Chapter 1 The Surprise

Heidi is told some news from her mom.

The sound of my alarm clock woke me up from my nice sleep, telling me that it was 8:00 in the morning and it was Saturday. School was going to start in a month and I was excited to see all my friends again. My mother came in my room, “Heidi, you better get ready and come downstairs I have some great news.”     “Alright”, I said. As I made my bed and got cleaned up, I wondered to myself, what news my mother had to tell me.

        My mother, Carol, and I lived in Virginia by ourselves with our dog, Sally. We lived in a very small house on Lost Road, not many neighbors around us. When my mother had great news it had to mean something big. After my hair was dry and I was dressed, I headed downstairs to see what was going on.

        “Sit down sweetheart,” she said. I pulled out a chair and braced myself for what she was about to say. She was a Psychiatrist so she knew how to tell you things straight out. “I know you like it here and you have all your friends, but yesterday after I heard about my new job opportunity, they told me that it was in Colorado. I didn’t know how to tell you so I just told u about the opportunity part. The good news out of this is that the company is providing a house for us to live in, it is so much bigger and we will be able to fit everything in it….” She continued on, but my mind shut down and I was completely zoned out, blocking whatever else it was she was saying. In my mind I saw this as my life coming to an end and it couldn’t get any worse, I gathered my thoughts and looked up at her, she was staring at me, waiting for a response, I suppose. I tried to not explode with anger.

 

” Are you serious about this entire thing mom, my junior year is starting in a month and I have been waiting so long to see some of my friends, to catch up once more. This is like tearing my life away from me, how could you!”    

 

“Well I thought you would be happy, it’s a bigger house with larger rooms, and you even have your own bathroom.” 

 

“Mom, I’m not happy about this at all, you’re taking me away from all my friends, the people I grew up with, and to me you’re throwing my life away by doing this.”

 

“Don’t you care about how well this is for us, how it will help us live a better life and……”

 

Before she could say anymore I stormed off to my room and slammed the door shut, loud enough for her to hear. I stood behind my door and prepared for a burst of tears to come, but nothing happened.  I flopped on my bed then and turned on my stereo to full blast. How could she do this to me, I mean really how could she.  As I lay in my bed, I thought about moving and leaving this house and all the memories held up in it. The feeling was horrible; I knew this was coming, the day my mom told me about her new job opportunity.  Well, I knew I wasn’t going to spend my day in my room so, after I heard my mom leave for work, I went downstairs and got something to eat. I was thinking about how I would never see my friends again. Why Colorado, it’s so far away. When I finished my ham sandwich, I took my phone from my pocket and decided to call my best friend Erin.

 

The phone rang and rang, and then finally there was an answer.

“Hey, Heidi! What’s up?”

“A lot, I’m going to get right to the point. I’m moving to Colorado in a couple of weeks.” There was a long pause on the other end.

“Are you serious? This is a joke right? You’re just kidding, why would you move?”

“No. I’m a hundred percent serious right now. My mom just told me today. I don’t even know what to think. She said it’s going to be a bigger house and everything, but still all my friends are here.”

“This is so unbelievable right now. You are like my best friend. One of the only people I can trust. You can move in my closet, you can’t move to Colorado. Do you really have to go?”

“Yeah, I do have to move. This is part of her job; if we don’t go she can lose her job.” I heard Erin sigh and I could hear what sounded like crying.

“W-when are you leaving?”

“We’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks. We have to start packing, I’m guessing, tomorrow.”

“Awe man, this really stinks. Will you be able to visit?”

“I’m not even sure yet. I’ll keep in contact with you though; I just wanted you to know.”

“Yeah, thanks for calling. Maybe I’ll get to see you before you leave. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

The phone was disconnected. Erin lived a half hour away from me but only 20 minutes from the school. I lived about 25 minutes from the school. It was hard to see most of my friends because I lived in the middle of no where, my mom had to drive me to school because buses didn’t come out this far.

 

I closed my cell phone and sat at the diner table, pondering in my thoughts about what happened today. All of it seemed like a dream to me. The kitchen was lit with the brightness of the sun, making the moss green wallpaper stick out even more. The kitchen was small, but it was comfortable to eat our meals in. Sally came over to me and rested her head on my leg. I patted her head and decided to go back to my room. My stereo was still on, but the volume was low. I turned it up to 15 and sat on my bed. My room was small, but it had and fit everything I needed inside.  As I sat there on my bed, my door suddenly opened, it was Sally. She came in and jumped on my bed, the whole bed shook. Sally was a 2 year old golden retriever so she was big; we got her after my father passed away. I decided to do some research on Colorado, so I got my laptop from my desk and turned it on. While it was powering up, I headed downstairs and looked though my mom’s papers, I happened to find a location. We were moving to Streaming Woods, Colorado. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and headed back upstairs. By this time my computer was ready and I went to Google. Not a lot came up for Streaming Woods, only articles and tourist sites. On the next page I happened to find a page on the school. Streaming Woods High School; I clicked the site and to my surprise it was a large school.

Downstairs I heard the front door being unlocked, I looked at my clock and it was already 7:00. This was kind of early for my mom to be home. I shut down my computer and sat on my bed with Sally. Not even a few minutes went by and there was a knock at my door. “Heidi, can we talk about this?”

“Mom, just leave me alone right now, I need to think about this on my own.”

“Heidi, I’m your mother, we can discuss it together.” There was a long silence, I wasn’t going to respond to what she said, and she knew that. She then gave up and I heard her walk back downstairs.

 

The next couple of weeks were spent packing and avoiding my mom. I never got to see any of my friends, but I did get to call and tell them I was moving. My mom brought so many boxes. My room was fully packed up and so was my mom’s room. The area that took the longest to pack was the kitchen, my mom had a lot of dishes, and we had to be careful not to break them. At some points my mom would try and get me to talk but I wouldn’t crack. I kept quiet and thought about everything that was happening. Sally was uptight herself, she watched us pack everything we owned away into boxes. When we got to her stuff she started to whine and whimper. The only thing we didn’t pack up was her dog dish and a chew toy. To her this was a nightmare; the only time she left the house was when we took her to the veterinarian or the groomer.

 

It was the morning of last day at home and everything was packed; the house was full of boxes and furniture waiting to be taken to our new home. The movers came and we packed all our boxes and furniture up. In our car we had our suit cases for the motel and some stuff for Sally. The movers left right away, however we didn’t leave until 8:00. Before we left I just stood outside in front of our house letting all the memories play through my mind. For some reason I felt like this was going to be a huge mistake, like something bad was going to happen only I didn’t know what it was. Hopefully I would be wrong, my mom beeped the horn and I snapped out of the memories and headed to the car. It was sunny today so I had my sun glasses on to block the sun. When I got into the car my mom started the engine and we were on our journey to our new home.

Author's Note

Hope you like the first chapter....

Reviews

[Michael X]

sets the stage perfectly for the adventure ahead, details are what bring this chapter to life, vividly relatable.
Nice job.

[FicWriter]

Good start! Although this idea wasn't entirely original, you seemed to have turned it into a story quite well. All I would point out is that in the first paragraph, you have two people speaking. You should start a new paragraph whenever a new person speaks. Other than that, though, you're off on the right foot.

[Alexis]

so far so good, i can't wait to see what happens in this story 0.0