The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya Read Online Free Page A

school?
    “Yeah, she was determined to do it even if it killed her. But the student council people just wanted to get her to the hospital right away, and she wound up getting carried off like an alien bound for Area Fifty-One. Push came to shove, and they wound up by the shoe lockers.”
    How did she propose to perform in that condition?
    “By sheer willpower.”
    Sounds like something you’d do.
    “I mean, they’d practiced so hard for this day. It’s one thing if she were the only one who was going to suffer if it went to waste—but wasting the efforts of your friends too? That’s awful.”
    You make it sound like it was your own efforts.
    “And the songs too—they weren’t generic cover songs, but originals the group had written and composed themselves. You’ve just got to perform them, right? If the sheet music could talk, it’d say, ‘Play me!’ ”
    So that’s when you decided to roll up your sleeves and do something about it.
    “Didn’t have any sleeves, but yeah. The student council festival committee is nothing but a bunch of incompetents who do whatever the teachers tell them, so you can’t just let them push you around. But… even I knew there was no way the band leader was going onstage in her condition. So that’s when I said, ‘How about I go onstage instead?’ ”
    I can’t believe the bassist and drummer went along with it.
    “The singing part was easy. The sick band leader thought about it for a second and then said, ‘Yeah, you might be able to do it.’ She had a tired-looking smile.”
    There isn’t a North High student who doesn’t know who Haruhi is, and what kind of girl.
    “But then a teacher had to hurry off to the hospital with the band leader, and I started frantically trying to learn the chords from a demo tape and the sheet music. I only had an hour, after all.”
    So what about Nagato?
    “Yeah, I wish I could’ve played the guitar too, but there just wasn’t enough time. It was all I could do to learn the melody, so I wound up asking Yuki to handle the guitar. Did you know she was such an all-around player?”
    As a matter of fact, I do know that—better than you do.
    “I crashed her fortune-telling stall, and when I told her the circumstances, she came right away. She just took one look at the sheet music, then played it perfectly! Where do you think she learned guitar?”
    Probably right on the spot, as soon as you asked her to.
    A couple of days later, on the following Monday—
    The school festival, complete with its unscheduled events, had ended. It was the break before fourth period.
    Haruhi sat behind me, happily scribbling something down in her notebook. I didn’t particularly want to know what it was, but I knew Haruhi was pleased by the audience the SOS Brigade’s foray into independent filmmaking had managed to reach, and she seemed to be plunging into the planning of the sequel as I agonized over how to banish such notions from her head.
    “You’ve got visitors.”
    It was Kunikida who’d said so, having returned from the bathroom.
    “For Suzumiya,” he added.
    Haruhi looked up and saw Kunikida point to the doorway, thus fulfilling his duties as a messenger boy. He returned to his seat.
    Three female students stood outside the open door, poised and mature. One of them had her arm in a sling.
    “Haruhi,” I said.
    I gestured with my chin toward the door.
    “Looks like they have something to say to you. Better go see.”
    “Mmm.”
    Haruhi seemed strangely hesitant. She stood slowly but did not immediately walk. Finally she wound up saying this:
    “Kyon, you come too.”
    Before I could protest, she grabbed me by the collar and hauled me with her absurd strength right out of the classroom. The three upperclassmen girls giggled at the sight.
    Haruhi forced me to stand right next to her.
    “Is your tonsillitis better?” she asked the one girl, whom I was just now meeting for the first time.
    “Yes, mostly,” she answered in a voice that was