How many raindrops are in a rainstorm?

Hi, I'm- No that's the stupidest opening ever...hmmm. Salutations-oh god, even worst! Ok you'll have to settle for this. Name's Roxas, seventeen year old, blonde, 5'4, boy from Staten Island, New York. I've lived in new York my whole life and I've finally had to move away. My mother worked for a large company in New York City, but they wanted her to move to California, since they had given her a promotion. Of course she took the job, which also meant i had to go. We already had enough money. We had a nice house, a nice car and even a nice boat, which barely got used anyways. We were above the average household, yet just below rich. If there was any other source of money coming in we would be considered rich, but it was only me and my mom, and my dog of course. We had a month to pack then move. On the last day i said goodbye to all my friends. Then before i knew it I was on a plane half way across the country, in both, east to west and north to south. I wasn't very pleased with this situation, but i didn't have a say. I promised myself, and my friends, that when i had the money and when i grew up, I'd come back to New York. As soon as I got off the plane the heat smacked me in the face. I instantly began to sweat. 95°F was not fun.

We followed the moving trucks to our new house. Our "house" was not so much a house as it was a small shed with a garage. *Houses in California were MUCH more then the ones back home. I was not very happy with it, and neither was my dog. My mother nagged at me all night to start unpacking, but it was too hot to even get up, my dog agreed. Three days later i was almost done unpacking and our boat was finally here. We brought our boat from New York to California...don't ask why, i thought it'd be cheaper just to get a new one over here, but like always I'm just the kid and nobody listens to the kid.

On the fourth last day of my summer vacation me and my mother got into a large verbal fight, i left. I couldn't stand it and just got up and left. I brought my dog and that was it. After thirty minutes of walking through the main part of Los Angeles i realized where i could stay, my boat. My boat was more of a home, then the other "house". It was one of the those boats you could live on. It had a bedroom, bathroom, shower, kitchen and a table built it. It's not as big as you're probably thinking though. It was made for one. When you entered the first thing you seen was a half coach, half bed to your left and the built in table to your right. If you looked ahead further you got the fridge on your right and counter, and coverts, same with the other side, but you had a stove and sink instead. After that was a door on your left and right. Right was the toilet and left was the shower...don't ask why they couldn't have gone in the same room. Then the room straight ahead was the large bedroom. The bedroom had shelves around it that you could either put your things in, or sit on top of it since there were cushions on top. The dock where it was at wasn't too far away, and it was also close to my new school. I spent the night there and thought about everything. What was going to happen after today? How will school be? Will the people be nice? Will i make friends? How will i survive on my own? And much more. My dog laid next to me comforting me.

-x:X:x-

The California sunrise woke me up bright and early...too early. The boat didn't have any blinds in the bedroom, so i had to think. I traveled outside the boat and seen a pile of cardboard. The cardboard probably had some kind of disease on it, but it was the closest thing to me to use to block the sun. I took it back to the boat and propped it up against the windows. I spent thirty minutes trying to go back to sleep, but since i was already up, and the sun had already hit me, i wasn't going to sleep until the sun lowered.

The only plan i had for today was to clean up the boat and teach my dog how to swim. My dog was a Golden Retriever and naturally had the ability to swim, but never got the chance to. In New York my dog stayed mainly in the house and the backyard, and of course the occasional walk near the water but never in it.

My first task of the day was the easiest. Throw Boche into the water and watch him swim. Boche was my dog, by the way... yes i know it's the stupidest name ever but i was eight, so you can't blame me. I led him onto the dock and crouched down to the water. The dock was close to the water unlike the other ones. I played with the water and poured it all over his body, then got him to stick his paw into it. For five minutes straight it looked like he was going to jump in but never did. After my patience ran out i pushed Boche into the water. He swam around in a circle, then looked at me with an unpleasant face and came back towards the dock. The dock had a ladder with a couple steps the get in and out of the water. It was low enough for Boche to climb back up. I seen police dogs climb ladders much larger then this so i thought he'd be able to climb this. I grabbed his paws and showed him how it worked, but he only got his front paws up so i had to drag him up. Lifting a seventy-something pound dog didn't end well. I managed to get him up, but he landed on top of me and drenched me with water. He simply looked down at me licking my face.

So after our swimming lesson i let Boche travel around the dock and i cleaned up the boat. Right before i was finished with the boat Boche came up and started barking. I ignored him since i was busy with toxic chemicals and didn't feel like i wanted a super power that day. I could just see it. Boy accidentally spills toxic chemicals into water and falls in and gains super powers! After non stop barking from my dog i snapped and turned around and yelled "WHAT!" Boche was covered in black junk from his paws to half way up his stomach. My jaw dropped and i put down my cleaners and raced over to him. Turns out it was oil... how he managed this, only god knows. I had to clean him off but i couldn't use my shower because i had cleaner crap strayed all over it, and i don't think the environmentalists would be my best friend if i were to clean him using the water from the ocean. Idea after idea went through my head until i realized something. This was California, the place were there beaches and where there's beaches there's people and where there's people there's outdoor showers. Lucky the beach beside me had a number of outdoor showers. The showers were just to get the sand or whatever off of you, so i don't think they'll mind a dog being in there... who am i kidding?

I snuck my dog down the beach and into the showers, luckily the weather was a bit cloudy so there wasn't as many people today as there was the others. The showers were empty and my heart dimmed down to normal speed. I began washing the oil off but it barely came off so i began looking around for shampoo of soap to help. I found a shampoo bottle and didn't bother to read it. My head was focused on the doorway when i began pouring the shampoo into Boche and rubbing it in. Once i thought nobody was coming i looked back at my dog. My dog was red...red.

"RED!" I yelled and jumped back and looked at the shampoo bottle. It wasn't shampoo. It was those stupid hair color conditioner shampoo crap and it had to be red. "Who the hell brings this crap to a beach!" I was complaining to myself... or so i thought.

"That'd be me" It felt like someone was taking cold needles and pushing them into my vertebrae. I turned around to see a tall man with long spiky red hair was standing at the door way. I figured it was his shampoo since his hair was now the same color as my dog. His sharp eyes stared into my soul. I couldn't figure out how i was going to explain this so i did the reasonable thing to do. Run. I grabbed my dog and began running past him and across the beach. I kept running without even checking if he was running after me. I ran into a cross walk. Without paying attention i kept running and then i felt my ribs crack and my lower body move away from under my upper body then i blacked out and came back to see the sky and a lamp post, then blacked out again.

-x:X:x-

I woke up in an hospital. I would have been freaking out but I was so out of it and probably drugged. I was in a hospital before when I broke my leg while jumping off of my shed roof after a snow storm, so I was use to it. A nurse came into my room a few minutes later. During the time that I was alone I figured out that I had broken a couple ribs and banged up my head.

"You're awake" The nurse was young and beautiful. I could tell that she could lift anyone's spirit from that smile and that's why she worked here. "Can you tell me what you remember before you got here?" She ask as she sat at the end of my bed with a notebook in hand.

"Um," I thought about it "I was running and I got hit by something on my right side and fell" She nodded. "Why were you running?" Maybe she knew, or she just wanted to test my memory. I hoped it was the second one and I told her a lie "Exercise" She nodded again and asked a series of basic questions such as "How old are you? What's your Favourite color?" and so forth.

They told me that I had to stay in the hospital for the night and i could go tomorrow morning.

"Oh!" She turned around before leaving "The girl who brought you here said to give you this" She handed me a not which read: So sorry for hitting you! I didn't mean to! I hope we can met sometime and I can tell you sorry in person. -Xion. How was I suppose to met her again if I only knew her name?

-x:X:x-

In the morning the nurse came in and woke me up and left me to go on my way. When I started walking away from the hospital I realized I didn't know where I was, or where I was going. I tired to ask directions but everyone walked past me, so i went back into the hospital and got directions. Turns out I was only a twenty minute drive away, but an hour and some odd minutes away with a bus and walking was three hours away. I walked from LA to Santa Monica to downtown LA before, but i didn't have a broken rib.

When i walked back to the dock I seen my dog running towards me. When he got closer i could see he was limping and had something around his leg. Ignoring the fact that my dog wasn't red anymore I examined his leg. "He broke his leg" I looked up and my body turned inside out. The man with red hair was standing behind my dog. I wanted to say something like "You hurt my dog!" but I was speechless.

"I found him wondering around and I recognized him with his red fur" I could tell he still wasn't very happy about that " And took him to the vet to fix his leg and clean him up. Then I took him back to where I found him and he led me here so I thought it was his home and I guess so" He lit a cigarette. I stood up and he dug into his back pocket and pulled a paper out and passed it to me. "Bill" he said. I looked it over but before i read the price I looked at a note somebody left: You should thank this lovely man for bringing in your dog! I was going to thank him until i seen the price "TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS!" I almost fainted at the price.

"And I had to pay for that and I'd like my money back" My eye was twitching. If I was still with my mother it's be fine, whatever only two K, but now it was only me. I didn't have a job or money. I only had two hundred dollars in my wallet and that was it.

"You're kidding me" I looked at him. "I don't have that money" I had to explain to him.

"Do you have a cell phone?" That was kind of a odd question "Yeah..." I answered with a confused look. He held his hand out and for some odd reason i gave it to him. He punched in a couple letters and numbers and handed it back to me. "Text me by the first" He said and walked past me "Oh and you owe me fifty dollars for the shampoo" When he walked away I gave him the finger and turned back to my dog "You're getting me into trouble already" He turned his innocent head.

That night I decided that I wasn't going to worry about everything. I tried to think of other things to think about but couldn't. Then it started raining and I thought of something to think of.

How many raindrops are in a rainstorm?


Star Notes

Houses in California: Houses in California (near cities) tend to be much more than New York or other states. EX: You could get a 3,600 sq ft house in NY for 750,000$ and a 3,000 sq ft house in CA for 1,600,000$ (prices depend on age of house, where it's out etc)


Windy's Wonders

Introduction: Windy's Wonders is things that Windy (me) dose at the end of stories. It's kind of a author's notes, but sometimes talks about random things outside the story too.

WOOOT! It's that time of year again! It's summer! which means I can write again! I promise this story will be better spell checked than the others :P ahahaha but there'll still be a mistake every here and then so please bare with moi!

All reviews, favs and everything else is seen and appreciated even if i don't answer!