Chapter 1
With arms crossed and a sad look in his eyes, my 8-year-old brother was sitting next to me as he stared out of the car window. He had not accepted the “No” that mom had given him so sweetly when he begged to get the unusually ugly dog teddy bear that he had fallen in love with, in the supermarket. It had ended in something ugly - Dad had to drag the screaming child out of the shop, while mother apologized many times to the shop owner. Typical Louis. Once he had decided on something, there was nothing to stand in the way of it.
Luckily, I had not watched the drama at all, as I immediately ran to the toilet to ease the pressure on my full bladder.
Sitting for 3 hours in a car with 1 liter of soda in your stomach is not fun.
When I got out to the car again, Louis was just sitting and would not talk to me.
A little shit, he was certainly, but of course I loved him anyway. He looked like me. We both had big blue eyes, dark brown hair with light streaks and a brownish glow in the skin color. Jason and I both have a big temper. We could spend several hours on the floor fighting with each other, until mom would come in and give us a lesson in sibling love. As if it was my fault Louis could not control himself, pfft.
At the moment we were on our way to our new home in England. Our whole life we had lived in Florida.
I was 16, soon 17, and in my opinion, a completely normal average girl. My hair went down to my elbows and it really had also just taken a hell of a lot of time to get it to get that long! I was 5 feet tall, and had a reasonably slim figure, probably because I boxed a lot.
I had decided to start boxing when I was quite young. I had heard that a girl in the neighborhood had been assaulted, and filled with willpower, little I had decided that I would at least be able to defend myself if I myself one day was assaulted. And I could now. You could well call me the “master” of my old boxing club.
I smiled at the thought of all my boxing friends hugging me goodbye for the last time before I left. I would definitely miss my friends, the boxing club, the city, my old house and even the school! But at the same time, England also sounded exciting. We had to live in London so that mum and dad would not have so far to work. They were both doctors, and they were often away a lot. Not that it bothered me. Usually, me and my friends just turned the house into a big fort, and spent the whole week watching netflix and dancing to weird music. Good times.
“Mooom, when are we there?” Asked Louis impatiently, apparently could not ignore us anymore.
“5 minutes Louis”, Mom said, stuffing a chip in her mouth.
When Louis saw the crispy delights, he leaned over the front seat and took a large handful of chips. Just before he took them into his mouth, I grabbed them out of his hand and ate them with a smug smile.
“Ohh, these chips taste so good,” I groaned, and looked over at Louis who sent me death gaze.
“Mom, Emily stole my chips,” he said hysterically.
“Emily, let Louis have his chips,” sighed Dad, clearly uninterested.
“No! It’s never been his chips, they’re the ones we all share. Louis just picked some up for me,” I defended myself before getting hit on the arm by Louis, who for the second time reached for chips.
I leaned back with a smile, closed my eyes and enjoyed the taste of chips.
It was not long before I felt a clammy, wet thing touch my arm. And I farrowed up. “Your beast, did you lick me right on the arm?! Disgusting Louis!” I screamed and tried to wipe the drool off. The stupid child just sent me a buttery smile and looked out of the window. “You can just wait, your ...“. I reached no further until I felt the car stop and I looked excitedly out the window. “Holy moly,” I whispered with wide eyes.
“Then we are here children!”
********
Back home in Florida, we had lived in a cozy neighborhood in a small, yellow house. It consisted of a kitchen, a living room, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. That's it.
Sometimes I wish there was more space - like when Dad had been to the toilet, and most of all you just wanted to disappear to the other end of town. For I tell you, it was not flower scents that came out of that room after Dad had been there.
But we had what we needed and it was good enough for me.
The new villa I now faced was far from small... It was a motherfudger giant villa! It was just big, modern, white plastered and I was just standing there staring. When my parents had said they would get a raise on the new job, I did not know they meant that much! It must have cost the white out of my eyes, but yes, I’m not complaining.
“I will choose room first,” shouted the devil kid. Hell no, as if I would agree to it. He should not be allowed to enjoy himself in the good room while I could sit alone upstairs in a small attic chamber filled with spiders and dust. Okay, maybe I overreacted a bit there, but still!
“As if, gnome! “I snarled. “We do it the old-fashioned way! First come, first served,” I declared, before storming the door, closely followed by Louis.
When I grabbed the handle, oddly enough, the door was unlocked, so I stormed in, without so much as casting a glance at my surroundings. Hey, we’re talking about a good room here, okay.
I could hear Louis right behind me, and his heavy breathing was enough to make me run even faster up the stairs. When I got to a long hallway, I started opening doors and looking in, to see if it was bedrooms. The first three rooms were not, and I thought it took an eternity before I burst in the door of the fourth room and whistled low in recognition. The room was large, light and airy, and definitely had the potential of a bedroom. I could already see it filled with my furniture, and before I knew it, I was shouting “This room is now mine!”
Shortly after, I heard Louis shout the same from the room opposite.
I looked into his new room, and laughed. It was exactly the same as mine - we had dueled over nothing! ... Or what? Now wait a minute!
“Yours has an extra window,” I whined. “Your room is much brighter!“. And that was right. On the wall opposite me hung a large, beautiful window, allowing the sun’s rays to pass through it, to light up the room. I loved windows. And he had one more than me.
I crossed my arms and mumbled some very creative swear words while Louis ran in to look at mine.
“What do you mean I have one more window than you?” He asked.
“I mean you have a window more than me, idiot,” I sighed, and walked back into my room.
“Well, there’s one right there,” he said, pointing to the wall. And quite fucking right. There was a window, but not a window as I had intended. I gaped.
3 feet away from my window, there was fucking another! The neighbor’s window! We could actually look right into each other’s bedrooms! What if the neighbor was a creepy old bastard who began to look at me while I slept! I shuddered at the thought. Also, the neighbor’s house took all the sunlight, which was why I had not discovered it. It just looked like it was a mirror or part of the wall.
“Shit” I moaned and took to my head. Congratulations, Emily Scott! You’ve got the shitty bedroom. The devil child just laughed, and went into his own bedroom. Couldn’t he just have offered to swap, like all the loving brothers on film? But hey, even if I would possibly have a stalker, I had besides that, a very cool room. And thank God for curtains!
After examining my room, I examined around the rest of the house. It was really big. What in the world were we going to do with all that space? I voted for playland or mini cinema. Everything was modern and nice, and I’m pretty sure my jaw went and dragged off the ground after me.
Was all this really ours?!
I jumped out to help carry the moving boxes in, still excited about our new home.
“Do you like it darling?” My mother asked me while she was carrying a box in.
“Yes, are you crazy?“, I shouted after her. “And you’re sure it’s not something we should share with another family?” I asked her. She laughed and wiped some sweat off her forehead. “It’s all ours, Emily.”
I smiled big and probably most of all looked like a creepy pedophile, the way I stood with big open eyes staring into the air while smiling.
But the smile faded a little when I remembered my neighbor.
Whoever it was, we would probably see a lot of each other.
