I:
This is not home. This thought rushed through Madotsuki's head as she climbed down the ramp of the 747. This world, filled with strange people speaking strange tongues, was the last place on earth she wanted to be. Now, for a 12-year-old girl, this thought would not be surprising, especially when moving to a foreign land, but nonetheless, this was where her father had been sent for his job. Why can't you just visit that country? She had asked, Because I would have to do it all the time, and I don't want to give up my family for a job. This way, I get to keep the job, and we get to stay together. It was fortunate that he spoke the language quite fluently, or they would have been completely lost.
Madi had left all her friends, her teachers from her old school, her kind old motherly piano tutor, everyone. She had loved the chocolate milk and cookies that she and her sister enjoyed, after practicing for an hour on their instruments, teasing each other about their talents. No, Madi, you cannot TOUCH my flute! I'd need to clean it all over again! her sister would chide her. But Monoe, I just want to look at it! Besides, you can't even play it well! Now, of course, it is always uncalled for to make fun of another's talent, even when it is you seventeen-year-old sister, who had started playing it only a year previously, and couldn't make any other tunes than Ode to Joy and Greensleeves, and only the former well. But, as always, Monoe had a retort ready, always smiling, Oh, Madi, you should talk! There is nothing like a well-played-piano, and yours is NOTHING like a well-played-piano!
Then, of course, a piece of cookie would fly across the table, and very soon, the elderly tutor would have to bustle out of the house to avoid getting hit by flying crumbs. The two girls would run out of cookie, and, downing their milk, race up the stairs to bed, playfully yanking each other's hair all the way up stairs.
But all that had changed with the move, and there was no getting it back. All she could look forward to would be that the job would send her father back to the homeland, or that she would adapt to this new country. She huddled closer to her sister as the family of four trundled through the airport. Once again, as she had done so very many times from the time they had left their old house, she tugged on her sister's coat sleeve, getting her attention.
"What is it, Madi?"
"Monoe, do you suppose we'll be alright here?"
"Hey, Madi! Cheer up! It'll be fine! We already have a whole floor of the building rented out, so we never have to worry about other people walking through, and we have a rich father who actually tries to spend time with his daughters, and loving mother with another little sibling on the way! We'll have fun here! We'll find new tutors, and get new friends in a new school!"
It was an answer Madi had heard a million times, and, by the time they reached the building where they were to live, she had heard it at least a thousand more. Monoe never tired of giving her an optimistic answer with her bright smile, even as tears glistened in her own eyes. Madi could see that Monoe felt no better about this new land than she.
They carried their luggage to the elevator, and took it to the floor on which they stayed. Madi carried her suitcase down the hall, to the door marked "Madotsuki", which she opened gingerly. Inside was a bed, a desk, a television, a video game console, and, wonder of wonders, a door to a balcony overlooking the city. But it didn't have the same feel as home. Madi felt tears running full-bore down her cheeks as she dragged her suitcase to the dresser, and collapsed on the bed. She hadn't cried this hard since they first left the large house in the woods, a house which had been home since birth. A house she may never see again.
I'll go back someday, and see it, just once, when I've grown up, she promised herself, and thought of all it's stairways, secret passageways, and cellars where she and Monoe had played hide-and-go-seek so very many times. She remembered her game of pretending to be a cat, clawing and meowing at anything that came near, which of course made everyone gather round. It had started when she started school, to try and scare away the strangers, but it made her part of the group, and she quickly made friends of all of them as the "Koneko-Girl". Remembering this long-forgotten time, she dropped off to sleep for the first night in her new home.