The Journal

The Journal (Chapter 3)

The Barn

Chapter 3

My grandfather lives in a small town named Lusana. The town was pretty small and the amount of people living there were not that much. The town's name was named by their passed town's mayor. The mayor named Lusana Hillion was murdered because of her kindness. I can't believe people kill her just because she was too kind! The town was peaceful. On the sideways, you can see people jogging to make sure their healthy. You can find old women feeding the birds at the park, kids playing hopscotch, town's people buying groceries and much more ordinary things.

Before we went to my grandfather's barn, which was on top of the hill. We went to shop for some outfits; we wouldn't want to get dirty with our outfits which we are wearing right now because grandfather's barn was always full of puddles. It was fun though because we get to jump on each and every puddle. My parents wouldn't be mad because when they were the same age as me, they did the same thing too. I love grand papa's barn. There were many animals there. My grandfather loved animals so much. That's why his barn was full of them. Every time I went there, there would be more animals than the last time but since grandpapa died. I think the animals would be sad after knowing the owner who took care of them and raise them passed away. So I tried to convince my parents that we move back to grandpapa's place to start a new life. So we wouldn't need to sell the barn away. It would hurt grandpapa's feelings if he knew his barn was being sold, if he was alive.

My mom suggested the same thing to my father. My father said that he would need to think about it before taking any actions. So I waited till my dad to make up his mind.

My mother pulled my dad aside and whispering to him and not letting me know what she was saying "If you sell this barn Howard, I would strangle you! This barn lays secrets and memories that William needs to figure out." My dad nodded and said "I too felt that way, let's let him figure father's past he would be the only one that can help him. Father always said he was the only one he would tell his past to but William needs to figure out himself. Father didn't even tell us about his past he only wanted William to know when after he died but daddy never made sense. How was William going to know about his past when he was already dead? He doesn't know where to start." My mother sighed and said "Miracles will happen dear, He will find out himself, he was the chosen one after all."

My mother was the type of person to love herself. Although she overdone it but in certain ways she really showed that she really loved herself and appreciate whatever she got in her life. Not like me, I didn't care much about myself. I don't even mind if someone calls me names that I wouldn't like to hear. I just ignored all of them but if it's my mom, she would explode just by hearing someone calling her "fat girl" okay, my mother is kind a fat but not that fat. She just likes to bake and eat and have tea-time. Okay you may say she is fat but doesn't mean she doesn't care about me. Besides that, she was obsessed of collecting sea shells and pasting it on the picture frames that she designed. She also cared about me. Example, when I was 8. I went to primary school; many kids liked to bully me as in punching me and take away my money; it was also my lunch money. I cried in the bathroom. I told the teacher what they did but the teacher wouldn't listen just because the kid who bullied me was a child from a rich family. His parents donated the school about US$17, 0000.

But one day, my mother accidentally saw the rich kid bullying me and she rush in front of me and the next thing I knew the rich kid was slapped on the face with my mother's bare hands. He was lucky because if my mother used her foot to kick that kid's buttocks he would end up flying to the sky and landed in a pond and drown. Everything was probably true except the last part.

After that happened, I was expelled from the school but my mother sued that school for not helping the weak but not daring to expel the student that bullied me just because of the money his parents donated. My mother was totally pissed off and called her lawyer and brought this case into a big and serious one. In the end, my mother won eventually. The judge was really understandable about my feelings of being bullied because he too had experienced it when he was my age. Just like that, my mother won the case.

All of this talking about my mom makes me feels awkward.

After we were done shopping for cloths that we were going to wear this few days, we immediately went to my grand papa's barn. It wasn't that far from the shop so we walked to his barn.

I loved to enter his barn. It was just because when you opened the gate, you would see several hounds running towards you. Do you want to know why my grandpa had hounds in his farm? Because some chickens ran into the forest and the hounds were the only hope to find them back. They were also useful, they helped me a lot when I lost things. They were like Sherlock Holmes's dogs but Sherlock Holmes doesn't have dogs. So it's like the dogs are like Sherlock Holmes. You get me there? The dogs are like him except the dogs use their nose to sniff for clues.

When I entered the barn, nothing was change except the feeling that my grandpapa isn't here anymore. I sniffed the fresh air that surrounded the barn. There were plenty of trees around the barn. It was like a forest but this surely wasn't a forest because there were animals here.

I loved how the barn looked for so many years. It was taken good care by grandpapa. He loved the place more than anything. He always took good care of it. The barn was almost fifty years old now but it still look new as if it was build yesterday. I never understood why he loved the place so much that's why I'm going to find out why with Charlie's helping hand. Together we will find out soon the secrets grandpapa had hidden over the years.

After the walk around the barn, everything was perfect. Not even a scratch was found on the walls and that made me curious. There was a porch located outside the house and a rocking chair too. Every evening when the day was over, grandpapa would bath and change into clean cloths and sit in his rocking chair while slowly sipping his hot coffee he made. I always wondered what he was thinking while sitting down there but as usual, I never asked.

I sighed and went into the house and went to the living room to see the family pictures he had hanged on the walls. In the pictures were memories of grandpapa was still young and handsome. I totally forgotten to mention that my grandpapa was a handsome man when he was young. Handsome, intelligent, wise and kind hearted but there was still a word that was missing about him. A word that I cannot describe because I didn't know what word was it.

Here I was, William Nathaniel McGraber, 28 years old. Standing in front of the frames that were displayed on the walls and was trying to figure what the shadow meant but I have no idea where to start!