Warrior of the North Point

“Sayuri? Sayuri!” shouted the now frustrated teacher.

“Wh . . . what?” said the brown hair and bright green eyed girl now waking up from a peacefully dream, only to find an angry teacher’s face starring at her.

“Sayuri! What do you think you are doing?” questioned the angry teacher whose brown curly hair was in her face swaying below her glasses.

“Um . . . I am sorry Mrs. Ache!” All the kids in Sayuri’s class started to giggle and watch more closely. Sayuri felt her face going bright red. Mrs. Ache held up her hand to quiet the class.

“Sayuri, if you do this again-“she was cut off by the bell. She gave Sayuri and evil glare, but the glare really didn’t affect her that much. She was always getting glares at home. Home . . . Mrs. Ache turned around and headed for her desk. The class still had not stopped starring at Sayuri. Sayuri was always so weird. She was one of the best students in class and never did anything wrong, except for the sleeping thing. Most of the students in the school concluded that she had some sleeping disorder. And clothes she wears are always so raggedy and torn. She had no friends at school. No one ever went near her or talked to her. She was the biggest outcast in the school. Yet, somehow she always seemed perfectly happy.

“Your homework will be pages twenty through twenty-five. I want those to be turned in on Monday! No exceptions! If anyone has not done their homework will have detention. Do you all understand me?” The class all answered in a coherent “yes”.

“Good! You are all excused!” All of the students quickly grabbed all of their belongings and made a quick dash for the door. However, before Sayuri could get to the door, Mrs. Ache stopped her.

“Miss. Sayuri, I want to talk to you,” said the teacher with a speck of delight in yelling at students in her voice. Sayuri reluctantly turned around, and with her head down she went up to the teacher. She tightly clenched her bag.

“This sleeping is going to have to stop! I mean it! I am trying to teach this class and you are disturbing us by not paying attention and sleeping! This isn’t expectable!” roared Mrs. Ache. Sayuri’s throat started to tighten up. School was the best place she ever went to. Being yelled at in school was one of her worst nightmares.

“I am sorry Mrs. Ache,” said Sayuri still looking straight down at the floor. Tears were welling up in her eyes. What if she is going to suspend me? What am I going to do then? Oh no! What if she expels me! She didn’t notice that tears where rolling down her face until one splashed onto her hand.

“I am sorry Mrs. Ache,” she repeated again. “I promise I will study hard! I’ll try really hard not to sleep in class! But please Mrs. Ache don’t suspend me or . . . or expel me!” shouted Sayuri now crying more heavily. Mrs. Ache was now trying to comfort Sayuri whose tears where wetting the floor.

“It . . . it is okay Sayuri. Don’t worry, I won’t suspend least of all expel you! It is okay. Stop crying. Every thing will be okay,” cooed the teacher to her crying student. Mrs. Ache was now stroking the girl’s hair, trying to stop her flowing eyes. When Sayuri finally stopped crying, which was ten minutes later, Mrs. Ache helped her up from the floor.

“Are you alright now Sayuri?” She nodded. Mrs. Ache gave a sigh of relief. “Good now, remember to do your homework and have a great weekend. Okay? Don’t work yourself too hard.” That wasn’t going to happen “If you ever need to tell me anything remember that I am here. I will see you on Monday.” The girl thanked her teacher and waved goodbye as she hurried down the hall. No one was left in school except for the teachers and staff. It was nice. Everything was quiet. All she could hear was her running feet stomping on the ground. Outside it was bright, sunny, and so cheerful. She loved her school. It was hard for her every day to tear herself from the place to go back home. Home . . . she thought. Quickly passing through the grass, she tore her way through it; rushing to the place that she lived at. Mrs. Yoko is going to kill me! I am already late! Great, now I am going to have to go through another yelling session.

The girl made her way to a huge mansion on the outskirts of town. The mansion was placed right by a beautiful lake, with a wonderful forest surrounding the huge house. It was an oriental half-bath house and hotel. Many ambassadors and wealthy traveling people came there. It was the best of the best. She hurried into the back of the house, trying not to be caught by Mrs. Yoko, but it was too late. An old woman with little neck and white hair that was tightly bunned up in the back of her neck hovered over Sayuri as she tried to take off the shoes.

“You are late!” boomed the old woman with massive sound. Sayuri felt her face go pale and her small body start to shake. The girl fell down to the old woman’s feet. Mrs. Yoko was Sayuri’s grandmother on her dead mother’s side. When her parents died, which was when Sayuri was five, the only other family she had was her Mrs. Yoko and Mr. Yoko. She never knew them when she was little for her mother hated her parents and never let her daughter so near them. In the same way, Mr. and Mrs. Yoko hated their daughter’s child. They at first refused to take the skinny girl into their care. But they were forced to, and she was sent to work at their bath house and hotel.

“I am sorry Mrs. Yoko. It was my duty to help clean the class room after school today. I am sorry that I am late," lied Sayuri.

“You bet you are sorry! We have more important people coming tomorrow night and you are not helping to clean! I should give you no dinner! You are an ungrateful little brat! But, I am feeling slightly forgiving today, so you now get to do the main dinning room instead of your normal duties.” Sayuri gulped. The main dinning room! That was one of the biggest rooms in the house! She nodded.

“Thank you very much Mrs. Yoko. You have shown much kindness to this unworthy girl.” Mrs. Yoko smiled. She loved it when Sayuri would say she was worthless. It was true, in her mind that every one was worthless, except for her beautiful self and husband.
“Go now you stupid child! You have much work to do! Hurry!” Sayuri scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag and shoes. She ran up the old, wooden, spiral stairs to the servants’ floor, where she lived. Opening the second to last door on the left, she entered a room she shared with a servant girl named Chi. The girls' room was very plain. In the room lay two sleeping mats and blankets neatly folded by them. In a corner was a small desk that had piles of Sayuri's school books upon it. And, on the dark, rotting walls was a window to the roof that both of the girls used to get some peace and queit. Chi was in the room when she entered.

“Hey! Sayuri your home!” said Chi very excitedly. Chi was an Asian like herself, except Chi had beautiful long black hair and brown eyes. Sayuri was half British from her father’s side. Sayuri was taller than Chi by about two inches. In the house, they were the best of friends.

“Mrs. Yoko is in another one of her yelling moods again,” said Chi in a depressed voice. Sayuri flinched from remembering the incident she was just in. She began to change into her maid’s clothes.

“You don’t have to tell me that! I was ten minutes late coming home from school and I got caught. I am doing the main dinning room tonight.” Chi gasped.

“By yourself! How are you going to be able to do that! That room is one of the hardest in the whole house!”

“Yeah I know.” The girls engaged in the topic deeper, but soon later had to get down to work or Mrs. Yoko would have their hides. They walked down to the kitchen room together.

“Bye Sayuri! Hopefully I will be able to see you at dinner if we get to have one tonight!” shouted Chi as she turned the corner. “Bye!” After she waved good-bye to Chi she went into the storage room.

Grabbing various cleaning oils and herbs, she pilled them into a huge cart outside of the room. After she was done, she headed to the dreadful dinning hall. Catching the servants’ elevator she went down to the third floor, the dinning floor. Going throughout the many halls and elevators in the huge bath house, one could see may servants and maids like herself running up and down the halls, cleaning, washing, scrubbing, scraping, etc. all dressed in the same brown baggy uniforms. Many of the servants working at the bath house where all under a life contract with the Yoko’s. Mr. and Mrs. Yoko would trick people into coming and signing a contract to keep them there for life. Or they would pick up homeless children off the streets, or hobos roaming around, promising them and easy life, until they signed.

Sayuri entered the huge room. It was about fifty yard wide, and seventy yards long. All wooden floors, dirty from when it was last used. Many low, tables where scattered around the room. Sayuri’s first job would have to be able to clean them all off, which was about sixty tables.

The skinny girl set to work on the many tables she was to clean. When finally whipping them all off with a rag, she swept underneath them, so she wouldn’t get food stuck to the floor when she would have to water them down. After this she was tired. Her muscles where starting to slightly ache with all the rubbing and whipping. But living in the awful bath house, she was worked and worked everyday from the age of five, so she was use to the pain and barley noticed it.

The next unbearable task up next was to move all of the sixty tables out of the room, and this would consume most of her time. She was glad the guests would not be coming until tomorrow. It would give her more time to get things ready in the room. Sayuri grabbed underneath the first table and dragged it into one of the massive halls. The girl was very grateful that the tables where somewhat light, so she could move fast. Forty-six minutes later, she was done moving all of the tables into the hallway. She now started to notices and aching of fatigue in her arms, but had still too much to do to really pay attention to her body’s needs.

Her next obstacle she would have to accomplish would be getting water from the water well outside to wash the floors. The servant were not allowed to use the tap water out of the fosset, for Mrs. Yoko thought that water from the water well would bring good luck to the bath houses business. No one argued with Mrs.Yoko on this matter because everyone knew she was superstisious about the flow of business.

The main dinning room was connected to many other halls and doors. In the far back wall to the right, was a large tapestry covering a special door that led outside of the house. The fastest and easiest way to get water was to go through the door. Sayuri took down the tapestry which had a beautiful woven picture of and Asian woman in the traditional oriental dress. When the tapestry was removed, a red door with a golden knob stood in front of Sayuri. The girl liked this door for it was different from most doors in the country; it didn’t slide, it opened outward. Grabbing the golden knob she twisted it until she heard a click, and the door swung open. Outside the door opened into one of the many side gardens outside. Then, there was a drop about three feet. The girl hopped down. She ran on the side of the garden, making sure she didn’t step on any flowers.

Outside of the mansion was as beautiful as inside with all of its old antiques and many expensive traditional decorations. Outside was a maze of many colorful gardens, tall majestic trees, and wonderful water falls, bridges and whatever any person could even want in a garden. Mrs. and Mrs. Yoko’s property rested on many acres of land, twenty-two. Sayuri was happy for the water well was very close to the main dinning room. She hurried past the line of pink cheery-blossom trees, and found herself at the water well. Going to a hidden storage room underground, she picked up two buckets, and hurried outside to fill them with water. When she was done with that, Sayuri picked up a wood object that would go across her shoulders so she would be able to carry two buckets of water easily. Fastening the harness onto her shoulders she grabbed the two buckets, and attached them into the indents on either side of the harness. Quickly walking back to the dinning room, she jumped back up into the room, and went back for more water several times.

The task of getting the water was complete, and she now poured all of the water into a large heavy three feet wide on three feet deep bucket. Now was the time when the girl needed to use all of the oils and herbs she had gathered from the storage room inside of the kitchen. Pouring the packages and bottle contents into the water she mixed it around in her hands until the bright clear water turned into a ugly green. Now came the hard part, she soaked her rag into the concoction, and walked to the left corner of the room. Bending down in a bear like position, she ran up and down the room with the rag, cleaning the floor. This was the most demanding of all jobs to do for you had to run up and down the floors in a bear like position, since Mrs. Yoko was very much into the old traditional style of cleaning.

Half way done with the room left Sayuri breathless. She had done the main dinning room before earlier when she was younger. The girl could remember the episode very well. It was her first time working, and it took her two whole days to complete. She couldn’t move at all after thatfor a week. The small girl had blisters scattered around her hands. Sayuri now looked at her hands. She could remember where every blister was for she has scars for every blister She shuddered. No time to think of things like that now. She still had work to do.

After another hour had past, she was complete with washing the floor. Now the end task was for her to put the tables back, and then dress them, one of the easiest job of the lot. Taking a small break to see what time it was, she looked outside though a large window in the hall. The sky was well past dusk and was spotted with glistening stars. She sighed with the thought that she couldn’t just watch the stars, and went back to her work. Gathering all of the pillows from the hall, she put them in the large cart. The dark navy blue, velvet pillows were dirty from the last time they were used, so she would have to take them down to the second floor to get cleaned. She loved to go down to the second floor (laundry and washing floor). Some of her best know friends were down there, besides Chi. Sayuri wheeled the squeaking cart to the servants’ elevator and pulled the lever in side. The steel door shut and the small elevator made its way down the side of the mansion.

However, before she went down to the second floor she stopped on the third floor, the kitchen. She had something to get someone. Leaving her cart hidden behind a door, she quietly snuck into the kitchen. The girl crawled across the floor, making sure she wasn’t seen by anyone. She wasn’t afraid that she might make any noise for the kitchen was filled with clattering of dishes and pots and pans. The cooks were too overwhelmed with their meal they were preparing to even notice the people around them. When she reached one of the counters she slowly looked up to find what she wanted. Fried fish. Grabbing several big pieces she quickly wrapped it in cloth and scurried out to the door. Stuffing the fish into her uniform, she found her cart, and again headed down the elevator to the second floor.

The elevator stopped, and she knew she was there. The second floor was the floor in which all of the guest clothes were washed, pressed, and even made. When she walked out of the small elevator she was welcomed with steam, an cleaning odor, and many woman waving at her. Sayrui was quiet popular on the second floor. When she was younger she had once saved a life down there and many people thanked her for that.

“Sayuri! Haven’t seen you around her lately!” said a stocky woman with her hair tied up in a handkerchief. “What do you have for us to clean?” asked the woman cheerfully.

“Hey Suli, I got the main dinning room tonight so-” Suli gasped.

“You have that room all by yourself! Dear child! I remember when you last did that room! You couldn’t move for a week! What on earth did you do to get her mad?” said Suli with her eyes looking like they would pop out of her head.

“I was late back home from school.”

“Late for school! That’s all! And she is going to make you do the main dinning room for that!” boomed the woman. Sayuri was now turning red since now all of the washing-woman stopped their work and was watching them.

“Why that awful woman! If only I could-“ began Suli as she began to curse. Sayrui had to do something before the woman went in a tantrum.

“Suli don’t get yourself in trouble! That was a long time ago, and now I am a lot fitter. All I need to do now is to get the pillows washed.” The woman starred at her forgetting she was there in her yelling. Then, went back to her normal, non-yelling self.

“Oh right! Yes, sorry child. Put the pillows right over there so they can get washed first,” said the woman pointing to a pill of clothes by the door. Sayuri bowed.

“Thank you very much. I will pick them up in thirty minutes.” Suli smiled.

“You are such a polite little girl!” Suli hugged Sayuri with her wet hands. Sayuri smiled back at the woman, and put her cart next to a pill of clothes a younger girl that herself was sorting.

Sayuri waved goodbye to all of the washing-woman and headed to the back of the floor. In the back of a huge wooden tub, was an iron door. She opened the door, and walked into an stair case. Jumping down the iron steps, she found herself at another iron door. However, when she opened this door, she found herself in the boiler room. To the side of her was an old, crippled man shoveling mounds of coal into a huge boiler. It was hotter in the boiler room than the laundry room. The boiler room heated all of the water for all of the baths in the bath house part of the mansion. This room was run by one man, Mr. Sayo. She walked in and the old man noticed another presence in the room.

He looked up. Mr. Sayo was a crippled man. The right side of his face had a stroke when he was a boy, and his right eye was blind and covered by a flap of skin. His left eye was the only working eye he had. Mr. Sayo also only had one good arm, his left. His right leg was workable but his left was more moveable. The old man came to the mansion looking for a job fifty years ago. The Yoko’s didn’t want him for he would not be able to work efficiently like other eligible men, but he proved to them that he was more efficient in his work than any man with two good working arms. So they gave him the job as the only working body down on the second floor, the coal-man. Most of the other servant there did not know of Mr. Sayo, or they were frightened of him. The servant would tell stories of a horrible, ugly, monster down at the second floor which was captured by Mr. Yoko.

Sayuri remembered a day when Mr. Sayo was called up to the third floor. Mr. Yoko was going to give him a chance of working with the rest of the servants and be the mechanic of the mansion. Many of the servants then called him names. Mr. Sayo is very touchy about those kinds of things. One day he couldn’t take it anymore and started to beat a servant. The servant died the next day and Mr. Sayo was sent to the second floor for the rest of his life, never allowed to come up to floors above again. Mr. Sayo now lived down there. The old man looked up. A smile appeared on his face.

“Miss. Sayuri!” said the old man in delight. He threw down his shovel and came to greet her. “How are you doing? Would you like s-some tea?” said the old man as he started to rummage through some cabinets.

“Yes please. I haven’t seen you in a long time, so I thought I would drop by for a visit.” Sayuri met Mr. Sayo in her first week of working. She was sent to bring Mr. Sayo some food until a small living space was built in the boiler room, and had to do that for a year. Mr. Sayo was not one to be very polite one someone’s first meeting with him, but Sayuri saw goodness in him a lot of other people couldn’t. They became good friends.

“Oh yes! Before I forget!” said Sayuri pulling out the cloth she had wrapped the fish she snuck from the kitchen before. The man’s eye light up.

“Is-is that . . . fish?” Sayuri nodded. The old man’s favorite food was fried fish.

“I got it for you from the kitchen. It is always in such choas at times like these. We are having another batch of ambassadors and politicians coming tomorrow night. It really wasn’t a problem. Plus,” explained Sayuri as she handed over the piece of cloth to the man whose eye was fixed on the fish,” you deserve it!”

“Th-thank you Sayuri. I . . . very much a-appreciate this,” said the man who was trying to think of words to say. Sayuri was helping him with his manners.

“Very good Mr. Sayo! You are getting a lot better!” smiled Sayuri. Mr. Sayo unwrapped the fish and stuff it into his mouth. Sayuri stayed and talked with the old man sipping tea for the rest of the time she had left before the pillows were done. When the time came to say good-bye to Mr. Sayo, she didn’t want to leave. But, she also didn’t want to get Mrs. Yoko mad by not having the main dinning hall done. Seeing Mr. Sayo was a nice break she got to have from working. She said her good-bye to the man, and went back up the stairs to the laundry room.

She was delighted to find that they were done and clean. She wheeled her cart to the neat pile of pillows, and loaded then on. Hurrying back up to the main dinning room, she found that all of the tables had been moved back. How did this?

Now, all Sayuri was left to do was to dress the tables. She placed all kinds of eating utensils, tea pots, and anything else that was necessary in place. After she was done, all of the tables looked identically dressed with navy pillows at each sitting place. She was done finally. The girl was so overcome with exhaust she fell to the floor. Her body ached with pain that she was now just starting to notice for the burden of getting the main dinning room done was lifted. Sayuri was so tired, the minute she fell to the floor she was sleeping.