Chapter Four
Four, Great Doctor Kubo
After about two hours of walking, Budori arrived at the station. He bought a ticket and boarded the locomotive headed for the city of Ihatov. On and on and on and on the locomotive ran as fast as it could, leaving behind countless mud fields. Beyond them dark forests went by one after another, each one a different shape than the last, only to be left further and further behind.
Budori’s heart was full to bursting with all kinds of thoughts! Soon he would arrive in Ihatov. He would meet with Kubo, the author of that compassionate book. If he could, he would find work while he studied to ensure that everyone could work their mud fields free of worry. We wanted so badly to work to find a way to eliminate all of the “More ash? More drought? More cold?” that the even the train seemed so sluggish it was nearly too much bear.
Sometime that afternoon, the train arrived in the city of Ihatov. No sooner had Budori set one foot out of the station than he stepped into a smoggy atmosphere that rumbled with a subterranean reverberation. Amidst the automobiles coming and going, Budori could only stand and stare in awe. Finally getting his wits about him, he decided to ask for directions to Professor Kubo’s school. Try as he might, every person he asked took one look at all-too serious expression and had to contain their laughter as they said things like, “I don’t know any school like that,” and “walk about half a kilometer in that direction and ask someone there.” It was already evening by the time Budori found the school. On the second floor of a large, white, rather run-down looking building, someone was speaking in a rather loud voice.
“Hello!” shouted Budori. No one came out.
“HELLOO!” he shouted as loud as he could. That time, from a window up above him on the second floor, out popped a grey-haired head and a pair of spectacles flashed in his direction.
“We’re in the middle of class right now! You’re a noisy one. If you’ve business then come inside!” he shouted. When he pulled his head back inside, everyone in the classroom roared with laughter and the man began speaking loudly once again as if nothing had happened.
Budori gave up and when he went up to the second floor, taking the quietest steps he possibly could, there appear a door at the top of the stairs. It was, in truth, an enormous classroom! Students in many different outfits were packed inside. Opposite them stood a large black wall whereupon were drawn a great many white markings. The tall, bespectacled man he had seen earlier was pointing here and there at the replica of a large castle turret, lecturing loudly as he had been doing before.
At first glance Budori thought, “Ah! This must be a model of the “history” from the history written in the Professor’s book!”
The professor chuckled and twisted a small knob. The model changed shape-click-clack!-into some kind of odd ship. The professor twisted the knob once more and this time the model changed-click-clack!-into something resembling a large centipede. Though everyone tilted their heads back and forth, looking as if they did not understand, Budori was simply enthralled!
“And so, we are able make this sort of diagram.”
The professor went on writing another complicated figure on the black wall. Holding a piece of chalk in his writing hand, he scrawled with teacher-ly efficiency and the other students tried as hard as they could to imitate him. Budori, too, took from his breast pocket the dirty old notebook he had gotten in the mud fields and began to copy down the diagram. The professor had finished writing and was standing upright on his podium, looking intensely back and forth at the desks of his students. Budori finished writing and looking at his diagram from on its side when, “Aaaaah,” yawned one of the students next to Budori.
“Um, what do people call this professor?” asked Budori, gently. Sniggering in a rather nasal voice and seeming to have taken Budori for a fool, the student replied, “You mean you don’t know the Great Doctor Kubo?”
Then, looking Budori’s figure up and down, he said, “So you can write a diagram like this without any practice at all, huh? Me, I’ve been attending these same lectures for six years already!” and stuffed his own notebook into his breast pocket. At that moment, on came the electric lights in the classroom. It was already evening. Great Doctor Kubo announced from the front of the classroom,
“At present, evening has at long last arrived, and so have we completed all the content of this humble lecture. Those applicants among you are to show me your notebooks in the usual fashion, in addition to which they will take several tests to decide where they belong.”
“Waah!” the students shouted as they shut their note books one after another. Much of the class returned home, but fifty or sixty students stayed and lined up in front of Great Doctor and presented to him their notebooks. As they did, The Great Doctor would pose one or two simple questions and then write things like “You Pass!”, “This isn’t your first time here, is it?”, “Solid Effort!” in chalk in the upper margin of the notebook. All the while, the students hung their heads looking particularly anxious, though every last one hunched over until they walked into the hallway where they would show each other their marks and rejoice or despair accordingly. As the examination quickly came to an end, Budori was the only one left. When Budori offered up that small, dirty notebook, the Great Doctor Kubo yawned and bent over to look at it so intensely that the notebook seemed in danger of being swallowed up entirely.
“Splendid. This diagram is quite properly designed. Now these other parts, what are-ahh! These are the fertilizer for the paddy fields and the feed for the horses are the not? Well then, answer the following questions. Of the smoke that rises from the factory smokestacks, what are the various colors of each type produced?”
With barely a thought, Budori responded in a loud voice, “Black, olive, yellow, grey, white, and colorless as well as the different mixtures of each.”
The Great Doctor chuckled, “Colorless smoke! Well done. Now speak on its forms.”
“A substantial amount of smoke in windless conditions will resemble vertical line, though the tip will widen out. On days when the clouds are particularly low, the smoke will rise to the level of the clouds and then spread out to either side. On windy days, it will be a diagonal line, though its slope will depend on how windy it is. For waves or any number of interruptions to appear depends on the wind, of course. One factor, however, may lie in the nature of the smoke or the smokestack. When there isn’t very much smoke, it might spiral upward like a corkscrew. And sometimes, when smoke and heavy gases mix, they collect at the mouth of the smokestack and trickle down in four directions, rather than just one.”
The Great Doctor chuckled once again.
“Very good! Tell me, what kind of work do you do?”
“Actually, I came to find work.”
“I have a job that might interest you. Here’s my card. Go immediately to this address.”
The Great Doctor took out his card, neatly wrote something on it, and handed it to Budori. Budori bowed politely and as he started for the door, the Great Doctor responded with a subtle look.
“What is that? Is someone burning garbage?” he muttered under his breath as he tossed bits of chalk, his handkerchief, and his books all together into the bag on the table, took it under his arm and, from the window he had previously stuck his head out of, he jumped!
Astonished, Budori ran to the window to see where the doctor had gone. Somehow, the doctor had mounted a small, toy-like blimp. Taking the steering lever in hand, he flew straight off into the distance over a town steeped in hazy blue.
Soon after Budori gave up watching, the professor landed on the flat roof of a large, grey building in the distance. He hitched his ship to some kind of hooked object and left it there and slipped out of view into the building.
After about two hours of walking, Budori arrived at the station. He bought a ticket and boarded the locomotive headed for the city of Ihatov. On and on and on and on the locomotive ran as fast as it could, leaving behind countless mud fields. Beyond them dark forests went by one after another, each one a different shape than the last, only to be left further and further behind.
Budori’s heart was full to bursting with all kinds of thoughts! Soon he would arrive in Ihatov. He would meet with Kubo, the author of that compassionate book. If he could, he would find work while he studied to ensure that everyone could work their mud fields free of worry. We wanted so badly to work to find a way to eliminate all of the “More ash? More drought? More cold?” that the even the train seemed so sluggish it was nearly too much bear.
Sometime that afternoon, the train arrived in the city of Ihatov. No sooner had Budori set one foot out of the station than he stepped into a smoggy atmosphere that rumbled with a subterranean reverberation. Amidst the automobiles coming and going, Budori could only stand and stare in awe. Finally getting his wits about him, he decided to ask for directions to Professor Kubo’s school. Try as he might, every person he asked took one look at all-too serious expression and had to contain their laughter as they said things like, “I don’t know any school like that,” and “walk about half a kilometer in that direction and ask someone there.” It was already evening by the time Budori found the school. On the second floor of a large, white, rather run-down looking building, someone was speaking in a rather loud voice.
“Hello!” shouted Budori. No one came out.
“HELLOO!” he shouted as loud as he could. That time, from a window up above him on the second floor, out popped a grey-haired head and a pair of spectacles flashed in his direction.
“We’re in the middle of class right now! You’re a noisy one. If you’ve business then come inside!” he shouted. When he pulled his head back inside, everyone in the classroom roared with laughter and the man began speaking loudly once again as if nothing had happened.
Budori gave up and when he went up to the second floor, taking the quietest steps he possibly could, there appear a door at the top of the stairs. It was, in truth, an enormous classroom! Students in many different outfits were packed inside. Opposite them stood a large black wall whereupon were drawn a great many white markings. The tall, bespectacled man he had seen earlier was pointing here and there at the replica of a large castle turret, lecturing loudly as he had been doing before.
At first glance Budori thought, “Ah! This must be a model of the “history” from the history written in the Professor’s book!”
The professor chuckled and twisted a small knob. The model changed shape-click-clack!-into some kind of odd ship. The professor twisted the knob once more and this time the model changed-click-clack!-into something resembling a large centipede. Though everyone tilted their heads back and forth, looking as if they did not understand, Budori was simply enthralled!
“And so, we are able make this sort of diagram.”
The professor went on writing another complicated figure on the black wall. Holding a piece of chalk in his writing hand, he scrawled with teacher-ly efficiency and the other students tried as hard as they could to imitate him. Budori, too, took from his breast pocket the dirty old notebook he had gotten in the mud fields and began to copy down the diagram. The professor had finished writing and was standing upright on his podium, looking intensely back and forth at the desks of his students. Budori finished writing and looking at his diagram from on its side when, “Aaaaah,” yawned one of the students next to Budori.
“Um, what do people call this professor?” asked Budori, gently. Sniggering in a rather nasal voice and seeming to have taken Budori for a fool, the student replied, “You mean you don’t know the Great Doctor Kubo?”
Then, looking Budori’s figure up and down, he said, “So you can write a diagram like this without any practice at all, huh? Me, I’ve been attending these same lectures for six years already!” and stuffed his own notebook into his breast pocket. At that moment, on came the electric lights in the classroom. It was already evening. Great Doctor Kubo announced from the front of the classroom,
“At present, evening has at long last arrived, and so have we completed all the content of this humble lecture. Those applicants among you are to show me your notebooks in the usual fashion, in addition to which they will take several tests to decide where they belong.”
“Waah!” the students shouted as they shut their note books one after another. Much of the class returned home, but fifty or sixty students stayed and lined up in front of Great Doctor and presented to him their notebooks. As they did, The Great Doctor would pose one or two simple questions and then write things like “You Pass!”, “This isn’t your first time here, is it?”, “Solid Effort!” in chalk in the upper margin of the notebook. All the while, the students hung their heads looking particularly anxious, though every last one hunched over until they walked into the hallway where they would show each other their marks and rejoice or despair accordingly. As the examination quickly came to an end, Budori was the only one left. When Budori offered up that small, dirty notebook, the Great Doctor Kubo yawned and bent over to look at it so intensely that the notebook seemed in danger of being swallowed up entirely.
“Splendid. This diagram is quite properly designed. Now these other parts, what are-ahh! These are the fertilizer for the paddy fields and the feed for the horses are the not? Well then, answer the following questions. Of the smoke that rises from the factory smokestacks, what are the various colors of each type produced?”
With barely a thought, Budori responded in a loud voice, “Black, olive, yellow, grey, white, and colorless as well as the different mixtures of each.”
The Great Doctor chuckled, “Colorless smoke! Well done. Now speak on its forms.”
“A substantial amount of smoke in windless conditions will resemble vertical line, though the tip will widen out. On days when the clouds are particularly low, the smoke will rise to the level of the clouds and then spread out to either side. On windy days, it will be a diagonal line, though its slope will depend on how windy it is. For waves or any number of interruptions to appear depends on the wind, of course. One factor, however, may lie in the nature of the smoke or the smokestack. When there isn’t very much smoke, it might spiral upward like a corkscrew. And sometimes, when smoke and heavy gases mix, they collect at the mouth of the smokestack and trickle down in four directions, rather than just one.”
The Great Doctor chuckled once again.
“Very good! Tell me, what kind of work do you do?”
“Actually, I came to find work.”
“I have a job that might interest you. Here’s my card. Go immediately to this address.”
The Great Doctor took out his card, neatly wrote something on it, and handed it to Budori. Budori bowed politely and as he started for the door, the Great Doctor responded with a subtle look.
“What is that? Is someone burning garbage?” he muttered under his breath as he tossed bits of chalk, his handkerchief, and his books all together into the bag on the table, took it under his arm and, from the window he had previously stuck his head out of, he jumped!
Astonished, Budori ran to the window to see where the doctor had gone. Somehow, the doctor had mounted a small, toy-like blimp. Taking the steering lever in hand, he flew straight off into the distance over a town steeped in hazy blue.
Soon after Budori gave up watching, the professor landed on the flat roof of a large, grey building in the distance. He hitched his ship to some kind of hooked object and left it there and slipped out of view into the building.