Activities of the prestigious Classics Club (part 3)

I knew it was pointless to argue back at her, but still I said, "Oh, shut up."

Ibara merely replied flatly, "My, you're quite a crybaby for a gloomy person."

... A crybaby, huh?

She then turned towards Satoshi with a composed expression,

"Fuku-chan, you know how my feelings are, so you should know I was joking, right?"

"Ahh, don't worry about that, Mayaka. No offence taken."

"What? You're just gonna let her use joking as an excuse to let her off the hook again?"

Satoshi glared at me, and then turned his gaze away. I smiled bitterly, as I knew Ibara has been pursuing him for some time. I have no idea when she started doing so, though Satoshi has been dodging her advances ever since.

Satoshi pretended to cough in an attempt to change the subject.

"Anyway, what business does the Classics Club have in the library?"

Ah, yes, I didn't come to the library just to see Ibara. I urged Chitanda to say something. As though suffering from stage fright, our lady said nervously to Ibara, "Uh, umm, hi there. May I inquire something of you?"

"Sure, how may I help you?"

"I'd like to ask if there are any essay anthologies here in the library."

"Yup, they're at those shelves right over there."

"Do they have those for the Classics Club?"

Ibara tilted her head and wondered, "The Classics Club? ...Hmm, I'm sorry, don't think I'm sure of that. Should I look for them for you?"

Just as Chitanda was about to express her gratitude, Satoshi stopped her, "You won't find any. I've occasionally looked up on those shelves, so I should know. Mayaka, where else could they be found if they're not on the shelves?"

"Hmm, if they're not in the open shelves, then they must be in the archives."

"The archives, huh?

Satoshi thought for a while before asking, "Chitanda-san, why're you looking for essay anthologies anyway?"

"We're going to publish one for the Cultural Festival, so we were wondering if we can have a look at the back issues for reference."

"Oh, so they're for the Kanya Festival, huh? Didn't know you were knowledgeable on such stuff, Houtarou."

Knowledgeable? Rather, I was obliged to work on it. Besides, Chitanda probably doesn't even need me to be knowledgeable.

Wait... what festival again?

"Satoshi, what did you just call the Cultural Festival?"

"The Kanya Festival. Haven't you heard of it before? It's the nickname for the Kami High Cultural Festival."

A nickname, huh? Something like the Sophia Festival for Sophia University, or the Mita Festival for Keio University? Then again, like the story about the four "Exponential Clans", I find it hard to believe.

"Sounds suspicious. Is that true?"

"Of course it's true, though it's an unofficial nickname. I heard all my seniors in the Handicraft Club call it the Kanya Festival. Is it the same in the Manga Studies Club, Mayaka?"

So Ibara's in the Manga Studies Club, huh? While it does suit her image, it still feels unbecoming for her.

"Yup, everyone there calls it the Kanya Festival. Even the festival committee calls it that."

"Kanya? How do you spell that in kanji?"

Satoshi placed his hand on his chin and said, "Dunno. Everybody just calls it that."

It seems like it's true that 'Kanya Festival' is a nickname.

However, I just couldn't think of any word that matches with the spelling of 'Kanya'. Oh well, seeking out the etymology of such a

silly name is probably a profession in itself. As I was thinking of that, Satoshi added, "Perhaps it's abbreviated from 'Kamiyama', turning it into 'Kanyama', and in turn evolving into 'Kanya'."

As expected for an expert of trivial knowledge.

As we were going off topic, Ibara firmly pulled us back, "Anyhow, anthologies, is it? We'll probably find them if we look up the archives, though the Head Librarian's in a meeting right now, so we can't go in without her permission. She'll probably be back in half an hour, you wanna wait?"

Half an hour, huh? Not even Chitanda was in a hurry to want to

see them at once, so she looked at me and whispered, "What do we do now?"

I was fine with whatever decision, but I noticed it's still raining heavily outside. The weather report did say the rain will stop sometime in the afternoon and we'd have a starry night tonight, but as the rain showed no signs of stopping right now, we had no choice but to wait.

"Guess we'll wait."

"Even though you could go back?"

I decided to return to my paperback novel and resume at the page where I was reading. Satoshi tugged at Ibara's sleeve and said, "Mayaka, why don't you tell Houtarou about the story you were telling me earlier?"

Ibara lifted her eyebrows and thought for a while before nodding.

"Okay. Oreki, do you ever feel like exercising your brain once in a while?"

Nope. But neither has Ibara.

"What story are you talking about?"

Satoshi answered Chitanda's question with his usual smile, "The one about the popular book which no one ever reads."

"As you know, my shift is every Friday after school, and I've discovered lately that the same book has been returned during this time every week. This is the fifth week in a row now. Don't you find it strange?"

Ibara began to speak while I was busy looking for a desk where I could sit down and read my book. Unfortunately, there just weren't any available seats in such a crowded place. So I had no choice but to sit on top of the table that Satoshi had occupied.

As the table was close to the counter, we could hear Chitanda and Ibara's voices from here.

"Is it a popular book?"

"Does this look like one?"

Ibara showed us the thick book she was holding.

"Oh, such a beautiful book..." Chitanda gasped in awe, and then turned her gaze towards me.

Our lady's delighted expression was as though I'd just bought a splendidly bound book for her. The book was bound in a leather cover decorated with finely detailed patterns. Its darkish blue colour emitted an aura of solemnity about it.

The title of the book was "Kamiyama High School: Walking Together for 50 Years".

Besides being thick, it was also quite a large book in its length and width.

"May I have a look inside?"

"Sure."

Upon taking out my paperback novel from my shoulder bag, I started searching for the page where I last read. Yet my vision of the novel was quickly replaced by that of high quality pages.

It was Chitanda, who upon opening the aforementioned book —— "Kamiyama High School: Walking Together for 50 Years" —— placed it on top of my novel in order to show it to me.

While I wasn't exactly interested, I didn't ignore it either, and had a quick look at its contents. It's got nothing else on it besides a description of the school's history, and goes as such:

1972

Events in Japan and the World:

May 15th: Return of Sovereignty of Okinawa. Establishment of Okinawa Prefecture.

September 29th: Signing of the Joint Communique of Japan and China. Normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Sudden rise in land and commodities prices this year.

Events in Kamiyama High School

June 7th: First victory for the Kamiyama High School Archery

Club in the Prefectural Newcomers Tournament.

July 1st: Cancellation of 1st Year Field Trip due to typhoon.

October 10th-14th: Cultural Festival.

October 30th: Sports Festival.

November 16th-19th: 2nd Year Field Trip - Sasebo, Nagasaki.

January 23rd-24th: 1st Year Skiing Course.

February 2nd: Memorial service for 1st Year student Ooide Naoto, who died in car accident.

It was full of such details. It would take a particular set of skills to actually read through all that. I wouldn't go so far as to borrow the book once a week in order to read it all, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually did that just for its contents.

"Houtarou, you were just thinking 'I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually borrowed that once a week', weren't you?"

Stop reading my mind, you damn telepath!