Arisukawa Fumi (10 years old) met Alice Allwyn (10 years old) when she was taken by her father to the private residence in Yokohama of Mr. Bertram Allwyn, a British trader. When both their fathers were deep in their business discussions, the girls played... sometimes in a sunny little hall, and sometimes they would slip out of the mansion very quietly and play in a nearby forest.
"I will call you 'Aris'. And you can call me Alice. It's so confusing, it's really funny!"
At the beginning, Aris kept being perplexed by Alice's tomboy character, but then gradually she felt more comfortable and she opened up her heart. This was the spring of 1930. A period of unrest was only just round the corner, but at the time, the world of these little girls was still full of flowery and shiny things.