Grace's Blog

     Today.  Today is different.  Today is another one of those backstabbing, heart aching, pain ranking days.

     Why backstabbing?  Because almost everytime we move, mom says it’s the last. But then a couple months later were moving again, farther and farther from our original home, which we were happy in. The whole family was there. Me, my mom, and my dad. But of course he died and we had to move because mom thought it wasn’t “safe”. Where is the safe place she’s thinking of? Is that really a thing? The safe place? If so, where would it be?

     Why heart-aching, you might ask? Because everytime we move we meet new people. Different people, different friends. New friends that I have to make, old friends I have to leave behind. Sometimes It helps me to think of it as having an “Old past” and a “New past”. Throw away the old past and keep going with the new one. Kind of like that song “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold. A circle is round, it has no ends, that’s how long I will be your friend…” But sometimes I pass people on the streets that are my old friends, I wave at them. But they would look back at me with a confused smile. I guess that song is wrong (“…that’s how long I will be your friend” that’s the part of the song I’m talking about). But If that song is correct, then when would I meet a true blue friend that never forgets? I might have one already. But who knows?

     Why pain-ranking, other people might ask? Because, you know when you go to a hospital and they ask you what your pain is on a scale of 1 to 10? Well, everytime we move my mom always asks me that question. I always answered 2, I was little and I didn’t actually know that I would never see my friends again. But now that I’m older I understand that I might not see my friends ever again, maybe sometime in the future we walk past each other on the streets, say a quick “hello”, then continue walking to wherever we’re going. But this time, when mom asks me that question i’ll say a higher number that I haven’t said before.

     Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be different. It will be an inbetween-ish day, no school to worry about, all I have to focus on tomorrow is packing and next week’s school work. And the answer to my mom’s question. 10.

One sunny day on Friday, I ran off the bus waiting to flop on the couch for another long Weekend.  Until I saw a tan truck in our driveway, The tan old-style truck was my big nana’s car, I did not like her at all, But Elijah, My little brother, Loved her more than playing super Mario.

I was walking as slow as possible, But suddenly Elijah zoomed past me yelling at the top of his lungs “BIG NANA!” which startled me, Because I wasn’t expecting it.  I hated when she came over.

1. Because she sends me to my room.
2. She is super strict.
3. She cooks disgusting meals.
4. She gives Elijah sweets.
5. She brings her huge tablet.
6. She always lets Elijah play on her tablet when Elijah could be playing on one of his other two tablets that are just sitting in his room, On his bed.
7. And she is mean to me for no reason, It’s like Elijah is her favorite grand kid, grandparents aren’t supposed to have favorites.

I walked into the house and could smell something disgusting cooking already, It was dead silent, Good now I just need to NOT be seen or heard.  I closed the door behind me, Took my shoes off, Hung up my coat and tried to walk as quickly and quietly as I could.  I started to walk to my room, Then Elijah came bursting through the door and yelled at the top of his lungs, “BIG NANA, I’M SO HAPPY THAT YOUR HERE”

It took a minute for her to hear him (because she is hard of hearing), then she looked up at him like he was crazy (which he really is) then figured out what he said after two minutes of silence and said, “Oh hi, Elijah, I was wondering when you and Grace would get home, Speaking of Grace where is she?” 

He looked at me with a sly grin on his face, He knew that I hated her a lot, He could see my mouth moving, Saying no do not tell her no, No, No, No.  Then he pointed at me smiling and laughing, “SHE’S RIGHT THERE”

1. I tried to make a run for it, But she looked around the corner and caught my attention, “Hi Grace, Me and Elijah were looking for you, Do you like chilli.”

But of course, I hate spicy stuff, But I wanted to start the day off right, So as I opened my door I said “no thanks” and ran quickly into my room. I got every box that I had in my room and stacked them in front of my door. 

I jumped onto my bed and started to write a story about what just happened: “One sunny day on Friday, I ran off the bus waiting to flop on the couch for another long weekend…….” (it’s the story I’m writing now.)

While I was writing, I was thinking about math problems that I did at school, thinking about how I got them wrong, it hurt my head thinking about them so I turned the radio on to 92.3, and old town road came on blasting through the speakers. Elijah burst through my door singing, How did he get through my door with all of those boxes in front of it? I wondered, As I covered me ears and turned the volume down.  Then I changed the station to 93.1 and that had old town road on as well.   I changed it to the last station that we got which was 97.9, Hoping that it didn’t have old town road on, And it didn’t instead my favorite song came on (circles by Post Malone), I turned it up so I couldn’t hear my brother yelling at me to change it back.

While I was writing and listening to the radio, Someone knocked on my door, I turned my radio off, As soon as I heard big nana’s voice I jumped off my bed and yelled “I’m changing!”

I moved all the boxes from in front of my door, “Come in!”

She walked into my room and asked if I could check the mail, “Only if you and Elijah leave me alone”

“Alright.”

“Thanks!”

I ran outside and walked to the side of the road, About 5-7 feet away from the road, I listened and looked for cars but there were none, So I ran across the street, Opened the mailbox, Grabbed the mail, Looked at all six of them and one of them said my name on it, I put it in my back pocket and ran back to the house.

I opened the door and walked into the house and started ripping my mail open. “NO, grace you have to wait until your mom gets home to open any mail!” she said as she slapped my hand, I dropped the note on the ground as she turned her back and started to walk toward the kitchen.  I picked it up put it behind my back and inched towards my room. I slammed my door locked it and ripped open the letter.

I could tell that it was from my mi-mi, Because of her big, Loopy, Letters, I read it and it said:

 

Dearest grace,

 

We miss you so much down here in Maryland. We all wish that y’all

             Could visit us down here, and we all miss you like crazy!

                                 Xo xo 

                                           Love, truly mi-mi

 

Nana knocked on the door, I hid the mail under my pillow and said, “Come in!”

She immediately came in with a rumbling noise coming out of her mouth. “What?” I asked.

“Do you want to come to my house for the weekend?”

“Nope!”

“But why? We could make chocolate mayonnaise cake”

“What is chocolate mayonnaise cake?”

“It’s a nice warm chocolate cake that has mayonnaise in it, You use mayo instead of eggs so that it is moist and so you don’t have to get all messy, With the egg yolk”

In my mind I was thinking about other things, I was also thinking about how I thought nana was crazy and out of her mind because she knows that I hate mayonnaise.

“Your brother is going to be there to keep you company”

“Then I’m not going because all he does is torcher me, and every time I try to be nice he just gets mad at me for absolutely no reason.”

After that, she closed my door (she might have broken my doorknob because before that “event” happened I locked the door, Then a piece of paper slipped under my door,it was an apology from my brother I didn’t know exactly what it said until I asked him, but I still didn’t change my mind, I don’t like “hanging out” with Elijah, because he argues with me, he kicks and bites me.

A few hours later Elijah packed a bag so he could spend the night at big nana’s. A minute later I heard the car door slam, as the engine started and they pulled out of the driveway. I was alone with the TV all to myself, I had the whole house to myself.

I went to my mom’s room, grabbed the Roku remote off her bed, and then went around the whole house and turned off all of the lights, I flopped down on the couch and turned the TV on. I ran into the kitchen to grab a couple snacks, I put popcorn in the microwave and heated it up. (1:30). POP, POP, POP, then BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, I took it out of the microwave and dumped it into a large bowl.

I jumped onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn in my hands, my mom would be so mad if she saw me jump onto the couch with popcorn I would get in deep, deep trouble. I selected a TV show called “A Series of Unfortunate Events”.

I finished season 1 and 2 of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and mom still wasn’t back maybe she just had a late night, then I started to watch a movie called “tall girl” but fell asleep 5 minutes before the movie ended, but I woke up at 1:00 in the morning, then I remembered that I forgot to close the garage door.

I ran outside, grabbed the garage handle and started to close the door when I saw something black and white, and then I realized that it was a skunk, I quickly shut the garage door as I heard a hissing sound, It was my cat (she is an indoor cat), she got outside and has hissing at a squirrel, then chasing the squirrel up a tree trunk, then she was meowing like crazy because now she was stuck in the tree.

Of course mom would be mad if our cat (her name is nel) was missing, so I had to climb up a more that 60 foot pine tree, no big deal, but nel was climbing higher and higher every second, so I would say that she is at the 50 foot mark line. I started climbing the tree, I reached one arm in front of the other. I was 10-15 feet off the ground, I grabbed a dead branch and fell, I got up and did it again and again for at least 50 minutes.

I gave up and started walking towards the door, I opened the door, Nel jumped out of the tree and started to walk towards the door, She ran right into the house and jumped onto the couch, All that for nothing. I walked into my room and started to write in my notebook. I went to the couch to pick up the popcorn mess and saw that I spilled my sweet tea all over the couch, I quickly ran to the kitchen and grabbed paper towels, I started cleaning up my mess but I just smeared the tea all over the couch cushion. I took the cushion off the couch and took the cover off, Put it in the dryer and sat down to rest my legs.

Nel was dirty and so was I, She followed me into the bathroom and watched me fill the sink with warm water.  She knew what I was doing so she ran into the fireplace and got gray stuff all over her paws, I picked her up and put her in the sink, I ran to my mom’s room to grab her shampoo and a blue towel, And ran back. I put the shampoo on my hands and after washing that out of her fur I put in conditioner. After I was done I grabbed the blow dryer and started drying my cat’s fur. I thought she was going to jump out.

I picked her up out of the sink and set her down on the towel and started to dry her off, That’s when she got extremely fluffy, I looked at the clock, It reads 4:17, I ran outside, Grabbed the flashlight, Ran back inside,  I was beginning to turn the bathroom light off, When I heard my mom’s truck pull in the driveway.