I wrote it a long time ago for a short story competition that I never entered. I don't remember hold old I was, 14 I think. grins I haven't bothered to edited it or change anything.

-Changes-

It wasn't easy, a new neighbourhood, a new school, a new family.a new country and no friends. Kiyo didn't like, not one bit. It was hard enough to fit in with people and children her own age in Japan but now, here in Canada it was going to be so much harder. Her life was almost not worth living. She was only 13 years old, her parents had died and she had been uprooted from her home and now.now this. Kiyo had to live with her aunt that she had hardly ever known and live in Canada.
Kiyo looked around her surrounding as she stood on the lawn of her new house. The house looked nothing like her house in Japan, it was big and colourful.she didn't like it. As she walked into the house, she noticed none of the doors slid open; she also did not like that change. The table was ever high off the floor, which seemed ridiculously odd. All the walls were covered in paint and pictures; there was nothing to show what heritage they were. As she was shown to her room she frowned at the bright pink room.it was nothing like her old room, she hated it, she hated all of this!
The next day was even worst; she was shipped off to school. No one wore uniforms; girls and boys were in the same classroom. She was forced to sit in a classroom where the teachers spoke English none stop. Kiyo never once heard a person speak her beautiful language. No one did anything like she had done in Japan; at lunch she sat alone and listened to people talk about dances and movies, whereas if she had been in Japan, she would have been talking to her friends about the newest origami, or the latest episode of their favourite anime or even about their new kimono they would have gotten for their birthdays (all Kiyo's friends had birthdays around the same months) She missed her friends so much, the friends that it had taken her forever to make. It was common knowledge in her Japan school that she was part Japanese and part Canadian (on her mothers side) and that made it hard for her to make friends because she was different, now it was starting all over again. She missed Amara and her funny jokes around the schools headmaster, she missed Yuko and the way she knew everything about Manga comics and most of all she missed Usai because she was her best and first friend she had ever made.
After school Kiyo realised she was in for yet another big disappointment. For supper her aunt had cooked something that she had never eaten before, pogo sticks and fries. Of course she knew what fries where and she and even eaten them from time to time but pogo sticks? Kiyo played with her food and finally got up and left the table telling her aunt and uncle that she wasn't hungry. She went up into her to bright pink room and lay on her bed, she hated it here, she hated it!! Softly she began to cry, how she wished things would just go back to normal. She wished she could just go home.
The next morning Kiyo said she didn't feel well and her Aunt let her stay home from school. Kiyo was glad for it; she never wanted to go back to that school, in fact she had decided that she never wanted to leave her room, even though it was a suffocating bright pink. She lay in her bed for the longest time just looking up at the ceiling, feeling sorry for herself. She was the victim here. Finally around three o'clock she decided to get up and as she walked down the stairs, she heard her aunt and uncle talking in the kitchen and stopped to listen, even though she knew it was very wrong to ease drop.
"Helen, please it will be ok," she heard her uncle say in a soft comforting tone.
"No, Kevin, it isn't going to be alright. I don't know what to do, I can't handle a child, that's why we never had one."
"Helen.your wonderful with children and you know it, we haven't had children yet because we are waiting." before her uncle could finish her aunt cut him off, her voice sounding as if she were about to cry,
"Kevin.she hates me, I'll never be like my sister Amy, and I could never be like her mother." Kiyo's aunt's voice drifted off and once again she heard her uncle Kevin's voice but this time it had a hard tone to it.
"Helen, no one is asking you to be like your sister and I'm really sure that Kiyo does not want you to try and be her mother, she just misses everything, her mother, her father, her friends.her home. Just like you miss your sister, we have to be patient with her Helen.she's just afraid." Kiyo listened as her aunt sighed deeply. When she spoke next it seemed her voice had taken on a lighter tone almost as if she were smiling,
"Your right Kevin, maybe I'm expecting too much from Kiyo, too much from myself even.I just wish there was something we could." Before her aunt had finished Kiyo had moved back up the step and into her room.
Kiyo stood by her window and looked out onto the neighbourhood, it was a very pretty place and it wasn't cluttered together like her place in Japan. Gradually Kiyo let out a long sigh, she hoped her aunt didn't really think that she hated her.it wasn't that, it was just that she didn't want to have to be here. She wanted to be home. But no matter how hard she wished or how much she wanted, things would never go back to the ways they were because people no one can cheat what death does.not even the living.
Kiyo got up the next morning and decided that she would try and at least give school one more chance. This day it seemed people took more notice of her then they had two days before and at lunch a young girl sat down beside her and smiled,
"Hi, I'm Jessa.your the new girl right? Kiyo? I love that name it's very usually, I wish I had that kind of name, not a name like Jessa that at least six other people in this school have." Kiyo laughed as the girl, who was about her age finally ran out of breath and stopped what she was saying. Kiyo smiled at her, not wanting Jessa to think that she had laughed at her to make fun of her and quickly replied,
"I like your name, I haven't heard it very often and you are the first that I know in this school with it," Kiyo watched as the other girl grinned
"Really? I'm glad. I saw you on Monday but there was a huge drama production going on that I didn't really have time to talk to anyone and yesterday you weren't here, I was beginning to think that I might never meet you." Jessa leaned forward in chair as her excitement grew. "I am so happy to have finally gotten to meet you Kiyo, I hope we can be good friend!" Kiyo's smile widened as she listened to Jessa, Jessa actually liked her and wanted to be friends.she had made a friend on her second day of school. Kiyo laughed brightly,
"I hope we can be the best of friends!" Happily Jessa began to laugh with Kiyo. The rest of that school day seemed to go great from there on.
Kiyo walked home from school and for the first time since she had gotten to Canada she had a smile on her lips that seemed to brighten up her whole face. As she made her way up the driveway to her house she noticed that her uncle Kevin's car was home; had he not gone to work today? Kiyo entered the house and glanced around, no one was here.
"Aunt Helen? Uncle Kevin?" Kiyo frowned as a large bang came from upstairs and she slowly began to make her way up. As she got to the top of the stairs she heard muttered voice coming from her room. She moved to the door, twisted the knob and pushed it open.
Kiyo's eyes widened as she saw her room, it looked almost like the one in Japan, her mother and fathers pictures where on the walls. Her Mothers antique wardrobe was in the corner. Tears slipped from Kiyo's eyes as she looked at her bed and her mother's kimono that was laying on it.
"Aunt Helen." Kiyo watched as she aunt smiled a loving smile.
"We know it's been hard for you Kiyo, so we wanted to make you feel welcome here, we wanted this to feel like home." Kiyo smiled as tears ran down her cheeks and she moved quickly to embrace her aunt and uncle.
".You're wonderful.I love you, it feels like.it -is- home"

The End