The next morning, there really was an extra sheet of paper on Class One's windowsill.
It was not on the wall or beside the duty roster. A small stone held it down at the right corner of the windowsill. Its edges lifted gently in the wind, like a hand that had not fully woken up. When Naruto entered, he did not spot it at first. He saw that his desk was still there and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Kiyo followed behind him, checking his shoelaces and forehead protector first, then the aisle, before finally following Che's gaze to the windowsill.
"Why isn't that paper posted up?" Kiyo asked.
Iruka happened to walk in through the door and set the attendance book on the teacher's desk.
"Because today, you need to learn to see it first," he said. "Not every reminder will be posted right in the middle of the wall."
Naruto immediately hurried over to the window. "I saw it!"
"Seeing it does not mean understanding it," Iruka said. "Don't touch it yet."
Naruto's hand stopped in midair, just short of the little stone. He pulled it back, looking as though he had just lost to a piece of paper. Standing beside him, Kiyo cautiously asked, "Is it a trap?"
"It's a notice."
"Why does a notice look like a trap?"
"Because you missed three scraps of paper yesterday," Iruka said.
Someone in the classroom laughed, and Naruto immediately turned to look at Kiyo. Kiyo looked back at him, and they spoke almost at the same time.
"You were sweeping."
"You were wiping!"
Iruka tapped the desk. "So today, you will learn to recognize things first. Recognize people, positions, tools, and also who is likely to push responsibility onto the person beside them."
That line suppressed some of