don’t tell any other students about this.”
Naturally, he said that in a stern tone.
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Editors (Tier 2): Dedavond, Pearl H Nettle
Assistants (Tier 1) : Rolando Sanchez, Lilliam, Yousef
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