Thursday, December 29, 2016

Hi! My Name is Kris


I've been sifting through old school papers and writing. It's hard for us pack rats to decide to throw anything away. Typing my forgotten stories and setting them adrift on the Internet is an interesting way to revisit the past - and perhaps downsize the collection of papers while preserving the words.

I think I wrote the following story outside of school, for fun. I'm not sure how old I was, but the perforated holes on both sides of the computer paper that I used offer a clue. The only things I changed from the original, handwritten version is fixing any incorrect spelling and adding paragraph breaks.

xxx

"Would you kids stop complaining, we're almost there."

Hi! My name is Kris (short for Kristana). The person who was speaking was my Mom. She was talking to me and my younger brother Rob.

We were moving from our nice cozy house in New Jersey to Maine. We were moving because my Mom and Dad just got divorced, and they both agreed they would move out of our house. So here we were almost in Westbrook, Maine and my brother complaining every two seconds and me not feeling too happy about this at all.

Finally Mom carefully pulled up to a gray house with white shutters, and the tang of salty air hit us as we jumped out.

"Kris come help me unload this junk."

"Aw Mom..." I put in, I just wanted to get away.

"Kristana Stevans" my Mom said warningly, "Do you want me to get in the car and drive all the way back to New Jersey right now with you and your brother?"

(Mom thought I was thrilled about moving.) That would be great I thought. "Sure." I mumbled through gritted teeth.

"What was that young lady?" Mom said.

"Nothing" I said and started lugging a suitcase up the porch steps.

After we had unpacked (the movers got to our new house before us, and Mom had told them before where everything was to go) Mom showed Rob and I our rooms.

My room was big and airy. It was wallpapered with blue wallpaper that had tiny white flowers scattered over it. There was a nice window with curtains that matched the wallpaper and when you looked out you could see the ocean blue and greenish not far away.

After supper I climbed up the stairs and into my familiar bed. I began to think that since tomorrow was Saturday I could explore the neighborhood and maybe find a girl my age and before long I fell asleep.

xxx