Going to my Nan and Pop's house was always my favourite part of my summer holidays from school. I just finished my year 12 exams and convinced Mum to let me have the last week off because I didn't have anything important happening. The plane trip to Budgewoi was the same as always. Annoy children screaming, parents trying to calm them down, and me sitting by myself with my iPod in trying to ignore the world around me.
When I landed Pop was there at Sydney airport to pick me up. I loved my Pop, he told the most interesting stories (even though we don't think they are true most of the time) it was still fun to listen to him. My Nan, well she was practical Nan. She loved to teach me how to cook and was always making me clean my room. I still loved her; she was the one that convinced Mum to really let me come down here early. I haven't come down to Budgewoi since last year because I had to go to my Dad's for Easter. Nan and Pop have moved house since then, they said it was a beautiful close to the beach, but not close enough to the beach for it to be annoying. She thought the same as me.
Pop and I talked the whole way home, he told me about he and Nan, and I told him about Mum and my younger brother Charlie. They usually come down but because of the divorce settlement at the moment I'm the only one allowed down here, as I turned 18 not two months ago, they have no say in what I do. Mum was extremely happy I wanted to come down but Dad was not as keen. I told him he didn't have a say in my life anymore and bought the plane ticket.
As we were coming closer to the house Pop told me about some boys that lived next door, apparently they were only a little older than me and they were really nice. Pop said that I should try and become friends with them so I didn't have to spend all my time with them. I went on the tell Pop that the reason I come down is the spend time with them but he just wouldn't have it. So I told him I would try to make friends with them but to not get his hopes up. I'm not very good at making friends, or keeping them. I can become quite anti-social and get much too involved with my music. I play guitar and spend days in my room sometimes playing it and learning new songs.
When we got to the house Nan was in the kitchen. I could see why they liked this house so much, it was amazing. Not the stereotypical sterile looking houses most people have now, but homey sort of old house that is really old and historical. And the kitchen was massive. Nan would've loved that, there is enough bedrooms for my whole family to stay if they needed to, and Pop had his own little workshop in the garage. I went back out to the car to get the rest of my bags and I heard someone next door playing guitar. They were, to put it lightly, extraordinary. Me being me and not thinking about my actions walked over to the house and started staring at it wondering where the beautiful sound was coming from. I gave up on trying finding it and walked back to the house. I took some more bags inside and went to sit down in my room and play some guitar, just to see if I could show the person next door up when I realised that I only had my acoustic one here and had left my amp and electric guitar in the back of Pop's car. I groaned and went outside.
My electric guitar was my pride and joy. I saved up since I was in grade 8 until I was in grade 11 to get it and didn't spend any money on anything else. It was a Gibson Les Paul. I loved it, it had amazing sound and I was amazed at it every time I played it. It was mainly white, with black. As I was getting it out the car someone pop came outside to help me with my amp. As he came outside ironically did the man from next door with a young boy.
"Hey Mark!" the man yelled to my Pop.
"Hey there!" Pop yelled back. My amp was then forgotten as pop walked to the fence to talk to the man. I figured I might as well make an effort, realising I'm too lazy to make two trips to the car and inside anyway and walked over to where they were talking.
"And this is my granddaughter Savannah." Pop said as I came to stand next to him.
"Nice to meet you Savannah, I'm Michael." The man from next door said.
"Hey, you to. Just call me Vannah everyone else does." I replied. He smiled and went to get the young boy who was now running around their front yard, when he picked him up he came back over to us.
"And this young man is Chris."
"Hey Chris," I said smiling and shaking his little hand when he held it up to me. Then some other boys came out and went to go to their car when they saw us. One of them was yelling at the other that he owed him a Nintendo or something.
"Oi! You two! Stop your incessant arguing for two minutes and come say hello to Vannah before you storm off Bradie."
"It's not my fault Andy is a dickhead and dropped his fucking massive bass guitar on my 3DS."
"Dude yell at Shaun he's the one who tripped me and made me fall on it. The flamboyant homo."
"There is no need to be using that language around Chris, Bradie." Michael scolded. They walked over and that's when it clicked. Bradie, Andy and Shaun? This is ridiculous, nothing ever good happens to me. They looked like them, they sounded like them, Andy even had the right tattoo. Oh my god. For the next 3 months, I am going to be living next to Andy and Bradie from Short Stack.