The Karate Kid

The Journey

A/N Hey everyone, thank you so much for choosing to read this story, I am completely in love with The Karate Kid movies so I decided to make a story about a new girl moving to Reseda just like Daniel did. Don't worry, Mr Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso are still in it and they play a big part in the story. I hope you all enjoy this, and sorry if it's rubbish :) I also have some The Karate Kid (2010) references in here that you might spot. (Sherry is Autumn's foster mom in case it's confusing)

I looked out of the window of the car, sighing quietly to myself. I simply hated the fact that I had to move from New Jersey all the way to Reseda in California. I  had made so many friends back in New Jersey, and now I couldn't believe that I had to leave all of that behind. My foster mom, Sherry, looked at me with a smile on her face; she had always been excited about moving to California. Me, on the other hand, well I was completely dreading it. I knew nobody out there, so how could I possibly make any friends?

"Don't worry Autumn, you'll do great" Sherry had said to me, smiling to me. "it's going to be such a good opportunity for every single one of us". I usually only ever called her Sherry, and it would just be plain weird for me to call her anything like "mom" or "foster mom". It's kind of like having a friend, but a friend who can ground you and give you punishments.

I had to admit that I admired her bravery of moving us all to Reseda, but this time I didn't believe her one bit. I closed my eyes and pretended to try and get some sleep so that I didn't have to talk about California with my foster mom. I soon fell asleep without realizing. At least this meant that I didn't have to pretend to be asleep. The week leading up to moving to California had been the same, with myself avoiding any talk about California. I was letting go of my friends and my true home. My only home. I could never call Reseda in California my home...never.

Hours later, Sherry had woke me up. I had noticed that the car had stopped moving and it was parked at a gas station. I looked over to Sherry and raised my eyebrows questioningly, wondering why I had been woken up just to go to a service station. "We're about twenty minutes away from our apartment, Autumn honey. Let's just get something to drink and then we can go" Sherry said with a confident smile of her face. We got out of the car and walked into the service station. We both noticed a cozy little cafe and smiled at each other, walking briskly into the cafe and sitting down.

"You want your usual hot chocolate with cream?" my foster mom asked me. I nodded and thanked her with a smile. This was the only time that I had smiled all week, I soon realized. A nice hot chocolate would always cheer me up no matter what. Soon after, Sherry arrived back with two hot drinks in her hands; one for me and one for herself. My foster mom, Sherry, had purchased a strong black coffee while I enjoyed my delicious hot chocolate. Sherry sighed and looked into my large green eyes, knowing that something wasn't right between us at that moment.

"Honey, are you still upset about moving to Reseda? I get it, you don't think you'll like it there. We'll get used to it and then we can settle down there, it'll be easy for us!" Sherry said to me, her saddened foster child. However, I was just completely fed up of the same lecture about how great it is. It was only time until I cracked and had to explain how I felt about moving. I couldn't just have bottled it all up inside of me. I felt like I was going to explode any minute.

"Sherry, you don't care about how I'm not going to fit in! I want to go home, not to Reseda! No one ever makes friends with the new girl...never!" I shouted out loud to Sherry, unable to take the constant chatting about Reseda for much longer. Sherry looked quite taken aback at me and raised her eyebrows. "Autumn, stop it! We will fit in, we're just like any other person moving to Reseda! There's nothing left for us in New Jersey!" Sherry said, apparently starting to lose her temper. She knew that I was having trouble adjusting to the fact that we were moving to Reseda, but I just couldn't stop myself from being like this in front of her.

My foster mom and myself walked out of the cafe with our hot drinks and went to find the car in the car park outside. Once we recognized our car among the other cars, we got inside and set our drinks in the drink holders. "I'm sorry for yelling, it's just that I don't like to move. It happens all of the time" I said in a quiet tone of voice, looking down at the floor of the car. Sherry had practically moved us all over the country, and I only wanted to settle into one place for once instead of packing our bags and moving over and over again. My foster mother nodded and said "I'm sorry too honey, let's just forget all about this, huh?". I decided to just nod in reply to this as we set off on the twenty minute journey to our apartment.

We soon arrived to the apartments in Reseda and came to a halt in the car. My foster mother, Sherry, smiled up at the large building which seemed to hold multiple apartments where other people lived. We both got out of the car and got the suitcases as well as my skateboard out of the back of the car. I jumped onto my skateboard and rode on it with my suitcase securely on the back of it. Sherry followed after me and we walked up to the fence. Once we opened the fence, we walked up the few flights of stairs and up to the floor we were staying on. "We're in apartment nineteen honey, can you see it?" Sherry said, lagging behind with her suitcase a little.

"I can see it, Sherry" I said, waiting for my foster mom to open the apartment with the key. Sherry reached the door that read the number nineteen and got the rusty key out from her bag. She opened the door and turned the lights on. "Wow honey, look at this! It's our new home!" she had said, getting excited for a new life in Reseda. The apartment was hardly big at all, with a plump red couch and a rickety old TV on a unit. There was a small bathroom with a rusty toilet, shower and sink in it. We walked further into the apartment where we could see six bedrooms squeezed inside; three of which were very small and you could hardly fit a bed and a wardrobe in them, and  three slightly larger bedrooms. I could only guess which of the rooms I would be having. However, I did not care in the slightest though, I didn't mind having a small bedroom. At least I had my own room. Or at least I thought I did.

Sherry looked at her foster daughter and sighed "I know honey, it's so small. They told me that it was way bigger than this". I shook my head and smiled "I don't mind at all, Sherry" I said. It seemed that I was trying to hide my pain and sense of loss so that my foster mom could be happy as she seemed to already like Reseda and the apartments. I didn't want to ruin her moment of happiness.

That's it for the first chapter! Thanks for reading my character information as well as this chapter, and more should be coming soon! Please tell me if you liked it and whether or not I should continue in the comments! I'd love to do more, but it can only be successful if people are reading it, really. Heck, I'll probably keep writing it if no one reads it :D Thanks again!