From the Diary of the Slayer India Cohen: June 23rd, 1993 (from The Book of Fours)

Dear Diary, We landed in Japan tonight. We got to Narita Airport, and then we had to take a bus for two hours to get to Tokyo. Then we had to go further south to our city, which is called Yokosuka. I'm dead. I can't believe how hot it is. I'm sweating like crazy. We're billited in the nurses' quarters while they get our house ready. The air conditioning is laughable and we're trying to survive with some fans in our rooms. They're also burning mosquito coils, which stink way bad and as far as I can tell, are not killing any mosquitoes. Or else there are so many of them that they manage to get around the coils and bite me. I'm writing instead of sleeping because Mom and Daddy got in a huge fight about ten minutes ago. I don't know what it was about, but Mom is already out the door. She took the car and the driver. Daddy sounded really upset but he hasn't said a word to me so far. He never does. Am I just being a melodramatic fifteen year old when I say that sometimes I feel like an orphan? And is this what getting married is going to be like? Cuz I'm thinking, "Pass!." I'm all in knots. I'm so tired and hot and I'm already homesick. Who would ever guess that I would miss anything about South Carolina? I miss Munchkin so much. I know Gramma will take good care of her up in Green Bay, and I know Daddy warned me when I brought her home that we might get transferred overseas, but I couldn't leave her in that box in front of the Piggly Wiggly when all her brothers and sisters had already found good homes. I know this whole "runt of the litter" thing is a bunch of you-know-what, anyway. That may be because I'm so short. Munchy's little for a Samoyed, but nobody can keep up with Munchkin, not even the football players at school, and the only way I could make sure she got enough exercise was letting her run while I rode my bike. She could do ten miles, easy. She wouldn't do well in t his heat though. daddy has a point there. A big, fluffy dog like her shouldn't be put through this. As I'm writing this, the paper is actually limp from my sweat. My pen is running on the damp page and my arm is all slick. Yuck. I wish I had pushed harder to stay in Green Bay with Gramma too. Mom and Daddy said no but they usually say no to anything I ask the first time around. Then later they give in. I wish I knew what they fought about tonight. I hope it wasn't me. I don't know why it would be about me-I haven't done or said anything wrong-but what else do they have to fight about? Daddy is the captain of one of the biggest ships in the Seventh Fleet and Mom used to be one of the most famous actresses in Asia, definitely the most famous in the Philippines. She is still way beautiful. She keeps asking me how a lady like her could have a jock like me for a kid. But she doesn't actually say "jock." I'm not sure she knows what a jock means. She just goes on about how I don't wear makeup and I wear my just in a boring ponytail, and when am I going to stop playing sports with boys and start thinking about my appearance? I do think about my appearance. I'm fashionable without being all overboard about it, wearing jeans and T's, and so do lots of girls who aren't succumbing to fashion victimhood. Jeanne Schaumberg's mom said she wished Jeanne was more into sports and less into boys. Most of the girls' moms say stuff like that. So why can't my mom be happy that I'm doing well at something, even if I'm not the Prom Queen or whatever? daddy just came in and told me he's sorry if the fight upset me. He didn't ask me if I heard it. I'll bet half the base heard it. Stuff like this is bad for his career. Mom knows that, but I guess she doesn't care. Sometimes I feel like it's Dad and me in one family, and her and me in another. It doesn't feel like we synch up when it's all three of us. Hold on... Oh my god. I can't believe this. This is too, too, too weird. Am I on drugs and don't know it? Check it out- Daddy came back in and asked me if I wanted anything before he went to bed. He looked really lost. I almost started crying but he looked like he would cry if I did, so I held it in. He said something about Mom missing her career, and I said, "Why can't she have her career?" and he said some stuff about he'll be at sea a lot and who would take care of me? So I said, :Hey Daddy, I am fifteen, you know. And I'll be sixteen before school starts." And this set him off; he did start to cry so I was really freaked out and I was also kind of mad at him, even though I still don't really understand why. Almost like he was asking me to solve this problem for him. Does that make any sense? If it does, good. Cuz what happened next does not make any sense. He wiped his eyes and said he was sorry and went out the door. I decided to take a walk, because maybe it would be cooler outdoors and besides, I needed to walk off the tension. So I went outside and there was this amazingly cute guy standing across the street. He had black, black hair and big, big green eyes. He was smoking a cigarette. And when he saw me, he looked kind of startled and said "India?" And he pronounced it correctly (nobody ever gets it right he first time. In-DEE-a. I always tell people,"NOT like the country," but they still don't get it.) When your dad is a commanding officer of a ship, you learn early on how to deal with people you don't know, but who know you. Plus, famous mother. So I said "Yeah?" He replied, "I'm your Watcher." I was freaked out, cuz what does that mean, he's my stalker? I said "Really. How about that?" And he looked at me like I should know what that means. So he said, "It's happened. You've been called. You're the Chosen One." He put his hand on my shoulder. I didn't give him another chance. I decked him. He landed on his butt and his cigarette went flying. I stamped out his cigarette and said, "I'm getting my father right now." He looked up at me and made this "Wait, wait" hand gesture, and said, "Don't you know about your destiny?" I shouted, "Daddy!" and there was a commotion over at the nurses' quarters and the guy ran off. By the time my dad showed, my "watcher" was long gone. So I told him what happened, and gave him a description, and he called the Shore Patrol. Now they're looking for the guy, and Daddy told me that I did the right thing in defending myself first and asking questions later, cuz you never know. Never know what? That some people are kind of psycho? Not news here! But I do feel like I overreacted. Maybe that's because he was so amazingly cute. He's probably at least twenty. he was wearing shorts and an Annopolis T-shirt and he looked way hot. My mom just came back, and my dad told her about what happened and now she's yelling at him and telling him that Americans bring violence with them wherever they go, and he's saying, "Oh yeah? Anybody tell Ferdinand and Imelda about that?" He means Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Ferdinand Marcos was the dictator of the Philippines but he's dead now. The Marcoses helped my mom with her career and now they've been declared of the bad, and that embarrasses my dad. Anyway, that's old news. The new news is that they haven't found the guy and I'm kind of sorry I didn't wait to ask more questions, no matter what my dad says. The strange thing is, I'm not really scared. I almost feel like I know what this is about. I feel wired. I feel like something big is gonna happen. Something very big.