Three Years Old

Chapter One

Eeeeeeeeeek! So here it is, the first chapter! From here on out I will be doing everything I can to upload 2-3 chapters a week, as I'm hoping to finish this book before my Christmas exams start. This one is dedicated to JunoBoom for being such a wonderful fan, and because it's her birthday tomorrow, so this is her present from me :) 

I hope you like it!

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     I was leaning against the front of our battered, yellow car. It was the sort of car parents would give their teenage children so that they could learn how to drive, because it didn’t matter if they broke it -  but not my mum. My first car had been a million times better than this one. However, right now, it was all we could afford, and cheaper than it would have been to repair mine.

     I was staring intently at the little house in front of me. It was yellow too, but less bright than the car, a more subdued colour that worked well on the walls. It only occurred to me now that our car kind of clashed with it, but there wasn’t much we could do about that. There was a drive, slanting downwards slightly, away from the front door. We’d left it empty, waiting for the van to arrive and park itself there. The sides of the open cement space were bordered by vegetation – plants and bushes that had grown wild from lack of care by the previous owners. I just knew that soon enough Blake would try to tackle it, make it as photogenic as possible, just like she did with everything.

     The house itself was a bungalow, sitting squat and steady between the wildlife. There was a tall tree growing to the left of the building, with thin branches and wide leaves, it bent in a curve over the roof of the house. There was a wooden placard by the door saying in fancy writing The Old Telephone Exchange. That’s what this little house used to be. I didn’t know what a telephone exchange was though. It had a window on the front, to the right of the door, the frame wooden, of the same colour as the front door and the tiled roof.

     It was a very small house, and right in the centre of town, but extremely pretty. It was all we could have afforded though, so it’s not like we were allowed to be picky. The fact that it was in the centre of town wasn’t even bad really, because a city like St. David’s isn’t busy anywhere. I guess I was just biased; having grown up in my much bigger house, just outside of the city, I had been rooting for something similar to that.

     As I watched, the front door opened, revealing Blake. Her airy blonde hair was hanging loose over her shoulders, and stirred gently as the breeze met her. She was wearing a white vest with a flowing skirt dotted with flowers and a bright red, cropped blazer. The skirt showed off her long expanse of bare leg, running down to her delicate jewelled sandals. I’d been with her for what was nearing on nine years now, but the sight of her still took my breath away every time.

     ‘How does it look?’ I called out to her, as she walked over to the car to join me. She didn’t say anything until she was perched right next to me.

     ‘Empty,’ was all she replied. She’d left the door wide open, and a tiny figure appeared in the space. The sun was shining in my face, so all I could see was the silhouette of her brunette curls framing her face and the skirt of her flower print dress sticking out away from her.

     She reached out her baby hands, with her tiny fingers to grab on to the doorframe. Blake and I watched in silence, as she held on tight, concentrating hard to manoeuvre the single step. Once down the step she ran at full speed across the drive to join us by the car, where she flung herself around my legs as if she hadn’t seen me in days, when really it had only been five minutes.