In this short scene, we are introduced to the protagonist, a girl named Karuta, who is in her fourth- and fifth-grade classes in Tochigi Prefecture. Karuta is the protagonist's older sister, and she has been attending the same school as the protagonist since the beginning of the school year. The protagonist tells his sister that he does not know how to play the game of karuta because he has never played it before. She tells him that his older sister is much older than him, and that he is a year younger than her. She also tells the protagonist that her older brother, a boy named Taichi, has been playing the game the past few days, but that he has not spoken to anyone in the class since he came to the school. When the protagonist asks if the other students have been making any progress on the game, he is told that they have only been making progress because they have been memorizing the words on the cards. He also tells them that the prize for the most chatter is a book, and he asks them to take their seats. He tells the girls that they need to learn how to think before they speak. He then tells them about a tournament that takes place every year in the fourth grade, in which the students have to memorize 100 poems in three rows. The poems are divided into two halves, and the first half is printed on a card and the second half is only printed on the card. Each poem has to be memorized. The first half of the poem must be read out first. The second half must also be memorized, and each of the 100 poems has to have been read out in the order in which it was first read out. Each of the poems is divided into three rows and the poems are written out in two halves. The poem with the most memorized words is read first, and only the memorized poem is read out again. The students decide that they will not let the boy in because he is cheating, and they decide to let him back in because it is an absurd bet. The narrator tells the story of how he and his older brother played the game back in the day, and how they hid their glasses so that they could not see each other. When they tried to play again, however, they were unable to find their glasses, so they decided not to play.