The Diary

"What was that?!?" My mom came running into my room with a panicked look on her face.
"It just ... The bar... I didn't do it!" I stuttered gesturing hopelessly to the large hole in my closet, the dusty pole still fairly stuck inside it.
"Seriously, you couldn't have waited for us to be in this house for at least one day before you broke it?" She laughed.
I let out a sigh of relief, at least she wasn't mad.
"I'll see if we can get it fixed soon." Meanwhile clean this up, please." She asked shaking her head, clearly exasperated.

I felt kinda bad, moving always stresses her out. We've done it at least ten times in my fourteen years and every time her stress levels just get worse. She left the room and I miserably cleaned the whole closet, again. After a good twenty minutes of sweeping and vacuuming it was finally done. I surveyed the damage and was ready to abandon my work for the day and go see how dinner's preparation was going until I noticed something shine in the wall.

I reluctantly reached my hand into the wall and pulled out the object. It was a tin box of some kind, maybe an old lunchbox. It was beat up and mud splattered, like it had been dragged behind someone for fifty miles down a dirt road. I wasn't quite sure what to do, it was obviously heavy enough to be holding something inside; how to get it open was the real question. I attempted to pry open the clasp but it was too stiff. After that plan failed I tried smacking it around a little, trying super hard not to make any noise. Finally I got one of the hangers that had been on the bar and began to scrape off the mud that was caked onto the lid. I sat there on the floor picking dirt off with my makeshift hook until eventually the lid started to pop open.

This was the moment of truth, I lifted the lid to an old leather bound book. The cover was cracking and the pages were yellowed. I picked it up and ran my fingers up and down the cover and spine. It was clearly pretty old but surprisingly intact. My fingers traced the smooth and rough parts of the notebook until it came across some form of lettering. The cover was too grimy to make out what it said. It looked like some kind of metallic thread monogram sewed into the front. I grabbed a cloth and started wiping it down eagerly.

"Austen, dinner time!" Came my moms muffled voice from downstairs.
"Uh, yeah ok. I'm coming" I called down absentmindedly.
I scrubbed harder trying to get it to look as good as possible. The leather was taking on a brilliant shade of emerald and was shining in the little bit of sunlight streaming in through the window.
"Austen, now!" My mom called sternly.
"I said, I'm coming! One second." I shouted.
"You better get down here right now." She yelled back clearly aggravated.
"Fine, I'm coming!" I fired back getting up, the floorboards underneath me creaking in protest.
I finally finished and flipped it around trying to read the writing as I dashed out the door.

"I'm coming!" I called in reassurance as I flung the book to the floor.
The letters were still ingrained in my mind. The beautiful cursive lettering in golden thread that spelt out a name.
"Lucy Anne Baker" I whispered to myself as I ran downstairs.