Chapter One

I started this on my fifteenth birthday—February 24th, 2011. I doubt anyone outside my family will ever see this, but if the time comes where someone does, I hope they like it, and can come to understand all that I'm going through right now.

I live with my mother, two younger half sisters, my step dad, and my eighteen-year-old, douche bag of a step-brother. My parents got divorced when I was 3. When I was four or five, my mom married Steve Contes—a divorced man with a son named Aaron. I kept my father's surname; Korema. I am the only one in my household that still carries that name, and I am my father's only child. He currently lives somewhere in Tennessee with his girlfriend, Autumn, and her kids. It's been about four years since I last spent any time with him. I miss him so much…

I put my diary away and took off my glasses to wipe a few tears from my face. It was true that I missed my dad. I was kind of mad that he wasn't around to help me get over all the pain Aaron caused me. He swore at me and my friends when he got angry. He yelled at our sisters for things they didn't have anything to do with. He was never fair and did unreasonable things, like make us clean when we were sick.

I had realized about a month before writing the diary entry above that my younger sisters and I had to stick together. We got along a lot better with each other than we did with Aaron. I had a feeling that they hated him as much as I did.

I picked my coat up, got out of bed, and left my room. I passed by my mom, who was sitting on the couch, without even a glance. I reached for the doorknob as I called, "I'm going to the park for a while. I'll be back before it gets dark." My mom said that she loved me, wished me a happy birthday, and I left.

I headed down the steps of our house and started walking. I lived pretty close to Central Park and loved just sitting under the trees, watching the squirrels bounce around looking for acorns. Sometimes I would bring them some walnuts. We had a tree in our yard, and it wasn't hard to grab a handful on my way. My dog loved to chase the squirrels, so I never brought her to the park… or anywhere, for that matter. My dog could not walk on a leash. She pulled on the leash so hard that she literally was able to drag us wherever she wanted to go. I guess that would be the wolf in her, trying to be the dominant member of the pack.

I entered the park and sighed. Central Park was one of the only places I felt truly happy. My house held too many memories of times when I was in emotional pain. I walked over to a tree and sunk to the ground. I pulled a small pad of blank paper and a pen out of the pocket on my black sweatshirt. I drew a chibi squirrel on the first page.

Just as I was finishing the tail, I noticed a brown squirrel sitting about five feet above my head on the tree. He was watching me draw. "Awww. Hey little guy." The squirrel chattered at me angrily. I realized that I was blocking access to a large hole in the tree with my head. I got up and moved away, letting the squirrel into his nest. I sat down under another tree with a good view of the hole and waited. The squirrel popped its head back out to look at me curiously. I could almost picture him asking, "You're still here?" I laughed quietly at the thought.

Opening my drawing pad to the next page, I drew a sparrow that was looking for worms in the grass next to the squirrel's tree. I looked around, didn't see anything that sparked my interest, and decided to pay the zoo a visit. I hadn't been to the zoo in a while. I only had to walk for about two minutes. I got stamped and excitedly went inside.

I had been to every exhibit in the zoo aside from the polar bears and the penguins. The polar bears I never went to see because at the other zoos I had seen, the polar bears just sat around on their ice flows. I had never seen the penguins because their exhibit was always too crowded. I liked to be almost alone when watching the animals. As you may have guessed, I was never much of a people person.

I decided to see how many people were packed in that day. To my surprise, there were only two people there. 'I guess not a lot of people like the cold.' I walked up to the edge of the habitat and peered in. "No wonder this place is so packed all the time," I thought aloud as I saw the four penguins for the first time. 'They're so cute!' I smiled as the smallest one swam closer to the fence. He had blue eyes that reminded me of my little sister, Katy's.

I sat down at a bench a couple yards away and watched them dive into the water. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn they waved at me. I sketched the four in my notepad a few times. When I looked up, the second shortest one was staring right at me. Even with the distance, I could tell that his eyes were a darker shade of blue; like my own.

I looked down at my papers, then back to the penguin. "You wanna see them, don't ya?" I swear, his eyes widened in shock, but I played it off as a trick of the light or something. I got back up and leaned on the fence, opening my notepad to the first sketch. The four actually gathered at the edge of their artificial ice flow to look.

I turned the pad to them. It was a sketch of the smallest one, from when he was swimming. The next sketch was of the one with the scar diving into the water. A third one followed: just the tallest one, standing, with a smile on its face. The last individual sketch was of the second shortest penguin. He was just standing still in the picture, staring straight out at the audience. That was the only one I added any color to: his eyes that reminded me of my own.

I had one more to show them, but before I could turn the page, a strong hand caught my arm and spun me around.

"Aaron!" My step brother was about six-foot-two, and pretty strong.

"What the hell are you doing here!" As he yelled, I could smell the reek of alcohol on his breath.

"You've been drinking," I hissed in disgust. He didn't get drunk often, but I knew the smell from being around some of the older kids at my school.

"So what? You need to come home." He tried to drag me along behind him, but I soon freed myself.

"Why?" I asked angrily. "It's not even getting dark yet. I told mom I would be home before dark." He glared at me. You know how I said Aaron didn't get drunk often? That's because most of the time my mom was there to stop him. She and I both knew how Aaron got when he was drunk.

The sound of the hit rang through the air. I fell on the cement, surprised he had actually slapped me. He may have been an ass, but he had never really hurt me that much. At least not physically…

I raised a hand to gingerly touch the reddening welt on my cheek. Aaron grabbed the hand and pulled me up. I was still stunned by what he had done, so I offered a lot less resistance. It wasn't just that I was stunned: I was a little afraid. The only times Aaron had ever hit me in the past were times when he thought I had really messed up.

I finally snapped out of my daze and started pulling against him again. But he had an inhuman grip on my wrist, and he didn't say a word. When we got back to the house and went inside, I was still struggling.

My mom and Steve were gone at work, but a few of my friends were gathered at our table. They yelled, "Surprise!" when we came in. The noise died down when everyone saw my situation. Aaron paid them no mind as he continues dragging me to my room. He threw me in and locked the door behind me. From behind my door, I could hear him telling all my friends to go home.

I felt my face burning with anger and shame. The anger was for him breaking up my birthday party and slapping me. The shame was there because before then, almost all of my friends had been convinced (by me) that it was nothing to really worry about. Now they knew about the things that went on in my house. They would probably try to comfort me the next day at school. I didn't want, or need, their pity.

I felt a coolness on my cheeks and found that I was crying. I rarely cried anymore, but at that moment I just let it go. I didn't care anymore. I lay down on my bed and cried for almost two hours. I slowly stopped caring about my life, my friends, and my family. By then it was dark in the house, and everyone was asleep. Aaron had unlocked my door about an hour before, so I was able to sneak out of my room. I grabbed a butcher knife out of the set on top of the fridge, then returned to my room.

'It would be so easy to just give up…' I pulled the knife across my left wrist quickly. Before I could repeat the action, something tackled me to the ground. The knife slipped from my hand and landed a few feet away. I threw my attacker off and scrambled for the knife to defend myself. I picked it up and turned around. There was no one there… until I looked down. 'Penguins?' Not just any penguins. I noticed the smallest one's eyes.

"You!" I hissed quietly. I really didn't feel that waking Aaron up right then would be good for my health. The second shortest one flew at me and knocked me onto my back. The knife somehow flew out of my hand again and got stuck in the wall. 'Damn it,' I mentally cursed. I was about to voice my opinion aloud when the tallest penguin walked over and put some headphones on me. I almost passed out when I heard the second shortest one speak.

"What the hell were you thinking, kid? Rico!" All I could do was stare as the second tallest one, apparently Rico, threw up a first aid kit. He handed it to the tallest one, to my left, who pulled out an ace bandage and pushed it in my face. I didn't move a muscle. The tallest penguin sighed. As he reached for my still bleeding wrist, my defensive instincts flew into action.

I grabbed his outstretched flipper with my right hand and threw him gently to the side, simultaneously sweeping the second shortest one off my stomach. In a flash I was up. I put my hands on my bed, cart-wheeled over, and turned around. Now my bed was between me and them. I pulled the weird head set off and asked, "What the hell is this?" I shook the headphones at them for effect.

Instead of an answer, the tallest one started squawking angrily at me. I put the headphones back on. "Be careful with those!" he yelled.

"Be quiet!" I hissed in reply. "My step brother is asleep, and will be majorly pissed if he gets woken up." The second shortest one looked at me accusingly.

"Oh, so now you care what happens?"

I looked guiltily at my wrist. It was dripping blood onto my—luckily—dark red carpet. I put a hand up and motioned for the tallest one to throw me the ace bandage. I caught the wrap, bandaged my wrist, and stared curiously at the four penguins in my room.

"I must be going crazy," I sighed wiping a hand slowly down my face. "I'm talking to a bunch of penguins." The apparent leader of the group hopped up onto my bed.

"If you tell anyone what happened here tonight, you'll end up regretting it," he threatened. Then the four hopped out my open window and disappeared into the night. I laughed.

"Yeah, right. Like I would ever tell anyone that, 'last night, some ninja penguins busted into my room and stopped me from trying to kill myself!' What a laugh!" I tried to brush some hair out of my face when I noticed, "Hey… They forgot the head set."

Now, I may not seem like a technological genius, but I could take apart a radio and hand you back a small robot in twenty-five minutes flat.

I opened up a metal panel on one side and took out the microchip. Then I got to work. By the time I was done, I had two small, neon green ear buds. When I put them in and looked in the mirror, I almost couldn't see them. I smiled and went to sleep, planning on a visit to the penguins the next day.