short stories

The New House

"It's not so bad, is it, sweetheart?" asked Mom. I looked at her and shrugged, then looked back at the house in question. It was not bad, to be sure-the trailers we had been living in previously were worse-but it still wasn't nice.

The house was relatively large, with only two floors and a basement. The first floor had a living room, bathroom, etc. And the top housed the attic, but still no bedrooms. And then, the basement housed our bedrooms, an office nook, and another bathroom.

In spite of all this, the house was tiny. Tinier than I was used to, anyway. My mom was the co-head of a huge company. We were set to move away to a mansion in Berkley when the other co-head conned her out of all of the money. So now, she was buying this house in the middle of a tiny town in Appalachia.

I was not rich by most peoples' standards, but my mother certainly was. Since I was a minor, I could not afford to use any of her money, so I was about as rich as your average run-of-the-mill fourteen-year-old. And therefore, I was in no high standings that restricted me from sighing loudly and stomping downstairs as soon as we entered the house.

"Oh, c'mon now, sweetie! It's not that bad!" said my mom. "Now, Kira," he said. I cringed at the sound of Mr. Benthers, Moms' new boyfriend. She has been on the hunt for love, for no reason I can see, since she has always seemed content before. Mr. Benthers insisted I called him 'Uncle', which I refused to do. That is even grosser than me calling him Dad for a number of reasons.

"Oh, you!" said Mom. I heard the clunk of his briefcase hit the floor and scowled. I never wanted a boyfriend if all boys were like him. My mother had completely understood when I had come out-she agreed with me when I said boys were a complete waste of time.

Another reason I was confused as to why she had her new boyfriend upstairs.

I surveyed my room in the basement. It was the bigger one because that's what Mom gets for refusing to pause her hanky-panky to choose the better room. I plopped down my suitcase and sighed. Some of my stuff had already been a moved-my bed, my hanging chair, and one of my shelves. I glanced at the shelves and was happy to see that a photo of me and my girlfriend, Maya, had already been moved. As I looked closer at the shelves, though, I realized that there was something there that wasn't mine.

It was a really old book, all yellow-pages. I definitely did not own this... Maybe it had come with the house? Maybe I should tell Mom. I started on the stairs but decided against it. I sighed and went back to survey the book.

It was definitely not mine-I would not buy something so old-but it almost seemed familiar in some way. I opened it up and flipped through a few of the pages. A bunch of curvy handwriting dominated all of the pages. The ink had run together over time, and I couldn't really read any of the words. But they were clearly words, and so I should be able to...

"Time for dinner!" called Mom. My head shot up and looked at the clock in shock. It was already six! But how is that possible? I wondered, climbing the stairs, we got here at 2:30, how was I looking at that for...

"Sweetie! Hey, I have been calling for you for a while now! I hope pizza is OK with you?" she said, handing me a slice. I nodded and glanced over at Mr. Benthers, flipping through the channels on our new TV, and occasionally taking a swig from his beer can. I wrinkled my nose in disgust, inhaled my pizza, and turned to my mom.

She spoke first and cut me off. "Sweetie, I know you're not the best of friends with him, but I need you to be at the very least polite." I nodded and tried to peer behind her, at the back door. It was nestled between the dishwasher and the fridge and led to the backyard section of our new house. I nodded again and set my empty plate in the sink, then went back downstairs.