Young Writers Society

**'Lo Readers! First chapter is up and ready, though I don't like it all that much o_o Willgot forced me to leave it like this until I could get input on it, I'm sort of embarrest to have you guys read it right now XD Anyway, please read and review!**

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The plane ride from New York City to Birmingham, Alabama had only been three hours but to me, it had been a life time. I was literally ready to go back home before I started my ‘vacation’, as my mother called it. Somehow I really didn’t see how spending two months in the middle of nowhere with my grandparents was considered a vacation, especially while my parents took an all adult cruise in the Caribbean.

“You’ve grown so much, Jude!” my grandmother squealed in her thick, southern accent as I got out of my grandfather’s ’68 Chevy pickup truck. I swear it felt like my butt was prepared to fall off from the two hours I spent sitting on three decade old leather in utter silence with Gramps.

“Hey, Gran-“ before I finished my sentence I was being squeezed to the death by an elderly woman who couldn’t be anymore than five feet tall but had the largest breasts in all of America. Not to mention an iron grip. She still had her waist long, silver hair braided into two braids down her back. And that’s when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. The same girl who had blown out the candles of my birthday cake while I had – for some odd reason - been locked in the bathroom at the time. No other than the spawn of Satan, my cousin, Lauren was now staring dead at me with the same cold eyes I hadn’t seen in years.

“Lila, let go of that poor girl before you kill ‘er” went the ever so friendly voice of Gramps. Like I remembered from when I was little, he was still the same grumpy old man, just a little more grey and wrinkled.

“We haven’t seen her in ten years, Jim! I can’t help but be a little clingy” Grandma said, squeezing me tighter before letting me go to take another look at me. “Why is your hair so short? You used to have it grown out so long”.

“Because it’s easier to manage, Grandma” I mumbled, turning red as I heard Lauren laughing on my other side.

“Kind of makes her look like a boy” Satan’s daughter said, also in a countrified voice. That’s when I got a good look at her. Ten years since I’d seen my cousin and she’d grown boobs that had the potential to be as big as Grandma’s, she was the same age as me and I was still only in an A cup. Great, as I look down at my own chest and squeamishly cross my arms hiding what wasn’t there - now I’m going to have to hear her jokes all summer about my lack of growth.

“Lauren, that’s not very nice. She is still a beautiful young woman with or without her hair, though your mother shouldn’t have let you cut it all off” Grandma said, a little spiteful. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Grandma didn’t like my mom very much. I’m not really sure if it was the fact that she took her baby boy away from her or that my mom is just a strange woman, or both. “Now, let’s get Jude moved in, supper will be ready soon and I made her favorite!”

“Uh, I have a favorite?”

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I sat at the dinner table with the rest of my, uh, family? While they ate and I stared at the plate covered in alien food, the green wad being the most unappetizing thing I’d ever seen. What was I supposed to do, stab it and stick it into my mouth? There was no way I was going to eat this stuff.

“What’s wrong Jude? You love my collard greens” Grandma said, looking at me with her big, emerald green eyes that seemed like they should belong to a super model.

“Collard greens?” I mumbled and stared back down to the green monster on my plate, I swear it looked like it was going to move. “Uh, can I please be excused?” I asked her and got an annoyed look from Gramps, his beady black eyes staring at me as if he was ready to kill. Lauren rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Of course, dear! It must be the jet-lag getting to you” Grandma replied jokingly. I got up and walked down the hallway and to the small bedroom I’d be sharing with my witch of a cousin for the entire summer. How my day seemed to get better and better.

Grandma and Gramps’ house was an older home on the outside, but in the inside it looked like the 70’s exploded. With its wood paneled walls and shag carpeting that no one had bothered to take up. Even I had to admit though, it was kind of cool.

I jumped on one of the two beds in the room, it smelled like it had just been cleaned and was pretty soft, aside from the pillow that stuck me with feathers when I laid my head on it. The bedroom was a serious shade of pink, now I’m talking Pepto-Bismol pink, complete with the yellow paneling and blue curtains. It was quite nauseating to look at.

Standing up and straitening my shirt I saw the mirror that was leaning against the wall in front of me. It was about as tall as I was, if not taller - but everything is basically taller than I am. My dark red hair was cut into a pixie fashion, obviously not exactly what Grandma was expecting especially on account of the fact that my hair had been so long the last time she’d seen me which was when I was five years old. Being almost sixteen now made a whole heck of a lot of difference. I had big, green eyes that were more of a foggy pastel color than an emerald like my grandmother’s and Dad’s. Finally, there were the freckles on my face that I could seriously do without. There weren’t many but it wasn’t like there wasn’t just a couple either.

“Hey, Jude!” went that voice I hated with a burning inferno of passion, from the mirror I saw Lauren come into the bedroom and close the door.

“Hey, Lauren…” I mumbled and turned around to face her. She walked to one of the beds and sat down, crossing her legs and flipping her long, curly, blonde hair and then stared at me with cold, blue eyes. “You’re not the buck-tooth little girl you use to be” I told her and smiled.

“Yeah, I know” she said, a little taken aback. “You haven’t changed at all” she told me and gave the same smile that I had given her, I nodded.

“Touché”.

“Okay, whatever. I need to talk to you” she said and I raised my eyebrow, “you remember Bobby, right?”

How could I not remember Bobby Hawkins? He had been my best friend back before I moved to New York; we’d even gone so far as to get married with those cookies that you could wear like rings before I left. He probably wouldn’t remember me if he saw me. I nodded to Lauren.

“Well, don’t talk to him. We’re a thing and it’s serious, so don’t go trying to be all happy happy best friends again, alright? Thanks cuz!” She said and got up, flipped her hair again, gave me a smile and left me to my thoughts. I do believe that my brains had suddenly turned into goop.