Lord of All Things Read Free Page B

always thought girls loved their dolls. It was news to him that they smashed them to pieces. He inspected the bits, pondering the matter as he fitted them back together. The head was broken off, but perhaps he could stick it back on again. The doll was obviously supposed to talk, but the speech unit no longer worked. Hiroshi thought of his new toolbox, the kit that he had wanted so much. Perhaps he could use it to make some repairs. He would take the broken doll back with him.

    It took him three days to repair the doll. He did it in secret, of course, during the day while his mother was at work. When she came home, she was happy to see him no longer sitting by the window but busy with his tool kit, though she never saw what had him so absorbed—he always hid the doll away in good time.
    Hiroshi finished the job at about ten o’clock on the third day, a Friday. It was a neat bit of repair work, he decided; you could hardly spot it. The doll looked as good as new. And it was working again. When he pressed the big button between the shoulders, it spoke various phrases in a melodious language he didn’t recognize.
    What should he do with it now? He would have to give it back to the girl, but it only dawned on him then that this would be a much greater challenge than actually repairing the damage. He would have to leave his apartment block carrying the doll. If someone from his class saw him with it, he’d never get over the embarrassment. He felt sick even thinking about it. Maybe it would be better just to throw it away—after all, that’s what the girl had done; she may not even want it back. She clearly didn’t like it.
    Hiroshi went back to the window, looked down at the embassy garden, and thought of all the time he had spent standing here waiting, of the night she had stood down there in the rain. No. No, he wouldn’t throw the doll away; he would just bring it back in the same bag in which he had found it. And he could hand it in at the main gate. It wasn’t far, and the security guards would take care of the rest.
    He broke into a sweat as soon as he stepped out the front door with the bag in his hand, but surely that was just because it was so baking hot outside. There was nobody in sight. He didn’t really need to hurry, but then again he wanted to get the thing off his hands as soon as possible. Maybe there was a mailbox and he could just drop it in? Of course, there wasn’t. He knew that; he’d been past the embassy often enough. He had no choice but to ring the bell at the sentry box.
    A man appeared at the thick glass window. Not a Japanese. He opened his mouth and said something, and it took Hiroshi a while to understand he was trying to ask him what he wanted in Japanese. Hiroshi bowed politely, as he had been taught to do with grown-ups he didn’t know.
    “Hello, sir,” he said. He held up the bag. “I found something that belongs to the ambassador’s daughter. I would like to give it to you so that she gets it back, if that is not too much trouble.”
    The man stared at him stonily. It was obvious he hadn’t understood a word.
    “ Nan desu ka? ” he asked, or at least something that sounded like it. “What do you want?”
    As Hiroshi began to repeat what he had said, the man raised his hand and cut him off midsentence, then turned around to call for someone. A moment later another guard appeared, Japanese this time, who took over behind the pane of glass.
    “Well? What do you want?” the man asked rudely. “This isn’t a playground. Move along.”
    Hiroshi paid no attention to his glowering expression. He was used to being glowered at; he had had plenty of practice ignoring it at school. “It’s about the ambassador’s daughter,” he said.
    The glower turned into a glare of suspicion. “What are you talking about?”
    “She lost a doll and I found it.” He had no choice but to open the bag and take the doll out for a moment so the man could see what he was talking about. Then