I looked around my new bedroom. It was certainly bigger than my bedroom in Buffalo. The house itself was bigger than my old house. The only weird thing is this house was entirely on someone's else's property.
My parents had purchased a guest house on the Rivera estate property. It was on the edge of their property, and now it was ours. We only had a few acres of land though. It wasn't bad.
The bad thing was that the Riveras were super rich, and now they were our neighbors (though to reach them I'd have to walk past their tennis court, their outdoor pool with a pool house that contained a spa and jacuzzi, and another guest house).
I had met the Riveras' twelve-year-old daughter, Alicia, who was a year younger than me. She had tan skin, dark hair, perfectly white teeth, and it was obvious that her wardrobe cost more than my most prized electronics.
"Omigod Hadley! It's so good to meet you!" She rushed forward to give me a hug, stepping back so I didn't ruin her red dress.
I smiled a little uncertainly. I was good at picking up on vibes from people and I could almost feel that she was being fake nice.
"It's good to meet you too," I replied.
I looked around the house. The Rivera house was huge. The entrance was a cavern with the stairs right in the front. To the right was a massive dining room, and to the left was a sitting room.
"Alicia, why don't you give Hadley a tour of the estate while the adults talk?" Len, her father, suggested.
Alicia smiled. "Sure, dad," she replied, and I followed her into the dining room. The table was already set.
"This is where we're going to eat lunch today," she told me. She led me into the massive kitchen, which also had walk in pantries and a separate section for the wines and alcohol. There was a separate kitchen for the cooks as well. Then Alicia led me into the living room. There was a stone fireplace with the biggest TV I've ever seen, and couches and chairs that looked really comfortable. Alicia showed me the servants bedroom wing, which was off of the living room. We circled back to the sitting room, where our parents were talking, and then we went upstairs. She showed me her parents master suite, the three guest rooms, and her bedroom. That bedroom was the biggest bedroom I'd ever seen. Her walls were white, she had a seventy inch flat screen TV on her wall, and a walk-in closet. My old room could fit inside her room three, maybe four times.
"Wow," I said under my breath.
"Wait till you see the pool house and the other guest house- well, now the only guest house," Alicia said. We went downstairs and out the door.
As we walked, Alicia asked, "You'll be going into eighth grade at OCD, right?"
I frowned. "OCD?"
"Octavian Country Day school," she clarified with a roll of her eyes.
"Oh. Yeah," I answered. "My mom said that I'll be riding with you and your friends to and from school?"
"Yeah," she said. "Although that's all you'll be doing."
I stopped walking and looked at her. "What did you say?"
"That we'll only see each other before and after school. I don't hang out with people like you. No offense," she said.
"You mean people who don't have money like you do?"
"You figured it out," she said with a nasty smirk.
I had been right. Alicia Rivera was a spoiled rich bitch.
"That's okay. I don't think I want to hang out with someone as shallow as you," I shot back.
Alicia didn't respond to my comment. She continued the tour, adding unnecessary comments like, "I don't know you if you've ever seen a tennis court this big before, but now you have" or "I'll let you use the jacuzzi sometimes since you're basically poor."
When the tour was over, we went back inside, where the cooks had prepared lunch. It easily could have been a meal served at a five star restaurant, that's how good it was. Alicia talked to me excitedly, putting on her sweet act for the parents.
"If you need help with your locker or finding your classes, just let me and I'll be happy to help!"
When we could finally go home, we spent the rest of the day unpacking. And now it was eleven at night and I was lying in my bed in this unfamiliar room, dreading getting up for my first day of school. Little did I know that the first day of school would lead me to a great discovery.