[1989: pp. 22–23]
[2003: pp. 26–27]
STARRING CAST 3
YOUR FRIEND WITH SIMILAR POWERS ¹
One ought to have strength of body and strength of force. However, you could say the most important thing for an adventurer to have is strength of heart to believe in something.
ANA
Age: 12
Height: 143 cm [about 4' 8"]
Weight: 36 kg [about 79 lbs]
Blood Type: B
Hair Color: Blonde
Sign: Capricorn
Hymns in a Cradle
Ana's Scrapbook
One year, on the snowy night before Christmas Eve, the bell of the Snowman church rang twice. Every person in town knew it wasn't because the pastor misread the calendar. If it was a boy, there'd be one ring. If a girl, there'd be two.
"Seems like there was a birth over at the pastor's."
"It's a girl, apparently."
"It's at the church. How 'bout..."
"What say we go see?"
... This was the conversation of the atheists the next morning.
The girl was named Ana, and she grew quickly listening to hymns. The golden-haired young lady who played organ in the light of stained glass was the pride of the residents of Snowman.
"Sounds like leisure time."
"Yeah, guess so."
"It's at the church. How 'bout maybe..."
"What say we go see?"
... This was the conversation of the atheists five years later.
You could probably say that Ana's docile and gentle personality was fostered by her parents' affection and the townspeople's warmth. Before long, when Ana had reached the higher grades in elementary school, it got to where she was called, by the small children in town, the "Little Mother". To kids who were only a little younger than herself, who would gather for Sunday School at the church, she would teach songs and read to them from a favorite book of hers, The Little Prince.
What is My Mysterious Power to be Used for?
A Day in the Life of Ana
I want to stay in bed all day, just this one day. ... That was how Ana felt in her heart, and this coming from a girl who loved to wake up early and tread the footprint-free, pure-white snow.
You see, today was frog dissection at school. Sure, she felt the way most girls do ("frogs aren't something I'll touch"), there was that, but what Ana was really worried about was the frogs themselves. ...
That day, Ana stayed home from school. She really did break out in a fever. The next day, when she learned about the talk of the whole school — "The Great Frog Escape" — Ana was overjoyed.
And at the same time, she showed regret. "Whoops, there I go again" ... she thought. A mysterious power, which if possible she'd like to get by without using, appears to reside in Ana, in spite of herself.
What a girl like her does to snap out of it is have music time. She goes into the music room earlier than usual, sits in front of the piano, and practices Mozart. It isn't long before her now-gathered friends begin voicing their requests, and Mozart becomes Catherine Warwick. Then, before they know it, the teacher comes up behind them, and in answer to the new voice saying, "Now, what say we close out this recital?" Ana sticks her tongue out in a raspberry.
On the way home from school, Ana hears a voice from the thick grass say, "I owe you one, dear Ana." Naturally (one can only guess), it's telepathy coming from a frog. "Next time you get caught," Ana answers in her heart, "it's none of my concern," then breaks into a slight jog and hurries home to help her mother, who's likely sewing bedsheets.
HER FAVORITE THINGS
Piano
This was right after Ana started elementary school, but the teacher assigned a written essay for homework, only for the young girl to ask: "It it OK if I write it on the piano?" The teacher's answer, of course, was a blank "???" To Ana, a piano melody is simply words of another kind.
Bible
Ever since she was too little to understand what was written in it, Ana apparently sensed the purity contained in the Bible. Also, when she learned of what was written on the last page in her father's handwriting — For Our Newborn ANA — this special piece of literature became that much more of a precious treasure to her.
Ribbon
When Ana puts on a hat, it's a "special outing". Normally she ties ribbons in her hair. Since she gathers her hair all up together when she plays the organ in the chapel, she'll wear only one rather long ribbon then.
Stamp Collection
Used stamps make their way to Ana from her classmates and the kids in Sunday School. Ana is currently using her round candy tin full of stamps to subsidize her volunteer work.
Envelope Collection
Unlike her stamp collection, Ana's envelope collection is for herself. Of course, she also loves to mail letters to her closest friends using envelopes she's fond of. Putting herself in her correspondents' shoes, she takes longer choosing the envelope and stationery than she does to write the actual letter.
"I'm Home!" Record
When Ana gets home from school, she feels like listening to her Akiko Yano record, which was sent to her by Yoshie, her penpal from Japan. It's one of the treasured possessions of a girl who may not understand a foreign country's language, but has the mysterious ability to comprehend what a piano is trying to say.
¹ The header here is in English to begin with, and it actually reads "YOUR FRIEND OF MIND", but I took the liberty of "fixing" it. Since the writers don't appear to have been fluent in English, and the concepts of mind and heart are often interchangeable in Japanese, this is my best guess at what they were aiming for.
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