pie rox. just saying.
going now!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Birthday!!
Yes, it's my birthday today. No, I'm NOT going to tell you how old I am. It still kind of feels weird, though. I mean, at this time last year I was flunking my lifeguard test and feeling horrid about myself. This year's a lot better, partly because I have no lifeguarding class to feel horrid about, and partly because today's a SATURDAY and I LOVE Saturdays, and partly because it's sunny and nice out and I finally was able to paint my own nails without doing a terrible job. Yes, they're a weird color. They're neon orange. Yes, orange. Yes, neon. Yes, you've told me lately how weird you think I am.
Anyway, I'll have you know that I finished the journal that I was trying to complete so desperately over Lent, so I have FINALLY been able to move on. It feels really good to be able to finally not have to write like twenty pages a day in order to finish a freaking journal. So that's quite a relief. I have to go now, but I'll try to post later, after my mini-party. It's just a couple of friends, and we're going to an improv comedy show that we go to a lot. It's fairly awesome.
Okay, going now.
Anyway, I'll have you know that I finished the journal that I was trying to complete so desperately over Lent, so I have FINALLY been able to move on. It feels really good to be able to finally not have to write like twenty pages a day in order to finish a freaking journal. So that's quite a relief. I have to go now, but I'll try to post later, after my mini-party. It's just a couple of friends, and we're going to an improv comedy show that we go to a lot. It's fairly awesome.
Okay, going now.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
So...
My birthday is on Saturday. I'm not sure whether or not I'm excited about this. I just realized how OLD I am. Okay, I'm not as old as my dad, but still. I FEEL kind of old, you know? It's the same feeling I got in 5th grade when I realized that the largest class the school had ever seen was also the oldest, as of that year. EEK! Well, I guess the good thing is that I'll be able to drive in September. Most people have an EPIC birthday party for this age's birthday, but I'm not. I don't know why. I just don't want to. I'm not the EPIC BIRTHDAY PARTY type of person, you know? I'm just inviting the same five friends that I always invite (I would invite one more, but she currently lives in Australia) and going to the same place that we have gone for most of middle school for my birthday, and then sugaring violets, which we have done since I was 4. Seriously. It's not that I overly enjoy tradition (okay, maybe a little, but I'm not as bad as my dad), but there is not a lot to do for people my age where we live, you know?
So... yeah.
So... yeah.
AWESOMENESS!!!!!
Okay, today was a very musically awesome day for two reasons.
1. We're singing songs by Queen for the spring chorus concert. Ridiculous? Obviously. Genius? Entirely.
2. For my English project - it's a quarter-long thing that's the focus of the class - is me writing songs/singing them/me putting Tolkien Elvish songs to music. Will it fail? Probably. Is it difficult? Yes. Will I enjoy it anyway? Of COURSE!
I'm SUPER psyched about both of these things, because the first song in the Queen medley is "We Will Rock You," which is my personal favorite song by Queen (aside from "We Are The Champions"), and the entire thing is completely made of awesome. I'm SUPER excited. I'm defenitely excited about the song writing thing, I am just not sure how I am going to manage to bring it in to class without figuring out how to re-string my guitar and figuring out how to play again. However, I DO have six weeks to figure that part out. For now, I have to finish figuring out how the songs are going to go before I figure out how I am supposed to get graded on them. More on that later.
1. We're singing songs by Queen for the spring chorus concert. Ridiculous? Obviously. Genius? Entirely.
2. For my English project - it's a quarter-long thing that's the focus of the class - is me writing songs/singing them/me putting Tolkien Elvish songs to music. Will it fail? Probably. Is it difficult? Yes. Will I enjoy it anyway? Of COURSE!
I'm SUPER psyched about both of these things, because the first song in the Queen medley is "We Will Rock You," which is my personal favorite song by Queen (aside from "We Are The Champions"), and the entire thing is completely made of awesome. I'm SUPER excited. I'm defenitely excited about the song writing thing, I am just not sure how I am going to manage to bring it in to class without figuring out how to re-string my guitar and figuring out how to play again. However, I DO have six weeks to figure that part out. For now, I have to finish figuring out how the songs are going to go before I figure out how I am supposed to get graded on them. More on that later.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
What I did over break
I had spring break last week. Part of it was dedicated to being miserable over my gold award application, among other things, but part of it was dedicated to going to see my cousins in Alabama. It was really nice to see them, because I haven't seen them since last summer, when the oldest one got married. She and her husband now have a dog, Mylee, a SUPER hyper beagle/ pekingese mix and enjoys biting people. Not hard biting, but she still tries to chew on whatever she can get her mouth around. She's also very cute in that way. Anyhoo, I also saw my grandma on my dad's side and my aunt on my dad's side, which was really nice. I also visited my cousin, who's in college and gave us a tour, and I got a very awkward sunburn just on my chest shaped like the collar of the v-neck I was wearing. It was the awkwardest thing ever. We also celebrated me and my cousin's birthdays (we're a year and a week apart), and I was the first person in the family ever to go into their backyard pool (apparently they moved in in November when it was too cold to go swimming.) So that's the story of my break. :D
yeesh, it's been a while...
okay, I know I've been rather terrible at posting regularly (note how many total times I posted last month) but hopefully, I'm going to be able to do a bit more posting now that I'm done writing in my journal 24/7, trying to finish it by Easter. I've not finished it by any means, but Lent is FINALLY OVER (HOORAY!! JESUS IS BACK!!) so I don't care as much, so I'll TRY to post more often. I just don't get on the computer that often anymore, so it's kind of a hassle to get on and then think of something to write. Now that I'm pretty much done with sharing all of my thoughts with a piece of paper, it will be easier to share my thoughts with the rest of the world. There's also the fact that I just had my first glass of soda in 40 days (I actually had two) and I'm kind of hyper off of that. Regardless of the level of my hyperactivity, I'm going to TRY to post more often, now that I don't have to write fifty pages a day in my journal and have brain power to spare to blog. And by the way, I'm very happy to be back. Just saying.
Friday, March 26, 2010
hooray!!
Well, my wish has finally happened:
only two more classes, and then it's spring break!!!!!! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!
only two more classes, and then it's spring break!!!!!! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!
So anyway...
What I've been doing since I last did a proper update:
1. had a black belt test
2. got promoted in the all-grades
3. wrote a story for Creative Writing
4. did a final for English
5. Wished profusely that spring break would hurry up and get here already
6. started a film class
7. did a very weird commercial in said film class
8. went to districts with chorus
That's all the important stuff, anyway. I'll try to post more, I swear!!! It's just been hard, when my life has been taken over by a journal!!!
1. had a black belt test
2. got promoted in the all-grades
3. wrote a story for Creative Writing
4. did a final for English
5. Wished profusely that spring break would hurry up and get here already
6. started a film class
7. did a very weird commercial in said film class
8. went to districts with chorus
That's all the important stuff, anyway. I'll try to post more, I swear!!! It's just been hard, when my life has been taken over by a journal!!!
journaling
I know, I'm very bad at posting regularly. I should work on that. I have also been journaling a LOT, which accounts for most of the lack of posting. I have seriously been trying to finish a 400 page journal in 40 days. Well, 212 pages were left when I started for Lent. Now there are 106, and it's been a real pain in the butt to try to finish it before Easter. I'm not going to, I have decided - I'm going to let it finish whenever I feel like finishing it. I have already bought the next journal that I'm going to use, but I don't really care. I'm going to just wait and see what happens. And not dedicate what little social life I have to filling out a journal, because eventually, there's going to be nothing to write about because I'll have been writing too much to notice anything that's been going on. So I'm not going to write in my journal as much anymore. I don't know where my life went while I was busy scribbling in that thing, I swear. What life there was, anyway.
Anyway, moving on with life.
Anyway, moving on with life.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Pandora
This is a story I wrote. I know that it is not done yet. I have to do it for Creative Writing. So... yeah. It'll be kind of obvious why her name is Pandora after a while...
First her name was Anaitis, then it was Ananke, and now it's Pandora.
So here it is.
I was nervous, the first day at the English mansion. Okay, I was downright terrified. I was- I am- an orphan. My mother insisted I learned to cook and clean, believing that I should marry and be a housewife by the time I was 22; I saw the way my friends at school had it at home, and decided that I would never marry and be said housewife- I would make it as a journalist, a novelist, concert pianist, opera singer, whatever it took- until I could reasonably support myself. My mother wanted me to be very feminine. I didn’t care. I was closer to my dad, anyway.
When I was ten, my parents died in a car crash, and I was sent to an orphanage. The eight year olds, or anyone else, for that matter, didn’t respect me at all; the only attention I got from anyone was from the aggressive teenagers, who constantly picked on me. Eventually I had to- and did- learn to fight back. So much for being feminine. My schedule always seemed to consist of clean, cook, school, clean, cook, fight, sleep, repeat. It’s what everyone did, every kid for himself all the while. The orphanage acknowledged birthdays with a cupcake and extra punches to the shoulder.
Several years later, Charles English decided he wanted to foster an orphan to help his “public image.” In all honesty, it was probably a lowly secretary’s idea. Anyway, I was the paper girl while I was at the orphanage- I had more time after the teens got adopted and I wanted pocket money to buy journals and pencils and such, being an aspiring writer myself- that’s the only way I knew who the heck he was. It was usually his name in the byline of the front page article. It was also “Charles English” by the words “editor-in-chief” of the nationwide literary magazine, Word. Every unpublished author who had ever seen any literary magazines, blogs, or anything of that kind knew that Word was the magazine you needed to submit to in order to get a glance from the big-name publishers- Scholastics, Random House, Penguin, all those huge publishing companies read Word, just like all the reading nerds and the kids with big writing dreams. Kids like me. Anyone was allowed to submit, even the twelve-year-olds, as long as they had a parent or guardian sign a form off the internet. The only thing that kept me from submitting to Word was that signature, and the lack of a computer – the composition had to be typed.
Charles English himself was said to be quite a character himself - not only was he a journalist and an editor, he was also a novelist. His books sold like hotcakes among the fantasy fans, because they were amazingly vivid and the plots were incredibly complex yet deceptively simple. It was impossible to say how he did it. Not only was he able to write an amazing story, he could do it in about a month.
The most amazing thing about Charles English, though, was not in his writing ability, although that in itself was very considerable, and not in his prestige as an editor and journalist. The amazing thing was that he was able to build up a fortune in the newspapers and literary world by the time he was 25. I, like everyone else, wanted desperately to know how he did it, to meet him and find out what his secret was.
Well, in order to foster an orphan, Charles English would need to find an orphanage. Well, more correctly, his lowliest secretary’s intern would have to find us. Mr. English didn’t bother going out himself - he was too busy writing and editing and interviewing to have time to care about that.
Well, Sarah the Intern found us, all right. She seemed to think, well, wouldn’t it be dandy if she could get someone a bit older, so then she could boss them around for the summer, or however long they’re staying, and not feel terrible about it? That’s how she got me. I was fifteen at the time, but I considered myself to be sixteen- it would be my birthday in three weeks, anyway.
Sarah the Intern didn’t even bother to wait for me once the sponsorship was finalized. She just told me to be at the mansion at 3:15 sharp the next day. After giving me the address and phone number, she took her prissy self and her prissy car and drove away from the orphanage as fast as she seemed to legally be allowed to.
I told the paper people the next morning that that day was my last, collected my last paycheck, and turned in my bike. I packed up my stuff - two sets of clothes, three pens, one journal, and the few other bare necessities I owned - into my beaten-up backpack, laced up my very old hi-tops, and walked the ten miles out to where the country lanes and huge sets of land dominated the landscape. It took the better part of an hour and a half. I had banked on that, but it was still annoying - first I had to find the right turnoff, each a half a mile after the next, then I had to walk up the super-long driveway, which took ten minutes by itself.
As I walked up the path, I couldn’t help but gawk. There was so much SPACE here. The only figures were trees; the only sound was the chirping of birds.
When I finally arrived at the house, I halted and stared for a full five minutes. It was the biggest house I had ever seen in my life, and I’d seen some pretty big houses. It had to be at least a hundred yards across, and could have put the White House to shame. It was at least four stories tall. There was a huge fountain in front, and one of those circular driveways around it. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The house itself looked 1700’s-ish, but I couldn’t be sure - they never showed us pictures of the actual house that Thomas Jefferson and all those people lived in when the teachers talked about the American Revolution.
On the steps stood Sarah the Intern waiting for me, her dark hair in a tight bun and her eyes narrowed; she wore a tailored suit and carried a clipboard.
“You’re late,” she snapped at me, glaring down the steps like a hawk. “You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”
“But you said I should be here at 3:15,” I replied, glancing at my watch uncertainly. She had said that, right?
“No, I am quite sure I said that I said 2:45,” she barked, glancing at her clipboard.
“Ma’am, I’m quite sure you said 3:15,” I replied as politely as I could. This lady took stuff too seriously. Maybe that’s what you had to do in the real world. In that case, I’d prefer to be the one who was the boss, not the other way around.
I saw Sarah’s face twist as she frowned at what appeared to be a schedule. Apparently, this lady also did not like to be wrong. “Very well,” she said shortly. “Follow me, and don’t touch anything.” I ran to mount the steps two at a time and followed her.
If the outside was huge, the inside of the manor was enormous. There was so much space - the tiled floors stretched for at least a hundred feet before reaching the double doors at the other end of the hall. As I raced to keep up with Sarah, I glanced down the halls branching off of the main one that we were in. Judging by the peeks I was able to steal, the layout was similar to that of the board game Clue.
Sarah led me briskly through the enormous mansion, rattling off information as she went - my room was on the third floor; the kitchen was the last door in the basement; I was not to disturb Mr. English unless it was an emergency or he asked me to; everything on the other side of the door closest to the Window Stairs on the second floor was strictly forbidden for reasons I wasn’t allowed to hear about. Mr. English was only to be referred to as such - Charles was too friendly, Charlie was only for his mother and closest friends to use, and Dad was not allowed because I wasn’t staying forever and we weren’t related. I wouldn’t get to meet him for quite a while, either - he was out doing interviews or penning his next bestselling novel or something like that.
Well, as my luck would have it, my room was the second-to-last door on the right on the third floor facing the Western Perimeter - it was at the complete opposite end of the house from the Window Stairs and the mysterious room nearby. There were also security cameras and night watches, Sarah informed me, so there would be no option of me sneaking over to investigate in the middle of the night. Like the rest of the staff, Sarah lived at the mansion, even though she was only an intern.
She also informed me, as she showed me the room in which I was to sleep, that the previous day, she had purchased an entirely new wardrobe for me out of Mr. English’s budget and on his orders; she apparently knew that I had only two other sets of clothes and underpants. I was grateful for this. She also informed me that she needed my shoe size so she could buy me some new converses.
There was more to gawk at inside my room. It was also enormous, with a walk-in closet, a queen-sized four-poster bed, and a large writing desk with floor room to spare. The entire room seemed to have a color theme of green, though it was sort of discreetly done - the carpet was yellow shot through with lime; the hangings on the bed were similar, but with black and emerald. The bedding was a grassy sort of shade striped with turquoise; the walls were painted in a yellow-tinted sort of greenish-brown – the color leaves go when there’s light going through them in the summer. There were colors other than green, of course, but they were mostly the browns of the woodwork. If the windows hadn’t opened onto sloping, perfectly manicured lawns with a view of the river, it would have felt like I’d walked into a forest clearing that had been handily equipped with a very nice set of bedroom furniture.
On the desk, I found a laptop and an envelope with “Pandora” written on the front in formal-looking blue ink. It couldn’t be for anyone else but me - I don’t know anybody else named after a minor Greek goddess. It looked as if it had been written on personal stationary, and some pretty snazzy stationary at that. I was hoping it was from Charles… er, Mr. English.
Opening the note, I saw that it was, indeed, from the master of the house, but it was also rather short.
June 6
Dear Pandora,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am very glad that you will be joining my household for the summer. I am sorry that I was not able to greet you in person- I am a very busy man, as you probably have guessed. I hope that I will be able to meet you soon.
However, I must inform you of something rather important before you begin your stay. There is a power in this house that you will not find anywhere else. Many of my staff says that it is only I who feel the force of this unknown entity, but I can assure you that it is quite real. Therefore, I must implore you to avoid the room by the Window Stairs at all costs- it is where the power resides, and it does not like being disturbed by characters it is not familiar with.
I know you must think me rather insane for still believing in magic and mystery, but as you are a girl who is named for a girl renowned for being curious and going where she is not supposed to, I implore you to use your head when you pass the door in question.
That is all I have to say for the matter. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Yours sincerely,
Charles English
And that was the end of it, just like that. If truth be told, I honestly couldn’t believe that there was magic in the house. I mean, I have an imagination and all, and I believe in magic, to an extent, but Charles English? Warning me about magic in his house? I mean, the guy’s a writer, you’ve got to give him that, but there really couldn’t be actual magic in his house, could there? That would be the craziest thing that’s happened since Cronus barfed up Zeus and all his other kids, and believe me - some pretty crazy stuff has happened since then.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the huge house. I forced myself not to take the Window Staircase as a rule, just to prevent myself from passing the second floor, going into the Magic Room of Death, and pissing off whatever was in there.
Around five in the evening, I discovered the sprawling gardens in the back. I swear it was like something out of The Secret Garden- it was like a maze of six-foot-high hedges lined with flowers. I wondered to myself, jokingly, whether the Magic Room of Death actually harbored a sick and irritated nephew of Mr. English’s who was the real “power of the house” because he was so bossy, like Colin in the book.
Since I was paying more attention to my fantasies of Magic Death Rooms than where I was walking, I nearly ran into a gardener who had stood back for a moment to inspect the hedge that he’d just clipped. I stumbled back and muttered an apology to the bit of sidewalk by his foot, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. I could feel my face going red. I don’t know why – no dude had ever made me red before, exempting the time this one kid bit me when I was twelve.
“Oh, are you the new girl?” the gardener asked pleasantly.
“Yes,” I said, looking up into his face. It was tanned by the sun, with gentle, dark eyes laughing out from behind a shaggy mane of black hair. He was also smiling – it was one of those smiles that you can’t help returning. He looked no older than seventeen.
“I’m Bryan,” he said, removing a gardening glove and holding out his hand to shake. “Bryan Armstrong.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said as politely as I could, shaking his hand, which was huge, by the way. “I’m Pandora Wilson.”
“But… aren’t you an orphan?” he asked.
“Well, I still keep my parent’s name until I get adopted,” I said as casually as possible. “Until I get a proper family. Then I get their name.”
“Right,” Bryan said, somewhat awkwardly.
“Yep,” I said, unsure of what to say now. This was the first guy with whom I’d actually had an okay conversation, not counting my boss for the paper routes. But this was also a guy who was kind of attractive – there was something about his eyes that you could get lost in.
“So… how old are you, out of curiosity?” Bryan asked, as if he were just trying to make conversation.
“I’ll be sixteen on the 21st,” I said. “You?”
“I’m seventeen,” he said simply.
Well, after that, Bryan showed me around the gardens, rattling off information as he went – the Garden Maze alone was four acres; the entire property was about twenty. Mr. English rarely came out of the study, according to Bryan, and he rarely even came out of the house in general, for that matter. Bryan didn’t see why there should be twenty acres of ground to be maintained if the owner wasn’t going to walk around and enjoy them. To be honest, I have to agree.
First her name was Anaitis, then it was Ananke, and now it's Pandora.
So here it is.
I was nervous, the first day at the English mansion. Okay, I was downright terrified. I was- I am- an orphan. My mother insisted I learned to cook and clean, believing that I should marry and be a housewife by the time I was 22; I saw the way my friends at school had it at home, and decided that I would never marry and be said housewife- I would make it as a journalist, a novelist, concert pianist, opera singer, whatever it took- until I could reasonably support myself. My mother wanted me to be very feminine. I didn’t care. I was closer to my dad, anyway.
When I was ten, my parents died in a car crash, and I was sent to an orphanage. The eight year olds, or anyone else, for that matter, didn’t respect me at all; the only attention I got from anyone was from the aggressive teenagers, who constantly picked on me. Eventually I had to- and did- learn to fight back. So much for being feminine. My schedule always seemed to consist of clean, cook, school, clean, cook, fight, sleep, repeat. It’s what everyone did, every kid for himself all the while. The orphanage acknowledged birthdays with a cupcake and extra punches to the shoulder.
Several years later, Charles English decided he wanted to foster an orphan to help his “public image.” In all honesty, it was probably a lowly secretary’s idea. Anyway, I was the paper girl while I was at the orphanage- I had more time after the teens got adopted and I wanted pocket money to buy journals and pencils and such, being an aspiring writer myself- that’s the only way I knew who the heck he was. It was usually his name in the byline of the front page article. It was also “Charles English” by the words “editor-in-chief” of the nationwide literary magazine, Word. Every unpublished author who had ever seen any literary magazines, blogs, or anything of that kind knew that Word was the magazine you needed to submit to in order to get a glance from the big-name publishers- Scholastics, Random House, Penguin, all those huge publishing companies read Word, just like all the reading nerds and the kids with big writing dreams. Kids like me. Anyone was allowed to submit, even the twelve-year-olds, as long as they had a parent or guardian sign a form off the internet. The only thing that kept me from submitting to Word was that signature, and the lack of a computer – the composition had to be typed.
Charles English himself was said to be quite a character himself - not only was he a journalist and an editor, he was also a novelist. His books sold like hotcakes among the fantasy fans, because they were amazingly vivid and the plots were incredibly complex yet deceptively simple. It was impossible to say how he did it. Not only was he able to write an amazing story, he could do it in about a month.
The most amazing thing about Charles English, though, was not in his writing ability, although that in itself was very considerable, and not in his prestige as an editor and journalist. The amazing thing was that he was able to build up a fortune in the newspapers and literary world by the time he was 25. I, like everyone else, wanted desperately to know how he did it, to meet him and find out what his secret was.
Well, in order to foster an orphan, Charles English would need to find an orphanage. Well, more correctly, his lowliest secretary’s intern would have to find us. Mr. English didn’t bother going out himself - he was too busy writing and editing and interviewing to have time to care about that.
Well, Sarah the Intern found us, all right. She seemed to think, well, wouldn’t it be dandy if she could get someone a bit older, so then she could boss them around for the summer, or however long they’re staying, and not feel terrible about it? That’s how she got me. I was fifteen at the time, but I considered myself to be sixteen- it would be my birthday in three weeks, anyway.
Sarah the Intern didn’t even bother to wait for me once the sponsorship was finalized. She just told me to be at the mansion at 3:15 sharp the next day. After giving me the address and phone number, she took her prissy self and her prissy car and drove away from the orphanage as fast as she seemed to legally be allowed to.
I told the paper people the next morning that that day was my last, collected my last paycheck, and turned in my bike. I packed up my stuff - two sets of clothes, three pens, one journal, and the few other bare necessities I owned - into my beaten-up backpack, laced up my very old hi-tops, and walked the ten miles out to where the country lanes and huge sets of land dominated the landscape. It took the better part of an hour and a half. I had banked on that, but it was still annoying - first I had to find the right turnoff, each a half a mile after the next, then I had to walk up the super-long driveway, which took ten minutes by itself.
As I walked up the path, I couldn’t help but gawk. There was so much SPACE here. The only figures were trees; the only sound was the chirping of birds.
When I finally arrived at the house, I halted and stared for a full five minutes. It was the biggest house I had ever seen in my life, and I’d seen some pretty big houses. It had to be at least a hundred yards across, and could have put the White House to shame. It was at least four stories tall. There was a huge fountain in front, and one of those circular driveways around it. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The house itself looked 1700’s-ish, but I couldn’t be sure - they never showed us pictures of the actual house that Thomas Jefferson and all those people lived in when the teachers talked about the American Revolution.
On the steps stood Sarah the Intern waiting for me, her dark hair in a tight bun and her eyes narrowed; she wore a tailored suit and carried a clipboard.
“You’re late,” she snapped at me, glaring down the steps like a hawk. “You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”
“But you said I should be here at 3:15,” I replied, glancing at my watch uncertainly. She had said that, right?
“No, I am quite sure I said that I said 2:45,” she barked, glancing at her clipboard.
“Ma’am, I’m quite sure you said 3:15,” I replied as politely as I could. This lady took stuff too seriously. Maybe that’s what you had to do in the real world. In that case, I’d prefer to be the one who was the boss, not the other way around.
I saw Sarah’s face twist as she frowned at what appeared to be a schedule. Apparently, this lady also did not like to be wrong. “Very well,” she said shortly. “Follow me, and don’t touch anything.” I ran to mount the steps two at a time and followed her.
If the outside was huge, the inside of the manor was enormous. There was so much space - the tiled floors stretched for at least a hundred feet before reaching the double doors at the other end of the hall. As I raced to keep up with Sarah, I glanced down the halls branching off of the main one that we were in. Judging by the peeks I was able to steal, the layout was similar to that of the board game Clue.
Sarah led me briskly through the enormous mansion, rattling off information as she went - my room was on the third floor; the kitchen was the last door in the basement; I was not to disturb Mr. English unless it was an emergency or he asked me to; everything on the other side of the door closest to the Window Stairs on the second floor was strictly forbidden for reasons I wasn’t allowed to hear about. Mr. English was only to be referred to as such - Charles was too friendly, Charlie was only for his mother and closest friends to use, and Dad was not allowed because I wasn’t staying forever and we weren’t related. I wouldn’t get to meet him for quite a while, either - he was out doing interviews or penning his next bestselling novel or something like that.
Well, as my luck would have it, my room was the second-to-last door on the right on the third floor facing the Western Perimeter - it was at the complete opposite end of the house from the Window Stairs and the mysterious room nearby. There were also security cameras and night watches, Sarah informed me, so there would be no option of me sneaking over to investigate in the middle of the night. Like the rest of the staff, Sarah lived at the mansion, even though she was only an intern.
She also informed me, as she showed me the room in which I was to sleep, that the previous day, she had purchased an entirely new wardrobe for me out of Mr. English’s budget and on his orders; she apparently knew that I had only two other sets of clothes and underpants. I was grateful for this. She also informed me that she needed my shoe size so she could buy me some new converses.
There was more to gawk at inside my room. It was also enormous, with a walk-in closet, a queen-sized four-poster bed, and a large writing desk with floor room to spare. The entire room seemed to have a color theme of green, though it was sort of discreetly done - the carpet was yellow shot through with lime; the hangings on the bed were similar, but with black and emerald. The bedding was a grassy sort of shade striped with turquoise; the walls were painted in a yellow-tinted sort of greenish-brown – the color leaves go when there’s light going through them in the summer. There were colors other than green, of course, but they were mostly the browns of the woodwork. If the windows hadn’t opened onto sloping, perfectly manicured lawns with a view of the river, it would have felt like I’d walked into a forest clearing that had been handily equipped with a very nice set of bedroom furniture.
On the desk, I found a laptop and an envelope with “Pandora” written on the front in formal-looking blue ink. It couldn’t be for anyone else but me - I don’t know anybody else named after a minor Greek goddess. It looked as if it had been written on personal stationary, and some pretty snazzy stationary at that. I was hoping it was from Charles… er, Mr. English.
Opening the note, I saw that it was, indeed, from the master of the house, but it was also rather short.
June 6
Dear Pandora,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am very glad that you will be joining my household for the summer. I am sorry that I was not able to greet you in person- I am a very busy man, as you probably have guessed. I hope that I will be able to meet you soon.
However, I must inform you of something rather important before you begin your stay. There is a power in this house that you will not find anywhere else. Many of my staff says that it is only I who feel the force of this unknown entity, but I can assure you that it is quite real. Therefore, I must implore you to avoid the room by the Window Stairs at all costs- it is where the power resides, and it does not like being disturbed by characters it is not familiar with.
I know you must think me rather insane for still believing in magic and mystery, but as you are a girl who is named for a girl renowned for being curious and going where she is not supposed to, I implore you to use your head when you pass the door in question.
That is all I have to say for the matter. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Yours sincerely,
Charles English
And that was the end of it, just like that. If truth be told, I honestly couldn’t believe that there was magic in the house. I mean, I have an imagination and all, and I believe in magic, to an extent, but Charles English? Warning me about magic in his house? I mean, the guy’s a writer, you’ve got to give him that, but there really couldn’t be actual magic in his house, could there? That would be the craziest thing that’s happened since Cronus barfed up Zeus and all his other kids, and believe me - some pretty crazy stuff has happened since then.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the huge house. I forced myself not to take the Window Staircase as a rule, just to prevent myself from passing the second floor, going into the Magic Room of Death, and pissing off whatever was in there.
Around five in the evening, I discovered the sprawling gardens in the back. I swear it was like something out of The Secret Garden- it was like a maze of six-foot-high hedges lined with flowers. I wondered to myself, jokingly, whether the Magic Room of Death actually harbored a sick and irritated nephew of Mr. English’s who was the real “power of the house” because he was so bossy, like Colin in the book.
Since I was paying more attention to my fantasies of Magic Death Rooms than where I was walking, I nearly ran into a gardener who had stood back for a moment to inspect the hedge that he’d just clipped. I stumbled back and muttered an apology to the bit of sidewalk by his foot, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. I could feel my face going red. I don’t know why – no dude had ever made me red before, exempting the time this one kid bit me when I was twelve.
“Oh, are you the new girl?” the gardener asked pleasantly.
“Yes,” I said, looking up into his face. It was tanned by the sun, with gentle, dark eyes laughing out from behind a shaggy mane of black hair. He was also smiling – it was one of those smiles that you can’t help returning. He looked no older than seventeen.
“I’m Bryan,” he said, removing a gardening glove and holding out his hand to shake. “Bryan Armstrong.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said as politely as I could, shaking his hand, which was huge, by the way. “I’m Pandora Wilson.”
“But… aren’t you an orphan?” he asked.
“Well, I still keep my parent’s name until I get adopted,” I said as casually as possible. “Until I get a proper family. Then I get their name.”
“Right,” Bryan said, somewhat awkwardly.
“Yep,” I said, unsure of what to say now. This was the first guy with whom I’d actually had an okay conversation, not counting my boss for the paper routes. But this was also a guy who was kind of attractive – there was something about his eyes that you could get lost in.
“So… how old are you, out of curiosity?” Bryan asked, as if he were just trying to make conversation.
“I’ll be sixteen on the 21st,” I said. “You?”
“I’m seventeen,” he said simply.
Well, after that, Bryan showed me around the gardens, rattling off information as he went – the Garden Maze alone was four acres; the entire property was about twenty. Mr. English rarely came out of the study, according to Bryan, and he rarely even came out of the house in general, for that matter. Bryan didn’t see why there should be twenty acres of ground to be maintained if the owner wasn’t going to walk around and enjoy them. To be honest, I have to agree.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I know
I KNOW I haven't posted in a while. I KNOW I'm very lame in that regard. I KNOW I said that for Lent I would blog and journal more. But I ALSO said I'd do fifty push ups every day, and that failed after two weeks. I also know that this computer is being very stupid, because the mouse keeps going where it shouldn't be. It's a school laptop, and all the school laptops are kind of bad. But anyway, update:
Sunday: Went to church. Very awkward moment when the guy who I somewhat ditched- the one who I was texting with who turned out to be kind of a jerk- showed up on Sunday. He does not go to our church normally. It was the second time he had ever been. It was completely unexpected and VERY awkward.
Monday: Nothing of great consequence, except for the first all-grades rehearsal. Nothing else major.
Tuesday: Had a chorus concert and finished a knitted dress. Yes, the one I have been working on for two years. It is done. Finally. Yes, I am wearing it right now. Yes, it's kind of bad. But it's done. You have to make allowances for the fact that it's my first dress that I have ever made ever.
Wednesday: going to the Opera later. Yes, on a Wednesday. It's like a huge discount thing because it's the last dress rehearsal before opening, so the tickets were only like 12 bucks.
Okay, I have to go now. Goodbye. Will be back.
Sunday: Went to church. Very awkward moment when the guy who I somewhat ditched- the one who I was texting with who turned out to be kind of a jerk- showed up on Sunday. He does not go to our church normally. It was the second time he had ever been. It was completely unexpected and VERY awkward.
Monday: Nothing of great consequence, except for the first all-grades rehearsal. Nothing else major.
Tuesday: Had a chorus concert and finished a knitted dress. Yes, the one I have been working on for two years. It is done. Finally. Yes, I am wearing it right now. Yes, it's kind of bad. But it's done. You have to make allowances for the fact that it's my first dress that I have ever made ever.
Wednesday: going to the Opera later. Yes, on a Wednesday. It's like a huge discount thing because it's the last dress rehearsal before opening, so the tickets were only like 12 bucks.
Okay, I have to go now. Goodbye. Will be back.
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