水族館へ行けなかった日

In the summer holidays my sister's child Minami was going to come and stay for two nights. My niece is in the fourth year of primary school and likes fish. A week before, I bought advance tickets for the aquarium: 1,800 yen for an adult and 900 yen for a child. For going out with a child, I thought, the train is convenient.

But on the morning we were to set off, a typhoon came closer. After the seven o'clock news, the trains stopped running. You can also get to the aquarium by bus, but on a typhoon day they sometimes stop running partway. Telling Minami, who was looking out of the window, that today was impossible weighed on me.

Minami did not cry. When she asked what we would do instead, I spread out a map. There is a bus that goes round and round inside the city, and with a five-hundred-yen day pass you can ride it as many times as you like. Today we'll go with the bus, I said. While the rain was still light we ran to the bus stop. I bought two day passes and we got on the ten o'clock bus.

Minami always wants to sit in the front seat. The bus that day was quiet, with only three passengers besides us. The signs were hard to read through the rain, and Minami wrote down on a piece of paper the names of the signs she managed to read. Every time we reached a stop, choosing whether to get off or stay on became Minami's job. For lunch we made do with bread we had bought before getting on. For four hours we went round the same route three times.

Around three the typhoon moved east and the rain stopped. On the way home Minami said we should go with that bus next year too. The name of the aquarium did not come up once. My mood was good, and yet I felt slightly strange. The advance tickets can be used until the end of September, so they are still stuck to the refrigerator.