I pulled my last box from the moving van and watched it move down the road. I walked carefully up the stone path to the front door of the small yellow house. My dad was unpacking a box in the small kitchen while my mom sat at the table filling out papers for my new school. I looked over her shoulder at my name. She had left it blank.
"Mom." She looked up at me. "Put Amber." I said tapping the name space. She nodded and scribbled down my new name. I carried the box, which had books and CD's in it, up the narrow stairs to the second bedroom on the left. Boxes were sitting around at random. I sat on the uncovered bed, looking around at my new room. It was smaller than my room in California. I sighed, smiled to myself, and stood up. I started shifting through boxes, looking for sheets and pillow cases. It took ten minutes to find them, sorting the boxes as I went. I covered the mattress with the crisp, white sheets, laid the black and white polka-dotted comforter on top of another sheet, and found the quilt my grandmother had made. It was made out of different patterns and different shades of blues, purples, and small hints of green.
"Hey." Holden said from my door way.
"Yeah?" I asked smoothing the creases on my bed.
"Here." He said. Before I could turn around, two big, soft, pillows smacked into my back. I grabbed the corner of one and turned, grazing my brother's shoulder. He laughed at my bad aim before going back to his room. I rolled my eyes as I continued fixing my bed. I stuffed the over-sized pillow into the white pillow case with small black tassels on the ends. Once my bed was down, I started putting away clothes. This took half an hour. While I was hanging up clothes my dad brought my un-constructed bookshelf to my room.
"I'll put it together while you're in school." He said giving me a hug. I smiled, wrapping my arms around him. He kissed the top of my head before going back downstairs to finsh unpacking boxes. When I finally found my CD player it was time for me to block out the world for a little while.
I laid on the bed, punk rock music playing through my headphones, thinking about school the next day. It's not the beginning of the year but it's not to the middle either. Maybe I wouldn't be the only new kid. Who am I kidding? I thought to myself. We're in Falinn Bay, Maine now, no one is ever new here. I sighed and changed the song.
I didn't eat that night, my stomach in too many knots. By eight o'clock I had already showered, brushed my teeth, dried my hair, washed my face, dressed for bed, and laid my clothes out for the next day. With nothing left to do but worry, I grabbed a book and flashlight from an open box. I fixed the flashlight into a crock on my headboard. But it wasn't twenty minutes until the book fell from my grasp as I fell into a heavy, and dreamless, sleep.
"Ryan, Sweetie. It's time to get up." My mom said the next morning, gently shaking me.
"Mom, I'm not Ryan anymore." I said sitting up. "I'm Amber now." She looked at me with a smile and nodded but I could see the sadness in her eyes. When I was alone again I changed into the outfit I had laid out. A white t-shirt with cartoon eyes printed on the front, dark blue skinny jeans, my high top converse, black fishnet gloves, and a black trench coat. I stood in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. I had decided to wear my long hair in a braid. It went from slightly above my right ear, across the back of my head, below my left ear, and over my shoulder. The end of the braid reached just below my chest.
"Ry-" Dad's voice cut off. "Amber, are you ready to go?" He recovered.
"Yeah, Dad." I called back. "I'm coming." I grabbed the brown leather messenger bag and ran down the stairs. Dad drove me to school, gave me the papers to give to the office, hugged me quickly before I climbed out of the car.
