Chapter two
REMINISCING
Car top down,blasting Madonna’s songs and my hair whipping me in the face,i made my journey to Hastings.
My mum had a summer home,which we do visit every summer but since she fell sick and died,it had just been there rotting.
The last time we visited was seven years ago which we barely stayed two days,before the news of mum’s cancer and she had to start treatment immediately.
Turning right at the town square,I noticed that more shops has sprouted up. A bar,a coffee and pastries shop.
At the intersection,a fountain was now in the middle of it.
A brightly blue shop caught my eyes.
“Hems’shoe clinic is still there” I observed.
There was an inside joke between me and a friend of mine then.
“I wonder if Pete is still here”
There was a certain chubby blue eyed ginger haired boy,whom I bullied into being my friend.
I remembered being the one who was the protector of our little group consisting of me,Pete and Martha his pet tortoise. I was a early bloomer not in the breast or ass department but in the height,thin and tall as a reed.
But Pete was a late bloomer,plump,timid and short. That made him the perfect target for the local boys.
The first time I met him,he was cornered in the playground. His loud whimpering disturbed my avid perusal of adult reading,a raunchy novel about Viking marauders and their brides.The sounds of tussle brewed my annoyance and I left the hideout I was in to dispel it so I can continue reading in peaceful silence.
Creeping out from the hideout which was underneath the playhouse,I saw a ginger haired boy on the floor,standing over him were two lanky boys.
“Hey!” I shouted,three pairs of eyes flew to my direction
“Can you keep it down!” I waved my novel “someone is trying to read here”
Had he not spoken,we might never have become friends.
“Sorry to disturb your lovely reading,princess” a dry voice replied
“You pig!” One of the boys kicked him and I saw red.
A broken arm coupled with a substantial amount of dna belonging to the boys underneath my teeth,Pete became glued to my side that summer and every other summer after that.
We got into loads of trouble,the both of us. He might have been a timid person but once we became friends,I rubbed off on him. He was the initiator of many shenanigans we got up to.
“Wondered if he later became a veterinarian” I wondered out loud,It was a dream of his.
Reminiscing aside,I drove up to the driveway of our summer house.
The ivy covered beach house still looked as it did back in my teens.
I killed the engine and got out of the car,went to the trunk and brought out my blue suitcase.
Walking on the stone pavement,I observed that Everything on the outside still looks the same,the garden gnomes are still there,the front porch still has the same wooden rocking chair.
Climbing the steps to the the porch,the key cup was still there.I took the keys from there and unlocked the door.
The door swung open and nostalgia hits me with an heavy punch.
The pastel colored living room might have had a fresh coat during the years nothing else had changed.
Abandoning my suitcase at the entrance,old habits of removing my shoes kicked in.
The knitted sofa blanket in still sitting pretty beside the pillows.
The pictures on the wall still carry the frozen smiles on me,my mum and dad’s face.
Me on my birthdays,the picture of our dog,some pictures of Pete and i.
One thing my mum shared with her father apart from the eyes and hard head,is their love for books. The dwarf shelf is still crammed with books my mom loved reading while seated on her rocking chair.
The figurine of an hippo is still beside the plastic fern plant.
I trailed my hand on it,it was clean.
I turned back expecting to see my mom with her rubber gloves on and a duster in her hands. I only saw my suitcase sitting in the door way.
I sighed.
“This is going to be a long summer”
