Crazy Americans

Crazy Americans- Chapter Two

New Beginnings

or

An Otaku is Born

Draco awoke the next morning, to the sun's rays brightly lighting the room. He sat up in his bed; then looked around at his new room. The room was fairly bare; it lacked the unique personal touch of a lived-in room. The small bed was pushed against the wall to provide more space for the desk and dresser that also occupied the room. The room was narrow, but somehow everything seemed to fit without cramping the room too much. After Draco sighed and got out of bed, he pulled his luggage off the portable luggage rack the Andersons gave him the night before. He cringed as the heavy bag fell to the floor with a loud thump.

"Jacob, is that you? Are you awake?" Draco heard Mrs. Anderson's voice call.

"Yes, it was just my luggage."

"Well, if you're awake, come get your breakfast! If you don't hurry up, it'll be lunch soon!"

"Coming."

Draco opened his luggage and pushed it against the wall to unpack later. He walked down the hall and downstairs to find the Andersons sitting at a table in the kitchen with a large breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and orange juice on the table. Morgan and Malcolm were fighting over who would get the last pancake, while Alyssa was rolling her eyes at the twins. Finally she hit one of them over the head and took the pancake herself. She put it on a plate and handed it to Draco.

"We normally don't have large breakfasts and this is exactly the reason why," she said as a sort of explanation for the twin's behavior. Draco sat down and took some sausage and began to eat. He didn't get far though because he was interrupted by the twin closest to him; whom he guessed was Malcolm, but wasn't too sure.

"That's such a boring way to eat sausage and pancakes! You've gotta do it like this!" Malcolm reached over Draco, taking the sausage and rolling it up in the pancake. "There! Pigs in blankets!" Malcolm gave a short nod. "That's the way to eat pancakes and sausage! Now, just put something on top and you can eat it!"

Draco looked at the pancake wrapped sausage and with a questioning look at Alyssa; who shrugged, then gave a small snort and turned back to her own breakfast. Now, both Malcolm and Morgan were pressing Draco to eat the pig-in-blanket, while shaking him in his seat and yelling "Try it! Try it!" Draco sighed and ate the pig-in-blanket, which was actually pretty good.

After breakfast, Draco went back upstairs to unpack. Mrs. Anderson came in every once in a while to ask if he needed help or wanted anything. After unpacking for about three hours (he had a lot of luggage, after all, it was a six month trip), he realized that he had an audience. Alyssa had been leaning against the doorframe, watching him unpack for the past five minutes. He turned and gave her a glare, before asking, "How long have you been standing there?"

"I was wondering how long it'd take you to realize I was here. Certainly took you long enough. Well, later," She said nonchalantly, as she turned and started down the hallway.

"Wait! Why were you standing there in the first place?" Draco called after her.

Alyssa turned and smacked her head and started, "Right! I was supposed to tell you something. Mom sent me to tell you that we're going out to dinner tonight and to wear something warm." She paused, as if thinking. She shrugged and said, "Jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with some kind of jacket should be fine. We're not going anywhere fancy, so don't dress up." With that, she turned and walked away.

Once Draco had finished unpacking and settling into his new room, he went back downstairs to see Alyssa sitting on the couch with a large open binder on her lap, a pencil in one hand, and throwing a pillow at one of the twins with the other. She yelled at him in a foreign language that Draco didn't understand.

"Anata wa taihen bakute aiwakui desu!"

"Mom! Alyssa is yelling at me in Japanese again! I can't understand her; she's probably insulting me or cussing!"

"That's the point Morgan, duh!"

Morgan stuck out his tongue at Alyssa, who in turn stuck out her tongue and pulled down her right eye. Morgan turned and ran out of the room while Alyssa turned back to the binder on her lap, muttering under her breath in Japanese. Draco walked into the room and looked over Alyssa's shoulder at her binder. All he saw was a bunch of line-like markings; nothing that made any sense to him. He figured that it was her Japanese homework and shook his head.

"You know, I really hate it when people read over my shoulder."

Draco, who was startled at this remark, looked at Alyssa, noting she hadn't even stopped what she was doing. "Especially when it's people who can't read Japanese because most of the time, the next thing out of their mouth is a request for translation."

Draco, who was more than a little taken aback, questioned, "How would you know what's going through my mind? Maybe I didn't want a translation. Maybe I'm reading over your shoulder because I know it annoys you. Maybe I'm in league with Malcolm and Morgan and on a mission to annoy you to the point of insanity. You don't know what's going through my mind." He looked down at Alyssa, who finally turned around to face him with an amused expression on her face and one eyebrow raised.

"Uh-huh, you expect me to believe that. Yeah, right," She stated before she sighed and looked at her watch. "Well, since we've only got fifteen minutes before we leave ((Only about 2, possibly 3 hours, have past since Draco ate)), I might as well stop for now." She closed her binder and stood up. "Don't think I'll forgotten this because I won't." With the binder under one arm, she brushed past him and out of the room. Draco stood and stared at her retreating form. 'Damn, she's got more spunk than Granger. She could easily be a contender for Slytherin,' he thought to himself, smirking a little.

A few minutes later, the rest of the family came downstairs and they left for dinner. This time, Draco sat in one of the middle seats, so he wouldn't be submitting himself to the tortures of the twins.

"So, Jacob, how do you like it here so far?" Mr. Anderson asked, as he pulled the minivan out of the driveway.

"It's fine. Though I can't really say accurately, since I've only been here."

Mrs. Anderson turned around in the front seat to look at him and Alyssa. She turned to Alyssa first and asked, "Alyssa, you said you needed to go shopping, right? Do you want to go tomorrow?"

Alyssa stopped staring out the window, turned to her mother, and replied, "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Tomorrow is fine," she muttered and turned back to the window, where she started out at the Oakland hills.

"Jacob, do you want to come with us? It would be a perfect opportunity for you to see a few sights and get out of the house."

"Sure, it would be fun."

In the backseat, the twins stopped fighting for a minute to cry out, "Hey! Can we go shopping too? Why can't we go shopping with you?"

Alyssa stopped staring out the window again to retort, "Because, we're going clothes shopping, not brain shopping."

Draco laughed to himself and looked out the window as well, watching various buildings and other cars go past.

When the minivan pulled off the freeway, the twins started yelling gleefully, "Benihana's! Benihana's!" Draco looked over at Alyssa, hoping for an explanation. He wasn't disappointed.

"Benihana's is a Japanese restaurant. It's got sushi and cooked food. The food is cooked right in front of you. You'll see," she replied when Draco looked a little confused at how food could be cooked at a restaurant table.

When they walked into the restaurant, a dozen different sounds and smells assaulted Draco's senses. The yelling of people, the sizzling of food, people talking and laughing, waiters yelling at one another, the smell of the grilled food, and the salty sweet smell of soy sauce filled the air. Once they were seated, Draco started to realize just how the food was cooked at the table. The table was more of a counter bordering a flat stove/grill. When the chef came, Alyssa looked over at her mother with a semi-questioning gaze. Mrs. Anderson nodded and Alyssa began to speak in Japanese to the chef.

"Sake no sashimi to amaebi to maguro no sashimi wo o tabe ni alimasu. Soshite, toliniku wo tabe ni alimasu kudasai." She smiled a superior smile and turned to the twins and Draco, almost daring them to try and copy her feat. Draco almost wished he could speak Japanese, if only to replace that annoying superior smile with a shocked expression. Instead, he ordered his food in English.

When the chef returned with the food, Draco was kind of surprised to see it still raw. But his confusion soon turned into a slight excitement at being able to watch his food cooked right in front of him.

Once their dinner was cooked, Mr. Anderson turned to Draco and asked, "So, Jacob, why did you decide to be a transfer student?"

Draco smiled inwardly, thinking about what their reaction would be if he told them the real truth. 'Oh yeah, that'll go over well. They'll just readily accept the fact that there are wizards in the world and an especially evil wizard is pissed off at me and wants to kill me because I betrayed him. That's a sure-fire way to get myself sent to a psychologist, or worse, an insane asylum.' Instead, he told them a semi-truth. "I just wanted a change. A change in setting and I also thought it would be fun to experience a new culture."

The Andersons seemed to accept this answer and Draco gave an internal sigh of relief. 'Well, that part of the lie's taken care of,' he thought and went back to eating his dinner. He had let Mrs. Anderson help choose something for him, since he wasn't familiar with Japanese food and she would order in English, unlike Alyssa, who would probably order some strange food like monkey brain in Japanese and not tell him what it was until he had eaten it.

The conversation shifted to the topic of school and what classes Draco would take.

"Well, he'll have to test for math and science, since he's not a freshman. History he can't do much about, since everyone has to take World Civ. before Western Civ. English, I'm not sure about; I'll talk to Mrs. Stayne about it. As for a language, that's for Jacob to decide. What language do you take or have taken or speak?" Alyssa asked Draco.

" I speak Latin pretty fluently, but it's a dead language, so it probably won't be of much use. At my school, we didn't really take foreign languages." 'Learning the spells was a language all on its own,' Draco thought to himself.

"Well, that'll do pretty well. CPS offers Latin as a course, but you could also take Spanish, French or Japanese."

"I'd rather take something other than Latin; I can speak and read fairly fluently."

"Then you should take Japanese! Sensei is cool and really nice, but you'd have to take Japanese I, since you don't know any Japanese." Alyssa said this last statement with a bit of haughtiness behind her voice.

"That's fine. I may take Spanish anyways."

"NO! You have to take Japanese! There so aren't enough people in Japanese; there are way too many in Spanish!" Alyssa yelled, catching the attention of the entire restaurant. Realizing that everyone was staring at her, she blushed and lowered her voice to a normal decibel level. "Besides, the Spanish teachers aren't that nice. Sensei, on the other hand is really nice."

Slightly frightened by the display of emotion, which was more than he had seen her display since he'd met her, Draco nodded and said he*d take Japanese. "So, what's this about testing into math and science?"

"Well, freshman usually take Math I or Math II and Physical Science, but some test higher, but they're special. Sophomores usually take Math II or Math III and Chemistry. You'll have to test into those since both the math and science classes build on the foundation set by the earlier class. So basically, you have to take a few tests so that they can tell you where you need to be. They don't always do the best job at determining what level a person should be at.

"I tested into Math II, and spent the majority of the first semester there. I ended up with a C grade, and getting 47's on tests. Finally, the math department decided I would be better off in Math I. I'm not sure how I ended up in Math II in the first place; I got a 40 on the entrance test. I'm kinda looking forward to cruising through the first semester, since I've done most of it already. I'm a Math II dropout, part of an elite group of sophomores who dropped out of Math II into Math I." Alyssa finished her speech with an almost proud look on her face, but she soon broke down and started laughing.

When they got back to the Anderson's house, Malcolm and Morgan ran inside with Alyssa behind them screaming, "Don't you two brats touch the TV! Kenshin, FMA, InuYasha, and .Hack are on tonight, and I'll be damned if you two get in my way of watching them!"

Draco was more than a little confused. Mrs. Anderson saw him and explained, "Alyssa's almost as obsessive of her cartoons as a little kid."

"THEY'RE NOT CARTOONS! THEY'RE ANIME! THERE'S A DIFFERENCE!" came the ferociously loud reply from the den.

Draco laughed out loud, drawing the gaze of Alyssa. "You know, that's the first time you've laughed out loud. I've seen you smirk and semi-smile, but never laugh. You're not normal." She turned back to her previous activity, which was protecting the remote from the twins as she watched a red-headed guy with wide eyes suddenly narrow his eyes, pull out a sword and kill a few people. Draco decided to see what Alyssa was so protective of and sat down on the couch as well.

After watching the both amusing and serious antics of Kenshin, FMA (Fullmetal Alchemist) was an abrupt change. Darker and more serious, Draco was instantly drawn to the show. He turned to Alyssa to ask for some background, but stopped when he saw her with her knees drawn up, head on her knees, crying.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying hard or anything am I?"

"No, but you're still crying."

"It's just so sad. I mean, Nina was his own daughter. So innocent and trusting."

"Can you give me some background on the characters? It might help."

"Okay, Edward and Alphonse are brothers whose father was a famous alchemist who left them when they were very young. Ed has a very strong talent for alchemy and in the last episode qualified to become a State Alchemist, the youngest ever at age 12. Al is a suit of armor because when their mother died, they tried to bring her back using alchemy, and Al's body was destroyed, and the only thing Ed could find to attach Al's soul to was the suit of armor in the corner. Ed's arm and leg are metal because he had to sacrifice them to save Al. They're searching for the Philosopher's Stone to restore their bodies back to normal. That enough for you?"

"Yeah. But..."

"Shh! The commercial is over!"

Once FMA ended, another change of pace occured with InuYasha, which was nowhere near as dark. More action-oriented, it had more humor, and soon Alyssa was laughing again. The twins had given up trying to get the remote after Kenshin and decided to watch. They were cheering as InuYasha defeated a rather large, rather ugly demon.

.Hack was next. Since it didn't look like a very serious anime, Draco tried to ask Alyssa a question, but was quickly rebuffed.

"Shh! You need to pay attention if you're going to get this one! It may not look complicated, oh but it is. So shut up and watch!"

Draco could not make heads or tails of .Hack, but was a little intimidated by Alyssa, since he had seen how intent she was on watching and not being interrupted, so didn't ask. Once the show ended, he turned to Alyssa with a very confused look on his face. She laughed at him and apologized.

"Sorry, but it was so funny. You looked so confused, and I suppose you have the right to be confused. .Hack is pretty complicated to begin with and this is one of the later episodes, which makes it even more confusing." She turned to look at the twins, who had fallen asleep on the couch, and laughed. "They can never make it past the first half of .Hack without falling asleep. Well, that's all the anime that's on tonight; what did you think?"

"They were all pretty good, but that last one was confusing."

"Yeah, that can happen. I've got a lot more anime; do you want to watch it tomorrow?"

"Sure, but please explain what happens if we're not starting with an early episode!"

Alyssa snorted at this. "We'll make an otaku of you yet. But it's too late to watch any more tonight." She yawned, "I'm going to bed; you should too. Wake the twerps before you go upstairs please."

Draco went upstairs to his room and sat down on the bed, head in his hands. The conversation over dinner had reminded him of the situation back at Hogwarts and in the wizarding world.

He still wasn't exactly sure why the Death Eaters had come for him in the Great Hall, but he had a pretty good hunch that it was somehow connected to his being a double spy. He had decided to become a double spy because he had decided that working under a madman whose goal it was to destroy the world was not his cup of tea. He wasn't a member of the Order of the Phoenix yet, and it gave him some pleasure to know that neither Potter nor his friends were members yet either. But it still puzzled him how Voldemort could have found out about his being a double spy. Draco shook his head. It would just cause more trouble than it was worth to worry about it here. After all, that was his main reason for coming here in the first place: to get away from the whole dilemma. Yet, he couldn't help but wonder about what was happening back in England, since he couldn't send or receive any owls. Draco shook his head again and got into bed. He would deal with all this later. Right now, it was 1:30 a.m. and he needed to sleep.

The next morning, Draco woke to the pounding of feet and loud voices. He rubbed his eyes and listened harder.

"GIVE THAT BACK MORGAN! IF YOU WANT TO LIVE TWERP, GIVE IT BACK!" 'That would be Alyssa' Draco thought.

"MAKE ME!" 'And that would be Morgan'

"MORGAN, IF YOU WANT TO LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER HOUR, YOU'LL GIVE ME BACK MY MANGA NOW!"

Draco opened his door, just to see Morgan fly past the doorway, with Alyssa right behind him. Morgan darted into the room next to Draco's and shut the door behind him, trapping Alyssa in the hall. Alyssa tried the door and seeing it was locked, she started to get really angry. Draco slowly backed up into his room, ready to avoid a sibling rivalry explosion.

"Morgan, I am giving you the count of three to get out of that room." Alyssa started in a calm voice; a voice that was very different than the emotion that clouded her face. "One...two...three." Seeing no movement from the door or from the room within, Alyssa tried a different approach.

"MORGAN, YOU BRAT! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM BEFORE I CALL JESSICA SIMON AND TELL HER YOU WERE TALKING IN YOUR SLEEP ABOUT KISSING HER! DON'T THINK I WON'T DO IT!"

The door opened and Morgan poked his head out. "You wouldn't really call Jessica, would you?" he asked in a sad, scared voice.

"I WILL IF YOU DON'T GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM AND GIVE ME BACK DNANGEL!! SO GET YOUR ASS MOVING, NOW!!"

Morgan tossed a book to the ground and ran. As soon as he had thrown the book down, Alyssa had dived for it and managed to hit Morgan as he ran away. She picked up the book, hugged it to her chest and saw Draco, still watching cautiously from his doorway.

"The danger is over. The civilians can come out of hiding now!" Alyssa called, and as Draco watched, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, as well as Malcolm slowly came out of their respective rooms and seeing no blood or broken items, sighed with relief.

"So, I take it this happens often?" Draco asked Mr. Anderson as he passed by.

"Sadly, once or twice a week."

Draco grinned and walked over to Alyssa, who was still hugging the book, which upon approach, he saw it was a DVD box.

"Are you okay?"

"I am now that I have my room and my DNAngel back," Alyssa replied with a grin.

"What's DNAngel?"

"Only one of the best manga and anime ever! True, the anime is a romance/action anime and the manga is so much better, but it's still awesome!"

Alyssa darted into her room to drop off her book, then grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him downstairs. "Come on, Jacob! Let's go get something to eat before the twins eat it all."

After breakfast, Alyssa came into Draco's room. "Jacob, last night, you said you wanted to watch more anime. We've got about an hour and a half before we have to leave; do you want to watch some anime?"

"Sure, but you've got to promise to explain stuff, okay?"

"Sure, whatever."

Alyssa dragged Draco into her room, where the main features were a desk with absolutely no free space, a small TV and DVD player and two bookshelves, both full, one with books, and one with anime and manga. The walls were covered with a mix of various pictures, wall ornaments, astronomy posters, and anime posters. The computer on the desk was blasting some music. Draco caught a few strains of lyrics before Alyssa dragged him over to the anime/manga shelf. Alyssa started pulling out various DVDs and placing them on the floor in piles while muttering to herself.

"Let's see, Happy Lesson, that goes under random comedy, Kino's Journey, serious, Get Backers, action/comedy." After a while, she turned to Draco and said, "okay, we've got time to watch two episodes. What kind of stuff do you like to watch? Serious, comic, action, romance, sci-fi, mecha, shojo, or weird and random?"

Draco shrugged. "You pick. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

Alyssa shook her head. "I can tell we've got our work cut out for us."

"Who is us?"

"The rabid otakus at school, duh. We'll make an otaku out of you yet."

Draco looked skeptical. He still didn't know what an otaku was yet and was slightly embarrassed to ask, so didn't.

An hour later, Mrs. Anderson stuck her head into the room, only to be greeted with Alyssa's hysterical screech of, "The Yukari-mobile! No! Don't take the Yukari-mobile!! Don't do it Chiyo-chan!" and Draco's laughter.

"Are you two ready to go? We need to leave soon."

"Sure mom, we'll be ready in five. Don't worry."

Still laughing, Draco got up from the floor.

"So, what did you think? Pretty good, huh?"

"Yeah, but I don't think I'd show that to your brothers."

"God, no! For one, they don't understand any anime that doesn't have fighting or power levels in it and for another, there's some stuff there my mom would kill me for showing to them." Still laughing, Alyssa pushed Draco out of her room, saying, "Watch out Grandpa! No! No! Watch out for that wall!" which set them both off in laughter. Mrs. Anderson just shook her head.

At the Sun Valley mall, Draco was amazed at how many people there were in just that one area. Sure, Diagon Alley was always filled with people, but it was a lot larger than the mall, and there seemed to be just as many people here. After being dragged through the junior's department of Macy's as well as Hot Topic and Anchor Blue, Draco thought he had seen enough girl's clothing to last a lifetime. True, he had gotten a few things for himself at Anchor Blue, but it still seemed like Mrs. Anderson had asked Alyssa her opinion on every item of clothing in all the stores. After leaving Anchor Blue, Alyssa grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him down the mall, yelling over her shoulder, "Jacob and I are going to Walden's; be back in about an hour!"

"What's Walden's and how are we going to spend an hour there?"

"Walden's is a bookstore, and I'm going to introduce you to the joy of a good manga section."

Alyssa dragged Draco into a bookstore, narrowly avoiding a collision with a woman pushing a stroller and a guy who looked like he could punch a hole through the wall if he wanted to. She dragged him to the back of the store, where he was greeted by a wall of books with multi-colored covers, all with strange-sounding names.

"Okay, since it's clear you know nothing about manga, I'll start you off with a few personal faves. Now, just sit here and read these. If you like them, I'll tell you if I've got them or not, and if I don't, you can buy them." Alyssa started piling books into Draco's arms. "Let's see, DNAngel, Juvenile Orion, Fake, Saiyuki, Kenshin, Imadoki, that should do for now." She plopped down on the floor next to Draco and began running her finger along the rows of manga, pulling out a few every now or then or muttering about how they never updated their stock.

An hour later, Alyssa had piled a few manga next to her and was now sorting through it. She turned to Draco, who was still engrossed in Juvenile Orion. She laughed, and when he looked up incredulously, she explained, "That's almost exactly how I looked when I read that part. I mean, how could they do that do Tsukasa/Israfel? Don't worry, I've got the whole series at home."

When they finally got up, each with about two or three manga, Alyssa gasped and gave a little shriek.

"Kira! I knew, if I was going to run into you today, it'd be here! It's so good to see you!" She dropped the books she was holding, hugged the newcomer enthusiastically and turned to Draco. "Jacob, this is my best friend and fellow otaku, Kira Mason."

"Nice to meet you, Kira. Alyssa, are all your friends otakus?"

Kira replied, "No, it's pretty much just us and a few people who we're only in contact with during anime club meetings."

Draco had figured out that otaku had something to do with anime and guessed that it meant an anime fan. Kira and Alyssa had started babbling about a new anime or manga, when suddenly Kira shrieked. "NO WAY! You've got to be kidding me!"

"No joke, DNAngel 5 came out yesterday, and guess who's got a copy? Oh that and the little fact that I am the proud owner of a chibi Tsukasa/Israfel keychain!" Both girls shrieked and then stopped when they realized that Draco was staring at them. With an evil look, the girls surrounded him, clasped hands and started jumping up and down and shrieking with excitement. Draco clasped his hands to his ears and cringed.

They spent the rest of the day with Kira, whom Draco learned was a fountain of hyper activity. When it was time to leave, Kira and Alyssa hugged and Kira hugged Draco, saying, "I'll see you tomorrow for the first day of school!" and then ran off, various shopping bags flying out behind her. Alyssa gasped.

"Oh my gosh! I totally forgot that tomorrow's the first day, and you don't have any supplies!" She grabbed Draco's arm again, and dragged him off to the central area, where she found her mother and demanded they visit Staples for an emergency school supply run.

After the 'emergency school supply run', Alyssa, Draco and Mrs. Anderson headed back home. In the car, Draco thought about what had happened the past two days. 'It's rather amusing; I supposedly came here to experience American culture, and yet all I've experienced is Japanese culture in America. Benihana's, anime, manga, otaku, and taking Japanese at CPS, it's all been Japanese! Well, hopefully what Kira said was true and I'll get to experience some American culture at CPS.'

The next day, Draco awoke to a loud pounding on his door. "Wake up Jacob! You're going to make us, mainly me, be late for school! Not to mention our carpool!"

Once they got to school, Draco was amazed at the variety of people and colors. At Hogwarts, everyone had worn the same basic set of robes, with slight variations according to houses. But here, at CPS, it seemed like no one was wearing the same thing. As he and Alyssa walked up the hill to the auditorium, he saw friends greeting one another and he still had yet to see one similar outfit. As they approached the auditorium, Draco recognized Kira, standing with a group of other girls and a few guys. "Hey Ki! Hi everyone!" Alyssa ran up to the group, dragging Draco along with her.

After much hugging, Alyssa introduced Draco to the group. "Everyone, this is Jacob. He is an exchange student from England. Jacob, these are my friends. You already know Kira. This is Jason, Erica, Kevin, Christine, Michelle, Sarah, and Nick."

Draco raised a hand in hello as a man with a megaphone got up on a podium and announced "Everyone, go into the auditorium. Leave your backpacks and books outside. You know the drill; don't block the entrance. Everyone into the auditorium!"

As Alyssa pulled Draco into the auditorium, Draco wondered what he was in for now.