Tokyo Mew Mew Jinxed – Chapter 2!

Disclaimer – I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew or JINX. But I wish I owned Kishu :P

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'But you are not supposed to arrive until tomorrow!' Sandra cried. The tight ball of worry in my stomach loosened. Just a little. So they really had just mistaken the day. I should have known Aunt Aimi wouldn't let me down. 'No,' I said. 'Today. I'm supposed to arrive today.' 'Oh no,' Sandra said, still shaking my hand up and down. My fingers were losing all circulation. Also, the places I'd skinned grabbing the wrought-iron fence weren't feeling too good either.

'I'm sure your aunt and uncle said tomorrow. Oh! They will be so upset! They were going to meet you at the airport. Hina even made a sign... Did you come all this way by yourself? In a taxi? I am so sorry for you! Oh my goodness, come in, come in!' With a heartiness that belied her delicate frame – but matched her handshake – Sandra insisted on grabbing both my bags (leaving my violin to me) and carrying then inside herself.

Their extreme heaviness didn't seem to bother her at all, and it only took me a couple of minutes to find out why, Sandra being almost as big a talker as my best friends, Moe and Miwa, back home: Sandra had moved from her native Germany to the United States because she's studying to be a physical therapist. In fact, she told me she goes to physical therapy school every morning in Westchester, which is a suburb just outside New York City.

When she's not in class, she has to lift heavy people and help them into spas, then teach them to use their arms and stuff again, after an accident or stroke. Which explains why she is so strong. Because of all the lifting of heavy patients and all. Sandra lives with the Aizawas, paying for her room and board by caring for my younger cousins.

Then, while the kids are in school everyday, she goes to Westchester to learn more physical therapy stuff. In another year, she'll have her licence and can get a job in a rehabilitation centre. 'The Aizawas have been so kind to me,' Sandra said as she carried my pink suitcases to a third floor guest room as if they didn't weigh more than a couple of CDs.

It didn't even seem like it was necessary for Sandra to take a breath between sentences, despite the fact that English was not even her firs language. Which meant she could probably speak even faster in her native tongue. 'They pay me three hundred dollars a week too,' Sandra went on.

'Imagine, living in Manhattan rent free, with all your food paid for as well, and someone giving you three hundred dollars a week! My friends back home in Bonn say its to good to be true. Mr and Mrs Aizawa are like mother and father to me now. And I love Seiji and Hina like they are my own children. Well, I am only twenty, and Seiji and Hina are ten and five, so I guess they could not be my children. But my own siblings maybe. Here now. Here is your room.'

My room? I peered around the door frame. Judging by the glimpses I'd had of the rest of the house on our way up the stairs, I knew I was going to be living in the lap of luxury for the next few months... But the room in which Sandra set my

bags down took my breath away. It was totally beautiful: pink walls with a heart and strawberry printing, and also, cream and gilt furniture, with pink silk drapes.

There was a marble fireplace on one side – 'It does not work, this one,' Sandra informed me sadly, like I had been counting on a working fireplace in my new bedroom or something – and a private bathroom on the other. Sunlight filtered through the windows, making a dappled pattern on the light pink carpeting. Of course, I knew right away something was wrong.

This was the nicest bedroom I'd ever seen. It was a hundred times nicer than my bedroom back home. And I'd had to share that bedroom with Emi and Aki, my two younger sisters. This would, in fact, be my first time sleeping in a room of my own. EVER. And never in my life had I so much as entertained the idea of having my own bathroom. This was just not possible.

But I could tell from the casual way Sandra was going around, flickering imaginary dust off things, that it was possible. Not just possible, but... the way things were. 'Wow,' was all I could say. It was the first word I'd been able

to get in since Sandra had begun speaking, down at the front door. 'Yes,' Sandra said, straightening. She thought I meant the room. But really I'd meant... Well, everything.

'It is very nice, yes? I have my own apartment in this house, with a private entrance – downstairs, you know? The ground floor. You probably did not see it. The door is underneath the stoop to the townhouse. There is also a back door to the garden. It is a little private apartment. I have my own kitchen too. The children come down at night sometimes, and I help them with their homework, and sometimes we watch the TV together, all snug. It is very nice.'

'You're not kidding,' I breathed. Mom had told me that Aunt Aimi and her family were doing well – her husband, my Uncle Katsu, had recently gotten a promotion to president of whatever company it was he worked for, while Aimi, an interior decorator, had added a couple of supermodels to her client list. Still, nothing could have prepared me for this.

And it was mine. All mine. Well, for the time being anyway. Until I messed it up, somehow. And, me being me, I knew that wouldn't take long. But I could still enjoy it while it lasted. 'Mr and Mrs Aizawa will be so sorry they were not home to greet you,' Sandra was saying as she went to the side of the king-sized bed and began fastidiously fluffing the half-dozen pillows beneath the tufted headboard.

'And they'll be even sadder that they got the days mixed up. They are both still at work. Seiji and Hina will be home from school soon, though. They are both very excited their Cousin Ichigo is coming to stay. Hina has made a sign to welcome you. She was going to hold it up at the airport when they greeted you, but now... well, perhaps you could hang it on the wall here in your room? You must pretend to be pleased by it, even if you are not, because she worked very hard on it. Mrs Aizawa did not put anything on your walls, you see, because she wanted to wait to see what you are like. She says it has been five years since they last saw you!'

Sandra looked at me in wonder. Apparently, families in Germany lived a lot closer and visited one another a lot more often than families in the US... or my family, anyway. I nodded. 'Yes, that sounds about right. Aunt Aimi and Uncle Katsu last came to visit when I was eight...' My voice trailed off.

That's because I'd just noticed thatin the massive bathroom, the fixtures were all brass and shaped like swans' necks, with the water coming out of the birds' carved beaks. Even the towel bar had swans' wings on the ends. My mouth was starting to feel a little dry at the sight of all this luxury. I mean, what had I ever done to deserve all this?

Nothing. Especially lately. Which was why, actually, I was in New York. 'What about Mint?' I asked in an effort to change the subject. Better not to think about why I was here in New York and not back in Hancock. Especially since every time I did, that pesky knot in my stomach clenched. 'When does she get home from school?'

'Oh,' Sandra said. This 'Oh', however, was different from all the others Sandra had let out. I noticed right away. Also, whereas before Sandra had been speaking with undistinguished enthusiasm, now she looked down and said uneasily, with a shrug, 'Oh, Mint is home from school already. She is in the back, in the garden, with her friends.'

Sandra pointed towards one of the two windows across from the bed. I went over to it, gingerly pushing aside the filmy white curtain liner – it was fine as spider's web – and looked down... into an enchanted fairy garden. Or at least, that's what it looked like to me.

And OK, I'm used to our backyard in Hancock, which is completely filled with my younger brothers' and sisters' bikes and plastic toys, a swing set, a dog run, Mom's motley vegetable patch and large piles of dirt, dumped there by Dad, who is forever working on a new addition to the house, which never quite gets done. This backyard, however, looked like something from a TV show.

And not Law & Order either, but something along the lines of MTV Cribs. Walled on three sides by moss-covered brick, roses were growing – and blooming – everywhere. There were even rose vines wrapped around the sides of a small, glassed-in gazebo over in one corner of the garden. There was a wrought-iron table, surrounded by chairs, and a cushioned chaise lounge beneath the sweeping branches of a newly budding weeping willow.

But best of all was a low fountain, which, even with the windows closed, three storeys up, I could hear burbling. A stone mermaid sat in the centre of the two-metre wide pool, with water shooting up out oh the mouth of a fish she was holding in her arms. I couldn't be sure, being so high up, but I thought I saw a few flashes of orange within the pool. Goldfish!

'Koi,' Sandra corrected me when I said it out loud. Her voice was getting back to normal now that we weren't discussing Minto, I couldn't help noticing. 'They are Japanese. And do you see Mouche, the Aizawas' little cat? She sits there all day long, watching them. She has not caught one yet, but she will, one day.'

I saw the sudden flare of a match being struck beneath the glass roof of the gazebo. You couldn't really see in, because the glass was frosted. Mint and her friends must have been inside, but I couldn't see them, just their shadowy movements, and the flame. It appeared that Mint and her friends were smoking.

That's all right though. I know plenty of people our age back in Doncaster who smoke. Well, OK. One. Still, everyone had told me things were really different in New York. Not just things, but people too. People my age, especially. Like, people my age in New York are supposed to be way more sophisticated and older for their age than people back home.

And that's OK. I can handle that. Although my stomach, judging by the way it had suddenly turned back into a knot, seemed to disagree. 'I guess I should go down and say hi to Minto,' I said... Because I felt like I had to. 'Yes,' Sandra said. 'I suppose you should.' She sounded like there was something she wanted to say but, for the first time since I'd met her, she went mute instead.

Great. So what was up between her and Mint? And what did you want to bet that, with my luck, I was going to walk into the middle of it? 'Well,' I said, more bravely than I felt, letting the curtain liner drop back into place. 'Would you mind showing me the way?' 'Of course.' Sandra, it appeared, wasn't the type of girl to stay quiet for long.

As we went down the stairs to the second floor, she asked about the violin. 'You are playing it long?' 'Since I was six,' I said. 'Six! Then you must be very good! We will have concert some night, yes? The children will love it.' I kind of doubted this, unless my cousins were really different from the kids back home.

Nobody I know in Hancock likes listening to me play. Except maybe when I do 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia'. But even then, they kind of lose interest, unless I sing the words. And it's hard to sing and play at the same time. Even Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen's wife, who can play the violin and sing, never really does both at the same time. Then Sandra asked if I was hungry, and told me about the cooking class Mrs Aizawa had paid for her to go to, so that she could learn to make American food for the children.

'I was to make filet mignon for your arrival tomorrow, but now you are here, and I think for dinner tonight we are having Chinese food from Szechuan Palace! I hope you are not minding. Mr and Mrs Aizawa have a benefit they have to attend. The Aizawas are very kind, giving people, and are always going to benefits to raise money for worthy causes... there are many of these in New York City. And Chinese food here is very good: it is authentic – Mrs Aizawa even says

so, and she and Mr Aizawa have been to China for their anniversary last year – Oh, here is the door to the garden. I guess I will be seeing you then.' 'Thanks, Sandra,' I said with a grateful smile to her. Then I slipped out the glass door that led to the patio overlooking the garden, and went down the steps

to the garden itself (clinging carefully to the wrought-iron rail to avoid a second near-disaster with a set of steps). Here the sound of the fountain was much louder, and I could smell the heavy scent of roses in the air. It was weird to be in the middle of New York City and smelling roses. Although intermingled with the rose smell was the scent of burning tobacco. I called out,

'Hello?' as I approached the gazebo, to let them know I was coming. No one responded right away, but I was pretty sure I heard someone say the F word. I figured Minto and her friends were scrambling to stamp out their cigarettes.

So I hurried to enter the gazebo, so I could say 'Uh, don't worry. It's only me.' But of course I found myself speaking to six total and complete strangers. My cousin Mint wasn't anywhere to be seen. Which is, you know. Just my luck.

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So there you go, chapter 2. I know its quite boring right now but it will get better soon I promise :)

Who do you think the people in the Gazebo are? What do you think will happen?

Right... I need help, I'm nearly at the part where she meets the guy she likes, so who would you like it to be? I'm thinking about it being Kishu, but you can change my mind!

Review and tell me if you would like it to be

A) Kishu

B) Ryou

C) Masaya... D:

xXx