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elementary school, but their antics were easily on par with the worst of the high schoollevel troublemakers.
    The sad truth was that, these days, it wasn’t unusual to have one or two problem students of this caliber in every class. But Ishioka’s gang wasn’t confined to a single grade. They had “gone national” during a school festival last summer. Stealing the principal’s car, they drove recklessly through the school yard, chasing after younger students. By the end of their five-minute rampage, the festival was in chaos, and three students had been injured.
    An emergency PTA conference was called the following day, and the principal explained what had happened. He ended up apologizing for his thoughtlessness in leaving his car unattended. The story went that the principal had broken his reading glasses at home, and had come to fetch a replacement pair from his desk in the teacher’s office. He was in a rush, ironically, to attend a teacher’s committee meeting on reducing misbehavior in school.
    Though the kids actually driving the car had been in the grade above, one of the injured students was in Wataru’s class. That’s why Kuniko had attended the emergency conference. When she got home she was seething.
    “Why was he apologizing? Doesn’t anyone find that odd?” she said with a scowl to no one in particular. “I can’t believe the principal has the gall to claim it was his fault for parking the car where he did. Parking a car isn’t the problem! It’s the kids who stole it and drove around the schoolyard that are the problem!”
    Apparently, even at the conference, the majority of the parents had looked to the principal to take responsibility for what happened.
    “They say that kids are mischievous by nature, and so it falls to adults to watch out for them. Insanity! I even heard someone saying how impressed they were that sixth-grade kids could drive so well! I swear, what is the world coming to?”
    Ultimately, the three students’ injuries were little more than bumps and scrapes, and so the whole affair didn’t get any larger than that. No police were informed, the newspapers didn’t pick up the story, and the principal didn’t resign. In the end, the net result of the incident was that Ishioka’s ranks swelled, and their power over the rest of the school grew.
    Still, Ishioka leading an expedition to take pictures of a ghost? It didn’t make much sense. Wataru couldn’t see the connection.
    “Maybe all those sixth-graders wanted was to get on TV?” he wondered out loud.
    “Probably so,” Noriyuki agreed, glancing sideways at the building. “I even overheard one of them say that if they didn’t get good pictures, they would just fake it with a computer.” He chuckled.
    “No way,” Katchan shook his head. “So, did you run into them here too?”
    “Sure did. But that time it wasn’t just kids. There were two adults with them.”
    “Reporters, no doubt,” Mr. Daimatsu said, his arms folded across his chest.
    Noriyuki nodded. “When they saw us, they pretended to be parents, but they had that sort of hungry look you see with people in television.”
    Wataru looked over at Katchan. “You hear anything more about that from your dad?”
    Katchan shook his head. “Last I heard was that Ishioka’s father was boasting they were scheduled to appear.”
    “Did any of you see the program?” Noriyuki asked, an eyebrow raised.
    “Nope,” Katchan shook his head. “Ishioka’s dad doesn’t come to the bar anymore—oh, and by the way, my parents run a bar,” he said, giving them his best bartender’s grin. “Maybe the show got canceled. My dad hasn’t said anything about it.”
    “Or maybe it just hasn’t aired yet.”
    “That’s a possibility. Television programs take more time to put together than you’d think. That’s probably it.”
    A wind blew, rustling the blue tarps. They all tensed.
    “Look at us!” Noriyuki said with a laugh. “We’re as bad as the ghost