The Mowing Games

Chapter 1 - I'm Not in Kansas Anymore

"You're doing what?!" I yelled at my parents, seeing them flinch at my outrage. I got up from the chair I was previously sitting in and started pacing around the sparsely furnished living room. You could barely even tell there was someone living in it. I ran my hands through my hair, messing it up. My parents looked at each other, and my mom sighed. 

"It's just for a year. I promise, it'll feel like no time at all!" She smiled gently, trying to calm me down. It wasn't working. "Your grandparents are lovely people. You'll feel right at home!" I stopped pacing to glare at her. 

"Oh yes, the grandparents I've never even met before. I'm sure I'll feel right at home!" I said quietly. My dad started to stand.

"Well, technically, you have met them before. You were just very young." He told me. He said that a lot. Technically. I glared at him too.

"Well, technically, you're leaving me alone with people I met when I was like five for a year while you go off to Peru or whatever!" I yelled again. Mom stood alongside my dad now. 

"Honey, you know we wouldn't leave you if you could come with us, but Haiti is no place for you. I promise you'll love it with your grandparents. Who knows, maybe you'll even meet a cute girl at your new high school!" She said, grabbing onto my dad's arm. I pushed past them, storming towards my room. I looked back just in time to see a small tear running down my mom's face.

                                                           ∭

I slammed the door to the rental car after grabbing my bag. I didn't bring much with me, seeing as my parents gave me a card to use to get new stuff once I got here. I think they were still trying to make up for sending me here. I stared at the white farmhouse that I was going to be living in for the next year. I turned in a slow circle to look around the house. I was surrounded by fields. Fields on three sides of the house, then a road on the other, and oh, more fields! What did they even grow? And were those... cows? 

I looked back at the house to see an old couple waiting at the door. I sighed, and started walking up to them. I didn't even try to smile.

"Ezekiel?" The woman, I'm guessing my grandmother, asked. I stopped. I knew my dad said I had met them before, but I still had no idea who they were, and having them say my given name was just plain weird. Only my parents and my best friend, Josh, knew it. I nodded anyway.

"Zeke." I told them. "I go by Zeke." My grandmother nodded and smiled gently at me.

"You look so much like your mother..." She said quietly. The old man beside her cleared his throat. I could tell that he had spent a lot more time in the sun. His skin was tanned more than I ever could, and almost looked like leather. He also had a big grey beard, kinda how I would imagine Santa's.

"Let's go inside, okay?" He asked, but said it more like "m'k". I nodded my head slowly, following them into the house. My grandmother started talking, and I tried to listen.

"I think you'll love it hear. You won't have to do much work around the farm and the house, but if you'd like to, we'd love the extra help. The school you'll be going to is in the next town over, Pella. It's a public school. I don't know if you went to a private school or not, what with your parents being doctors and all, but I'm sure you'll be fine. You seem like a bright young man. Oh, and a lovely girl lives down the hill from us. She mows the lawn for us and does other work, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of her. She also offered to drive you to and from school. I think you'll be in the same class. I'm sure she'd be happy to show you around. Lovely girl, like I said..." I tuned out a bit after that. I wondered if she was cute. I looked out the first window I saw, and sure enough, a small blue house with a white fence was down the hill from us. We finally stopped in front of a door, and my grandfather opened it for me.