Chapter One
A loud knock came across my door. I woke up to see nothing but a bed and piled clothes in a clean white room. I checked the date to make sure I hadn't died overnight, and had woken up as a ghost or something. 01/20/13 was the correct answer, and I sighed a sigh of relief. I was in my bedroom. Sally, my mom, came in and told me we were moving. Worst mistake she'd made in my life. " We're moving to Cornwall " she announced, and then went downstairs to get my breakfast ready. As I changed into my casual outfit a million thoughts ran down a track path that was my curious yet confused mind. Why did we have to go? Where would we go to school? WHY US?!!!
I wiped my sweaty forehead and ran down the stairs, swaying and turning on the banisters. My mom, my dad, my sister and my brother were sitting at the table, passing round the last bottle of milk from the fridge. It was so weird, there wasn't a baby chair anymore, no children's doodles on the fridge, no magnets, food or anything that we had bought into our lively home. It was just like when we had bought the house, it was empty. Nothing but a few counters and other things that were there when we first came there.
" Hewwo Kryssie " welcomed my little sister. " Hewwo Maria " I mimicked back to her. " Morning little Miss ' I don't want to leave ' " my dad chimed in. I ignored him and added a last morning to my brother. Our family would always say morning to each other, but me and my brother didn't really get on, so I always expected what he was to say back, nothing.
" I so wasn't expecting this to happen, why do we have to go? " I asked my dad, to get the question out of the way. " We can't live in Seattle anymore because you know the newspaper articles I work for, Skyscraper Paper? " " Yes " I answered " Well, they offered me a job to be the boss " he smiled " That's great!!! " I congratulated, " Well " he added " If I am to be the boss, we will have to move to Cornwall " he said. " Well where will we go to school? " I questioned, also wanting to know the answer to that question. " Well, there's a kinder garden for Maria round there, and in the coastal village there is a small school " he exclaimed. " Great, how fun " I remarked, sarcastically.
" Kryssie!!! For a 12 year old girl I think you could be a little more cheerful than that!!! " mom snapped " And Ben, aren't you going to get dressed? " she added. " No " he muttered. " You know, you two really do drive me round the bend sometimes " she sighed. " I want two gwo two Cornwall! " Maria whined, but I knew the only reason she wanted to go is because she thought that was the only place with " Kinder gardens " . " To be honest, I am the only one here who is actually dressed " I pointed out, " Fine, in fact, well done Kryssie " mom said. " Well, come on, we've got to get moving with the removal men coming soon, in fact, the time we have left until they come is " dad paused and looked at his watch " one hour five minutes " he finished.
" Gosh Daniel! Can't you keep a track of time?! " mom stormed , shaking her head in disbelief at the fact we still had plenty of time to get ready. " Sorry Sal " apologized dad. " Never mind " mom sighed again. She always liked to sigh, most of the morning she would sigh, and then go and get Maria ready. Ben and I were both 12, so we could get ourselves ready.
I sat by myself at the table, still wondering about what mom had said to me, was it a joke? Had we been robbed and they were just trying to cover it up? Why didn't I want to go? And then, they all came back and sat down looking like a clone of me after brushing their hair. I looked at myself in the mirror and realised that this would probably be the last time when we would look the same, as mom came in with a bottle of dye. " I'm going to dye my hair brown while we're still here, a fresh start huh? " she laughed. " Are you serious? " I asked, eyes wide. " Yes, she is " dad said, swaying his hand through his gelled blonde hair.
The way it used to be was that mom had curly blonde hair, blue eyes, square dresses and these little red heels. Dad would always have ridiculously gelled hair, swift to the back, with blue eyes and business suits, as he was always at work. I would always have my curly blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and of course I had blue eyes, blue tights, a purple skirt and a little green tank. Ben had his hair gelled in that swiftly forward kind of way, with blue eyes, he would always wear a blue and white squared top with brown shorts Maria had curly blonde hair, blue eyes and a light yellow flowery dress. Pretty much all the same, because, we may not of wore the totally same kind of things, but we all looked nearly identical.
Chapter Two
Mom did the last of the cleaning in the corners of the house, it looked sparkly clean and new. I took Maria around the house to say goodbye to every room and then we went to pack the car and call the removal men. " Should I go and call them? " dad suggested. " Sure, I'll go and get Maria's toddler seat and add a few more bags in the back, tell them the furniture's in the hallway " mom called " Ok " dad replied, then disappeared into what used to be the office room and called them. " Hello? Hi, Daniel Jones here, I hired a removal for the 20th, yes, yes, I did pay for the removal when we get to England, yes, ok, thank you, bye " he hung up.
" I'm going to miss Seattle, I wonder what Cornwall's like " I frowned. " I didn't know you knew what Cornwall was at first" mom told .me. "Are you saying I'm stupid? I mean, hello? Who won sixth grade's geographic test?" I stated. "Anyway, aren't you going to pointlessly dye your hair?" I reminded her. "Oh yeah, I'll only be 15 mins" mom told everyone, then sped off down the empty hallway.
About 15 minutes later, dad came in and handed a piece of paper to me. " Will you sign this paper please Krys " dad requested, handing it to me. " What's this? " I asked, puzzled. " Oh, its a thing to sign that you're officially out of Olivia Abbott's Sixth Grade, you've got to sign it yourself for some reason " he informed me. " Ok " I told him, and wrote my name down the lined dots, then passed it back to him. " Thanks " dad responded, then went down the hallway
Mom came back, and her hair was blue, " What " I asked, cut off by her response "Don't ask " she interrupted " I'll wash it when we get to Cornwall " she finished, then went to help Maria and Ben get their final things, like shelves and pillows into the bags. " Daniel!!! " I heard her shout from one of the bedrooms. " Yes? " came the reply. " Are they coming yet? " she questioned, " Yes, ten minutes " was the answer. " Ok " was the last word in the conversation.
The removal men came about 15 minutes after, and took out the chairs, beds, tables, televisions, coffee machines and other things to put in the van. Everything went out of the house and into the van quickly, and then some guys who were painting the house came in just as we were starting to pack the car. Mom put in a few kitchen utensils,
Chapter Three
Ben was already sitting in the car, playing on his Gameboy, completely unaware of anybody, just him and his Gameboy. Maria jumped up and down excitedly outside of his window while banging the glass of it when she got the chance " BEN!!!BEN BENNY BEN!!! " she shouted at him, but there was no reply. Mom walked over to the front of the car to shout at him. She opened the door and calmly said " Ben, do you mind moving into the third row? I need to put Kryssie's desk there " . We owned a car with three rows of seats, so there was always a lot of space for everybody to sit. " Huh? " he responded, not making eye contact with her. " I said will you move to the back " mom repeated. " Oh, yeah, ok " Ben accepted, . Ben liked to make people mad, and that time he really did make mom mad, because she started screaming,rocking in his seat as if he was actually doing anything. " NOW!!!!WE'RE GOING TO MISS EVERYTHING SO WE NEED TO GET MOVING NOW!!! " . Ben looked at mom, completely mortified. " Course mum " Ben stammered, edging to the back row, thus knocking over the whole pile of things in the second row. " Useless!!! " mom cried with her hands on her head, " Kryssie, will you clean up the mess? Dad won't be able to see through the back window with a mess like this " she asked me. " Sure " I accepted, smirking at the side of my face to Ben. He had never seen her like that. The look that he had on his face was completely priceless, if only I hadn't left my phone in the boot. "Benny's scared of mommy" I chanted, teasing him. "Shut up" he spat at me in embarassement, threatening to throw his game at me, "I'm not scared of you" I chuckled, and we turned back to our separate sides.
After a few minutes of stacking and reordering the contents of Ben's clumsiness, I slumped into the left side of the last row. Yawning, I took out an old magazine called " Kids tips to use in movies " and examined the pages. It had some very good tips and facts inside it, but I only read it every now and then because it was quite a " babyish " magazine to my old school friends and they would tease me about it. Each page was a different genre of movies, like horror, drama , cartoons , sci-fi , comedy and loads more. I took a random pick and ended up on horror. " Boring " Ben remarked, peering over from his corner. " Haven't you got more interesting things to do? Seems you and your silly games are the world " I hissed back at him, he retreated to his position, and continued playing boring games.
It felt like I had been staring at the magazine for ages, all the interesting pictures and pages, I found it really informative. How you should never approach unknown creatures unless they are from a friendly planet, don't go to a deserted house in Transylvania, never ask for help in an abandoned warehouse or swim alone at night. It was only until I put my head up that I realised we were already on the ship to Cornwall. "What the?" I puzzled, completely confuzzled. "We're here, didn't you see?" mom informed me, streaming her hand through her long blue hair. I didn't help to notice people were looking at her weirdly from inside the car park of the ship, they chuckled outside the windows and pointed when they were out of sight. "You fell asleep" dad told me. Turns out I had been sleeping for a full hour, and my brother had stuck wads of chewing gum in my hair. "Eww!!!Gross" I screamed, pulling out my hair just to get rid of the pieces. "Mom!!!Ben's put chewing gum in my hair!" I yelled at the top of my voice, throwing the retrieved pieces right back at him. "Both of you!!! Stop it!!" my parents begged in unison. I decided to get my revenge on Ben, and to do so before we went around the ship. I slowly peered round his shoulder to his game, ready to strike. "MARIO!!!" I yelled in his ear, no reply. "MARIO MARIO MARIO" I repeated. Still no answer, my revenge hadn't been successful. "Oh well" I sighed and slumped back into my seat. "I guess we should get out now, after all, we have just been sitting here doing nothing,although, I would like to have a sleep" mom suggested. We were all very tired, even I was still tired, it was midnight already, and it took quite a few hours to drive to the port, because we lived in the middle of Seattle.
Chapter Four