The next morning, when I arrived at the school, the principal told me he had found a chicken impaled on the fence. I shook my head in disbelief. It seemed as if it was never going to stop.
Later that day, during the lunch break, the children were playing in the yard and it was my turn to supervise them. I noticed one boy who was close to me suddenly stop in his tracks and look up at the sky.
"It's Hisaruki," he said.
The message was passed around the playground from child to child, like a game of Chinese Whispers.
"Hisaruki"... "Hisaruki"... "Hisaruki"...
As I watched in disbelief, one by one, the children stopped playing and covered their eyes with their hands. Some of them were standing and others were crouching, but all of them were motionless. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, but the uneasy silence sent a chill down my spine.
I knelt down in front of the boy nearest to me and said, "I don't see anything. Who is Hisaruki?"
The boy didn't answer me, so I pulled his hands away from his eyes.
"I want to know," I said sternly. "Who is Hisaruki?"
"I don't know," the boy muttered as he tried to cover his eyes again.
I grabbed his wrists and stopped him.
"Tell me!" I demanded. "Who is Hisaruki?"
The boy stuck out the index fingers on both of his hands and raised them up in front of my face. Then, all of a sudden, he tried to jab them into my eyes. It took me by surprise, but luckily I was able to move my head to the side and dodge the attack.
Before I had a chance to react, the boy broke free from my grasp and started jabbing his fingers into his own eyes. I wrestled him to the ground and desperately tried to stop him poking his own eyes out.
"Someone help me!" I screamed.
One of the other teachers came running over and together, we managed to subdue the boy. We took him to hospital and the doctors managed to save his eyes.
After that, the animals stopped appearing on the spikes on the iron fence. None of the children mentioned "Hisaruki". Now and then, I would see them covering their eyes when they were outside in the playground, but I just tried to ignore it.
Occasionally, I still find small lizards and insects impaled on the iron fence, but I choose to ignore that as well. I never questioned any of the children about "Hisaruki" again. There are some things you just don't want to know...
