Gossiping with a View

Five months had passed since we last screamed at infamous Kanokita School kids together. It was time for a reunion. Ms. Hattori, who was last seen on the blog changing classroom tactics, invited me to dinner and drinks on the 24th floor of a hotel overlooking drab suburbs receeding north of Tokyo.

She showed up in a black suit, and I in a short-sleeve shirt and hiking pants, which didn’t seem to faze the tuxedoed servers. I also came with an appetite for all-you-can-stomach appetizers and drinks. Ms. Hattori came with a stack of 300 loose photos from her summer vacation trip. Seeking school gossip rather than a slideshow, I suggested that we look at them later over coffee, hoping that moment would never come.

Photos or not, she couldn’t tell me enough about the Australian way of life during her homestay in Carins where she brushed up on English and volunteered at some schools.

“Do you know Holiday Inn?” she asked like it was the holy grail of hotels. I nodded. “I ate seafood buffet at Holiday Inn. It was dericious!”

Armed with glossy illustrations, out came pictures of platefuls of half-eaten food (one for every dinner down under), the airport tarmac, bus stops without timetables, a park bench. My favorite was of her with her fleshy host mother posing on red satin sheets. I slugged back another Moscow Mule (quite refreshing in the summer heat), and excused myself to the sushi platter.

With my chopsticks around some squid, she leaned over and told me that I couldn’t tell anyone. About what, feeding peacocks in the host family’s backyard? No, about her entire trip. This wasn’t an ordinary summer vacation. It was a guarded secret that only the principal knew. Apparently Kanokita had taken its toll on the green teacher. Those kids could drive anyone to an early retirement. She flipped open her phone and showed me a picture.

“Looks like confetti on the floor,” I said.

“That’s my worksheet!” she cried.

Ahh, how I miss those kids. Well, she didn’t, and instead of a recommended week of stress therapy in the hospital, she fanagled four in Oz.

Despite the respite from work, she was full of school news. First the good: Kanokita captured the Tokyo tennis title. The young Omiyada “handicapped class” teacher I played basketball with got married. A shotgun wedding was rumored.

Then the bad: one of the 9th graders stole a bicycle. Others were caught smoking on the top floor, having broken a wall and set something on fire. That both the fire and police departments responded was apparently a bigger deal than just the usual visit from Tonka toy-like fire engines.

And last, the ugly: April’s test results were in for Tokyo’s junior high schools. Kanokita ranked last – in the ward, and in the entire city. The average school scored a 70. Kanokika’s rowdy neighbor Nakamizu placed second to last in the ward with a 34. Kanokita scratched out a 30, the lowest of anywhere in the world’s largest metropolis.

The news was confirmed a week later at a fireworks display. For the festival, Ms. Hattori wore her summer yukata, and I wrapped myself in a Burmese longyi, which got more than a few stares on the subway ride over. As fireworks exploded overhead, Ms. Hattori’s friend, an English teacher at Nakamizu said how demoralized her school felt about coming in last.

“But you weren’t last,” I pointed out.

“Well, everyone knows that Kanokita is the worst, so they don’t really count.”

Worst or first, those mischievous kids remain close to my heart.