Free The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice by Allen Say Page B

was something about him that made me feel uneasy. Perhaps it was his intense eyes that were too close together. He gave me the impression that he knew more about the world than the other students. But I decided to have coffee with him anyway—I wanted to find out who the girl was.

TEN
    The two evenings a week I spent in the life drawing class put a strain on my study time, so my visits to the inn were limited to weekends. I longed for the summer to come. I was full of good intentions: I would study hard to bring my grades up, write something in my diary every day, use up at least ten sketchbooks. But when the vacation began all my resolutions were quickly forgotten. I spent most of my days at the inn.
    In the morning, when there was no work, Tokida and I would scan the paper to see what was happening in the city to plan our excursions.
    Tokyo is a city of department stores, and that summer one of them installed an escalator, the first to be installed after the war. Tokida and I decided to go there on the grand opening day and try it out. But as it turned out we weren't the only ones. When we arrived, a huge mob was already massed around the entrance. A young woman, wearing what appeared to be a bus conductor's uniform, stood by the escalator greeting the
riders, warning them to watch their step and to hold on to the railings.
    "What a fool thing that is," said Tokida in amazement. "Look at her, Kiyoi, she has to stand there and bow to all these idiots who are too lazy to wait for the elevators."
    "I don't see how she can stand it," I agreed. "Maybe it's only for today, though."
    The escalator seemed like such a big waste to me. I could have run up the staircase faster than those moving steps.
    "Let's go down and try it again," said Tokida when we got to the third floor.
    "Are we the lazy idiots you spoke about?"
    "Only one more time, but let's say hello to her this time."
    We went down the staircase and once again waited behind the long line, and when our turn came we bowed to the woman and said hello. She bowed and greeted us mechanically, without even looking up.
    "She's a bowing machine," I said.
    "She didn't see us," said Tokida. "How would you like to do that all day long? I'd go mad in an hour. They can make a machine to do that, a robot with a loudspeaker sucking out of its mouth."
    "But if you worked for someone you'd have to do what he told you," I said, remembering all the clerks who worked for my father.
    "I say it's wrong to make people do something like that. I tell you, Kiyoi, I'm never going to work for anybody. I'll shine shoes first."
    "I'm not either. I'll shine shoes with you."
    We went up to the fourth floor and walked among counters that displayed all kinds of glassware and crystal. Women clerks were arranging and rearranging their wares, trying to look busy. Tokida went up to a large display stacked with fancy glasses on top of one another. There was a mirror behind it and the glass pyramid glittered under the strong light.
    "What would you do if I ran my hand along the bottom and brought the whole thing down?" asked Tokida.
    "I'd tell them I'd never laid eyes on you before."
    "It's good to know you're a friend of mine. Wouldn't it be fun to break everything in a place like this? What do you think the clerks would do?"
    "They'd send you back to Osaka, handcuffed this time."
    "Don't you ever feel like going crazy sometimes, like smashing something just for the hell of it?"
    "Sure, when I'm angry I feel like breaking things, and sometimes I do."
    "I must be mad all the time then. It sure is fun to smash glasses. Just the sound of it makes me feel good. Crash!"
    "Hey, let's get out of here before you go crazy. Let's go see the van Gogh show; it's around the corner from here."
    "All right, let's. Maybe I'll slash some paintings."
    The gallery was mobbed but we bought our tickets anyway. A narrow path had been roped off along the walls and we shuffled along with the crowd. We couldn't stop to study a