A school of killifish. Quiet! Look! Be careful not to fall in!
There they are, playing and frolicking!

Shigeru, the boy living in the house across the street, was full of energy and tanned a deep brown. He became my playmate. At Shigeru's place there was a pond, which made me oh so jealous! I'd always wait on the steps of the house for him to get back from school.

The lad living in the block of flats behind us was a real little urchin. He and his friends would slip into the garden of our house through a gap in the fence to play samurai. I'd join them brandishing my sword, head clad in a hood my father had improvised from a hand towel. In the evening the boys would come in and quietly watch the sumo on TV.

With the girls in the neighborhood I'd played at house on a mat spread on the steps. Once when I slipped and grazed my hand, Kimi, who was the same age as me, said sadly, "Yoko, I wish you didn't have bad legs."

The tender-heart and the king of the castle, the crybaby and the bully - wonder what they're all doing now they're grown up.