Chapter 1 – The End to Summer, The Start to a New Friendship
It was a Monday. The last Monday of August. I, seventeen year old Zoey Parker, sat in my pink, fluffy computer chair gazing outside into the backyard. I was watching the rain fall powerfully from the sky and smashing to the ground. There was countless mud puddles scattered amongst the grassy terrain. I observed her six year old twin siblings, Thomas and Tiffany, jumping from one puddle to the next. While glancing to the right, I saw a Twin City Moving Company van pull up in front of my neighbour’s driveway. My neighbours gradually carried copious boxes to the large box shaped vehicle. My grouchy, middle aged neighbours were moving from their small house in Huntsville to a large mansion – so they say - in Los Angeles. Rumour has it that their daughter recently “became famous” while filming automobile commercials and now she is preparing to film an upcoming thriller called Hair Tingler. It doesn’t really sound all the hair tingling to me though. My parent informed my two weeks ago that the nasty Jeffery family were no longer going to residing in the house beside ours. Instead the Mason family would be moving in the next weekend. They apparently had three children in the family. One my age and two older. I will admit I was pretty thrilled about getting a new person my age in the neighbourhood. Who knows maybe he – if it is a he – will be cute. Maybe we will become best friends. All in time will I find out.
I looked over at my calendar and saw that school started in exactly nine days. Nine whole days and I haven’t even had my annual before school shopping spree with my best and only friend, Keesha Miller. I had tons to buy still. I needed all new fine tipped, blue and red Paper mate pens, the rest of the necessary school items and of course oodles of new clothes. Why did the summer have to go by so quickly? Why does school have to start so soon? School wasn’t the best place to be, I think any pupil would say. You had to sit in uncomfortable chairs for six hours a day, eat the horrid cafeteria food, have to deal with your arch nemesis, have teachers brainwash you with useless information and further more give you more work to do...at home! All this summer Keesha and I spent every waking moment together. We had campouts in the Miller’s backyard. Roasting marshmallows over the campfire and setting up sleeping bags in the tree house while eating pounds and pounds of gummy worms. We also made many shopping trips to Toronto and even went to see our favourite band, Hedley, in concert. One night at our weekly sleepover, I announced that this year, grade eleven, was our year. We were going to go to all the hot parties, have boyfriends, and be a part of the”it” crowd. As hard as it seemed to both of us, we agreed and performed our secret handshake to seal the agreement. I have been cooped up in my house for the past two weeks because Keesha has gone to Italy with her family on a sightseeing tour. Her mother is a flight attendant so they get a wack of great, cheap deals to basically anywhere in the world. Keesha has seen practically the whole world – at least more than I have seen. She has been to France to see the Eiffel Tower, Australia to see the kangaroos and surfer dudes, England to see Big Ben, British Columbia to see the Rocky Mountains, Egypt to see the Pyramids, and Rome to see the Trevi Fountain. She also has been to many of the tropical islands to soak up the sun at the wonderful and extremely pricey resorts there. Keesha was due back from the land of pasta and pizza today and she said she would call as soon as she got home to fill her in on all the details. I was getting worried because it is six o’clock now and she still has yet to call.
Only three good things come out of the start of a new school year. Number one, soccer was going to start. Soccer was my life. Keesha and I played on a team together in the summer and won the National Championships. We have been playing this glorious game since we were only five years old. We both made the soccer team at our school every year and this year I had the opportunity, and was going to be captain. Number two, having time away from the twins. Lately they had been getting on my nerves. They were constantly running and screaming. Not fun at all. Number three and the most important. Finn. Finn Fowler was the captain of the boy’s soccer team and the most gorgeous guy at Huntsville High. I was totally in love with him and had been since grade six. I knew everything there was to know about him. I knew his favourite drink was Dr. Pepper, his favourite number was eight, his favourite chips were ketchup, he watched the Trailer Park Boys every Thursday night at ten o’clock and he had a fifteen old brother named Kurt as well as a twenty year old brother named Larry. Although I knew this much about him, I never spoke to him in my life other than the occasional hello. He was the “it” boy and I was not the “it” girl, clearly wouldn’t work. I was way too chicken to even try to talk to him anyways. Even if I were to speak to him, I’m not his type. His type is the rude, I’mthehottestgirlintheschoolsoIcangetwhateverIwant type (a.k.a Sydney Stone). Sydney also just happens to be my arch nemesis. She has always bullied me and never lets me live anything down. Her name seems so fitting because she is as cold as stone. One time in ninth grade, I was writing a test and I was so stressed from all the studying the night before that my face broke out in massive pimples. Now, anytime after soccer practice she sees me putting makeup on, she asks me if I am covering up all my major blemishes. She calls me Zitty Zoey. Just because her skin is perfect does not give her the right to insult me. She is constantly picking on me and she hates me. Luckily the feelings are mutual.
Over my thoughts about how fast the summer went, the upcoming school year, the new neighbours, Finn and Sydney, I could faintly hear my music that was humming out of my iPod stereo. I recognized the beat. It was Lady Gaga’s Alejandro. I liked her music although I found her rather peculiar. Some of the things she wears, I don’t know where her head was when she picked them out in the morning. She scares me most of the time. Suddenly I heard a real shrill, piercing noise but it went away as quickly as it came. Next thing I know my mom is shaking me awake from my daydream. She tells me that it’s Keesha on the phone wanting to talk to me. She’s home!!! Now I get to hear all the wonderful stories about Italy, how many cute boys she saw and most importantly the best pizza that she had.
“Hello.” I speak calmly into the portable home phone. I could hear my mom saying that it was late and telling me that I can’t talk to Keesha for very long.
“HEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! Oh my God have I missed you! You will NOT believe how much fun Italy is. There are so many cute boys riding around in those Vespa typed things. You know what I’m talking about right? Well anyways I counted like twenty cute boys from the airport to the resort that was just ten minutes away!”
She always was crazy about guys. She knew everything there was to know about them but somehow she never has had a boyfriend in her lifetime. It’s a mystery to me. She is smart, athletic, pretty. Everything a guy would want right? “Really?!? Oh my gosh! Sounds like you had a blast but I can’t talk long so get to the food. How was it? How much pasta and pasta did you eat? What was your favourite?”
“Well I definitely ate too much Italian food there. I think Italian food is the best food I have ever eaten. I could live off of it. Around every corner there is a pizzeria and on every block there are places you can go to make your own pasta. We did that one night. I made tortellini with beef and cheese inside. MMMMMMM it was sooooo delicious. My favourite thing that I ate when I was there though was the one pizza we ordered. It had chicken, potatoes, green peppers, onions, cheese of course, and lettuce. Lettuce on a pizza! Isn’t that insane. It was so good though. Oh Zo, me and you have to go there after graduation or next summer. You’d love it!”
“Awe sounds great K! I totally want to go there. We should shake on going to Italy sometime together. That would be a blast. I really wish that I could sit and talk more about your awesome trip because it seems as if though you had an amazing time but I can’t talk anymore. My mom is yelling at me to get off the phone now. Sorry!”
“It’s okay! We still have plenty of time to talk about Italy. Oh by the way, mom’s taking the family to Hawaii the week before Christmas break. Aloha! Well goodnight Zo!”
“Goodnight K!” I was about to hang up when I remembered we had plans to go shopping tomorrow. “Hey wait! Are we still on for tomorrow? I really need some new jeans and some cute tees for school. Can you believe it’s only nine days away?”
“I know it’s crazy. Where has the summer gone? And yes, we are still on for tomorrow. I don’t know the time yet though since we have to unpack and I may be jet lagged. I will call you tomorrow when I get up and we can discuss when we will meet at the Blurb, kay?”
“Sounds great! Bye K.” The Blurb was a funky little cafe that served our favourite cookies and crème lattes as well as the most delicious blueberry muffins in the universe. It was our hangout. We went there after school to do homework, on weekend trips to the mall, and on our breaks at work. We loved it. We didn’t even have to order anymore. When we walked in the cafe owner, Douglas, always knew to make two cookies and crème lattes and to arrange two blueberry muffins on the cute little chef plates they owned. We went to the counter pulled out five bucks, handed it over, grabbed our things and went to our comfy booth in the back corner. It practically had out names written on it. We went there enough,
After I hung up from my conversation with Keesha, I looked at the clock. Holy smokes! It was ten thirty! No wonder I am so tired. The time must have just flown by when I was daydreaming. I didn’t even realize that the Jeffery’s had moved all of their belongings into the moving van and the house lay empty. It was kind of creepy. I turned off my music, put on my pyjamas, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came out of the bathroom I found Hank (he is my English bulldog) sitting there waiting for me. We leisurely walked to my room, I turned off the lights and I climbed into bed.
I must have fallen asleep right away because I do not remember a thing. The only thing I remembered was Hank kicking me all through the night as if I was stealing his bed from him. He did it every night so I was used to it. I woke up with a startle. A bunch of people jibber jabbering. I thought I was still asleep and dreaming. I wasn’t. The sun was up, nice and bright meaning it stopped raining thankfully. I rose out of bed, not to aware of my surroundings just yet. It took me at least five minutes to be completely attentive. I walked towards my window and peered outside. I saw a moving truck stalled outside the Jeffery’s old house. I was befuddled. The Jeffery’s had moved all their belongings out yesterday and the Masons weren’t due until Friday. I knew that I didn’t sleep that long. I quickly ran downstairs to find my mom in the kitchen baking muffins and my dad sitting at the breakfast table reading the Huntsville Handymen Weekly. I asked, “What’s going on at the Jeffery’s old place? I thought it was supposed to be empty for the next four days?”
My dad was quick to reply, “Yes, you’re right sweetheart, but the Masons decided to move in a few days earlier so their children would have more time to adjust before school started up. Smart move on their part if I must say so myself.”
I was still confused as to what was going on. I could not register it in my brain. Breaking away from my though, my mom spoke. “I am making them a welcome basket and thought that maybe you could hop on over there when I am done and give it to them.”
“Sure!” I replied a little too quickly.
I heard a soft knock at the door and we all turned to see who was standing there. There was a tall, slim teenage boy around my age peering in through the glass door. My dad got up and walked swiftly over to the door. The boy said, “Hi, I am Peter Mason. We’re just moving in beside you folks and we can’t find which box we put the screwdriver in. Would we be able to borrow yours for a few minutes to take the front door off to make it easier to carry out furniture inside?”
“Sure! I’ll just go and get that for you.....” my dad looked at him expectantly.
“Peter. And thank you sir. I appreciate it.”
I stared out the door as my father left with the boy whose name I found out was Peter. He was extremely gorgeous. Maybe even better looking than Finn. Was it possible? No! No one was a good looking as Finn. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I ran to my room and covered myself in my blankets. I lay there worrying. I am NOT HOPPING over to that house and giving them a welcome basket that my mom made them. I was not embarrassing myself like that. If Peter looked like that I was scared to see the rest of the family. They already intimidated me. This is going to be a story that Keesha is going to lick right up. I fell back asleep soon after I heard my mom take the twins to karate. I woke just as my mom was knocking on the door for dinner. I hope she had already delivered the basket. Please have delivered the basket.
