The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa Page B

class’s costume in her movie, but her eyes were utterly devoid of hesitation.
    “Kyon! Get the camera ready! Koizumi, you carry the stuff over there. Mikuru, why are you clinging to the desk? Come on, get a move on!”
    Asahina’s feeble resistance lasted only a moment. Haruhi grabbed the weak waitress by the collar and dragged the squealing little girl to the door. Nagato followed with the hem of her mantle dragging on the floor. Koizumi was the last to disappear into the hallway after winking at me.
    As I was wondering if I would have to go with them…
    “Hey! We can’t go film a movie without the cameraman!”
    Haruhi’s torso stuck through the open door. Her open mouth took up about half of her face as she shouted. I noticed that the band on Haruhi’s left arm now read
Great Director,
which only served to depress me.
    Looks like she’s serious.
    The self-proclaimed great director who had yet to film a movie led the way as the beautiful waitress followed with her eyes glued to the ground. The dark-clad witch trailed behind like a shadow. Koizumi carried the paper bag with an easy smile on his face. And I brought up the end, trying to put as much space as possible between me and the band of weirdos. We had already managed to become the center of attention while moving around campus, but this procession that resembled a Halloween party was doing a fine job of attracting interest off campus. Asahina, already the focus of much attention at school, was currently looking down twenty percent of the time, blushing thirty percent of the time, and dragging her feet like a robot fifty percent of the time.
    Haruhi was cheerfully humming the melody of the
Heaven and Hell
theme like an impending disaster was on the horizon. No idea where they came from, but she was energetically carrying a yellow megaphone in her right hand and a director’s chair in her left, like Mongolian cavalry riding west across the plains. As I wondered where she was planning on making her assault, we arrived at the station. Haruhi bought tickets for all of us and handed them out. She then advanced toward the ticket gate with a prosaic look on her face.
    “Wait.”
    I objected in Asahina’s stead, seeing as how she had lost her ability to speak. I pointed to the miniskirted waitress drawing inquisitive glances from every direction and the vertically challenged girl dressed in black standing next to her like an attendant.



“You’re going to have them get on the train dressed like this?”
    “Something wrong with that?” Haruhi replied, feigning innocence. “You might get arrested if you’re running around without anything on, but they’re fully dressed. Or what? Would you prefer the bunny-girl outfit? You should have told me earlier then. I wouldn’t mind changing it to ‘Combat Bunny (Tentative)’ if you’d like.”
    Not sure you should be saying that after dragging her all the way here in a waitress outfit…. Anyway, didn’t you say that this was the concept for the movie? Not that I would know, but are you supposed to be able to change the concept just like that?
    I worked my brain to try to get a glimpse of the feelings of the Creator.
    “The most important thing is your ability to adapt to the situation. That’s how life on Earth was able to evolve. It’s adaptive selection. If you aren’t careful, you’ll end up eliminated through natural selection. You have to adapt properly!”
    Adapt to what? If the environment had a mind of its own, I could see Haruhi being ejected out of the atmosphere.
    Koizumi was just smiling and carrying stuff. Nagato was maintaining her silence as mentioned above. Asahina apparently lacked the strength to speak up. Which meant that everyone else was keeping their mouth shut.
    I wish someone would do something.
    Haruhi apparently took the silence to mean that everyone had been deeply impressed by her words.
    “Come on, the train’s here. Walk fast, Mikuru. The real stuff’s yet to come.”
    Like a