Chapter 1:To my new life

(Nomaru' s POV)

My mother woke me up when our plane landed. Now, we were driving a rental car to our new home. I wasn't nervous about starting the seventh grade at a new school, since it would go the same way back at Panyack. Mom would lecture me not to act weird and to make friends, I would end up being weird and never make friends, I would get negative attention that would be reflected onto my mother and she would say, "I just got a new job promotion!" as an excuse to leave and not be humiliated any further.

The reason for it is I can talk to the dead. Not dead people. The dead. That includes animals. My best guess is I got these powers on the day of my birth. Mainly because on that day when the doctor announced,"It's a girl", the power went out all over town, wolves started to howl a cry of remorse, a storm of the worst kind formed in the center of town square, my hair turned white, my eyes became a crimson red and at the end of it all, a cloud shaped like a skull appeared in the sky and disappeared just as fast.

"We're here", my mother suddenly announced. We didn't get along well. Mainly because we were so opposite, people believed I was adopted. My mom has straight black hair with dark brown eyes and olive skin. Just to clear things up, she and I are Japanese. In fact, my mom's name is Suiren, which means water lily. Today, she was wearing a blue v-neck and some jeans with flip flops.

My hair is still a ghostly white, but as it grew out, it turns out the bottom of my hair is a red so light, it became a baby pink. My eyes are still crimson red and due to my albinism, there is no pigments in my skin so it's almost as pale as my hair. My name is ironic since Nomaru is Japanese for normal. And I'm everything but. Today, I wore a black tank top with denim shorts and sneakers with my hair tied in two high pigtails.

I sighed at her response and said, "I forget. Where are we?"

"Why sweetie. This is Blithe Hollow."

"Pft. Sounds like it was named by Ichabod Crane," I scoffed.

She faked an awkward laugh. "Close. This town was founded and built by the pilgrims when they first set foot on the soil."

"Was this before or after they killed a crap ton of Native Americans?"

Instead of answering, she sighed and got out of the car to help the movers with the stuff. Luckily for us, we didn't have to pay them since they pitied us. After all, when I was born, my father left mom in the dust screaming I was a bad omen (REAL superstitious guy.). Mother knew this, but she took care of me anyway. Not out of love, probably, but out of pity instead, which was why we never could connect. She thought I was crazy and never loved me and I knew and accepted it. Kind of sad when you say it out loud.

I decided to get out as well and tell everyone where to put what. But then, something green flashed in my peripheral vision. When I faced this unknown object, it was a ghost of a raccoon floating over its body that was flattened to the width of paper. It pointed at its body and used its eyes to plead to me. He wanted me to bury him. I grinned at the idea.

Since I could see the dead for as long as I lived, they asked me to do them favors so they could rest in peace. I did these things for complete strangers because they were fun. One time, an old ghost man asked me to tell his wife to roll down the car windows. You should've seen how creeped out she was. It was funny. Most of the time though, I'm asked to find the deceased a final resting place. Like right now. I nodded to the creature and ran over to the moving van. Once there, I dug through boxes until I found my shovel and the strap that allows me to carry it on my back.

"Nomaru?"

'Damn it', I thought when my mother came up to me.

She tilted her head to the side when she demanded, "Honey, don't. We've talked about this. Once someone or something is dead, you need to leave them alone."

"But mom", I interjected, "It asked me to do this. Plus, I'm doing community service since the corpse will start to smell, rot and be the cause of a bunch of traumatized kids if I don't do this."

One of the movers called out her name and mom's brows furrowed with irritation. "Fine", she said before heading back to our furniture. I knew that this was a dare and not permission, but I took it anyway!

"Where do you want your final resting place?" I asked the ghost. His eyes flashed with happiness while he dragged me along to a nice flat area in the ground. I shrugged and started digging. Once I made the hole a decent sized one, I scooped the body up with the shovel and gently lyed the corpse down into the hole and placed the dug up earth over it. After paying my respects, the ghost smiled and waved me good bye. I waved back before his soul went up to the heavens.

I stared at the sky for a while until I felt a pair of eyes on me. I turned around to find a rather weird boy (If I can say that without being a hypocrite) that was my age. He was about nine inches taller than me (I'm so short, it's sad) with black, almost brown, hair that literally spiked up to the sky. Seriously, it's as if he's hanging upside all the time. He stared at me with bored light blue eyes. He wore a red hoodie, a pair of jeans and sneakers.

I tilted my head and asked, "Can I help you stranger?"

He shrugged.

"Then what's bothering you?" I continued.

He responded, "Nothing's bothering me. It's just…"

"What?"

"Your hair is weird."

My eye twitched. I'll admit people have been telling me that for as long as I can remember, but this dude had no right to point that out. "Coming from the dude with a head that's reaching for the sky", I responded.

He shrugged again. "Are you new here?"

"*sarcasm* No… we just decided to move a bunch of boxes into a random house."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"*chuckle* My mom and I decided to start our new life here. I really didn't want to come here in the first place. I'm only glad that we moved before the school year started. Imagine how much work I would need to do just to catch up?" I bowed dramatically.

He blinked, obviously bored."You're weird."

"Correction. I'm Nomaru. Nomaru Kodomo. Japanese for normal child."

"Huh. Well I'm, Norman Babcock. English for…Norman Babcock. Your neighbor." And with that, he just turned around and left.

'Norman, huh? That's a nice name', I thought while heading back to my now unpacked house.

"Where have you been?" my mother asked when she looked up from her book.

"Well, I was burying the poor creature when a kid saw me and insulted my hair. He said his name was Norman Babcock", I responded.

Her head shot up. "He told you his name?"

"Yeah…what of it?"

She cried out in glee, "He told you his name! That means he may or may not be your first friend! I'm gonna bake some cookies to celebrate!"

She walked out, leaving me just wondering what she was talking about. 'Friend?' I thought.

It was a word that floated around in my head for a little bit. I've never had a friend before. Well, a living friend. 'Cause you know. The whole, "I can talk to the dead" thing. Yeah.

I looked around the living room filled with still packed boxes, then got a red solo cup and filled it with sprite and made a toast. "Well…here's to my new life", I said before I drank down my soda and unrolled my sleeping bag to get some much needed rest for the new school year.

Me: It's Sydney the emo wolf with yet another story! And this time it's not about Naruto!

Naruto: What's wrong with Naruto fan fictions?

Me: Nothing's wrong with it. This is just the first story I'm making that's not about it.

Naruto: Oh, okay.

Me: Yeah. Anyway, Taylor and I are SO SORRY we haven't been writing for, like, ever! We've both been getting some SERIOUS writers block.

Taylor: Yeah! And with the school year coming to an end, the pressure to pass is on.

Me: Mostly because it's either pass and move on to high school or fail and spend another year in middle school. So wish us a S*** ton of luck!

All: Please read and review and tune in all of our stories!

Nomaru: Please. We're begging you.

All: One Peice out and Mata ne!