recently, during the break, don't you remember?"

"You mean when you went to him, knocked him down and yelled 'Well, Jensi, it wasn't that bad after all'?"

"Exactly!"

"Well then ... it's probably time to say goodbye ... take care, old house!"

"You too, Maya!"

The girls hugged, and after a long waving phase that lasted until Maya was no longer to be seen, Chiyo entered the house.*****

Chiyo spent most of the day helping her parents in the now almost empty house to stow the last things in boxes and to look through hand luggage for the plane. In the evening she was reading her Kanji textbook when her mother rushed into her room.

"Honey - I'm sorry for just popping in here -"

"Doesn't matter, mom!"

"-but you have to help me with something again, I'm going to be crazy, all these holidays! You can do them all, right?"

"By heart." replied Chiyo routinely. Since her own knowledge of Japanese culture and language was more extensive than that of her mother (which hadn't taken too long), it had become a regular ritual for her to take a crash course in some label just before the upcoming vacation. Having rules or holiday dates with her mom.

"Well ... well, this ...` Day of Ancestral Worship` ... ""Keiro no hi?"

"Uh ..." Her mother pecked at her obligatory manual, her loyal and notorious companion on all her previous trips to Japan, as Chiyo knew, and that had already done far more harm than good. "... exactly! It's the twenty-third of September!"

"On the fifteenth." replied Chiyo without looking up.

"I think so! Yes ... ahem ... and what else happened on the twenty-third?" "Beginning of autumn, mom."

"Oh yes! Okay, and in October ... Ha! But now I know! On the fourteenth and fifteenth of October it is uh ...` Himeji - The Festival of Sportsmen`! "

"The` fighter`, mom. `Kenka Matsuri - The feast of the fighters`." said Chiyo automatically.

"Huh? ... Oops, slipped in the line! Hmmm, Thanksgiving was on the twenty-third of November but when was that` seven-five-three-festival` again? "

"The 'shichi go san - or seven-five-three festival, on November 15th, Mama. Don't you remember? You didn't bring me to the shrine until I was seven, because when I was three I was the one on November 15th Had measles."On that day, seven-year-old girls, five-year-old boys, and three-year-old girls and boys were dressed neatly and traditionally and taken to local shrines.

"Nice, so all over again!` The ancestor of veneration` ... uh ... day ... uh ... well tell me ... "

"..." "

*****

The next morning pretty much anything that could go wrong went wrong. The entire family overslept, and when Chiyo finally woke up at half past seven (from a confused dream that was definitely about the holidays) and found that they actually wanted to be at the airport at this time, she gave up loud screeching alarm - quite effective, albeit quite late - to judge many of their parents out of bed, after the loud rumbling, which - despite many doubts still calling itself a cat - and even for a dog overweight fur sack called Bo was nowhere to be found and to make matters worse, the gloriously warm early autumn weather the day before had finally given up its ghost and it was pouring down.In short, the day began with a single catastrophe that didn't want to end. Dressed in a hurry, after some back and forth, one could at least agree to have breakfast on the plane - whatever that meant - and after another feverish and fruitless search for Bo, the Chiyo finally turned into one who discovered the already unscrewed toilets, the taxi outside, which Mr. Nakamura had ordered immediately after getting up hastily, sounded the horn.

At the airport, the rush continued - it turned out that the plane the Nakamuras had to take apparently suddenly started from a different gate than they had thought, so they sped through half the airport at a quarter to eight another terminal to find out that the flight was delayed an hour.

"Such a rush, and all for nothing!" sighed Ms. Nakamura as she heaved Bo in his basket - with visible effort - onto a seat in the waiting area, and then sat down next to it."Well, at least we won't miss our plane!" Groaned Mr. Nakamura with a hint of a smile as he followed suit his wife and sank into one of the rather uncomfortable plastic seats.

*****

The next day, Chiyo woke up on the futon in her room and was unsure for a while about what had woken her up. There was no sound to be heard anywhere in the big house. It had to be very early - dawn had already fallen, sending cool light through the paper walls of their windows. With great reluctance, Chiyo crawled out from under her warm blanket, straightened up, and padded barefoot to the sliding doors that separated her room from the small veranda that opened onto the garden. The cold in the small room, which immediately grabbed her bare legs as if with clammy fingers, completely convinced her that this was not a dream and that she had survived the terribly annoying, if very uneventful journey.They had only arrived after midnight the night before, and the grueling train ride to Kyoto, which had been pending after the flight to Tokyo, had also stolen Chiyo's last spirits; After she had greeted her grandfather with the last of her strength - as it had seemed to her - (Maria had long been asleep, of course), she fell like a stone on her bed and fell asleep there immediately.

Shivering with the cold, she pushed open the doors and looked delighted out at the garden, traditionally laid out, with a small stream and a stone bridge over it. Everything was bathed in morning mist, hardly distinguishable from the soft white-gray sky, and glistened with the dew. And it was freezing!

Shivering, Chiyo closed the doors again and stalked to the closet, in which she fortunately found a lined yukata that was appropriate for the cooler season, in which she quickly wrapped herself. Then she set about heating the little stove - she should have done it last night, then she wouldn't have woken up in such an ice chamber today.Now there was nothing to be done about it, however, and after she had got the little gas device working halfway, she slipped into her slippers, took another towel out of the closet and made her way to the bathhouse, which is a bit away from the main building.

Amazed, she stopped in front of the old-fashioned little building; It looked much more shabby than she remembered. The plaster was peeled off and some of the roof tiles looked like someone had tried to force them to tear them down. The old cedar door hung a bit rotten on its hinges, it was scratched and badly dented in some places.

How strange! Chiyo thought to himself; where her grandfather was always so embarrassing about everything that belonged to his legacy and its maintenance. After all, the family had owned the property forever, she knew, and it was even said that one of the oldest Nakamura was the offspring of an ancient samurai family.It was not at all fitting to her grandfather to let this testimony of his ancestors expire - she wanted to speak to him carefully about it later, if the opportunity arose.

Chiyo pushed open the heavy door - it was very difficult - and entered the front, partitioned off part of the building that served as a changing room. To her horror, it looked even more miserable on the inside than on the outside. The plaster seemed to be peeling off the walls in strips, the ceiling and parts of the walls looked blackened with soot, as if there had been a fire a long time ago. But above all - was it cold! Normally the changing room, like the large heated bathroom, should have been pleasantly warm, but the musty cold that seemed to creep from every crack of the old house sent a shiver down Chiyo's spine.

But what good was it to dawdle around here, waiting wouldn't make her any warmer. Still, she decided to have a word with the rest of the family.After all, she was supposed to be living here from today, so she needed a decent bathing place. She was, however, very surprised that apparently no one else was bothered by it. She slipped off her yukata, pajamas and slippers, wrapped herself in her bath towel with a shudder and pushed open the second door, which - as she knew from her previous visits - led directly to the bathroom, expecting the warm, humid air from which hot water would strike. Accordingly, she was puzzled when she found nothing else here than the cold, dry air, as already in the small anteroom. Confused, Chiyo paused for a moment in front of the large rectangular pool and stared at it. She had already thought that the bathroom might be out of order and therefore completely dry, but the dark copper tub, clad with wood, was filled to the top with water - nevertheless - something seemed wrong. Suspecting, Chiyo approached the pool and dipped his hand into it - it was freezing!So cold that you don't just take your hand out because it feels uncomfortable, no, much colder. Chiyo winced and withdrew his hand as if the water was boiling hot, and the effect had been similar. A short, sharp burning sensation - violent - and far more uncomfortable than just the cool tingling sensation when you dip your hand in very cold water for a brief moment - it was much more like ice water ...

"That couldn't be ..." thought Chiyo. “Even if the heater in the basin were broken, the water couldn't cool down that much!” Confused, she went back into the anteroom, where she hurried to put her things on again; Now it was running really cold down her spine. Something was absolutely wrong with the bathroom - this grave cold was definitely not normal, not at this relatively mild time of the year - and that was scary to her.

She went the way back to the main house faster than it would have been necessary. If a neighbor saw her scurrying through the garden, he would have to be surprised, but she didn't care at the moment.She