Disclaimer: Ok, here we go. I don't own CCS…if I did, id give Tomoyo a better voice actor… But no, CLAMP owns it, how sad. Huzzah for clamp! Anyway, on with the story!
Summary: Sakura is a young orphan after a tragic accident killing her mother. After fleeing from the orphanage that served more so as a prison, how will she take to life on the harsh streets of New York? SS, ET.
A Place to call Home
Kirralle Hazayaki
PROLOUGE
We had to come to America when daddy died. Mommy said that there was nothing for us in Japan,
that we'd have a better life in America. So we packed up most of our more valuable things and took
the money dad left us, and we got on a ship. The ship was pretty enormous, there were a lot of
people on board from beggars who won their tickets by a lucky hand a poker, to the rich and snooty
people who considered it a pleasure cruise, and everywhere in between. That's were we fell in. The
'Everywhere in between' category. We weren't rich or famous, but we weren't poor beggar-people
either, so I suppose that was a plus.
Everyone marveled at the ship. They were awestruck at the size of it, and the power of it, and the
fact that they said it was unsinkable…well, that's what they said about the last 'unsinkable ship'. And
look where it got over 1,500 people, Dead! That's where it got 'um. And this ship was no
different…It's boiler room one day decided to spontaneously combust…sending the ship and five
hundred some people to a watery grave. One of those five hundred some people being my mother. I
was unfortunate enough to be weaseled on to a life boat before I could have any time to do anything
about it. So all of my belongings, all of daddy's money he left us and my mother…the most important
thing in the world to me, they all sank like a lead balloon. And I found myself two weeks later in an
orphanage in New York city. I was five years old, with nothing to my name… but my name. That's
all I had was a name and some pretty horrible engrish. I suppose that the couple years that my
mother made me learn English paid off, I could understand what the people around me were saying
and I could come up with some sort of response when I needed to, but otherwise, I kept to myself. I
sat in a corner and watched all the other kids play during recess, I said the required prayers at meals
silently as possible for me so no one would consider glancing my way. After all, what kid would want
to befriend a silly little Japanese girl with abnormally colored eyes?
The Headmistress of the Orphanage/schoolhouse was a mean old bat. Her hair was done up in an
unreasonably large bee-hive hair-do, she had more wrinkles than even the most intelligent
mathematicians could count and she wreaked of cheap perfume. Her name was Lady Casnoose…a
widow after her husband committed suicide. Most of the kids could see why though. She was a
frightening thing, with her makeup on five layers too thick and a rear end the size of a small freight
train…which was how she later earned the nickname Lady Caboose, but that was only used under
much secrecy or whenever the others could get away with calling her that. I was making my way to
my room one afternoon when I was about six when I heard the Headmistress talking rather brashly to
one of the co-founders of the orphanage. She was complaining that "they had to find a way to get the
little Japanese girl out of here or else shell never get adopted after she turns eight and we'll have to
keep her till we can kick her butt outta here when she's sixteen" That was my first encounter with the
real world. My second encounter with the maliciousness of the real world was on my eighth birthday. It wasn't a celebrated thing, I got a small cupcake with half of the frosting swiped off by one of my
more gluttonous roommates, and a small card 'wishing me a happy birthday, from the janitorial staff'.
Well, at least the janitorial staff cared. But I digress, I overheard Lady Caboose grumbling once more
about how my presence was a bother and an annoyance to her. She was bickering about keeping me
and my smug attitude here until I was sixteen, and that didn't sit well with her overly rounded
highness. So I decided to run. Nobody in that horrible place was going to miss me. In fact, I'm not
even sure if they'd care if I left. Which settled matters for me even more. I grabbed a small brown
suitcase and stuffed it full of clothes, a blanket and pillow, and a toothbrush and toothpaste, because
if I had anything that would keep me tied to some sort of sanity, it would be personal hygiene to the
highest level I could manage. I left at about midnight the same night, slipping out through the back
door just behind the kitchen. The door usually provided the cooks a quick getaway for a smoke
session or a drink or two, which would explain the reason why half of our meals were either
undercooked mush or charcoal enriched.
I stayed on school grounds that night, sleeping in the back half of the school/orphanage which they
never converted from the jailhouse it used to be. Which, when thinking about it, its kind of creepy…a
jail where a bunch of icky thieves and murderers were held, now holding a bunch of not so innocent
minors.
By morning, The Portly Princess of Torture herself had staged a little search party to make it look
like that had in fact cared where I had gotten off to. But around noon, she called it all off and I was
free to make my escape, which had sounded like a much better idea thinking about it than actually
doing it. But it was far to late by then, seeing as I was already half a block away from the orphanage.
It was about two weeks after I had ran when I got the hang of street life. It was actually very
simple. One: look cute, not hard for an eight year old. Two: beg sweetly, hey, that's what we little
kids do, we beg, and three: If the begging and looking cute as a button doesn't work too well, swipe
what you can and high tail it outta there. However the swiping and high tailing doesn't always work to
your advantage. Like this time in particular. I had swiped some bread and was whizzing my way
along Broadway when I ran head first into one of the more upper cut people, falling straight onto my
butt and losing my bread to a bunch of angry pigeons. But I've heard that with every bad thing comes
something good. And with that bad thing came him. He saw me get plowed down by the snoot in the
poofy dress and laughed heartily before smiling and helping me up. His name was Syaoran Li. Pretty
uncommon name for a New Yorker, but I didn't complain, seeing as he got me off my butt and
handed me some of his submarine sandwich he pilfered off of the street vendor a few steps the other
way. It turned out that this Syaoran kid, though I shouldn't call him a kid since he's two years older
than I am, had a group of vagabond orphan kids, who were all out right now attempting to find some
dinner to bring back to their base, which was just a run down bridge that ran over a small creek with
a large black tarp affixed to both ends, making a little hideaway for a bunch of kids that the fuzz
wouldn't spare a second glance at.
I was Eight and a Half years old then, and that was how I met the guy who came to be my best
friend. Not only that, he became the guy that I would eventually love unconditionally and would
probably jump off a bridge for… not that he'd ever ask me to jump off a bridge…but you get the
point I think.
Well, that's the prolouge…hope you liked it!! Please review, cause if you don't, than I
don't know if I should continue. My other stories will be updated fairly soon, I need a
paragraph or two more before I can upload them, so they'll be up and ready soon. I was
going to promise myself no more new stories till I at least finished Never Let Go, but I
reallllyyyyy needed to get this one out there, its been eating at my brain slowly for quite a
few days and I wanted to get it out there and see what people would think… Soo, what do
you think? Please review and comment! No flames though, them things are pointless and a
waste of both mine and your time…so lets refrain from flaming shall we? Other than that,
I think that's it. So until next time, wherever next time is…
Ja Ne!!