I woke up to the annoying sound of a truck and peoples’ voices, which is strange for our quiet suburban block. I pulled back my blue, light blocking curtains and peeked out the window, making sure not to be seen. I saw a woman and a teenage boy who looked to be about my age carrying large plastic storage bins, accompanied by a medium sized moving truck. They were transporting the storage bins from the back of the open truck and plopping them onto the lawn of my old neighbor’s house. The house had been for sale for a long time, and the previous owner was an old lady who had died of a heart attack inside the house. There weren’t any moving men, which seemed strange.
The boy turned around swiftly, and I quickly closed the curtain and got up from my bed, stumbling to flick up the lightswitch at the other side of the room. The clock at my bedside table said 7:18, so I quickly threw on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, then brushed my teeth before heading downstairs, after a brief brush through of my brown, waist length hair.
My mom was scurrying around in the kitchen, pouring coffee and cereal. I walked up by her and poured myself a bowl, not bothering to add milk.
I leaned one arm against the counter and started eating the cereal.
“Good morning Charlie,” my mother said, stirring her coffee, and it was almost as if nothing had even happened last night.
“Morning,” I mumbled.
“Did you hear our new neighbors this morning? Actually, I’m sure you did. I’m sure everyone did.” She took a sip of the steaming coffee. I hated the smell of coffee.
“Yep. I saw them out my window. They didn’t have any moving men.” A layer of dusty sugar from the frosted flakes started to form on my fingertips. I licked it off.
“Maybe you should go see if they need help.”
“Okay.” To be honest, the last thing I wanted to do before school was go move boxes for loud neighbors who probably couldn’t afford moving men. However, I wanted to get out of the house early, and plus I couldn’t win an arguement with my mom right now.
I grabbed my backpack and opened the door, yelling a goodbye to my mother before slamming it shut behind me. I set my backpack down on the bottom porch step and noticed that my dad’s car was in the driveway.
Weird,
I thought because I hadn’t seen him this morning. I shrugged, guessing he was just upstairs sleeping in.
As I walked up the neighbors’ driveway, the woman, who I suspected to be the mom, turned around and smiled. She quickly put down a storage bin in the middle of the walkway and came towards me.
“Hi! You must be our neighbor!” She said peppily, a blinding white smile plastered on her face.
“Yeah. My name’s Charlie. Do you need any help with the, um, boxes?” I tried to be as nice as I could. Mornings weren’t my favorite times to socialize.
“Oh, no! We’ve got it. But thank you, Charlie.” She touched my shoulder with her perfect hands, which were extended by french-tip nails, which I presumed to be fake. Summer had practically forced me to get mine done one time, and I hated them because I would nearly scratch my eyeballs out forgetting they were there.
“My name’s Angela, and my son Isaac is in the house.”
She turned around, her floppy blonde bun bobbing around at the top of her head, and called out to inside the house. “Isaac!” She yelled, and I cringed because I knew most people in our quiet neighborhood were still sleeping. “Come out here and meet our neighbor!”
The same boy I saw this morning while peeping out my window came out the door and sauntered down the stairs towards us.
“Hey,” He said in a quiet, bleak tone. “I’m Isaac.” He loomed about five inches above me, and even though his posture was bad he was still way taller than me, and I’m not even that short.
