"Yui? Are you ready?"
Yui stared at her viola.
Composed herself.
Closed it up,
smoothed her school uniform,
made sure her Hello Kitty bento box was packed,
and carried all her school supplies to the car.
"You have a solo today, Yui! You will do well, won't you?"
"Yes mother"
"Hiro! Put on your seatbelt! Yui, will you help your brother? You will play loud this time, Yui? You always practice so quiet."
Yui wrestled her brother into his seat.
"Yes mother"
Mother started the car.
The city trees and houses rolled by.
She DID know her piece. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. A worthy subject,
one Mozart himself had worked with.
She had practiced it.
She was fine when it was just her.
But with others ...
Yui sat in her chair near the back,
in a row of other third graders,
listening to Mr. Hashimoto's history lesson.
"1987 was the last time Godzilla attacked Tokyo. He caused great devastation, then returned to the sea and has not been seen again since."
Mr. Hashimoto closed the book.
Sat on his desk.
Looked at the class.
"I was there," he said. "I saw Godzilla."
The class stared at him, silent, wide eyed, listening.
"Godzilla rose from the sea, as he had before, and he was making a
mess.
Stomping all over the harbor.
The army, they had a new super weapon. A sonic cannon. It was
like a speaker,"
he waved at the overhead speaker that read morning
announcements,
"But it was huge.
Big parabolic dish, like a radio telescope, with a
super-conducting magnet to drive the sound. Huge thing. They
turned it on and aimed it at Godzilla. Hundreds of decibels.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
You could feel the ground shake with each pulse, blocks away."
Mr. Hashimoto shook his head, then continued.
"Well, Godzilla, I saw him.
He turned to face it, cocked his head and roared, and walked
back into the bay.
Went down out of sight.
The army, they all cheered, they had done it! It worked! They
had scared Godzilla away!"
Mr. Hashimoto stared at the class, frowning. Stared. The class stared back, listening. "So do you think that scared him away?"
"No!" said the class in unison.
Mr. Hashimoto took a deep breath, then continued.
"They hadn't scared him away.
Here comes Godzilla again, but carrying this big metal box.
The army looked at video after, they said it was a nuclear
submarine, but with the top screwed off, so it had a big hole in the
middle.
And there were these cables strung across it, stern to bow.
Godzilla walks out of the water, carrying this submarine in one
hand, and with another he tears a radio broadcast antenna off a
tall building.
And he puts the submarine up under his chin.
And he started stomping his foot along with the sonic cannon."
Mr. Hashimoto squinted at the class. "What do you think he was using that submarine for?" he asked.
"It was his violin!" said Ichi.
"Not quite," sad Mr. Hashimoto. "That's what I thought too. But
it was a viola.
Violins, they're pretty standardized. But violas, they
can be any size, they can be as big as the player can reach.
And Godzilla, he has a BIG reach.
So he started playing, using that radio antenna as a bow.
Know what he played? "The Devil Went Down To Georgia!"
but real deep, because it was a biiiig viola, you see.
And the sound of it, it resonated with the buildings,
sympathetic vibrations they say it's called,
and the building would just blow up,
pop, pop, pop,
he'd aim at one and the windows would all shatter.
When he got to the verses, he'd start roaring.
Maybe he thought he was singing, but all we heard was 'RAR! RAR! RAR!'
And he was stomping, and the earth was shaking,
And Mount Fuji, it started smoking.
Godzilla, he's just dancing around, his tail knocking over
buildings, feet stomping, fiddle wailing
When he gets to the part of the Devil's solo, that long
screeching descent you know? Well right there Mount Fuji blew up!
Big billowing smoke, fire rocks raining down, lava started
pouring down its side.
There was a landslide, took out a neighborhood to the south.
Godzilla got to Johnny's solo, and he's dancing around, fiddling
away, while flaming rocks fall down all around him. You know ...
'"Fire on the Mountain", run, boys, run
The Devil's in the house of the risin' sun
Chicken in the bread pan pickin' out dough
Granny, does your dog bite? No, child, no'
"He curtsied?" asked Kento. "What is he a girl?"
"I don't know!" said Mr. Hashimoto. "Nobody asked him.
You want, you ask him!
Godzilla, he do whatever he want. If he wants to curtsy, well
go ahead, he can curtsy.
Well, after the deafening fiddle had stopped, there's no sound
except the billowing smoke, the roaring volcano, the tinkle of
falling glass, and the screams of people running away.
I guess Godzilla didn't feel he needed to do an encore, because he
just turned around
and walked back into the sea
and nobody's seen him since."
The class stared.
"What did you do?" asked Ichi.
"What did I do?" Mr Hashimoto said, repeating him,
"What did I do?
I screamed like a little girl
and I ran away as fast as I could!
When Godzilla dances,
you get out of the way!"
Music class. Mikasa was standing on the stage. She played "There's No Place Like Home" on her flute. Mr. Kobuchi accompanied on a grand piano. Mikasa had to blow hard to get the flute to make proper flute-sounds. She got most of the notes right first try, and only had to stop for breath two times in the middle. When she was done, she did a quick nod, breathing hard, then ran off the stage.
Kento was next. He sat at the piano, back straight, and played Bach's Minuet. It was slow, but he hit every note. At the end he stood and clasped his hands, shaking them over each shoulder to congratulate himself, hamming it up. Mrs. Kojima shooed him off the stage.
Yui was next.
She gripped her viola.
Hands in a cold sweat.
Watching her feet, she climbed the stairs.
Walked to the center stage.
Looked up ...
There was the whole class, looking up, staring at her.
She looked down again.
"Go ahead," encouraged Mrs. Kojima.
Yui stared at her feet, frozen.
She should raise her viola and play.
The first note was everyone was staring at her eeeek.
Play loud said mother. Bow, strings.
Her fingers were sweating.
She glanced up, so many people were staring at her.
She stood there
petrified
a deer frozen in headlights.
"Yui?" asked Mrs. Kojima.
Yui's knuckles were white.
Her cheeks, red.
Ashamed, embarrassed, terrified.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Maybe you can try again later?" said Mrs. Kojima. "Ichi, you go next?"
Yui's feet automatically took her off the stage. Ichi went up.
She hid herself in the crowd.
Mother would be so angry. She wouldn't say it, she would just
be silent and not talk to her. It would be bad.
Oh, why couldn't she have done it? She could have done it and
it would have been over with and now she was singled out as the one
who couldn't play and what would she do.
Tears dripped from her eyes. She still gripped her viola, knuckles white.
She stared at the floor.
Kento was seated next to her. In his bag he had a cap. A Godzilla cap, with a crest, and teeth along the brim.
This couldn't possibly happen to Godzilla,
thought Yui.
Ichi strode to the stage. He lifted his violin to his chin and began to play. Hava Nagila, a low intense Jewish melody. Ichi was good. He could even do a vibrato.
Yui reached down and took the Godzilla cap from Kento's bag.
Ichi was getting into it, waving his shoulders around to the music.
Yui put the cap on her head and strode up the stairs, right in the
middle of Ichi's solo.
She lifted her viola to her chin.
She played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
"Hey!" said Ichi.
Yui walked to center stage, while playing, bumping Ichi to the side.
The class watched, confused.
Mrs. Kojima thought of intervening, but Yui had frozen before, and now at least she was doing something. Ichi surely could endure the interruption, he already had confidence up to here.
Yui played.
She played loud.
She played well.
She played with FEELING.
Ichi stopped and stood back, eyebrow raised, watching the spectacle of Yui actually standing out.
When she was done, Yui curtsied,
low,
with her viola and bow spread out.
The class didn't know what to do. Kento clapped.
Yui decided she needed an encore.
She launched into "What do you Do with A Drunken Sailor."
Ichi stood back, thought fast, grinned, and plucked fifths in an accompaniment.
"Yes, Yui, that's enough, thank you," said Mrs. Kojima.
Yui kept playing. Ichi kept plucking.
Mrs. Kojima ascended the stage and went to physically shoo her off.
"RAR!" yelled Yui at the class, arms over her head waving her bow
and viola.
Ichi kept plucking.
Yui ran away before Mrs. Kojima could catch her, around the piano.
She banged on the piano keys once.
Mr. Kobuchi stood up.
Mrs. Kojima chased Yui.
Yui ran behind the grand piano,
then ducked underneath it,
then went back to center stage and continued her encore.
"Waaaaaay, up she rises ..."
She did a big swoop on the "way".
Ichi plucked along.
Mr. Kobuchi grabbed Yui around the waste from behind and picked her
up.
"RARRR!" yelled Yui in the Godzilla cap, arms up.
Mr. Kobuchi carried her off stage,
her legs kicking the air in front of her, her arms waving her viola and bow around. "RARRR!! RARRR!! RARRR!!!"
"Did Yui steal your Godzilla cap?" Mrs. Kojima asked Kento.
"Oh no, Mrs. Kojima, I told her she could borrow it," lied Kento.
Yui was carried offstage.
Surely this would warrant a visit to the principle's office.
"Us Godzillas,"
thought Yui to herself,
"We do what we WANT!"