Chapter 2
TEN YEARS LATER...Rain pelted down in buckets as our old car managed to puff it's way through the gate.
"So, what do you think?" Nick, as my adopted dad preferred to be called.
"It's perfect," Josie, my adopted mum, announced. We all knew that was the least likely adjective she could have chosen. The words I had in mind were gloomy, boring and old. Josie climbed out of the car, alongside Nick, and they both stood looking at it for a while. Their false enthusiasm was not helping.
"What do you think, sweetie?" Josie looked at me. I looked at the house again. Slanted roof, broken gate, a smashed window - it did not look promising. A strange looking tree was tilting slightly towards one of the upstairs rooms as if it was about to come crashing down on the house. But forget the house. Behind it were the most stunning mountains, tall and majestic, peaked with white.
"Nice view," was my response.
Satisfied with that, Nick and Josie diverted the attention away from me. "I think we'll have to do some work on this," Josie said, looking at the gate and window with uncertainty. "Oh look, there's a porch! I've always fancied sitting in the porch with a book and classical music." She sighed deeply. "This is going to be amazing!"
I think not.
"Okay, let's go and see inside." Nick brushed his hands down his jacket, straightening it out as if for some reason he had to look smart walking into the new house for the first time. He was dressed in an old North-face jacket and jeans, whereas Josie actually looked quite smart with a new pea green jacket and a pink scarf. I was somewhat in between the too, in my rumpled Levis.
"Mr Peterson said he'd sent the decorators in for us. He promised they'd work on the outside as soon as possible."
I poked my nose inside as Nick opened the door. A strong scent of paint was drawn into my nose as I breathed in. The decorators had left it half finished, half of the walls painted a pale cream color, ladders leaning against the walls in various places.
I had a look in the rooms upstairs. One of them had a white bed with cream sheets, and light purple walls. An oak wood chest of drawers sat next to the bed. I saw a picture of me, Chloe and Sara, my best friends back in England, remembering it to be my eighth birthday, in a small white frame leaning against the wall on top of the chest of drawers. This must be my room, I thought, pushing open the door a little further. It was actually quite cute, with a small keyboard and my guitar in the corner. There was a window beside my bed too, just above the massive tree I'd spotted outside the house. Perhaps this wouldn't be as bad as I had made it out to be.
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