マリア様がみてる
子羊たちの休暇

Maria-sama ga Miteru:
Kohitsuji-tachi no Kyuka

(Maria Sama is watching:
Vacation of the Lambs)

 

 

"How beautiful the colors match!"
The sidedishes slanted a little to the side of the container, but Sachiko-sama squinted her eyes enchanted. For quite some time her gaze stayed fixed on the box. Just as Yumi thought she was about to close the lid with satisfaction, she eventually picked a bacon roll with asparagus and cheese at its toothpick, and put it between her lips.

"How, how is it?"
"Delicious."
Turning very spirited, Yumi started to fork fried fish and petit tomatoes and serve Onee-sama with her whole heart.

"Onee-sama, which type of riceball seaweed is your favorite?"
"Seaweed?"
"Crunchy ones or moist ones. My mom has been fretting about which type to use..."
Yumi opened the contained stuffed with only riceballs.
"...and she made both types in the end."
There were two dark riceballs already wrapped using seaweed, and there were two white riceballs that were left as they were. Four riceballs in total. As a compliment to the white riceball set, seaweeds were put in a plastic bag together with the zipper bag.

"What is inside?"
"Umeboshi (梅干し). In hot days, my home has the set menu of umeboshi for food preservation. Oh yeah, it works for car sickness as well... So, which type do you want? The crunchy ones or the moist ones?"
"Whichever is fine. Now that you mention it, convenience stores seem to have both types in stock recently, don't they?"
Sachiko-sama took a piece of seaweed out of the bag, and use it to pick up one white riceball. It seems that Aunt Sayako still frequents convenience stores.

Sachiko-sama took one riceball and one bite of every sidedish, and that ended her breakfast in the car. Yumi, who feels hungry every time after exercise, also took one moist seaweed riceball and some sidedishes as her meal. It looked bad that only they were eating, so they offered the driver some food as well, but the driver politely refused because his hands could not be set free.

"But that was so delicious. There would be a break time at the highway, so maybe I would help myself with some more at that time."
"Or maybe when the car gets stuck in some traffic jam."
Sachiko-sama smilingly spread open a lap blanket.
"Thinking about that, I can hardly wait for the originally annoying traffic jams!"
Apart from his words, the driver's handled the steering wheel smoothly.

 

Copyright 2003 Konno Oyuki / Shueisha
(C) 2003 今野緒雪・集英社
Translation v1.0 OTYAKU.COM
All rights reserved for original author and translator