Witness

Make sure you've read the chapter before this. I know that there was some trouble with the e-mail updates =/

My eyes opened after light had flooded through the un-curtained window and penetrated my eyelid, attacking the eye behind and giving me an instant head-ache. I was still too tired to probably even move, but the sunlight casting through the window would in no way help me get back to sleep.

I rolled over, and fell with a short thud to the floor. I sat up quickly in shock, before I remembered where I was. On a mattress, in an empty room, in my new home – In New Jersey.

Last night we arrived here really late. I’m not sure what time, because we didn’t have a clock unpacked. We’d had a whole day of traveling so we were pretty zonked. We helped the moving people to put all our boxes into the house somewhere and put mattresses in the rooms that we’d claimed as our bedrooms before completely crashing out. I was dead to the world before my head even hit the pillow.

This room, which was to be my bedroom, was a lot bigger than my room backhome in California, and I was pretty sure that I didn’t have enough stuff to fill it. Luckily though, it would always look neater for longer. That could work well to my advantage as I am still your typical teenager.

I heard some noises downstairs and assumed it was my mother attempting to begin to unpack some of our things. No matter how many of our possessions filled the rooms and photographs covered the walls – this place would never feel like our home. The only thing that could ever make this place home is to have my Dad here, but that is literally wishing for the impossible.

“Morning sweetheart,” my mother smiled as cheerily as possible as I walked into the living room (after getting lost a couple of times, mind).

In case you thought that my mother was some heartless creature who appeared to be hardly mourning her husband’s loss at all, you may as well know, that this is actually the way she grieves. She covers it completely and smiles so much it’s insane. When my Grandma had first died, and my mum reacted like this, my dad thought that she was hiding her emotions and pretending nothing had ever happened, which is really bad in the long run, but it turns out that this was her way of letting out emotion. It doesn’t make too much sense I realize, but you grow to get used to it.

“Morning,” I smiled back, only not half as enthusiastically. “Breakfast?”

“I bought some this morning. There’s a box of cereal in one of the bags on the counter and milk in the fridge,”

I nodded at her and walked into the kitchen and seeing said bags. I saw a large fridge-freezer that I knew can’t have belonged to us and decided that it must have been left behind by the people who once lived here, or donated by the police in Cali who were feeling pity for us. I pulled the milk out and set it on the counter, before rustling around in one of the plastic bags until I found a box of cereal, placing it next to the milk pausing as I opened one of the cupboards to find it empty.

“Mum!” I shouted, seeing some humor in the situation. “Which box are the bowls in?” I questioned looking at the sea of cardboard boxes that had dominated the floor of this room, all with the word ‘kitchen’ sharpie’d on. Red if you must know.

“Oh, damn. I’m not sure, sorry sweetie,”

I chuckled slightly, giving up on the idea of breakfast. Who knew that moving house could be so chaotic!

The phone, one of the only things to be unpacked, rang from what I presume to be the hall way. After going into a couple of the wrong rooms, I finally found my way to the hallway, where the phone was ringing on a holder on the wall, and quickly picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Frank?” a man on the other end asked.

I presumed that this must have been someone from the police in California because no-one here knew me, and if family were calling, they’d call me Anthony.

“Yeah, that’s me,” No it isn’t.

“This is Officer Brown from the Police force based in California. We’ve been meeting a lot recently over the past few days,” He was either the plump one or the bald one... “and I was just calling to let you know that you have an induction day at Belleville high school today at 12.45-”

“Wait, I’m starting school this soon?”

“The sooner the better,”

I rolled my eyes, and finished up the conversation with Officer Brown before hanging the nifty little phone back on the wall and making my way back into the living room and telling my mum about the school induction thing.

“Oh, I’m sorry honey; I just can’t go with you. There’s so much to do around here,”

“But I can’t go alone,”

“Sure you can, it’ll be a good life lesson for you,”

“But what if I get lost,”

“Oh, and you think I’m going to know my way around?”

“Good point,”

“Plus, can you imagine how embarrassed you would be if you were wondering around a new school, lost, with me. You’d be completely ridiculed through the rest of your high school life,”

“Oh, a whole year and a half,”

“That’s a long time when you’re being bullied.”

And that marked the end of that topic. My Mum had told me before that she used to be really, really badly bullied when she was in high-school. She was the butt of every joke and prank. It got to a point when she had to be taught in separate classrooms from everyone else, because they were just constantly on her case.
She was never sure why, and the school was never sure why, and I’m pretty sure that the kinds bullying her didn’t even know why. It seems that people like that never need a reason.

“Go upstairs and get ready for school,” my mum smiled, looking at her watch and announcing that I had an hour and a half to get ready. Turns out I got up later than I thought!
So I did just that, taking my time to do everything. I mean, sure this wasn’t an actual day at school, and I wasn’t going to be sitting in classes or anything, but I didn’t want people judging me when they saw me walking around the school today. If they saw me walking around the school.

I left the house giving myself a lot more time than I’d need to on normal school days, because I knew that I’d definitely get lost wondering around a completely new state all alone. It was when I was walking around, basically guessing where I was going, that I realized how self conscious I actually was.

I felt like everyone was watching me, and everyone knew who I was. I kept checking over my shoulder to see if the mob who killed my Dad were all chasing me with pitch forks. No. That’s stupid. No-one uses pitchforks anymore, it’s all about guns and knives now...which doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better, as you can imagine!

My pace sped up as I walked aimlessly around, trying to keep my mind off of my current fear. I realized that anyone could fly from California, and easily recognize me, so without a second thought, I ducked into a pharmacist that I happened to be passing, and picked up some hair dye. Not much of a disguise, I know, but face lifts cost too much. While I was in the shop I made a point of asking where the school was, and the girl seemed extremely amused by this. She gave me directions, very brief ones at that, before shooing me away and serving the next customer.

Her instructions were actually pretty useful as after about 25 more minutes of wondering, I found myself walking speedily through the gates of Belleville High School.