The Waters of Tokusho

The students were all sent home during the 4th period today. Water-related emergency. But not like this:

During the morning meeting, the vice principal mentioned something about some of the toilets being out of order. At lunchtime, there was a lot of chatter in the staffroom, and when I went off to my fourth period class there was an instruction over the PA system for students to remain in their classrooms. The JTE and I had only gotten five minutes into the class when there was another announcement for the students to stay in the classrooms and for the teachers to return to the staffroom. We left the class and headed back downstairs. Another teacher ushered us to hurry along from just outside the staffroom door. It was like a bomb was about to go off or something. I started to wonder if they were trying to trap the kids in their classes before releasing poison gas on them. At any rate, if it was related to the water business, I assumed for it to be urgent enough for us to be rushed back from our classes, it would have to be at least

if not

Sadly, the reality was less interesting. Once all the teachers had made it back to the staffroom, the vice principal explained that now a large number of the toilets and other water-based facilities were not working. I think they had had some plumbers in or something, but their digging around had caused further problems. I think they must have hired some real

Anyway, since there was no running water in the school, they decided it was necessary to send the students home. I imagine this was to stop any nasty accidents caused by lack of toilet facilities.