Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/266

256 jealousy since he was unusually intelligent, and was generally at the top of the class. He combined the extremes of cleverness and poverty. In this we were strongly contrasted, for I was remarkable neither for brains nor poverty. I was his only friend and whenever he got behind with his school fees I would offer part of my allowance as a matter of course.

Yes, in that class-room at the foot of those hills, with our desks side by side, we were as inseparable as twins.

From the hills you could see the sea. We two boys would often climb up and, lying down facing that blue paint-dish of sea under the sky, try vainly to throw stones into it, or hallo down at it the duet “River of Love” in voices strangely out of tune.

One day, under a wild briar bush, we found a snake eating a grass-green frog. Out of the open jaws of the snake only the little suckers on the end of the frog’s hind legs stuck out, waving as if sending out S.O.S. signals. I noticed Sakai’s eyebrows twitch, and then he let fly with his dusty boot and kicked the snake fiercely right in the belly. Then, squashing it with his heel, he watched it intently as a thin trickle of crimson blood came out of the yellow distended mouth.

“The devil,” he snarled.

The frog had been rescued and it lay motionless on the grass with the snake’s slimy saliva still clinging to it.

“The rotten devil,” he repeated.