I wish I could go to school. Kasumi-oneechan was learning about reading and writing and numbers, and Nabiki wanted to learn too. She already knew how to count; she had learned the number words by watching Sesame Street and counted everything she could find. Numbers fascinated her. They were so ordered, so perfect. Words didn’t always mean the same things, she had learned. Words were slippery things. They were things that grownups used to get you to do stuff you didn’t want to do. But there was nothing changeable or slippery about numbers. They were, and that was that.
“Come on, Nabiki-chan. Let’s go to the market now so that we can be back when Kasumi comes home from school.”
That meant that Oneechan got to help Okaasan cook again, and she’d be stuck minding the baby. Someone always had to keep an eye on Akane because she had a habit of sneaking out to the dojo and if she wandered in there during class she could get hurt. Keeping an eye on Akane was boring.
The market was boring. Okaasan went to all the little booths and smiled and talked to the shopkeepers, while Nabiki had to keep Akane from wandering off. She tried to make up a counting game but Akane wasn’t interested. Her legs were tired, she was chilly and thoroughly cross.
“I’m hungry, Okaasan,” she whined. “I’m cold.”
“Me too,” Akane echoed.
“Oh my,” Okaasan said. “Then let’s hurry and go home so we can get warm. You can have a snack when Kasumi gets home from school.”
Two dispirited little girls dragged themselves homeward after her. Nabiki had to hold Akane’s hand because Okaasan needed both hands to carry her packages.
They passed a small yatai, which gave off a delicious smell. Okaasan stopped. “Oh my, yaki-imo!”
“What’s yaki-imo?” Akane asked.
“They’re good! You were too little last year,” Nabiki said.
“Am I still too little, ’Kaasan?”
Okaasan thought for a moment, then led the girls over to a bench and sat down. Nabiki looked at her in amazement. It wasn’t like Okaasan to do this.
Okaasan rummaged in her purse. “Nabiki-chan?”
“Hai?”
She handed Nabiki a piece of paper that had the number 100 on it. Nabiki knew it was money. “Give this to the man and ask him for two yaki-imo. You and Akane-chan can share one. And you can keep the change.”
“What’s change?”
“The money he gives you back, because this is more than the yaki-imo cost.”
Nabiki didn’t understand, but obediently she went over to the vendor’s cart, the hundred-yen note clutched tightly in her hand. “I’d like two yaki-imo, please,” she said, full of importance at being allowed to do something so grown-up.
“That’s eighty yen, little miss,” the vendor said. She handed him her bill and he handed her back some coins. She put the coins in her pocket.
“Thank you,” she said and skipped back to Okaasan.
Okaasan broke one of the yaki-imo in two pieces and handed one to each of the girls. “How much change did you get back, Nabiki-chan?”
Nabiki dug the coins out of her pocket. “Oh, I know how much this is! This coin is five yen, and this one is another five yen, and this one is ten yen!”
“And how many yen is that?”
Nabiki thought hard. It was harder to count without the TV. Five yen… and another five… that was the same as ten. And another ten… “Twenty yen, Okaasan! I have twenty yen!”
“That’s right, Nabiki-chan. You can keep the twenty yen because you’re such a bright girl.”
“Arigatou, Okaasan.” Nabiki put the coins back in her pocket and munched on her sweet potato. When they were finished they started for home again.
“Okaasan?”
“What is it, Nabiki-chan?”
“Where do yen come from? How do you get more yen?”
“Otousan gives me the money, so that I can buy food, and clothes for you girls, and the other things we need.”
That wasn’t quite what Nabiki wanted to know. “Where does Otousan get the money?”
“From the students. The students pay Otousan to teach them kempo.”
That was a factor Nabiki hadn’t considered. She had always more or less ignored the students. Kasumi was a little scared of them, and Akane called them all “niichan” and made herself a nuisance tagging after them, but to Nabiki they were just a bunch of big, loud, smelly boys. Now she saw them in a different light: as the source of things like yaki-imo, as well as food and clothes… and maybe other stuff too? Like the talking panda that Okaasan said cost too much money?
“This is really good, ’Kaasan,” Akane piped up. “When I get big I’ll have lots of students so I can buy yaki-imo every day!”
“I’m sure you will,” Okaasan laughed, ruffling Akane's short hair. “Well, I think we’ve all rested and warmed up enough, so why don't we go home now?” She picked up her packages.
Akane skipped along merrily, her hand in Nabiki’s. “Yaki-imo, yaki-imo,” she chanted softly.
Nabiki clenched her fist tightly around the twenty yen in her pocket. When you have stuff that people want, they pay you money for it. So you get more money by having more people want what you’ve got. Then you can get the stuff you want.
That was almost like magic. It was like yen were the magic that made the whole world turn around. But it needed lots more than twenty yen. It needed even more yen than Otousan got from the students. How can I get that many yen? Maybe I can find out when I go to school.
I wish I could go to school.
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
I wanted to write a companion piece to First Steps focusing on Nabiki, and this was the result. She’s about four years old.
I’m reasonably sure there’s a Japanese version of Sesame Street, but it’s been a very long time since I saw Big Bird Goes to Tokyo. But my kids both learned to count from Sesame Street before they started kindergarten, so…
Yaki-imo are roasted sweet potatoes; street vendors sell them in fall. I got this out of a very sweet comic called A Manual for Cheap Living in Tokyo that used to appear in Mangajin.