But the real show happened after the episode.
The little girls in the lobby began to cry. Some ran away. One threw her autograph book at the screen.
That laugh was Leo’s secret fuel.
His grandmother, a stoic survivor of the post-war years, would shuffle in, fanning herself. "You're watching that racket again?"
But something was wrong. The crowd of little girls was still there, but they weren't shrieking. They were… silent. The Do Re Mi Fa Girl was there too, but she wasn't smiling. Her perfect hair was a little flat. Her enormous eyes looked small. She was holding a microphone, but her hand was trembling.
Leo felt a cold, hard stone drop into his stomach. He knew Kenji was right. But knowing felt like a betrayal.
One sweltering Thursday, his cousin Kenji, a cynical high schooler with a bleached streak in his hair, caught him watching. "You're pathetic," Kenji said, grabbing the remote. "It's all fake. The songs are written by a committee of old men. The ladybug is a guy in a suit. And that laugh? She practices it in a mirror."