all the while asking himself what in the world he would have thought to look at her.
The junior college girl beamed at them. The waitress happened to catch a glimpse of this smile; her face twitched and she let out a small scream as her tray crashed to the floor and the sound of exploding glass shattered the air into jagged fragments. Swept down into a swirling whirlpool of unreality, Nobue and Ishihara were both convinced that the junior college girl’s smile had broken the glasses directly, that she possessed supernatural powers.
“Wasn’t there an incident at that spot back there recently?” Ishihara asked her. If she had supernatural powers, she probably knew all about it.
“Mm-hm,” said the junior college girl. “A boy with a surfer haircut was peeing there when a woman on a putt-putt wearing a helmet and shades and carrying a Duskin handle with a knife attached to it stabbed him in the neck. I saw the whole thing.”
III
The junior college girl spoke normal Japanese in a normal tone of voice. Nobue and Ishihara couldn’t help wishing she spoke some incomprehensible language. Even if they wouldn’t have understood what she was saying, they would have preferred her to speak Jupiterian or Neptunese or Saiyan or Namekkish…. She was eating her chocolate parfait in a manner all her own. After thoroughly licking her clean spoon, she carefully used it to scoop up only the drippy chocolate syrup. She then licked the spoon clean again, using a lot of wrist action, as if trying to paint her tongue with the chocolate. She continued licking until, holding the spoon up to one eye, she couldn’t detect the slightest smudge; and then, carefully avoiding the chocolate this time and making sure not to touch the fruit or the colorful mint sprinkles, she scooped up a spoonful of pure ice cream and delivered it straight to her tonsils. Nobue, Ishihara, the other customers, and the waitress all observed this performance breathlessly. It was like watching an acrobat, or a butoh dancer, or the fattest woman in the world walking a tightrope. No one had ever seen another human being consume a chocolate parfait in this manner. Nobue and Ishihara were both thinking that at this rate the ice cream would melt and get all mixed up with the chocolate anyway, when a thick bundle of sunbeams, like something out of a medieval religious painting, suddenly illuminated the bench upon which the junior college girl sat. One of the customers gasped, an even deeper hush descended over the room, and the ice cream began visibly to melt. Seeing the vanilla mound surrender its rough edges from the top down, the junior college girl emitted a sigh of either bewilderment or despair and gazed alternately at Nobue and Ishihara, her misaligned eyes brimming with sorrow. Goose bumps sprouted up and down their spines, and it was all they could do to keep from wetting their pants. Ishihara did leak a drop or two, in fact. And that reminded him: hadn’t this junior college girl just described Sugioka’s murderer? Nobue was watching in a dazed sort of way as the girl suddenly changed tactics and began mashing the chocolate parfait with her spoon and shoveling the resulting mush into her mouth, making it disappear with remarkable speed. He was thinking it would be better for all concerned if she just took the weirdness to its natural extreme and shoved the mess up her nostrils, when Ishihara nudged him in the ribs.
“Hey, Nobu-chin.”
He snapped out of his chilling reverie. “What is it, Ishi-kun?” The sensation that his back had turned to chicken skin was all but unbearable, and it was only by a tremendous force of will that he managed to keep from climbing on Ishihara’s lap.
“Wasn’t this person just saying something about Sugioka’s murderer?”
“You’re right! I almost forgot. Way to remember!”
“Thanks. I don’t know how I did it. It took everything I had.”
“To remember something so important under these conditions! You
The junior college girl beamed at them. The waitress happened to catch a glimpse of this smile; her face twitched and she let out a small scream as her tray crashed to the floor and the sound of exploding glass shattered the air into jagged fragments. Swept down into a swirling whirlpool of unreality, Nobue and Ishihara were both convinced that the junior college girl’s smile had broken the glasses directly, that she possessed supernatural powers.
“Wasn’t there an incident at that spot back there recently?” Ishihara asked her. If she had supernatural powers, she probably knew all about it.
“Mm-hm,” said the junior college girl. “A boy with a surfer haircut was peeing there when a woman on a putt-putt wearing a helmet and shades and carrying a Duskin handle with a knife attached to it stabbed him in the neck. I saw the whole thing.”
III
The junior college girl spoke normal Japanese in a normal tone of voice. Nobue and Ishihara couldn’t help wishing she spoke some incomprehensible language. Even if they wouldn’t have understood what she was saying, they would have preferred her to speak Jupiterian or Neptunese or Saiyan or Namekkish…. She was eating her chocolate parfait in a manner all her own. After thoroughly licking her clean spoon, she carefully used it to scoop up only the drippy chocolate syrup. She then licked the spoon clean again, using a lot of wrist action, as if trying to paint her tongue with the chocolate. She continued licking until, holding the spoon up to one eye, she couldn’t detect the slightest smudge; and then, carefully avoiding the chocolate this time and making sure not to touch the fruit or the colorful mint sprinkles, she scooped up a spoonful of pure ice cream and delivered it straight to her tonsils. Nobue, Ishihara, the other customers, and the waitress all observed this performance breathlessly. It was like watching an acrobat, or a butoh dancer, or the fattest woman in the world walking a tightrope. No one had ever seen another human being consume a chocolate parfait in this manner. Nobue and Ishihara were both thinking that at this rate the ice cream would melt and get all mixed up with the chocolate anyway, when a thick bundle of sunbeams, like something out of a medieval religious painting, suddenly illuminated the bench upon which the junior college girl sat. One of the customers gasped, an even deeper hush descended over the room, and the ice cream began visibly to melt. Seeing the vanilla mound surrender its rough edges from the top down, the junior college girl emitted a sigh of either bewilderment or despair and gazed alternately at Nobue and Ishihara, her misaligned eyes brimming with sorrow. Goose bumps sprouted up and down their spines, and it was all they could do to keep from wetting their pants. Ishihara did leak a drop or two, in fact. And that reminded him: hadn’t this junior college girl just described Sugioka’s murderer? Nobue was watching in a dazed sort of way as the girl suddenly changed tactics and began mashing the chocolate parfait with her spoon and shoveling the resulting mush into her mouth, making it disappear with remarkable speed. He was thinking it would be better for all concerned if she just took the weirdness to its natural extreme and shoved the mess up her nostrils, when Ishihara nudged him in the ribs.
“Hey, Nobu-chin.”
He snapped out of his chilling reverie. “What is it, Ishi-kun?” The sensation that his back had turned to chicken skin was all but unbearable, and it was only by a tremendous force of will that he managed to keep from climbing on Ishihara’s lap.
“Wasn’t this person just saying something about Sugioka’s murderer?”
“You’re right! I almost forgot. Way to remember!”
“Thanks. I don’t know how I did it. It took everything I had.”
“To remember something so important under these conditions! You
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