War Of Survival

Chapter Six, No Luck In Napier

After no luck of finding a house to stay in Napier, we headed off back to Rotorua, where our truck and bus are parked. We left on Christmas day 2016. The wonderful family who we stayed with were so nice, they got my sister and I lollies to eat on the way home, a christmas gift. I was forever grateful that they thought of us. Mum drove home. I think I fell asleep and that's a good thing, it means I missed all the turns that usually makes me want to throw up.

January 1st, 2017. I remember we made chocolate muffins that day in the new family that we were staying at. Let me explain their house and situation, After the long twisty driveway and passing another house, their house was standing tall with pride between the trees and hills looking pretty out in the middle of nowhere. The small playhouse, usually where their grandson would play in and a big deck with a wooden ramp that leads up to the sliding doors of the house. They had a few garages in the back and paddocks with long untrimmed grass that lead to the endless mountains all around everywhere you look is just green grass and mountains. I don't remember much of their house inside since we only really went in once or twice to use the bathroom, after that we would swim in the lake everyday to get clean after my dad developed the fear of bothering them. You may not believe in ghosts, but I sure do, one time while we were eating dinner in our bus, we saw their lights go off in the house, they all jumped in the car and fled away super fast, we thought nothing of it until...Mum told us we need to get ready for bed, my parents and I went on a night time walk and used the bathroom. In their living room they had this giant window on the side that was facing our bus, the window had no curtains. I swear I saw someone sitting in the chair in the dark facing our bus. The figure was just sitting there silently staring at us. I thought maybe the lady that was living there, since it looked exactly like her might've just fallen asleep on the couch or something. Then we got a text that read "Sorry we will be home late tonight, just took Ronnie (the name of the lady) to the hospital" and that was really freaky, I could've sworn I saw Ronnie sitting in that chair, once I looked again and the figure was gone. I'm not one to get scared at invisible beings, so I just shook that one off and forgot about it.

My mum started working at Ronnie's parent's motel. About a thirty minute drive to Rotorua, the motel sits there with all these flags from different countries out in the front. They also had a pool and I remember Ronnie's parents let us swim in it one very hot day. They also had a trampoline that my sister and I would jump on when my dad wasn't in the mood to drive around and he fell asleep in the car while mum was in cleaning all the rooms. One day my sister and I walked down to the lake, about a five minute walk down the road from the motel. Not much was going on but we were bored and thought we should check it out while dad was catching some sleep in the passenger seat of our grey mercedes.

Usually, after we'd drop my mum off for her shift, I would jump in the front seat after I gave her a hug before Taina would sneak into the seat under my nose, I don't even know what's her deal, she's not even tall enough to sit in front but she still races me for the seat, I just honestly want to get away from her, that's why I sit in the front, and to help my dad incase he gets weird again, one time we were at a traffic light and he just stood dead silent with his mouth open and wandering eyes. The cars were honking at him and I desperately tried to get him to start driving again but he was having one of those moments where he forgot who he was and what he was doing, needless to say my mum took over driving home that day after we got back to the hotel.

Usually while my mum was working, we would drive around Rotorua, we've been all places, to the lake, the park and even the mud pools. Our favorite place to go was the saturday markets. It was a great opportunity for me to pick up some money off of the ground that people would drop and maybe fill up on some free testers. When my mum got paid, we would go to the market and buy some vegetable samosas at the market or what we really loved to do was buy some fish n' chips from a specific store that made really good food and sit by the lake, Hanna's bay, Lake Rotorua, Lake Okareka, Lake Tarawera, Boyes Beach we've been to literally all the lakes in Rotorua but our favourite lake to go to was Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake).

It was really sad some days, my parents would argue, I understand out of frustration being in a bad situation or in the small bus. When my parents made a joke, Ronnie's family did not appreciate it, they didn't understand my dad's jokes and sense of humour. We started swimming in the lake every day since we couldn't use their bathroom in their house anymore. My dad helped me wash my hair some days since the water made my hair's texture fuzzy and I always hated it when my hair would get wet and frizzy or curly. The reason I hated the lake after some time was because we would go there literally every day, even my birthday and it would get really boring sitting there either on the grass, sand or in the car and my sister would splash around in the water, she was really a water baby, always swimming and we could never get her out whenever we needed to leave the lake to go do something else. My dad hates rotorua now in the year 2020 because it always reminds him of those boring days roaming around rotorua and the bad times when we were homeless and he was jobless. February 2nd, 2017. I hate my birthday. This year I really had an excuse to hate it. I've never had a birthday party or even anyone that cared about my birthday as a kid and I knew in 2017, it would be a bad day, we spent it at the lake, like always and I knew my parents couldn't take me anywhere special because they had no money. I accepted that but deep down inside, I was sad my 13th birthday ended up like this. On the bright side I got to pick out a cake and my own bracelet at the warehouse.