Chapter 21
“Here you go.” Carol swung open the door to my new room. It was ten times the size of my old one. The walls were painted a dull white but from each corner spiralled delicate black flowers. They climbed up the walls to meet by the light on the ceiling. 2
This floral pattern was carried on to my bedding. The bed was a double bed - a mammoth compared to my tiny make-shift bed I’d had a home - pushed up against the wall on the right side. There was a desk under the window that was flooding light into the room and a chest of drawers next to it. Standing behind the door, opposite the bed was a TV unit with a DVD and a CD player. All the furniture was a very pale wood. 3
Diagonally from the doorway I was standing in was another white door. 4
“This house was originally a 4 bedroom house. But af-ter a while I realised I didn’t need the space. So I turned the other 2 rooms into bathrooms.” 5
I walked over to turn the handle and push it open. 6
White tiles gleamed back at me. This time the floor was a dark black colour but the walls were unnaturally white. The room had a small shower in one corner and a full sized bath in the other. Or course there was the standard toilet and sink lay out, but then there was a full length mirror, the one thing that I would have changed about the whole house so far. 7
As if it was bad enough having to see myself while I changed but straight out of the shower was just unneces-sary. 8
As if reading my mind, or maybe reading my face, she whispered. “You can move the mirror out into your bedroom if that’s better for you.”9
I turned to her and smiled as wide as I could.10
“Thank you so much.” I put my arms around her and she hugged back.11
“I’m glad for the company.” She was grinning too. 12
We must have looked like idiots standing in the middle of a blinding white bathroom, hugging, smiling like we couldn’t physically stop.13
But Carol knew boundaries and left me for a while to unpack, telling me that she’d call when dinner was ready. 14
I slid open each drawer in the chest to gage size and shape. Working out thoroughly what of my stuff would go where.15
After carefully planting my clothes in the chest, I scanned the rest of the room. The desk was really the only other piece of storage, something I may have to subtly mention to Carol over dinner. 16
I decided the top desk drawer would be laptop, second stationary and the third anything else I could shove in there. Hair brushes, make-up, some more of my red hair dye. It wasn’t long till it was almost overflowing.17
I left the rest of my things in my bag and shoved it un-der the bed.18
Suddenly it hit me, like stepping off a plane in a hot country and feeling the temperature, this wasn’t just a holi-day or anything. I’d be living here till I was old enough to get a house of my own. I’d definitely stay here till my GCSE’s were over seeing as I would be starting this new school in year 10. 19
And seeing as it was Sunday, I had no doubt that they would throw me into school the next morning. 20
I sighed as I walked over to the window to look out at the street. It was nice, every house the same shade of white, but none without Carol’s magnificent front garden. 21
A few kids ran down the street, other road down on bikes. The sunny laughter of youth matched the sunny weather of an odd September. But I knew it would only get odder. 22
A soft knock on my door told me dinner was ready and I followed Carol down stairs. 23
Having gone straight to my room, I hadn’t taken much of the rest of the house in, only that Carol liked pale beige’s and whites on her walls and pale furniture. As she walked me though the lounge to the sofa where she’s set up a couple of beige coffee tables to eat on, I realised how big the room was. It must have been about 20 feet by 20 feet with an 8 foot high ceiling. 24
She gestured to the sofa -which, in case you haven’t already guessed, was beige- for me to sit. 25
I smiled as we started to eat. I notice Carol took tiny bites while I shovelled the pasta into my mouth. I hadn’t re-alised I was hungry till I’d started to eat. 26
“The room ok?” Carol asked when I started to slow my chewing.27
“Yeah it’s great. It’s just that there’s not much storage. I brought a lot more than I thought I would.”28
“That’s ok. I was worrying about that before you came actually. Tell you what, we’ll go to town sometime and get you some storage for under your bed if you want.”29
I thought it was a good decision seeing as it was where the remainder of my stuff was there already. 30
“If you don’t mind, after dinner I might take a look around the street. See what it’s like.”31
Carol started to gather the plates and I realised I’d al-most finished.32
“That’s fine as long as you stay where you can’t get lost and come back before it gets dark.” 33
I smiled as I thought about Mum’s reaction to a seem-ingly innocent question like that -‘Where are you going to go? Are you meeting up with anyone?’ 34
I pulled on a thin jacket in case the weather turned on me and made my way out.35
The warm glow of a setting sun gently spread across my face. Looking down the street, it didn’t look normal.36
I mean, there wasn’t anything to make it stand out from any other street apart from the way it looked. How nearly every house was the same shade of white, how each one had a hedge - well kept or not - and how the kids even ran down the street almost uniformly. It just seemed all a little fake compared to my old neighbourhood of screaming babies and thugs outside your doors. It was refreshing but a little unnerving. 37
I followed the small path, teasing myself not to step on any cracks. While I was resorting back to children’s rhymes, I didn’t notice the change in atmosphere. 38
I looked up from the ground to see the house right on the edge of the street. The opposite side had stopped a few houses ago and on this side the houses seemed further from it, almost as if they were edging away. 39
The paint job was faded and almost brown, the garden messy even down to the untamed hedge. The driveway was empty, but I could hear people inside.40
Looking around the house, I notice someone sitting in the window at the top. His jet back hair caught my eye first and I locked gaze with him. His dark clothes maybe portraying his personality.41
His face stayed blank, no sign of a friendly hi. It made my stomach turn every second he looked at me. He was unnerving me a lot more than the street had. 42
I quickly pulled my gaze off and spun on my heel, starting to go back. This time I made sure I stepped on every crack to prove the rhyme wrong. 43
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