"Hey! Drachamaru? That's your name right?"

That's my name, don't wear it out. It was my neighbor, the one who had found me in the snow that day. I watched him rush over to me as I walked steadily over to my house.

"I need someone to help me with this problem; do you think you could do it?"

"Uh, what is it?"

"It's in my house, I was wondering-"

The red flags were going up; I almost panicked.

"Oh, your house- I can't. My dad wouldn't want me to go into other peoples houses without him knowing first."

I could see my neighbor mapping out what I'd said in his mind in his blank stare. I didn't really know him, so I felt no obligation to explain further. My dad had never really mentioned him to me much. He did say that the woman in the house was a female dog. I didn't know if it transferred to her grandson. The guy was bobbing in concentration as he went back into his house. It was actually a strange encounter; I can remember all the times I've seen him off his property and can count them on one hand. There must be something wrong with him.

I walked the rest of the way home and walked in through the door and set my things down on the pile. I was surprised to see that my dad was leaning up against the archway to the kitchen, but not as much as I was to see him upset. Instantly I tried to come up with excuses for any possible things I did wrong today.

"What did the neighbors want, Dracha?"

"Uh, they- he wanted me to help him with something in his house."

"And what did you say to him?"

"I said I couldn't because you said not to go into people's houses without your permission."

"Good boy."

He didn't say it very nicely. My dad doesn't say things like that. It wasn't 'Atta boy, Dracha; you win the Dad's favorite son award!' it was more like 'Yeah, and don't you forget that!'

I narrowed my eyes as he left from his post and went into the kitchen. What did I do? I didn't know, but I think Dad wanted it to be left at that.

I caught my sister watching me from in the living room. She was kneeling down with a collection of crayons by her and a large piece of white-sided cardboard just clipping her knees. Her hair was down, causing her to brush it back with her hands every now and then.

"Hello Dracha."

She leaned forward again to color some more on the board with a big red crayon. You could hear this irritable sound as she swooped the crayon furiously to shade in something in her picture. I sauntered over to my sister thinking what I could tell her about my day.

"Hi, Gobo whacha drawing?"

"A picture."

My sister was pretty descriptive sometimes. This was obviously not one of those times. I reached her and turned to face the direction of her picture. I had no idea what it was; it might have been a flower, or it also resembled a spider.

"What is it?"

She looked up at me like I was the rudest thing on earth. I smiled in defense, allowing her to calm down from my blatant disrespect. She turned to keep coloring her picture.

"I'm drawing Mommy."



I hadn't the heart to tell her that that didn't look like Mommy. Instead I kneeled down to get better acquainted with Gobo's picture and find out how this looked like Mommy to her.

"Where's her head?"

"I didn't draw it yet."

"Okay, where're her arms?"

"Here… and here."

She pointed to these abstract places on her board. They did look like arms, but they weren't attached to anything. Gobo picked up a crayon to draw a circle and then colored in the top half.

"Well, where's the rest of her body?"

She sighed like I was stupid. She pointed.

"The legs are here and here, her arms are here, like I said before, and then here's her foot, and this is her tummy area, and this that I'm drawing is her head."

"Mommy had two feet."

She grumped; folding her arms and frowning at no one, making her eyes look up as if it increased her attitude. Then she sighed loudly shaking her head and continued to draw in Mom's 'head'.

"I know that!"

She exchanged crayons to give Mom a different color for her eyes and lips. She was able to draw this just fine.

"Why is everything all over the place?"

Again she stopped and looked at me.

"Because she exploded!"

I watched in muted amazement as she finished up drawing Mom's head and then took the red crayon again and started drawing something trailing out where her neck should be. Gobo never drew pictures about the past; certainly nothing about Mom dying. Sometimes she would even say Mommy never died, or she'd ask Dad when Mommy was coming back. When she was done with that, she went back to filling in this glob of red. I asked her what that was.

"That's her heart, Drachamaru. Mommy died."

"Yeah, but they didn't find a heart: they didn't find any part of her after that."

"I know that! When Mommy died, she left her heart, so we wouldn't be lonely."

I stared at the heart, and then shook my head. I got up quietly and moved away from her picture. Then I saw Dad watching us from upstairs on the balcony in the narrow hallway. He too shook his head, and he walked into his room, shutting the door silently.

I knew how he felt. We were the ones who really remembered her. That accident shot a big hole into our family. I couldn't help but feel a tear from deep inside grow.

I left my sister to her coloring and sat on the couch. It almost felt good to have someone else thinking about Mom though, even if it was just my sister. Daddy didn't ever talk about it.

I started thinking about my neighbor again. I wondered what it was he'd wanted me to help him with. My dad suddenly burst out the door, getting his gear on.

"Dracha, I want you two to stay in the house. I'm going next-door, there's a problem going on with the lady over there."

The sensation of hearing the door slam that hard against the wall had shocked me, but I turned to look as he thudded down the stairs and rushed over to the main door.

"I'll be back soon; don't get into trouble!"

And then the door banged shut. My sister and I exchanged glances. I shrugged. Gobo went back to coloring.



Seconds passed. I waited to see if this was one of those times where being 'back soon' actually meant soon. Apparently, it didn't. After hesitating and glancing over to my sister, I decided I'd go look out the window and see what was going on.

Outside, I could see someone being taken out of the neighbor's house in a stretcher. It looked like it was the grandma of that guy. She wasn't moving, and her eyes were closed. They were carrying her away from the house in a hurry, probably to the hospital, with my dad in the lead.

I'd never seen my dad in action before; this was pretty cool. Quickly, I rushed over to another window to catch a glimpse of the ensemble. I had just enough time to see them turn a corner and out of my view.

"Dracha, we're not supposed to go outside!"

I looked over to my sister wondering where that comment came from. She was staring at me like I was stupid again. Inside, I wondered how she ever hoped to be a princess with that attitude.

"I'm not going outside, Gobo; I'm looking at Dad. They carried that old lady out of her house. They might be taking her to the hospital."

"Okay."

She returned to her work in a huff. I sighed, shaking my head at my little sister. She was quite the character sometimes.

Already bored, I slunk away from the room and up the stairs. Up another flight of steps, I went into the far corners of the house to get to my room. I had a plan mapped out by the time I got there on what I wanted to do.

It was when I reached my door when I heard this noise that made me pause with my hand on the knob. It sounded like a thud, like something had fallen. I cocked my head and looked up into the corner of the wall adjacent to my door before I turned around and started to walk over to where I thought the sound had come from.

More noise led me over to Dad's room. Cautiously, I went over to his door and knocked. I heard a gasp inside. Frowning, I took the handle of the door and jerked it open to find someone rapidly waving their arms as though it would help keep me from opening it further.

It was my neighbor. How the freak he got in, I didn't know. What I did know was he didn't belong in here.

"Please, don't shout."

I watched him curiously. He was searching the room with his eyes as his arms fidgeted like he did not know what he should do with them. Then he slunk over to me in big steps.

"Don't tell her I came here; I'm just so lonely!"

My mind drew a blank and it showed on my face as I stared dumbly at him waiting for an answer. He placed his arms on my shoulders, and I felt chills flood into my neck, so I shoved his hands off of me.

"What are you doing here?"

I tried to sound very loud so someone would hear me. The guy grabbed me and turned me around putting his hand over my mouth to silence all protests. His hand was damp and smelled like sweat.

"I need you to be quiet. Can you do that?"

He was looking down at me. I looked up at him with wide eyes, nodding my head furiously as I tried to work my hands in-between his hand and my mouth. He let go. I turned around to face him angrily.

"What the-"

He put his hand over my mouth again.

"I thought you said you could be quiet!"

I shoved his hand off of me.

"I am being quiet. What are you doing here?"

He looked around as he brought his hands up to pinch his shirt in the midsection, twisting it absentmindedly. His eyes darted from the door to me, 

and then to the window behind him as his body followed the change in direction. I made sure I had a blatant frown for when he turned back to me.

"I was just- please! I don't have any friends!"

He looked like he was going to cry. His knees pounded the floor as he fell and shuffled over to me holding his hands out desperately. This guy was nuts!

I shrunk back from him, but he came all too quickly and seized me by the sides of my arms. I braced myself for when he would hurt me, closing my eyes. But what I felt didn't hurt me, so I opened them to see what it was.

My neighbor's head was leaning on my chest with his face looking down at my shoes. He was shaking. I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for this guy's masculinity. From the sounds coming out of him, it was like he was crying. I tried to remember exactly how old this guy really was.

"What happened to your grandma?"

He squeezed my arms tighter upon hearing this.

"She… she fell down the stairs!"

That didn't sound too bad. I've fallen down the stairs lots of times. Sometimes even on purpose. But he was still crying, and the fact that my dad had to go over there to help kind of changed the situation's levity a bit.

My eyes roamed over to the window. For the first time, I realized it was open, and I suddenly felt cold, but past that window, my neighbor's window was open. In his house, I could see into a sitting room. Further than that in a hall there was a set of spiral stairs that led to a tower room above.

If those were the stairs, I had no problem believing that she needed to go to the hospital. So this was what he'd wanted me for? I couldn't say I was happy about turning him down no that I thought about it. Actually, I felt like a big moron, but this guy was still here now, crying on my shirt. Maybe I could help after all.

"Hey, don't worry so much… I'm sure your grandma's doing fine."

"She didn't l-look f-fine!"

I sighed. This called for a change in tactics. Gently, I took my arm and put it on his back to comfort him as I stroked him.

"Shh…"

I brought my other hand up to mimic the first one as he continued to wail. It felt kind of awkward doing this, and I'm sure it looked awkward too. I just hoped it helped.

"Shh… don't worry, my dad's on the team; nothing's gonna go wrong, okay?"

My neighbor calmed down gradually as the minutes passed. I heard noise from downstairs. Silently, I prayed that Gobo would stay down there. He picked his head up from my chest. He had tear stains on his acne infested face and snot pouring down his upper lip. It was very unattractive, but in a way very pitiable, like how Gobo is when she cries because her head hurts, or she has a tummy ache.

"Your dad is saving my grandma's life!"

The corners of his cheeks lifted when he smiled, and his eyes scrunched. His teeth were crooked and he had braces. I smiled to confirm the remark properly, my arms still on his ribcage.

Then he hugged me, putting his head over mine, which shocked me out of my brain. Putting that aside, I returned the hug, although it wasn't as firm or nearly as suffocating. He pulled back looking into my eyes. I nodded positively and he let me go from his grip. Then he stood up his full length and wiped his nose on his sleeve staring up at the ceiling.

He turned his head to look behind him, then downward to look at me before he starting heading for the window he'd come from. Curiously, he'd put a plank between the two windows just to get here. I took on last glance up at 

him, not helping the fact that I was looking at him strangely. What a weird guy…