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commanded a certain respect, so I rose groggily to my feet. “You little turrrrd! Who do you think you’re talking tooooo! ” He slapped me again. The palms of his hands were thick and hard, so even a slap packed quite a punch. “For somebody who can’t even run a race you run off at the mouth just fine, don’t you?” This was Kawasaki’s contribution. Why did he have to bring up that race crap at a time like this? I could feel tears of vexation welling up in my eyes. If I cried, it was all over: Kazuko Matsui was watching. Aihara grinned. When you were a guy with a chip on your shoulder about graduating from some shit college, nothing in life gave more satisfaction than beating up kids like me. Yuji Shirokushi and his group got their share of grief from Aihara, too. During judo practice, he’d throw them down with a choke-hold, or crush their nuts, or hurl them against the wall, or grab them by the ear and kick their feet out from under them, stuff like that. You don’t stand much of a chance against a teacher with muscles.
    Grabbing me by the hair again, he proceeded to drag me all the way down to the teachers’ room. Shirokushi, Adama, and Iwase gaped at us as we went by. “Don’t... don’t tell me,” the Greaser said. “Don’t tell me he tried to jump Kazuko!”
        
    They made me stand there in a corner for an hour. The worst part about it was that every time a teacher passed by he’d ask me what I’d done, and I’d have to explain it all over again. The man in charge of the newspaper club and the faculty advisor both had to apologize to Yoshioka, Kawasaki, and Aihara. Which meant that two teachers had to eat dirt because of me. And I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Lady Jane.
        
    “Masutabe-chan—that’s quite a name you’ve got. Mind if we just call you ‘Handjob’?”
    Only Adama and I enjoyed the joke. Tatsuo Masutabe— the second-year student who’d “lent” us his eight-millimeter camera—was a serious little guy. He was also a member of the political group headed by Narushima and Otaki, and he’d come to tell us he wouldn’t let us use the thing unless we were going to make a film with a radical theme. Adama tried to reassure him by saying that even if we didn’t deal directly with the people’s struggle, there were lots of ways to go about it, like, for example, Godard-type symbolism and so on, right? But Masutabe asked us to talk it over with his group.
        
    “Good morning.”
    It was a voice like a spring breeze. I stopped on the hill in front of the school and turned around, and there stood my Bambi: Kazuko Matsui. A shiver ran through me.
    “Oh, hi there,” I said with a smile, putting my arm around her shoulders and stroking her hair. Fat chance. I could hardly even speak.
    “Bus?” she said. She was asking how I got to school.
    “No. On foot. You?”
    “Bus.”
    “Bus crowded?”
    “Yes. But not too bad.”
    “Oh. Urn, you know, I was wondering... Who started calling you ‘Lady Jane’?”
    “An upperclassman.”
    “From the Stones song?”
    “Uh-huh. I used to like that song.”
    “It’s a good one. You like the Stones?”
    “I don’t know that much about them, really. I like Dylan, the Beatles... But my favorite is Simon and Garfunkel .”
    “Oh yeah? I like them, too.”
    “Have you got their records?”
    “Sure. Wednesday Morning 3 a.m. , Parsley , Sage , Rosemary & Thyme , and, uh, Homeward Bound .”
    “What about Bookends ?”
    “Got it.”
    “Really? Could I borrow it?”
    “Sure.”
    “Honest? Thanks! I love that song ‘At the Zoo.’ Don’t you think the lyrics are great?”
    “Oh, yeah—fantastic.”
    I was trying to think of a way to get my hands on Bookends. I’d have to buy it today, no matter what. I’d scrape up the money somehow, get Adama and Iwase to contribute. Surely they’d see the necessity. Anything for our leading lady.
    “Are you always thinking about those things?”
    “What