Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume27 Chapter2 2

The "Absentee's Chance" Girl. Part 2

The review meeting took place in the Rose Mansion over lunch.

The attendees were, from the Rose families, the three second-year future Roses plus Noriko-chan, and members of the newspaper club.

They had gone through what went well, concerns, ideas for improvement and were currently working their way through complaints that had been received from teachers and students. Since it was only the day after the event, it seemed unlikely that they'd received all the feedback they would, but for now they were just going through the raw opinions they'd collected. In good time, they planned on sending a survey to the participants.

The review meeting wasn't particularly interesting, but it was something that had to be done. As Yoshino chewed on her fried chicken, she idly listened to the conversation flowing back and forth across her.

"You know, it's just a minor thing, but I wonder if the red card got a bit crinkled?"

Yumi-san raised her hand, and gave her report. After spending about an hour trapped between the chair's cushion and her backside, it did come out looking a little bit wrinkled. Geeze, it really was a minor detail.

"If Matsudaira Touko-san requests so, we should replace the card. Sorry to bother you Yumi-san, but if that happens would you write another one?"

When Mami-san shot a sidelong glance at Yumi-san looking for confirmation, Yoshino remarked, to no-one in particular:

"It's not like Touko-chan's going to ask to have the card replaced anyway. Yumi-san spent the whole time warming it up."

A quick glance at Yumi-san showed she felt the same, and wasn't particularly displeased by that, but then her serious face returned and she said, "But we can't know that for sure." Recently, Yumi-san had adopted a 'by-the-books' approach. As a result, the jabs made to alleviate the boredom just looked childish.

At any rate, they decided to have Noriko-chan ask Touko-chan. The likelihood of anyone using the same hiding location next year was pretty low, so there was no pressing need to develop a plan to combat 'crinkling of the card when it's between cushion and buttocks.'

"As for the yellow card. The most common complaint I heard was people didn't understand whether it's hiding place was in bounds or out of bounds. It looks like those towards the end of the line didn't hear the explanation."

At the mention of the yellow card, Yoshino's heart started to beat a little faster.

"Understood. We'll follow-up with a diagram in the next issue of the Lillian Kawaraban. We'll do the same thing for the red and white cards too."

Mami-san quickly disposed of the issue.

"There was a window of opportunity between the end of the event and when we went to collect the white card where someone could have spotted the card and taken it home. We probably should have assigned someone to watch over it."

"Then shouldn't newspaper club staff collect the cards when the announcement is made?"

"But if we did that, it would give people a clue to search near the newspaper club staff in the dying moments of the game, wouldn't it?"

"Plus the participants would follow them around, wanting to see where the cards were."

(Hmmph.)

– And so it continued, from the large to the small, Yoshino stuffed her face as the various opinions flew past her. Everyone was taking it all so seriously.

"Well, that should be about all."

Mami-san used the passing around of the after-lunch tea as an excuse to end the meeting, and Noriko-chan brought a cardboard box over from the corner of the room.

This was today's main event, the opening of the absentee's chance box. Yoshino clapped in anticipation. She'd endured the boring review meeting solely for the moment when the absentee's chance box was opened.

The box was still in the same sealed condition that it had been since the start of the treasure hunt. Mami-san didn't open the sealed mouth of the box, instead turning it over and breaking the seal on the bottom of the box (which was just done with masking tape and magic marker), before dumping the contents on to the table.

"There's two things we're looking for. The first is the name. Check that it isn't Tanuma Chisato-san or Matsudaira Touko-san. The other is the location. Anything that has carpark, or car, or Aota-sensei, or any similar keyword should be put to one side."

Everyone agreed with Mami-san's instructions, and set about the task of sifting through the entries. A lot of them had been folded to fit in the mail slot easier, and unfolding them took precious time.

(Name, name … uh)

Yoshino ran her eyes down that line of text.

(Iida, Sakashita, Matsunaga … argh, they're all wrong)

In Yoshino's case, she was checking for three names. Tanuma, Matsudaira, and Arima.

(Nana. Surely you must have entered the absentee's chance draw, right?)

Yoshino had even gone all the way to the middle-school to tell her about the treasure hunt. Nana hadn't exactly jumped at the chance, but she did say, "That sounds fun." Or maybe it had been, "That could be fun."

(Arima, Arima, where's Arima?)

Consequently, Yoshino wanted to check all the entries herself.

Of course, even if she did find Nana's entry, and Nana had written the correct location, it was too late anyway. Tanuma Chisato-san was the winner, and that was that. Even so, Yoshino still wanted to know. How much did Nana know about her? How close was she to Yoshino's thinking?

"Yoshino-san, are you looking at them properly?"

Yumi-san whispered to her.

"You're going kind of quickly."

"Ah."

Yoshino realized she'd only been checking the names, and stuck out her tongue. Because she was peeved, she didn't want to admit she'd messed up.

"First I'm doing a quick check of the names, then I'm going to go back over them and check the location."

After giving her justification, Yoshino took her stack of 'rejected' entries and set them in front of her once again.

(Inside the watering can in the old greenhouse, beneath the mat by the school building's emergency exit.)

Not in those places, nope. In her mind, Yoshino poked fun at them as she read the locations. It was a bit rude, but reading everyone's predictions when she knew the truth made her smile.

"Yoshino-san."

Shimako-san held out a piece of paper to her.

"Was this what you were worried about?"

"What's that?"

She hurriedly took it.

"…"

However.

"This."

After reading the name written there she was bewildered, in more ways than one.

– Hasekura Rei. It was Rei-chan's entry form.

"Am I wrong?"

Shimako-san asked, looking straight at her.

"Nope. Thanks."

Until right at that moment, she had forgotten about Rei-chan. Obviously not her existence, but that Rei-chan had entered into the absentee's draw.

"Library, reading room – "

Ahh, how simple. The hiding place that Rei-chan had so confidently written was the DIY corner where last year Yoshino had hunted through the cooking and handicraft books.

(Was this supposed to be a return favor for last year?)

It was really quite idiotic. Most of the books there weren't restricted to in-library use. Even though Rei-chan had hidden a card last year, she still hadn't realized that.

Yoshino let out a sigh, then returned to her task.

(Beneath the tatami mats in the martial arts building? Is this first-year a fan of mine?)

That put her in a somewhat better mood.

(On the wall in front of the staff room.)

So close. If the yellow card hadn't been found, this would definitely be a candidate. But, this was for the white card. They were looking for whoever was closest to under Aota-sensei's car in the staff parking lot.

(But is there really going to be anyone who would write that? Even guessing the parking lot would be hard.)

Just as she thought that.

"Ah!"

Yoshino called out, by reflex.

"What's the matter?"

Everyone was looking at her.

"Here, this."

Yoshino handed the piece of paper to Mami-san.

Igawa Ami.

Beneath the name of the unknown first-year.

The words, "Under a car in the staff parking lot," were written.