This is the beginning to a brand-new ROTG story. Yay! I know the OC thing has been done, like, a million times before, but, you know, I wanted to try it out for myself. I'm giving myself, like, a 101 commitments by posting up so many stories, but what can I do? Hahaha.

Anyway, hope you'll enjoy this! This chapter doesn't actually involve Jack or anything - it's more of an intro to the OC - hope you won't find it TOO boring.

"We'll miss you, you know."

Tara had to swallow as she looked over at Jerelee standing in front of her, Jerelee and Belle and Lena and Hope and all her other friends just standing there. She thought she could feel tears prickling at the back of her eyes, and had to blink furiously. No. Don't cry. You're not allowed to cry.

"You have to Skype us," said Alice, Sally next to her nodding furiously.

"You have no choice," Sally informed her. "I don't care. You have to Skype us."

Her voice sounded dry: "I'll try and come back and visit."

She knew, just as Alice and Sally and Jerelee knew, that it was highly unlikely. Her parents didn't have the money.

"But just imagine!" Lena said. "You're going to have so much fun!" Of course, that was Lena – always bright, always optimistic. "What's that place called again? The one you're moving to?"

"Burgess," Tara muttered. "Something like that."

"Take pictures," said Hope. "You've got your DSLR, right? No excuses. I want to see what everything there is like. Real photos, not stupid landscapes or buildings."

They all knew what she meant when she said 'real photos'. Tara always had her camera with her, and she only ever took what she felt was real – photos with emotion, without posing or just plain old buildings or anything fake. She'd been the victim of plenty of enraged screaming many times before.

"I read somewhere that it snows more in Burgess than anywhere else," said Sally. Of course Sally would know that kind of detail. "You'd better take lots of pictures of the snow."

Tara smiled a bit, at that. Singapore wasn't exactly known for its snow. In fact, the only seasons they ever seemed to get was summer, except when the rainy season came. Most of her friends had never seen snow. "I will."

Jerelee asked: "Your parents didn't make you dye your hair back?"

Instinctively, Tara's hand went up to her hair. As a protest against her migration (to the freaking United States!), she'd gone and dyed her hair bright pink. Her parents had been furious, but after a low, angry discussion, much of which Tara hadn't been able to hear, they'd allowed her to keep her hair pink.

"No," she said. "Think my dad figured it's better than smoking or some shit."

She was going to miss them. She was going to miss all of them. She'd never been good with people, especially new people, but she'd grown up here, on this tiny little island, and these were her friends, her family that weren't her blood. And now it was likely she would almost never see them again.

No crying.

"TARA!"

She turned her head to the sound of the voice, and saw two boys running frantically through the crowd at the airport. Her eyes widened – she hadn't expected them to come, not really. She'd mentioned the day of her flight, but not her flight number, or the gate –

She caught sight of Jerelee's knowing smile, and Delia's grin. Of course Delia had had something to do with this. Delia wasn't the kind to express her emotions a lot, but she did have a knack of coming up with exactly what a person needed.

In a moment, KP and Luke had skidded to a halt in front of her.

The first thing Tara said was: "I thought you guys didn't talk to each other anymore."

They exchanged a look, and then KP grinned, awkwardly. "Well, I figured that my problems with him weren't as huge as you moving over to the other side of the world."

"I got you this," Luke added, hurriedly, bringing out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back – roses, a dozen different colours, and Tara's eyes widened.

"You mean, we did," KP corrected.

"Shut up. It was my idea."

"I'm still included."

"Anyway," Luke said, turning back to her, "they're all fake. I mean, I know you like fake flowers. Not real ones that'll die on you. So, um, yeah."

Tara, hands shaking slightly, took the bouquet. Already beside her, her hand luggage, which had been mostly empty, was now filled to the brim with all the gifts her friends had given her. She'd been hoping for gifts, that was true, and her friends being her friends had all brought her something – but she'd never expected something from the boys. "Thanks."

Luke smiled, brilliantly, and KP was back to his awkward grin.

"Just – take care of yourself, okay?" Luke said. "I heard it's going to be cold like crazy over there. Make sure, you know, you dress warmly and don't get too cold and fall sick and – "

"Dude," Alice said, "relax. Tara knows how to take care of herself."

"Yeah, right," scoffed KP, and he received a swift blow to his arm. "Thanks, man."

"Don't mention it."

"Tara?" It was her younger sister, Hayley, peering up at her from behind Belle, who was smiling at her and patting her head. She swallowed, catching sight of the flowers in her sister's head: "Mummy says we gotta go."

"Remember to keep warm, okay?" Luke said, one last time: "You don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose."

Tara smiled: "Since when do you know about Jack Frost?"

"I read," Luke said, indignantly.

"C'mon, one last hug," Sally demanded, and almost immediately Tara was swarmed by her friends, and she had to fight the urge not to cry one last time.

"I'll miss you all," she whispered, her voice hoarse, as they finally drew away, Hayley standing patiently, quietly.

And then Hayley took her hand, and led her on the first steps towards her new life, away from her friends, to a little town called Burgess on the other side of the world.

Jamie Bennett watched, curiously, at his new neighbours moving in. He hadn't seen anyone like them before.

First there was the dad – he was tall, and skinny, and didn't seem to feel the cold as he helped to move stuff into the house. He was dark-skinned, with curly dark hair flecked with grey, and though his face looked a little stern and fierce, Jamie thought he was actually a nice guy.

Then there was the mum. She was shorter, a little plump, and she was clearly freezing, shivering in the wintry air. Maybe she wasn't used to the weather in Burgess – after all, Jack always made it snow more here than anywhere else. She was much fairer, with brown hair and wide eyes behind frameless glasses.

A girl about Jamie's age, then. She was very pretty – Jamie felt his face turn hot – and with thick, tumbling black hair. Her eyes were very wide and with long lashes, and her skin was fair, and her face flushed.

Last of all was a tall girl, a teenager, with black and orange spectacles. She looked maybe seventeen? Jamie wasn't sure. The most striking thing about her was her bright pink hair, long and straight and reached all the way down past her waist. She had dark skin, just like her dad, but while his features were sharp, her features were a little plain.

Her plain features were only emphasised by the scowl on her face.

The way they talked, and called out to each other, was different from anything he'd ever heard before. Once, when the pink-haired girl slipped on some snow, she let out a string of words in a language he'd never heard before. He thought it might be Chinese.

He wondered if the younger girl, the one around his age, might believe in Jack Frost. Jack hadn't been around for a couple of days – said he'd had to go spread winter in some other places – and Jamie missed having him around.

The younger girl, anyway, looked much friendlier than her sister. She was looking around her in wonder, gazing at the snow, and laughing.

She really was very pretty.

Tara kicked at the ground as she followed Hayley, who had somehow found her way to the playground, park, whatever it was. She was exhausted, and all she really wanted to do was to set up her room and hang up her photos and figure out where she was going to put her stuff.

But then Hayley had asked if she could go out and explore (which really meant play), and of course Mum had said yes, but only if Tara followed. So here she was.

She scowled to herself.

Granted, she'd never seen snow before. It was, if she had to admit, a little magical. Her hand went to the DSLR that she'd slung around her shoulder, and then fell back. She'd wait, she decided, before taking any photos.

There were already a couple of kids there, building a snowman. One of them, a small boy with messy, unkempt brown hair, spotted Hayley immediately, and there was a small smile on his face as she caught sight of him too.

Tara's face softened. Of course the kid would smile.

"D'you want to help us build a snowman?" he asked Hayley.

Hayley glanced over at Tara, who shrugged her shoulders, like: Do whatever you want, kid, as long as it's not something stupid.

Hayley turned back to the boy. "I don't know how," she admitted, as Tara dropped onto a swing set near them. "I've never seen snow before."

The boy's jaw dropped: "You've never seen snow before?"

"Well, on TV."

"You've got to be kidding!" A girl had moved up next to the boy. "We have to fix this. Like, right now. We'll show you how to build a snowman!"

Hayley grinned, and almost immediately Tara felt an ache in her heart. Hayley had never been good with new people, much like Tara was (an annoying trait they'd inherited from their dad), and to have new kids be so nice to her – she probably felt on top of the world.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem," the boy said, and he smiled at her, widely: "My name's Jamie."

"And I'm Pippa," the tall girl next to him said. "And this is Claude, and Caleb, and Monty, and Cupcake."

"I'm Hayley."

"Is that your sister?" Jamie asked.

Hayley looked up to see Tara, her pink hair standing out, her camera raised to her eye. "Yeah. That's Tara."

"She's got cool hair," said Pippa.

"She nearly got killed by our parents," Hayley said, remembering with a grin. "But yeah. It's cool."

In the past hour or so, they had discovered that Hayley was from Southeast Asia, from a tiny island-country called Singapore, and that she'd been in an all-girls' school all her life (which explained why she was just a little awkward around the guys, but she was fine with Pippa and Cupcake.). Her parents had moved the whole family here because their job had forced them to relocate here, and while Hayley already missed her friends, she was looking forward to making new ones and living in a brand new country on the other side of the world.

"Your sister doesn't look happy," Caleb said.

"She doesn't, usually," Hayley admitted. "She was so mad when she found out we were migrating. That's why she went and dyed her hair pink."

"She looks way too serious," observed Claude.

"She is. She doesn't know how to have any fun."

It was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was true.

At that sentence, the kids around her had exchanged looks. As if by some silent, mutual consent, they closed in around Hayley slightly.

"Hayley?" Jamie asked. "If I ask you something, will you think I'm crazy?"

"Hmm?"

Hayley couldn't explain why, but she already liked Jamie plenty. He was funny, and playful, and nice, and seemed the most comfortable out of all the other kids.

"Do you believe in stuff?"

"Believe in stuff?"

"Yeah, you know. Like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, or the Sandman, or – "

Here a grin split over his face:

" – or Jack Frost?"