I have been working on a new story ( . this one) and writing blog posts for my … blog, obviously, which is linked on my profile so please, please check that out and tell me what you think and I went camping with my friends and my laptop went into repair so I do have reasons, I haven't died! For this story please note that I'm English and have never visited America so please don't kill me if some of the facts are wrong plus I dropped History when I started Year 10 (14-15 year 10 is in England) and even when I did it we focused more on British History than anything. Yeah, so please don't kill me if something is wrong. I have researched things so if it's something you think I would have researched, it would be my sources. This is my second attempt at writing this story so… Anyway, you can read now.
I sighed heavily as I tried to focus on my stitching, the sun was glaring harshly down on the white material and it was reflecting back into my eyes. It was such a beautiful day, as it often was in Texas, so I was sitting on the porch. However, doing this meant that everyone who went past greeted me, I didn't mind it was lovely, but it made it even harder to concentrate on something that I found such a bore. Of course, it wasn't these people's faults that every time I saw a honey blond haired man my thoughts spiralled back into my childhood, to my best friend - Jasper Whitlock.
Jasper was a golden blond haired boy with laughing brown eyes and we had been inseparable when we lived next door to each other. Jasper was a year my senior but it didn't matter to us nor did it matter than I was female while he was not. We moved however when I was five years of age and I was heartbroken (as much as a five year old can be) at the thought of leaving Jasper. We promised each other we'd write but, of course, a five year olds' promise is rarely kept. I don't even remember awfully clearly what he looked like now-a-days except those two facts. In my defence I am now fifteen so it's been ten long years since I had said goodbye to him crying my eyes out and feeling as though my world was ending - I was a dramatic child at times.
The reason my thoughts were so easily flittering to my past best friend (who, if I was honest with myself, I haven't though off for around eight years): we were moving back to Houston. That was where I used to live but this time it wouldn't be next door to Jasper. However, I was beyond words about going back. Houston would always be where my heart laid: it was home. Not that I wouldn't be sad to leave this place - I had some great friends here, I had a life here, a school, but it had just never felt like home.
I had yet to see where we were moving to but I knew it was in the centre of Houston, we had risen in the our level of class since we had last lived there. We had owned a large farm at the edge of the city, just next to Jasper's, back then. It had extended over acres of land so we had had workers to help out of the land for it was far too much work for Daddy to do on his own - Mama wasn't allowed to help and Mary-Alice, my little sister, and I were too young. We really needed another man in the family but my parents had agreed to stop at two when they married and that idea was just enforced when they almost lost Mary-Alice. I had grown into city life since we moved to Victoria but I do still miss living on the farm: the freedom of all that land and the games that the out-building's had provided me and Jasper with. We would hide in the barns, mess up the straw, climb trees in the orchard. It had been years since I'd climbed a tree - I wasn't sure that I was still able to. I wonder if Jasper still climbs the trees on his farm at time, if they even still live there. It was probable that they did since that farm had been in Jasper's mother's family forever.
"Howdy, Miss Swan," a voice called from the path and I looked up to see Mike Newton, a boy who toed the line of how he should act around me and often overstepped it. He thinks he likes me but I'm really not his type. He titled his hat when I met his eyes. "Lovely mornin', isn't it?"
"Simply divine," I called back friendly though with a hint of sarcasm that he didn't catch, he never did, as he continued on his way.
I sat there for at least another half an hour before glancing at the clock on the tower. It was almost five in the afternoon so Mama would be starting dinner. I packed away and entered the house to help cook the last dinner we would have in this house.
The house was rather empty now, most of the furniture had been sent over to Houston since we were leaving tomorrow morning at dawn leaving only our bed's and the kitchen furniture here. The drapes were gone from all the rooms, the sofa from the lounge, Daddy's desk, nearly all of my books - it was like a constant reminder walking around the house that we would be leaving. I had discovered while packing that we had left Houston last time on November 29th of the year 1850, it was strange that we were now moving back exactly 10 years later - tomorrow would be November 29th of 1860.
Mama was cutting up some carrots from the yard when I entered the kitchen but looked up when I entered with a soft smile on her ageing face. Without being asked I took over the simple job so she could start of something else that I had yet to learn how to do. We worked in silence for a while until my little sister came dancing into the room.
Dinner was the loudest meal in our household because at breakfast we were all too tired to hold a conversation and at lunch Mary-Alice and I were at school. Dinner was when we shared everything about our days and Daddy always had the best stories being the Sheriff .
We all went to bed early that evening. Mama and Daddy at one end of the house and me and Mary-Alice in the other with rooms whose doors opened facing each other.
I didn't actually mean for it to be exactly 10 years to date since they left Houston but I made a timeline for the story and oddly enough I had chosen the same date for them moving. This is a really short chapter but please keeping reading, I think they get better.