Much revised and extended.
   Comments welcome of course. Please. :) Again, does Utena sound right, or
is the conversational tone overdone?
   A-ko's last name changed to Saito (as in Chiho).
---
Your Highness,

   What time am I writing this at? 1 o'clock. That's how long it's taken to
stop shaking enough for me to be even able to write this, never mind getting
to bed. That and I have classes in the morning. I know I'll be like the
walking dead in class tomorrow if I don't get to sleep like RIGHT NOW, but
the fact is if I don't write this to you it'll replay in my head all night
and I won't sleep at all, and I'll be even worse in the morning.

   Shoot, where do I begin?

   Anthy. She's in bed right now, sleeping like a baby like nothing happened
at all. That I envy her.

   Yeah, I know. It usually begins with Anthy. You must be getting really
bored with me writing as much about what she does as about what I do, your
Highness. I'd probably wish you'd talk about something else too. I guess I
must sound like a girl in love, or something, like Wakaba gushing about
Saionji or her "darling Utena." (Don't laugh--it gets old after a while, at
least if you're me. I almost wish she _would_ get hitched with Saionji, just
so she'd cut that out stuff out. But you're not me. You're a prince, so I
guess being adored by girls is something you just had to learn to live with,
right?)

   Did I say a girl in love? Did I really?

   No, wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. Where was I?

   Right, Anthy. Never a dull moment with her around. You must have thought
you'd heard it all--how she'll be happy as a calm watching Micky Kaoru's
metronome go back and forth for hours on end, or the Home Shopping Network
(talk about easily amused)--her shaved ice dinners--that darn curry--the
pencil-box full of snails--the mongoose (can she keep that thing as a
pet?--well, if she can keep Chuchu, I guess...)--the inflatable octopus
(it's things like those make me convinced this Rose Bride stuff's a crock
really--she won't do _everything_ she's told, there's a mind in there
somewhere, but I still haven't figured out how it works--I'm quite sure I
told her it wasn't cool to keep a live mongoose in an enclosed space like a
_drawer_, for crying out loud)--and so on and so on and so on.

   You thought you'd heard it all? Well, I thought I'd seen it all. God, _I_
feel like slapping her sometimes. She acts like a child, or like she comes
from Mars. "Not of this world" doesn't begin to describe her. If she
actually told me she was from the planet Kashira like the characters in
those weird shadow-plays Eiko Saito and her gang in the theatre club are
always putting on, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

   From Mars. That reminds me--now I know where to begin. I'd actually been
wondering for a while about her, about her folks, where she comes from. Near
the end of lunch, today, just before lit. class, don't know why but I
figured I'd ask. So I go and ask her, just to make conversation, "Say,
Anthy, just out of curiosity--your folks from around here?" Because she
always looked kind of exotic--I've told you that, right. Himemiya's a
japanese name, but maybe her mother was foreign?

   Okay, okay, not like Anthy'll ever give you a straight answer--but I had
to try. 

   She just kind of smiled nervously, and didn't say anything--that I
expected, but just how nervous she was I didn't, She looked like, "Crap!
I've been found out!" or some darn thing. I was going to ask if I'd said
something wrong, but then there was a message over the intercom asking will
Anthy Himemiya come to the principal's office?

   Anthy got right up. Guess she was glad to be off the hook. I heard people
muttering. Why's Anthy going to the office? Not like she gets in trouble.
She's really shy and quiet. Keeps to herself mostly. Yeah, like every axe
murderer you ever read about! Giggles. Kind of ticked me off, but Anthy
mustn't have heard. Or just didn't care; not like she doesn't get it all the
time.

   I had to ask what she thought the principal wanted.

   "I don't know, Miss Utena," she answered. "But whatever it is I suppose
it must be important." 

   And she picks up Chuchu (he generally sleeps in her desk during the day)
and just leaves without a word. Me I just kind of watched her leave, and
must have spaced out, I guess, because next thing I knew Wakaba was shaking
me and asking if I thought she had failed the mythology test we'd had to
take last week (we got it back today).

   So I'm like, "Uh, yeah. I wouldn't worry about it. Say, do you know if
Anthy's mom is foreign, Wakaba?"

   And she goes, "Anthy's mom is foreign? Hm..." and she makes a big show of
looking thoughtful. Maybe she was being silly because my question was weird,
or something. Guess she never thought about it. Finally she says, "I dunno.
Maybe she's from Africa or something."

   "Africa?"

   "Yeah. Isn't she, like, black?"

   "Black? She's not black!"

   "Well, she's got the right complexion..."

   "It's not _that_ dark! I think..." I mean, she didn't look like the black
people I'd seen on TV. Now I think of it, she doesn't look much like she
comes from anywhere.

   So Wakaba gets up and says, "Maybe the Three Stooges know!" She meant
Suzuki, Yamada, and Tanaka. They were in their little corner of the class,
talking about either Gundam or Nanami Kiryu. Not like I heard what they were
talking about, but that's all they seem to ever talk about. Creepy as heck.
That and they could be triplets. 

   So she goes to the Three Stooges and asks, "Say, you guys, do you know
where Anthy's folks are from?"

   They gave her a kind of weird look. Guess they didn't know either. They
had lots of ideas about where she might be from, mind you.

   "Maybe she's Indian, or something," said Suzuki. "Don't Indian girls have
those dots in the middle of their heads?"

   "I think those are stuck on, guys," I said. I was beginning to be sorry I
asked.

   "Hey, that's it! Maybe she's the reincarnation of the Buddha!"

   "Oh yeah, right!" I said.

   "Don't be a dumbass," said Tanaka all of a sudden, and boy did he look
intense. "Anthy's not an Indian name."

   "Sure sounds like it," Suzuki said.

   "Yeah," said Yamada, who sounded a little puzzled. "What sort of a name
is Anthy anyway? Maybe she's like an Arab or something..."

   "It's not 'Anthy,' it's 'Anthe'e.' It's French," Tanaka said, standing up
and folding his arms, really dramatically--he was really getting into this,
you could tell. "But ultimately, it comes from the Greek 'Anthea.' So you're
not far of the mark, Yamada. She may be from the Levant, but from Greece,
not Arabia or  Palestine. In other words..."

   Dramatic pause. You could almost hear a drumroll in the background. It
was that corny.

   "She is in fact Anthea, Goddess of Roses, come to visit us from Mount
Olympus!" Amazing how funny the guys seemed to think it was. Even Wakaba
giggled. Maybe it was the delivery, or something. Me I was just like, "Hey,
you guys, can we stop?"

   They didn't of course. Too late for that.

   "Guess who got a hundred on the test!" said Yamada. Tanaka made a show of
being embarrassed and saying "aw, shucks" and stuff.

   "I dunno. I prefered her as the Buddha," said Suzuki.

   "I have a compromise, men," said Yamada. "I say she's Kaguya-hime, the
Princess of the Gods of the Moon!" More laughter.

   "Will you cut it out, already!" I said. A bit too loudly, I guess. It
didn't work.

   The teacher coming in did. "Pipe down! Playtime's over. Stand up! Bow!
Sit! I have your tests, and as usual they're a disgrace!" We'd been so
occupied talking about it that nobody'd noticed the bell ring. Don't know
what that means. Maybe it meant that really it wasn't just me that wondered
a lot about Anthy. But the point is, nobody seemed to know.

   Anthy came back in just in time to be marked present. We got the tests
back. I could tell by the way she pouted that she'd failed even before she
told me. I got a 90! (Yes!) Dunno what Anthy got. She's not that good at
school, but tests don't seem to phase her at all. She'll just take the paper
and put it in her bag without even looking at the grade sometimes, so I
guess even she doesn't know, if she even cares. You'd think with Micky
helping her so much she would care. I mean, I told you she seems to like
him. Making people you're supposed to like work for no reason isn't cool, right?

   So at the end of the class the tecaher leaves and the moment she's out
the door Wakaba jumps on me and starts to wail, and she's like "Waaah! I
flunked! I'll never pass this class! My life is OVER!"

   I'm like, "Hey, hey, you don't have to cry about it, you know..."

   And she's blubbering and stuff and says, "I'm sorry, Utena, I just need a
shoulder to cry on right now..."

   Then she looks up and looks all happy. "I know! You awnna come over to my
dorm for dinner? Huh huh huh?" Just like that. And I'm like, "Well, I,
uh..." Not like I didn't want to, just I was a bit overwhelmed. I'm like
that a lot around Wakaba.

   And then she says, "Come on! You must be pretty sick of the Moon
Princess's shaved ice by now, right? You must be _starving!_"

   "Wakaba! That was really rude, calling her that right in front of her!" I
said, because Anthy sits right beside me (Wakaba's a few rows in front).
"You think she doesn't have feelings?"

   Not to mention it isn't true. Anthy can't cook much in the way of dinner
food, but her breakfasts rule She ought to be running a cafe or something.

   "It was?" Wakaba said, blinking and looking all confused. Like she didn't
know what she'd said! I couldn't believe she was even still thinking about
that! "Oh, I'm sorry, Anthy, I didn't mean..."

   "Miss Utena," Anthy said, "if you don't mind, I have to be somewhere this
evening myself. Is it all right?"

   And I'm like, "Uh, I guess it is...well, Wakaba, guess I'm coming over
after all. No point staying home..."

   Of course Wakaba jumped on me again. "Hurray!"

   Yes, Your Highness, this has a point. It meant more later on. First
though I need a cup of tea. Let's see if Anthy left any in the pot.

---

   Hey, what do you know? She did! Heh. She thinks of everything.

   You know, maybe that maens she thought I'd be shaken up tonight. But I'm
getting ahead of myself.

   Anyway, like I said, I thought I'd seen it all. So I guess I shouldn't
have been as surprised as I was when I came home to find a girl I didn't
recognize dressed like Eve (or Venus, depending on which part of the
Mediterranean you have your villa, Your Highness) standing on the East Dorm
balcony enjoying the warm summer evening.

[...]

I am, Sir, 
Your obedient servant,
Utena Tenjo.

---
Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu