The rain was pouring down fast, now. At first it had only been a slight drizzle and she had actually enjoyed it . It provided relief from the hot May weather. But, then, she thought with dismay, May was known for its unexpected showers. Now, there she was, walking in the middle of the woods, her back pack on her back, her once perfectly dry hair falling on her face, on a trip that had been meant for enjoyment and relaxation, not for getting soaked in the rain. Her cell phone battery was almost dead. This, however, did not concern her. Her father was out of town, her best friend Trish del a Rosa knew about her plans and was aware of the fact that she wouldn't be able to get in touch with her for the weekend. She kicked at a tree stump in frustration and immediately regretted doing so. Great, she thought wincing, now a sour foot to accompany all my other misfortunes to make this day even more worse.
Not that the day had started bad. It was just the beginning of the glorious summer holidays, which meant no waking up early in the morning, no cranky teachers to put up with, no school work. Not that she didn't enjoy school work. No, Ally Dawson was certainly not the kind of teenager to despise learning. In fact, she loved it. "You're abnormal", Trish would often say. But that would only make Ally start ranting about the importance of education in life. Anyways, Ally had decided to spend the first weekend of her holidays camping in the woods.
She had looked forward to sitting under the blue sky, eating pickles, listening to the soothing sounds of birds chirping and watching the mesmerizing sunset. Nothing inspired her more than watching the sunset.
And, inspiration was something she was in dire need of lately. Ally was a songwriter, a brilliant one, too. The words came to her almost effortlessly. She had had never had any trouble writing songs before , until just recently. And, this scared her. Ally considered herself a songwriter. It was her identity, who she her stage fright, it was all she had. So, she decided that in order to gain inspiration for her creative juices to start flowing again, she needed to bond with mother nature and camp out in the woods. Trish, however, thought differently. "Come on, Ally. You don't need all that only thing you need right now is love. ", she had said. Ally had only rolled her eyes at her. Trish was always stressing on the importance of love and had been trying to get Ally a boyfriend. Not that Ally needed any help. Putting it simply, she was beautiful. She didn't need makeup to make her look pretty. With her petite figure, curly brown hair and fair complexion, she was what you'd call a natural beauty, the kind which girls spend hours trying to impersonate.
But dating never seemed to work with her. All the boys she had dated never made her feel anything special. She had dreamt of her Prince Charming, sweeping her off her feet and then both of them riding out into the sunset. But it never happened, and she eventually gave up on finding her one and only.
Back in the woods, Ally dropped her safari bag containing her one -person tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food, bug spray and song book, on a fallen tree nearby and sat down herself. She was regretting her decision of wearing shorts and a half sleeved t -shirt. Though the outfit had looked cute before, it was now making her feel cold. Who was she hoping to impress anyway? The trees?
So much for inspiration, she thought bitterly. "Rain, rain, go away. Don't make me wanna cry away. Little Ally wants to play. Rain, rain, go away.", Ally found herself singing out loud. "Not a rain person, then, huh?", a voice full of humor, startled her, causing her to scream and clutch at her heart and fall off the log.
Turing around, she located the owner of the voice. A cute-handsome - and oddly familiar blond boy, about her age, was watching her with an amused expression on his face. "Who are you?" she asked, a little rudely. "Oh, sorry. I guess I should've made my presence known before scaring you like that.", he said sheepishly. "Hey, I wasn't scared, I was just…surprised.", Ally replied lamely. The boy obviously didn't believe her. "Well, that's a mild way of putting it, but, seriously, you were scared out of your wits." On seeing the expression on Ally's face, he quickly added,"And, I'm Austin. Austin Moon."