Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window (2 page)

Puzzled, Mother asked quickly, "What do you mean, only three sides!"

Although she seemed to be getting tired, the teacher was kind enough to explain. "She drew a flagpole on the left, so the fringe was only on three sides of the flag."

Mother felt somewhat relieved. "I see, only on three sides."

Whereupon the teacher said very slowly, emphasizing each word, “But most of the flagpole went off the paper, too, and is still on the desk as well."

Then the teacher got up and said coldly, as a sort of parting shot, "I’m not the only one who is upset. The teacher in the classroom next door has also had trouble."

Mother obviously had to do something about it. It wasn't fair to the other pupils. She'd have to find another school, a school where they would understand her little girl and teach her how to get along with other people.
The school they were on their way to was one Mother had found after a good deal of searching.

Mother did not tell Totto-chan she had been expelled. She realized Totto-chan wouldn't understand what she had done wrong and she didn't want her to get any complexes, so she decided not to tell Totto-chan until she was grown-up. All Mother said was, “How would you like to go to a new school! I've heard of a very nice one.”

"All right," said Totto-chan, after thinking it over. “But...”
"What is it now?" thought Mother. “Does she realize she's been expelled?”

But a moment later Totto-chan was asking joyfully, "Do you think the street musicians will come to the new school?"

When she saw the gate of the new school, Totto-chan stopped. The gate of the school she used to go to had fine concrete pillars with the name of the school in large characters. But the gate of this new school simply consisted of two rather short posts that still had twigs and leaves on them.

"This gate's growing," said Totto-chan. "It'll probably go on growing till it's taller than the telephone poles!"

The two "gateposts" were clearly trees with roots. When she got closer, she had to put her head to one side to read the name of the school because the wind had blown the sign askew.

"To-mo-e Ga-ku-en."

Totto-chan was about to ask Mother what “Tomoe” meant, when she caught a glimpse of something that made her think she must be dreaming. She squatted down and peered through the shrubbery to get a better look, and she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Mother, is that really a train! There, in the school grounds!"

For its classrooms, the school had made use of six abandoned railroad cars. To Totto- chan it seemed something you might dream about. A school in a train!

The windows of the railroad cars sparkled in the morning sunlight. But the eyes of the rosy-cheeked little girl gazing at them through the shrubbery sparkled even more.

A moment later, Totto-chan let out a whoop of joy and started running toward the "train school," calling out to Mother over her shoulder, "Come on, hurry, let's get on this train that's standing still."
Startled, Mother began to run after her. Mother had been on a basketball team once, so she was faster than Totto-chan and caught hold of her dress just as she reached a door.

“You can't go in yet,” said Mother, holding her back. “The cars are classrooms, and you haven't even been accepted here yet. If you really want to get on this train, you'll have to be nice and polite to the headmaster. We're going to call on him now, and if all goes well, you'll be able to go to this school. Do you understand?”

Totto-chan was awfully disappointed not to get on the "train" right away, but she decided she had better do as Mother told her.

"All right," she said. And then added, "I like this school a lot."

Mother felt like telling her it wasn't a matter of whether she liked the school but of whether the headmaster liked her. But she just let go of Totto-chan's dress, took hold of her hand, and started walking toward the headmaster's office.

All the railroad cars were quiet, for the first classes of the day had begun. Instead of a wall, the not very spacious school grounds were surrounded by trees, and there were flower beds full of red and yellow flowers.

The headmaster's office wasn't in a railroad car, but was on the right-hand side of a one-story building that stood at the top of a semicircular flight of about seven stone steps opposite the gate.

Totto-chan let go of Mother's hand and raced up the steps, then turned around abruptly, almost causing Mother to run into her.

"What's the matter?" Mother asked, fearing Totto-chan might have changed her mind about the school.

Standing above her on the top step, Totto-chan whispered to Mother in all seriousness, "The man we're going to see must be a stationmaster!"

Mother had plenty of patience as well as a great sense of fun. She put her face close to Totto-chan's and whispered, “Why?”

Totto-chan whispered back, "You said he was the headmaster, but if he owns all these trains, he must be a stationmaster."

Mother had to admit it was unusual for a school to make use of old railroad cars, but there was no time to explain. She simply said, "Why don't you ask him yourself! And, anyway, what about Daddy? He plays the violin and owns several violins, but that doesn't make our house a violin shop, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Totto-chan agreed, catching hold of Mother's hand.

When Mother and Totto-chan went in, the man in the office got up from his chair.
His hair was thin on top and he had a few teeth missing, but his face was a healthy color. Although he wasn't very tall, he had solid shoulders and arms and was neatly dressed in a rather shabby black three-piece suit.

With a hasty bow, Totto-chan asked him spiritedly "What are you, a schoolmaster or a stationmaster?"

Mother was embarrassed, but before she had time to explain, he laughed and replied, "I'm the head-master of this school."

Totto-chan was delighted. "Oh, I'm so glad," she said, “because I want to ask you a favor. I'd like to come to your school.”

The headmaster offered her a chair and turned to Mother. "You may go home now. I
want to talk to Totto-chan."

Totto-chan had a moment's uneasiness, but somehow felt she would get along all right with this man. "Well, then, I’ll leave her with you," Mother said bravely, and shut the door behind her as she went out.

The headmaster drew over a chair and put it facing Totto-chan, and when they were both sitting down close together, he said, "Now then, tell me all about yourself. Tell me anything at all you want to talk about."

"Anything I like?" Totto-chan had expected him to ask questions she would have to answer. When he said she could talk about anything she wanted, she was so happy she began straight away. It was all a bit higgledy-piggledy, but she talked for all she was worth. She told the headmaster how fast the train went that they had come on; how she had asked the ticket collector but he wouldn't let her keep her ticket; how pretty her homeroom teacher was at the other school; about the swallows' nest; about their brown dog, Rocky, who could do all sorts of tricks; how she used to go snip- snip with the scissors inside her mouth at kindergarten and the teacher said she mustn't do that because she might cut her tongue off, but she did it anyway; how she always blew her nose because Mother scolded her if it was runny; what a good swimmer Daddy was, and how he could dive as well. She went on and on. The headmaster would laugh, nod, and say, "And then?" And Totto-chan was so happy she kept right on talking. But finally she ran out of things to say. She sat with her mouth closed trying hard to think of something.

"Haven't you anything more you can tell me?" asked the headmaster.

What a shame to stop now, Totto-chan thought. It was such a wonderful chance. Wasn't there anything else she could talk about, she wondered, racking her brains? Then she had an idea.

She could tell him about the dress she was wearing that day. Mother made most of her dresses, but this one came from a shop. Her clothes were always torn when she came home in the late afternoon. Some of the rips were quite bad. Mother never knew how they got that way. Even her white cotton panties were sometimes in shreds. She explained to the headmaster that they got torn when she crossed other people's gardens by crawling under their fences, and when she burrowed under the
barbed wire around vacant lots. So this morning, she said, when she was getting dressed to come here, all the nice dresses Mother had made were torn so she had to wear one Mother had bought. It had small dark red and gray checks and was made of jersey, and it wasn't bad, but Mother thought the red flowers embroidered on the collar were in bad taste. "Mother doesn't like the collar," said Totto-chan, holding it up for the headmaster to see.

After that, she could think of nothing more to say no matter how hard she tried. It made her rather sad. But just then the headmaster got up, placed his large, warm hand on her head, and said, "Well, now you're a pupil of this school."

Those were his very words. And at that moment Totto-chan felt she had met someone she really liked for the very first time in her life. You see, up till then, no one had ever listened to her for so long. And all that time the headmaster hadn't yawned once or looked bored, but seemed just as interested in what she had to say as she was.

Totto-chan hadn't learned how to tell time yet, but it did seem like a rather long time. If she had been able to, she would have been astonished, and even more grateful to the headmaster. For, you see, Mother and Totto-chan arrived at the school at eight, and when she had finished talking and the headmaster had told her she was a pupil of the school, he looked at his pocket watch and said, "Ah, it's time for lunch." So the headmaster must have listened to Totto-chan for four solid hours!

Neither before nor since did any grown-up listen to Totto-chan for as long as that. And, besides, it would have amazed Mother and her homeroom teacher to think that a seven-year-old child could find enough to talk about for four hours nonstop.

Totto-chan had no idea then, of course, that she had been expelled and that people were at their wit's end to know what to do. Having a naturally sunny disposition and being a bit absent-minded gave her an air of innocence. But deep down she felt she was considered different from other children and slightly strange. The headmaster, however, made her feel safe and warm and happy. She wanted to stay with him forever.

That's how Totto-chan felt about Headmaster Sosaku Kobayashi that first day. And, luckily, the head-master felt the same about her.

The headmaster took Totto-chan to see where the children had lunch. "We don't have lunch in the train," he explained, "but in the Assembly Hall." The Assembly Hall was at the top of the stone steps Totto-chan had come up earlier. When they got there,
they found the children noisily moving desks and chairs about, arranging them in a circle. As they stood in one corner and watched, Totto-chan tugged at the headmaster's jacket and asked, "Where are the rest of the children?"

"This is all there are," he replied.

"All there are?" Totto-chan couldn't believe it.

There were as many children as this in just one grade at the other school.
"You mean there are only about fifty children in the whole school?" "That's all," said the headmaster.
Everything about this school was different from the other one, thought Totto-chan.

When everyone was seated, the headmaster asked the pupils if they had all brought something from the ocean and something from the hills.

"Yes!" they chorused, opening their various lunch-boxes.

"Let's see what you've got," said the headmaster, strolling about in the circle of desks and looking into each box while the children squealed with delight.

"How funny," thought Totto-chan. “I wonder what he means by 'something from the ocean and something from the hills.'” This school was different. It was fun. She never thought lunch at school could be as much fun as this. The thought that tomorrow she would be sitting at one of those desks, showing the headmaster her lunch with "something from the ocean and something from the hills" made Totto- chan so happy she wanted to jump for joy.

As he inspected the lunchboxes, the headmaster's shoulders were bathed in the soft noontime light.

After the headmaster had said, "Now you're a pupil of this school," Totto-chan could hardly wait for the next day to dawn. She had never looked forward to a day so much. Mother usually had trouble getting Totto-chan out of bed in the morning, but that day she was up before anyone else, all dressed and waiting with her schoolbag snapped to her back.

The most punctual member of the household--Rocky, the German shepherd-viewed Totto-chan's unusual behavior with suspicion, but after a good stretch, he positioned himself close to her, expecting something to happen.

Mother had a lot to do. She busily made up a box lunch containing "something from the ocean and something from the hills" while she gave Totto-chan her breakfast. Mother also put Totto-chan's train pass in a plastic case and hung it around Totto- chan's neck on a cord so she wouldn't lose it.

"Be a good girl," said Daddy, his hair all tousled.

"Of course." Totto-chan put on her shoes and opened the front door, then turned around, bowed politely, and said, “Goodbye, everybody.”

Tears welled up in Mother's eyes as she watched Totto-chan go out. It was hard to believe that this vivacious little girl, setting off so obediently and happily, had just been expelled from school. She prayed fervently that all would go well this time.
A moment later Mother was startled to see Totto-chan remove the train pass and hang it around Rocky's neck instead. "Oh dear ... " thought Mother, but she decided to say nothing but wait and see what happened.

After Totto-chan put the cord with the pass around Rocky's neck, she squatted down and said to him, "You see? This pass doesn't fit you at all."

The cord was much too long and the pass dragged on the ground.

"Do you understand? This is my pass, not yours. You won’t be able to get on the train. I'll ask the headmaster, though, and the man at the station, and see if they’ll let you come to school, too.”