Prologue
I looked at the many faces on the cruise ship. Adults. Little kids. Older kids. No body in between. Like me. 14 was the "middle age" as I called it. You're not old enough to talk to adults about important stuff, but you're not young enough to be a cute little kid. Just in the middle. My parents were in the little room. I had stepped out onto deck to get out of the cramped, sickly smelling room. Obviously they didn't clean up well after the last sea sick person.
As people hustled past, I played a quiet game with myself. I called it the animal face game. You looked at someone's face and decided what animal they would be. I saw women that looked like cats, pigs, wolves, squirrels, birds, and a few others. Men that looked like gorillas, monkeys, sea gulls, rats, and unidentifyable ones that looked to worn to tell. Kids looked like the babies of these animals. Suddenly, someone tapped my shoulder. I jumped around in surprise, ready to beat up some older man that might want to kidnap me.
Instead there was a girl about my age. I let my gaurd drop a bit, and smiled. Finally someone in the middle, like me. She was mocha colored girl, half black, half white. She had redish brown hair and dark eyes. "Hi, I'm Abigail!" she said.
"I'm Kura." I replied. She nodded, as if to say she had filed the info away safely.
"I was wondering what nationalities you were?" she asked. That was a strange for people to ask. Most didn't ask in order to avoid offending me. But the question brought a smile to my face.
"Half Japanese, three-quarters American!" I said proudly. She gave me a strange look. I laughed. "Well, technically, I'm half and half, but people say my facial features look more American than just a half." Abigail smiled with understanding.
"I'm just the opposite!" came a male voice behind us. We both turned to see a rather tall boy, who actually despite his hight looked our age, with blonde hair, blue eyes, but otherwise Asian features. "Sorry for bumping in, but my name is Fai."
"I'm Kura, and this is Abigail." I smiled back. He had a glowing aura about him, radiating happiness around him. Even Abigai, who originally jumped behind me out of fright, came out and smiled. I turned and looked at her. "For someone who goes around questioning peoples' nationalities, you're really shy."
"Well, it took quite a bit of courage. And you looked my age, so I figured you'd understand. My parents call me 'naturally curious'." I nodded, secretly rolling my eyes. "At first I was even more nervous, cuz I thought you were one of those tough girls, but I saw you laughing for no reason, so I figured you were nice." Ah! Yes! My game! What would these two be?
"Yes, I noticed the same, and meant to ask you were thinking!" Fai said.
"Ah! A deer and a cat!" I said aloud. The looked at me questioningly. "I play a game when I'm bored in a crowd. I look at people and try to figure out what animal they look like! In your case, I think Abigail would be a deer, and Fai would be a cat!" I said joyfully, a hint of love for mischif in my voice and sparkling in my eyes. "What would I be?"
They both studied me, and unanimously said "fox". We all laughed.
"Yeah, I've heard that from everyone I asked!" I said between giggles. "I've heard it said that they could stick me in a fox skin and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and a real fox!" That brought another volley of laughs.
So we talked, ran around together, and when my parents came to bring me back to our room to unpack, we exchanged room numbers and made plans to meet up again when I was done.
