Autumn Leaves

Chapter 12

Copyright (c) 2013. All rights reserved by the author.

Dedicated to @ombredelemort for giving me the enthusiasm to write my new chapter after three weeks of inaction. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

"We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture."

           -Robin Williams

That evening, I had quite an early night because I was still jet lagged, but when I woke up the next morning, again at an early hour, I was told that our furniture was due to arrive today at around midday. My mum, being the organised person she is, had noted down all of the dimensions of the furniture so we could plan how to set everything out.

       We had a very simple breakfast, just cereal as we hadn't bought any pots and pans, or even a toaster yet. This also meant that we couldn’t eat the pop-tarts we had bought yesterday, which was a bit annoying.

       The furniture came at almost exactly midday, which was really surprising. I guess I found it all the more strange because where I came from, the post wasn't really that reliable in terms of punctuality.

       Once it all arrived, our next challenge was to get it all inside. The door to our new house was a tad wider (and taller, for that matter) so it wasn't too difficult, and the people who delivered it offered to help with it all, which was useful.

            Once we’d gotten it all in, we (we being me and my dad) first moved all of the beds and the wardrobes to the upstairs landing, which we would then build later. The sofas (which were a really dark brown) and their positions were left up to my mum and my brother, who just sort of bounced around on them while my mother scolded him and tried to get him off, to no avail. In the end, she got him to sit down with his Nintendo and forced him to play Mario Kart for an hour and a half. He happily obliged, making only the occasional ‘vroom’ noise of the car he was driving. Luckily, the floor was hardwood panelling, so it was easy to move the sofas, rather than having to try to get them to move on a thick carpet.

            Just after lunch, my dad and I started building the coffee table and bookshelves for the living room. We lost quite a few of the screws, which resulted in me having to fling around the packaging, looking for any that may have fallen out of the little packets. We found them all in the end though, which saved us a lot of hassle later. When they were all put together, our travel books, albums and souvenirs went on the shelves and the coffee table waited for newspapers which we were yet to buy. The rugs and cushions were due to arrive the next day, which made the room a bit colder, but it was fine, we had plenty of jumpers from life in the UK.

            The kitchen had come with the chairs for the breakfast-bar-type worktop which was good, but the chairs for the actual dining table (which arrived in one piece, thankfully) had to be assembled which took a longer than the bookshelves are there were eight of them, which I found a bit pointless for a family of four. But then again, in case of visitors… they were stackable though, which saved space.

            I was immersed in my thought while putting together the beds upstairs when I heard a shout.

            “No, Mum!” Harry cried, “We do need one! Please, mum please?”

            “Mum, what’s Harry talking about?” I asked slowly after rushing down the stairs.

            She sighed. “Well, you know how it’s Christmas Eve today and Christmas day tomorrow?” she told me wearily.