Matthew Skala @[email protected]

When all three girls were in the kitchen, with the pot half-full of something thick and greasy, and the spoons out, Miss Takada said her little speech about how this stew had been made for eight, but they would be lucky to get half that much out of it, and nobody should have more than one serving, and it should be divided among at least six people, maybe eight, even if they were very thin. The

Hanako was next, and she gasped when she saw the weight of the pot and the size of the lid. She almost couldn't lift it. Then one of the others found a pair of wooden spoons, and she distributed those among the others. There was no spoon for herself. The heat-sensitive paint would not allow her to eat it. She could only taste it, and that carefully.

She had made enough of this stuff that there should have been enough left for eight, but when she went to put it on the stove, one of the girls grabbed it from her and said she would do it. The cast-iron pot had been their grandfather's, and it had been in the family a long time. It was not just old, it was priceless.

Inside the flat, the girls went right to work. They took off their shoes, exchanged polite but formal greetings with the others, and headed for the kitchen. Miss Takada was there first, pulling a large cast-iron pot of something heavy and stew-like from the cupboard.

He probably thought they were trying to get picked up by one of those dodgy love partners, and he wasn't exactly eager to do that himself. But it was hardly his fault, and he had to deal with it.

It was not to be. Miss E. said her goodbyes and went off to find her family, while Miss Kamioka went in search of the other girls. She found two and a half minutes later, and the three of them shared a taxi to the flat. The driver was only semi-seru, and he had a definite attitude, which was not improved by the three girls sharing his cab with three empty seats and him in the middle.

Miss E. saw that respect in the other woman's eyes the first time they met, and she knew that she had found a friend. They spent the rest of the bus trip talking about the Shining Path and what it was like to come from there, and Hanako won her over to the side of the Pathies even before she had learned Eriko's name. As they got off the bus, Miss Kamioka said she hoped she would see her again, and she meant it.

The level-three tattoo was the ultimate test, the ultimate proof of commitment; and Hanako had respect for that kind of commitment even if she could not understand exactly what it meant.