When they returned to East Corridor that afternoon, an old cardboard box had appeared beside the lectern.
The box was not large, and one of its corners was slightly crushed. It still carried the faint scent of the medicinal herbs it had once held. Kiyo spotted it first, circled it halfway, and did not dare touch it.
"Is it a notice too?" he asked.
Teacher Mizuno set her notebook on the desk. "No. It's a lost-and-found box."
Naruto had just reached the doorway. Hearing those words, he immediately poked his head in. "What's lost?"
"Things that were dropped, forgotten, or have no one to claim them," Teacher Mizuno said. "From now on, Class One in the morning and East Corridor in the afternoon—if anyone finds something, put it here first. Write down where and when you found it."
Kiyo lowered his head to look at his shoelaces. "Do living things go in too?"
"Not people," Teacher Mizuno said.
"What about shoelaces?"
"They're on your feet."
A small ripple of laughter went through the classroom. Kiyo pulled his feet back as if afraid Teacher Mizuno would really register them as lost property.
A small note was stuck to the box, bearing the words "Lost and Found." The handwriting was neat, and three blank lines lay beneath it. Teacher Mizuno had everyone check through the things they had brought back from the morning, looking for anything extra, anything that did not belong to them, or anything whose origin they did not know.
Naruto immediately dumped his pencil case onto the desk.
Pencil stubs, an eraser, rice ball wrappers, two notes, and a little wooden chip that had somehow found its way inside all rolled out. The moment Kiyo saw the chip, he pointed at it. "That definitely isn't yours."
Naruto picked it