a new life

chapter three

In the morning light, brushing my teeth,doing the same old morning routine, looking at the same old face in the mirror - dark brown hair, blue eyes, freckles, nothing special.

During breakfast, I ask Tyler what he's planning on doing today, which gets me nowhere as he, preoccupied with texting his girlfriend, answers only "Humpf."

Since that's pretty much all he says, it hardly helps me plan my day.

I had planned to visit Santa-Monica pier today but I didn't want to go by myself. I wasn't a very sociable person, I had quite a hard time relating to other kids my age. I didn't understand their craziness, their energy, the rambunctious way they tossed around couch cushions, say, or rode their bikes wildly around culs-de-sac. It did look sort of fun, but at the same time, it was so different from what I was used to that I couldn't even imagine how I would partake if given the chance. Which I wasn't, as the cushion-tossers and wild bike riders didn't usually attend the highly academic, grade-accelerated private schools my Mom favored.

In the past four years, in fact, I'd switched schools three times. I'd lasted at Jackson High for only a couple of weeks before my mom, having noticed a misspelling and a grammatical error on my English syllabus, moved me to Perkins Day, a local private school. It was smaller and more academically rigorous, although not nearly as much as Kiffney-Brown, the charter school to which I transferred in junior high. Founded by several former local professors, it was elite - a hundred students, max - and emphasized very small classes and a strong connection to the local university, where you would take college-level courses for early ultracompetitive atmosphere, paired with so much of the curriculumn being self-guided, made getting close to someone somewhat difficult.
Emma went to a boarding school where she spent half her day working and the other dancing, and Tyler went to Kiffney-Brown, jut like me.

Just as I was about to leave, my mother came downstairs.
"Morning," she smiled at me. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine and you?" I answered.

"We've just been invited to a barbecue at our neighbors house, we have to be there by noon, is that okay with you?" she asked hopefully.

It wasn't what I had planned to do but I  couldn't refuse to my mother. She had this authority over me but at the same time she seemed so sweet.

"Yeah that's okay mom," I looked at her and gave her a small smile. She nodded and went to make some coffee.

It was only 9 a.m. so I still had a few hours before going over there. I decided that I would do some more unboxing and get as much done as possible.