My Summer in London

Chapter 3

"Louis! Hurry!" I whisper-yelled.

"Hold on!" He whispered back.

"She's coming!" I whispered hurriedly.

"Ok!" he hopped into the closet with me. It was a tight fit but we made it work. We watched through the crack in the doors, holding back our giggles. My sister walked into her room and switched on her fan. As soon as it started moving a ton of tiny pieces of paper fluttered in the air and landed all over the floor. Louis let a giggle escape his lips but I pinched his arm. "Stop!" I whispered, barely loud enough.

"Amanda! What the hell?!" My sister screamed.

She opened the bottom door of her dresser and ping pong balls rolled out landing all around her on the ground.

"Amanda! This isn't funny! Get in here now!" she screeched.

Louis and I both burst out in uncontrollable laughter. Then my sister, Anna, whipped open her closet door, revealing our hiding spot.

"What were you thinking?! You and your friend are cleaning this up before mom gets home!" she yelled at us. "You're so immature" she muttered under her breath.

"Fine, your reaction was so worth it." I said matter-of-factly.

Anna stomped out of her room and once she was out of earshot Louis and I burst out in laughter once again.

"That was so funny!" Louis said between gasps of air.

"I know! Did you see her face when the paper fluttered down!?" I was laughing hysterically.

We finally calmed down but as soon as we looked back up at each other we were sent back into another laughing fit. Continuing to laugh, although not as hard anymore, we began picking up the ping pong balls. We had ripped the paper by ourselves so they weren't so small that we couldn't pick them with our hands. In about half an hour we had picked up every piece of paper and ping pong ball. We threw away of all the paper and I carried the bag full of balls to our garage. I walked back up to my room, carrying a drink for Louis and one for myself. I handed it to him and he quickly drank nearly half of it. We hung out in my room for another hour or so until I heard my mom come home.

"Hey mom! Louis came over after school." I yelled to my mom.

"Oh, ok um...I need to talk to you for a few minutes." My mom sounded different. Not like herself.

"Ok, coming." I said.

"Sorry, I'll be right back" I said, turning to Louis.

"I can go...if that would be easier..." he said.

"No! it's fine. I'll be quick." I said, motioning for him to sit back down.

I took the stairs two at a time, almost falling at the bottom. Anna was already sitting at the table with my mom and dad.

"Amanda, we told Anna about this over the weekend when you were at Louis' house but we need you to know that we have to move. Your mom got an incredible promotion that she can't pass up." My dad turned to look at me as he finished talking.

"What? Are we moving out of our school district?" I asked.

"We have to move to the United States." my mom said quietly.

"What!? No! We can't!" I shouted.

"Amanda, calm down." Anna said.

"No! I'm not moving!" I felt my throat get tight and my nose tingled. I tried really hard to fight back the tears but they welled up in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I got up and ran up the stairs. I went into my room and slammed the door. Hard. I kicked my dresser my picked up a pillow that was laying on the floor and threw it against the wall. Then I simply slumped onto my bed and let my tears roll down my cheeks. I felt a hand rubbing circles on my back. I completely forgot Louis was still in my room.

"Louis, I'm so sorry! You must think I'm such an idiot."

"Amanda, why would I think that?" He asked.

"I hate crying in front of people. Especially you."

"What's wrong with crying in front of me?"

It was weird seeing Louis so genuinely concerned because he's always making any situation a big joke. He doesn't take anything seriously.

"I feel stupid. I just feel like such a baby for crying in front of you. You never cry."

"I'm just too tough for any situation that comes at me."

There's my old Louis. Back to his old ways of cracking jokes 24/7.

"Amanda, I hate to wake you but it's almost 11:00."

"Louis?"

"It's aunt Donna..."

I opened my eyes and still expected to see Louis' face above mine but instead it really was my aunt Donna.

"Oh, sorry. I was just having a really...uh, good dream."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you but I need to head out for a meeting so I wanted to let you know where everything is."

"Oh, yea. Ok"

She lead me to the kitchen and showed me where the bread and cereal was. She also showed me how to work the toaster and where the pans were stored.

"Well I think that's everything. If you can't find something there's a small grocery store just down the street and I left some money in that envelope over there." She pointed to the small white envelope lying on the counter.

"Oh! I've got to go! I'm going to be late! By sweetie, I'll be back in a couple hours." My aunt hugged me, grabbed her bag and flew out the door. Since I was going to be home all day I decided to make it a movie day. I popped a bag of microwave butter popcorn and slid Monsters Inc. into the DVD player. About half way through the movie I heard a quiet vibration. I looked to my right at the small glass end table which held my iPhone and cup of Coke. The lit up screen had one message across it: 1 New Message