Ok so..in the past few week of setting this up, it's been hell. too much time behind technology like this computer's making me sick. but i could really do with a few good followers who'd be interested in reading parts of my novel. that way when it's released you'd know if you like it or not.

So what this blog is about is to simply promote my work. you'd be able to read some of my short stories and you'd get a bunch of interesting and hopefully inspiring words on LIFE LOVE FRIENDSHIP..I know it's not everyone's thing some people may not like it..but what the hell..just we follow all kinda craziness online..it'd just take a few minutes to simply  click add..those of you interested in reading go head..I can guarantee you'd enjoy what's written

so plzzzzzzz

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Savannah High

Savannah High

New Kid on the Block

Chapter 1

                                                                    

“Hey Allie, How was your first day?” asked Luke. 

“It was….Um it was great!” I replied.

I had been sitting in the café on the afternoon of August 22^nd 2010, when Luke brought me the Rocky Road Ice cream I had ordered. It was a Friday after school, my first of many in this horrible place, not the café, the town. I wanted nothing more than to tell him how horrible my first week of high school had been and how much I hated this ridicules town. Unfortunately my stupid mouth decided to blurt out that I had a great day before my mind could stop it. It wasn’t by any means a great day. Come to think of it, I can’t possibly remember the last time I had a great day.

Well that’s a lie. I could remember the last time as though it were yesterday. I guess if I’m going to tell you this story it’s better to start off there than here with Luke. So I’ll leave out the conversation I had with Luke for now and start at the beginning. It’s better to start this tale with the day that everything went wrong. Unfortunately it wasn’t yesterday. The last time I had a great day was about two months ago. One of those bittersweet days in life as my intelligent mother puts it. Was it a bittersweet moment? Hell yeah it was!

***

About three months ago prior to me sitting in Luke’s cafe, my mother got a call from some recruitment agency as she put it. Don’t even bother asking me, I don’t know and I really don’t want to know what they’re about. Let’s just say that four in every ten parents in America gets a call at some point or another from an agency like the one that called my mom. So expect that you or one of your friends mom or dad to get a call from them. They’ll tell them about a great job opportunity in some other state or even country. Your parents would then make it seem as though they want your opinion on whether or not they should take it.

Don’t even bother trying to persuade them to turn it down. Believe me, just agree. In the end it just saves time and long lectures with corny advice. It makes no sense telling them you don’t want to move away from your home. It’s no use telling them you don’t want to go to a new school or to make new friends because quite frankly you love your current friends.

None of the arguments you can come up with to make them want to turn down the offer would help. So save yourself the trouble and just start packing. After about a month of getting the great news, we packed up, sold our house and moved to some town called Savannah in North Carolina. To make it all up to me guess what my mom decides to do?

She makes up for moving by throwing me a farewell party. Like that’s going to make up for everything! What am I five? I must say that it was a great day and my party was really cool. I got to say goodbye to my best friend Vicky and all my other friends who told me we’d keep in contact all the time. They even said that we’d email on MSN and web chat on Skype and not to mention Facebook! This made me feel a lot better. Little did I know that pact won’t last long. So basically that the last time I had a great day, was the day I said farewell to my life in Chicago and hello to Savannah.

***

My mom couldn’t stop talking about how great the plane ride was and how beautiful the scenery looked as we drove for god knows how long from the airport to the town. I mean seriously it was like this place was in the middle of nowhere! Did you know that I couldn’t even find it on Google Earth? I saw the city my mom would be working when I looked it up. But the Town and Suburban area of Savannah was no where on the map!

Maybe the town was beautiful I really don’t know. I could vaguely hear her describing how outside looked as we drove. Most of my trip was spent flipping through songs on my IPod. I ensured to have it fully charged for our long trip. Thank god for Apple and their technology. As Taylor Swift’s “Back to December” played in my ear I could hear my mom telling me to look at the Stadium and Buildings as we past them. We’d just left the airport and were in a cab. I guess we were passing through the city.

 I supposed as we got closer to our destination the scenery changed no more talks of buildings and bus stations. She began to carry on about the park, nice houses with picket fences and somewhere in there I thought I heard her say something about some children playing at a beach  or by a beach . I must say I was a bit curious to see that. However, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

I didn’t want to move here and vowed that no matter what happens I wouldn’t like this place. I was going to go the high schools spend four years there not make any stupid friends and then go off to college where I would be reunited with my friends. That was the plan. Unfortunately no one told me that life cannot be planned.

When we got the house that first day I again had to admit that it was really beautiful. It had a lovely picket fence surrounding it. There were some nice huge trees and a colorful flower garden not to mention a really green lawn in front of it.

 Inside was also nice even though it wasn’t furnished and was filled with boxes. I walked about looking at the place where the television would go and the kitchen. I walked upstairs and saw my new room. When I was finished exploring my mom asked the inevitable question. What I thought of the place? It was nice I felt comfortable and I liked my room. This was definitely a great place to live. That was my first thought but I chose to point out the fact that our old house was bigger with a pool in the back yard.

That led to one of our talks. We’ve been having lots of talks since dad and every time we do it sounded the same. “Allie,” sighs, “Have a seat,” said my mom. I think that if you just give this place a chance you’d really like it.”

“That’s just it mom. I don’t want to like it. I want things to go back to the way they were.” I replied trying to keep from getting upset.

“I know you do and I wish they could but they can’t. Your dad’s not here anymore and I really needed to get away from Chicago. I know you miss your friends but you’ve got the chance to make a lot of new ones here.”

“Mom, do we have to bring dad into every one of our conversations?” I questioned. I hated hearing him being mentioned in everything we did and even though he wasn’t around now he still had an input into all the decisions we made.

Sigh… “Look Allie I know you’re upset with me for moving and for a lot of other things but I just really need you to try and make this work ok.”  She always lectured like this. “Try to keep an open mind about it. The truth is we can really get a fresh start by moving here you can be anyone you want to be here. No one knows you and that means more chances to make some really good first impressions. Just give it a couple of days and you’ll see this is the start of a brand new chapter in your life.”

My mom was always talking like this. In parables as though she was a fortune cookie. Life was always about looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty. I never saw the point of that particular parable. For the life of me I really never understood what she was saying but I figured it was better not to make things seem that way.

Most of the time a good answer to get her to leave me alone was simply, “Ok mom. I’ll try.” this was enough to get a smile from her. This meant I could go back to my room and begin to unpack.

It was just the two of us now. I mean dad wasn’t around anymore and that meant mom’s salary was all that was going to be used to maintain this place. Come to think of it I guess if I wanted to blame someone for all my troubles I’d have to put all the blame on my dad.

With him out of the picture mom had no choice but to get rid of anything that reminded her of him. So we said goodbye to the house and town and everything that they shared. It’s really his fault I’m in the position I’m in right now but I really don’t want to think about him.

 It’s been over a year and I still tear up every time I think about him. So for a while now I’ve been trying to teach myself to forget him rather than go through the torment of reminiscing, looking at photo albums and thinking of the great times I had with him when he was around and when I was his little girl. Now those days are gone and I’m by no means a little girl anymore. I’m actually fifteen years old and on the verge of starting a new High school.

It’s the summer vacation of my first year before school starts and I’m sitting in an empty room filled with boxes. I don’t even know how to begin unpacking. If dad was here he’d tell me what looks good where. Try not to think of him. Maybe I need to walk around a bit more. I thought, as I got up and walked to down the hall. The first door on the right was my mom’s room and the first door to my left was empty.

 It was only then that I realized that there was an extra room in this house. I decided to explore. It was also empty. A lot bigger than my room and the closet was larger as well. To the side there was a large glass door and a small porch to go out on but I didn’t even notice it. That was until I heard the room playing a lovely soothing tune on a guitar. That’s stupid rooms don’t play guitar. Yet there was definitely sound coming from on the porch.

I slid the door open and step out on the porch. Then it all made sense to me. The music wasn’t coming from my room or even my porch. It was coming from the neighbor’s house. I couldn’t see too clearly though. The wind blew the curtains and my eyes fell on someone sitting on a chair inside the room of the house next door playing guitar.

It definitely had to be some older man or woman with a lot of time on their hands because there was no way someone my age would have listened to that type of music. It sounded more like what my mom would listen to. As I stood there in my own little world I didn’t even realized that the music had stopped.  I hardly noticed that someone was now on the porch next door staring at me.

“Hi!” his voice was a soothing as the music he was playing. “Are you my new neighbor?” he asked. It took me a while to get back to reality when I saw him. A teenage boy was now standing across from me in a white T-Shirt and blue Jeans. He was definitely cute. He had a nice smile too with somewhat of a boyish haircut.

“Yeah I am” I replied, trying not to be to hyper. I always talked as though I was hyped up on Coca Cola

“Well I’m Gabriel.” he replied “But my friends all call me Gabe.”

“I’m Allie,” I answered. His name was as old as the music he was playing “Gabriel like the angel right?” I asked.

“The angel?” He questioned looking as though this was news to him.

“Yeah you know what an angel is right. All white with wings?” I was now trying to be sarcastic hoping it would work.  

“I know what an angel is I just didn’t know there was one named Gabriel.”  He was smiling as he spoke and I took this as a good sign.

“Well you really should catch up on your bible studies he’s one of the most important angels there is.” I taunted.

“Hmm I’ll do that,” replied Gabriel with another smile. “So are you going to be staying in that room?” He asked.

“Well it depends are you going to be making noise in my head all night?” he looked a bit confused again as I said this. “The guitar!” I added.

“Oh well don’t worry I only practice the guitar in the day. I leave the nights for the flute and the drums.” I hoped he was only joking when he said that.

“Ok well it was nice to meet you Gabriel,” I said.

“You can call me Gabe,” he replied. I told you all my friends call me Gabe.

I smiled as he pointed this fact out to me and I couldn’t resist. “Well bye Gabriel.” With that I turned and walked out laughing under my breath knowing he wanted nothing more than to say call him Gabe.

I walked outside after that conversation I leaned over the balcony of the stairs and called out to my mom.

“Mom!” I shouted. She answered then came poking her head from the living room looking at me as I stood at the top of the stair case. “Is it ok if I take the room next to you?” I asked. “It’s got a bigger closet and more room,” I added to strengthen my case. 

“Yeah sure honey,” she answered. I moved my stuff into the room opposite Gabe’s porch and unpacked and when we were finished the entire house was looking as though we’d lived there for years. I again had to admit that with the introduction of Gabe, the cute boy next door and the finished look of my new room, I was feeling a bit better about the move.

The first couple of hours in my new room were spent talking to Vicky and my other friends on Skype. They got a view of my room and I felt as though I was still in Chicago as we stayed up and chatted.

After the first week I was already beginning to feel homesick. Most of my days were spent in the house and going out to the supermarket with my mom a few times. I saw some nice places to wonder about just a few blocks away from the house. The neighborhood seemed quiet during the day. I was tempted to take a stroll on mornings but I never did. I didn’t want it to seem as though I was getting use to this town. There were also a few places to shop or window shop in my case in the main streets in town. Again I wasn’t too sure I’d be able to do it.

My mother had started her new Job and wasn’t home anymore. I hadn’t spoken to Gabe since I first saw him; the television wasn’t giving me any good shows to watch and none of my friends were home during the day. I’d finally decided that after two weeks of being home and stuck with nothing to do I needed to take a tour of this town.

That Thursday night during dinner I crossed my fingers under the table and asked my mom if I could take a look around town the next day. I told her how bored I was home and how much I wanted to just stretch my legs. Surprisingly without so much as a question she agreed. She even said she’d leave some money for me to buy anything if I saw something I liked.

I was happy but found it strange that she didn’t feel uncomfortable sending me out on my own. I guess she felt that the town was safe or that I deserved it. I hadn’t been complaining as much as I was before and mostly because I was tired of fighting with her. Things were changing, faster than I could keep up with them.

New place to live, new friends to make and new school to start; I didn’t know how I was going to deal with all of this. What I did know was to get through this I would need my mom. As much as I didn’t want to admit it at the time, she was the only true friend I had in Savannah. To get through these next few difficult years I figured I’d need more than anything to be on her good side.

I guess it’s like what dad always said. I’m growing up; changes are going to come expected and unexpected ones. He always told me it's how I deal with them that defines who I am. One of his favorite sayings was that life was like playing cards; sometimes you’re dealt a really sucky hand.  “It’s not the hand that you're dealt its how you play the game.”

I never really understood what he meant but now I think I do. I guess we really don’t have control over any of the things that happen to us in our lives but we do have control over how we handle them. I figure I can’t change the fact that am stuck here. I can however make the most of it.