At some point, the park’s black cat had gone missing. It had been quite a while since he had shown himself. Either he had been hit by a car and gone to heaven, or he’d taken off on a journey somewhere.

At any rate, I turned her down. “I don’t need it”.

“I stocked up on that cat food. Ah, what a waste.”

Jumping down off the swing, Misaki stepped into the cozy sandbox next to the jungle gym. Picking up a green shovel that one of the neighborhood kids had left behind, she started making something in the sandbox.

I asked, “What is that?”

“A mountain.”

She was right. It certainly was a mountain. Set in the middle of the sandbox, it was a sharply peaked mountain. It angled steeply, like Mount Fuji drawn by Hokusai[28], thus looking as though the slightest vibration would make it crumble. But the sand mountain soon was perfectly complete. It was wonderful work, using sand wet with the evening dew.

Clapping her hands to brush off the sand, Misaki circled the mountain once. She looked expectantly at me.

I said, “It’s a nice mountain.”

A little smile on her face, Misaki shouted, “Yaaah!” and aimed a forward kick at the mountain. “Things with shape will one day fall apart.”

“That’s right.” I nodded.

There was actually a huge variety to the books Misaki pulled out of her backpack, night after night. She apparently borrowed them en masse once a week from the library. There were novels, poetry collections, practical guides, and reference books. Misaki read books of all different shapes and sizes, and then she would read them to me.

“Well then, the text for tonight is The Last Words of Famous People. Its title refers to the words that exemplary people leave behind at the moment of their deaths…”

Refers to…?

“Let’s think about what life is!” she cried.

It was a dramatic line, and I was done in by Misaki’s ability to make such grand, unusual declarations with an utterly normal expression. Then again, seen from another perspective—well, compared to yesterday’s topic of “Let’s think about what it means to live”, it wasn’t that big a deal.

Regaining my composure, I urged her to continue, and Misaki immediately started reading the text aloud.

The book collected the last words of famous people from all around the world, from ancient times to modern days. I listened quietly and respectfully. As she read from the book, however, Misaki seemed to grow bored with it, and her theme changed along the way.

“ ‘More light…’ Well then, whose words could these be?”

What, a quiz?!

“Three… Two… One… Time’s up! The answer is Goethe. Well, that line is too cool, isn’t it? I think that Mr. Goethe must have thought it up far, far ahead of time.”

“M-maybe he did.”

“Okay then, next question. ‘Mikka Tororo[29] was delicious.’ ”