April
I looked around my room one last time, making sure I didn’t miss anything. This is it. I would never see this room again, I would never step foot in my childhood home again. I grabbed the last box full of my stuff and shut the door behind me. This isn’t my home anymore. And it wasn’t, all the pictures, and furniture that made up this house, that made it my home were gone. All that was left was the memories. And I’d be taking those with me.
“Come on, April! We need to hit the road.” My dad called from the front door.
“Coming!” I called to him and continued down the hall and through the living room. He was waiting at the door, holding it open for me. My brothers were already in the truck, and the U-haul that we’d been loading all week was already on its way to our new home.
I put my last box in the bed of the truck, and then crawled in the back in the middle of Aaron and Jeremy. And then my Dad got in and started the truck, we sat there in the drive way looking at our old home, and then dad pulled out and we started on the long trip to Hope, South Dakota.
Aaron
As we drove down the road I still had the last image of my childhood home in my head. It was completely empty, and it didn’t look the same anymore. I mean I guess without all of our stuff in it, it was just a regular house. A regular house that we all grew up in. And now we were moving to Hope, South Dakota. A place that none of us even remember because we were all too young when we visited. But it was our mom’s home town. A mom that none of us got to know, except through the stories dad told us about her. Maybe we would like it. I doubted it though; I mean the high school has 100 kids in it. There are probably no cute girls. All of them know each other, and everyone else in the town and all we know is our grandparents, Aunt Sara, Maggie, and Uncle Josh. Which we didn’t even know them that well either.
I couldn’t believe dad was doing this to us. Our whole life was in Columbus, and now we were leaving it all behind. Jasper didn’t really care, he’d already graduated from high school and most of his friends were already gone. Jeremy was pissed; the only good thing about this move for him was that we were moving closer to where Emy was going to College. April pretended she didn’t care, but I knew her better than that, I was her twin after all. Dad didn’t even seem excited and this whole damn thing was his idea. I guess we better all suck it up, because dad definitely wasn’t changing his mind.
Jasper
I looked at the back seat again, and suppressed an eye roll. Jeremy was going to blast his headphones with his music that loud. And April was going to rip a whole in her lip if she chewed on it any harder. Aaron was just staring out window, looking like he didn’t care if we crashed and all died. Bunch of babies! So we were moving big deal! It wasn’t the end of the world. I shook my head and turned my attention to Dad. He looked tired; I don’t think he slept at all this week. It was always this way, this time of year. The move wasn’t helping things much.
Dad had given up on the small talk at the beginning of the trip. He wasn’t going to get a response from the back anytime soon. So he just turned on the radio and focused on the road. I didn’t get why they were fussing so much, I mean a change of scenery would be fine by me. Plus we could get to know mom’s side of the family better, they probably weren’t even considering that possibility.
We had been on the road for eight hours, and we weren’t even half way there. In those eight hours, the only time Jeremy, Aaron and April spoke was to order something to eat at the McDonald’s we stopped at. It was going to be a long night, and we still had 7 more hours until we stopped at a hotel for the night. Then we’d get up bright and early and it’d be another eight hours before we crossed the South Dakota state line. Ugh it was going to be a long day.
Jeremy
I tried to drown out my thoughts by focusing on the lyrics flowing into my ears. It was the third time I had been through all the songs on my I pod, and they weren’t keeping my attention anymore. My mind kept going back to the image of our empty house, the house I’ve spent my whole life in. And now we’re moving to some hick town in South Dakota. And why? Because we need to be close to our family. I was seventeen years old and dad just now decided we needed to be close to our family? I didn’t buy it. I mean couldn’t he wait two years, when I was out of school to move, and then at least I have the option of not going with them.
Ugh I groan internally. I wish Emy was here. She was the only that got me, the only one that could see through my angry facade. She didn’t put up with my crap and that’s why I loved her. I was the classic cliche middle child. The one that never got enough attention growing up from our dad. At least that’s how everyone sees me. It’s really just an act though; it was just so hard to be myself, even around my own family, and friends.
Maybe Hope can be a fresh start. As I thought the words I closed my eyes. It would be nice not to be so angry all the time. And to be closer to my other sister and brothers. I’m sure they’d love that. One could only hope.
April
“Come on guys, wake up. We got to eat breakfast and then hit the road.” I heard dad say when I was half awake. I looked at the clock and groaned. 6:00. I drug the pillow over my head. I already didn’t get enough sleep because of this stupid uncomfortable hotel bed, and now I had to get up this early? Ugh!
“Come on guys, up now.” Dad said using his strict voice, the one none of us could ever ignore.
I threw the pillow off my head and sat up slowly. I rubbed my face with both of my hands; trying to get rid of the blurriness my weary eyes were causing. Then I looked around the room. Jazz was brushing his teeth at the sink, and dad was at the other door that connected to the room besides us.
”Aaron, Jeremy, get up.” Dad demanded, sounding more irritated by the minute. I heard one of them groan, and then some kind of movement, so I assumed they listened this time.
I got out of bed and joined Jasper at the sink. I ran my brush through my hair, and then got out my tooth brush. Jazz moved over so I could brush my teeth to. When we were all done with that, we packed our overnight bags in the truck and then went to the hotel lobby to get our free breakfast. We were the first ones down there, so we didn’t have to wait in line for our stale donuts and warm orange juice. We ate quickly and quietly, it was too early to carry on a real conversation. It was 6:30 when we started on the last part of our trip.
Charlie
It was 12:27 when we pulled in to the Chevron to get gas. We had about another hour before we got to South Dakota, and like the trip so far it was going to be a long hour.
I pulled up to pump 3 and got out of the truck. The kids all got out of the truck to stretch their legs.
“Dad, how much longer is this trip going to take?” April asked me before yawning loudly.
“Yeah Dad all this riding is killing me.” Aaron said stretching his arms over his head.
“Wow you guys are actually talking, it’s a miracle.” I retorted they hadn’t spoken three words the whole trip. And the twins were supposed to be okay with this. Right. I looked over at Jeremy, he was the only one who wasn’t going to break the whole not talking rule.
“Yeah, whatever. So how much longer?” April asked again, brushing off my remark to her question.
“About an hour, so ya’ll go to the restroom or whatever while we’re stopped, so we can go ahead and get back on the road.” I told them as I went inside to pay for the gas.
Now that the twins knew we were an hour away from our new home, they started asking questions about the small town of Hope. All the while Jeremy looked at them as traitors.
“Do they have clothes stores, or somewhere I can shop?” April asked warily, probably scared that there wouldn’t be.
“Well there’s a thrift store in town,” I paused, I knew she didn’t want to buy used clothing so I added “But the surrounding cities are bigger, so we can make a special trip to by you guys’ school clothes.”
“Okay, that’s not so bad then,” She murmured.
“Is there a baseball team or something?” Aaron asked he was on the team in Columbus. Baseball wasn’t something he was willing to give up.
“I’m sure we can find some team to put you on son,” I told him, not really sure that there was.
There were many more questions like that. They wanted to know everything they could about our future home. I tried to answer in a way to make it sound more appealing to them, but I don’t know how successful I was in doing that. There questions got fewer and fewer as the hour passed on.
“Look guys!” I pointed to the sign that said welcome to South Dakota. They got really quiet after that, and I drove on. “Another thirty minutes before e get to Hope.” I told them and was answered back with complete silence. Here we go.
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