Prologue
I was being shipped off for the fourth time this summer. I was on a
plane headed to Santa Carla. The murder capital of the world, I thought, O
What fun. I have to spend the remainder of the summer with my cousins,
aunt, and grandpa. The older cousin, Michael, is around my age and is supposed to
pick me up from the Santa Carla International Airport when I get there in half an hour. This
is gonna suck. And its all because of my parents, who never wanted a kid, but had
sex anyway and didn't have the money for an abortion, and now they send me off so
they don't have to look at me. I open my sketchbook and pick up my pencil, beginning to sketch
a black rose. Soon the pilot's voice comes on across the speakers, announcing that we
should put everything away because we will be landing shortly. Then he added to buckle
our seat belts. I closed my sketchbook, putting it in a backpack along with my CD
Walkman and a few CDs.
Soon I felt the plane giving up altitude, slowly dropping from the sky. Then I felt a
small bump as we touched ground, gradually coming to a stop on the runway, the pilot
maneuvering the plane so it could be hooked up to a terminal. The attendant opened the
door of the airplane and announced that the first ten rows could begin unloading. I was
in row seven. I picked up my backpack and coat and headed out of the airplane, into
the suspended tunnel leading the airport. I was finally out of the terminal and in the
actual airport. I looked around hesitantly, looking for Michael's dark brown hair, which was
curly and usually stuck out in a crowd.
At least at home it did. Here, people had many different hairstyles, including curly