Unexpected Love

            The little plane couldn't comfortably seat all fifty people on it, but luckily it was only a short flight. However, my mood was not helped by the eight hour flight we had taken before this one. I scowled out the window of the plane bound for Sheffield, Indiana. I did not want to be here. Next to me, my brother Jack was scowling as well. Across the aisle our mum sat at the window, looking a bit dejected, next to our dad who had a small, but very happy smile on his face. As we began our descent, I sighed. Who moves from London to an unknown town in America, in Indiana of all places? I had never been near Indiana before in my life. The most time we had spent in America had been spent in New York City, which was a great city. But Indiana?  I had had to get a map of the U.S. out before I knew where Indiana even was.     

            All so my dad could claim his lost childhood again through us. My dad was American, and had come to the conclusion that we had not taken the best possible advantage of our dual-culture situation in London, so we had to experience small-town life in the United States for our last year in school.           

            My mum had not been overjoyed, but had gone along with the idea. I think she had humoured him at first, not thinking him to be serious, and it had just gone too far. She might have also thought she needed to repay him for having stayed in England for so long. My dad had missed the US; we all knew that. But we didn’t want to live in the U.S. My mum was half English, half French, but had lived in England for most of her life. We had gotten both the English and French cultures from her, and I think my dad was disappointed that we never picked up the American culture. So we would have a crash course in it, the last year before Jack and I went off to university. He was older than I, but I had skipped a year in school.

            We landed on Saturday morning. School started on Monday. It was part of the deal we had struck with Dad. If we had to move to the middle of nowhere in an unknown country, then we got to spend the summer in London, Paris, and Nice like always until the very last. Dad had come earlier, to buy the house and get some basics into it. Our boxes had arrived while we were in the air, so they were waiting for us when we arrived. The combination of unpacking and jetlag made us all incoherent for the next 48 hours, and Monday morning came all too soon. I woke up early, but due to the bleary state in which I took a shower and got dressed, I still ended up running late.

            “Gemma! We have to leave!” Jack yelled from downstairs.

            “Je viens!” I yelled back. I’m coming!

           “Nous serons en retard!” he shouted. We’re going to be late!

            I ran down the stairs, schoolbag in hand. “No, we’re not, Jacky, keep calm.”

            He hit my arm. “Don’t call me Jacky.”

            “Have a wonderful day, you two! Don’t shut yourselves off to the good in this, alright?” Mum called after us.

            “You two might want to stick to one language, that being English, at school,” Dad told us.

            “And why would be that be?” Jack inquired.

            “They might not like you speaking French here. And they might think you were stuck up if you keep switching languages on them.”

            I scoffed. “Let’s get this experience over with, Jack.” Dad’s face looked hurt, but I really didn’t care at that moment.

            “Well, at least we don’t have uniforms here.” Jack said as we drove off.

            “I’d prefer a school tie and jacket of grammar school any day,” I snapped.