My Battered Blue Diary

Hi, this is my first time writing and publishing something on the internet. So if you do happen to read the first chapter of my story I would LOVE you to write a comment with helpful criticism.

Entry 1:

New School, new town and no friends. This is my diary about how I get along in Australia. You see I’m from Britain and my Dad got a new job here in Adelaide so I had to leave my life behind and start anew. I'm afraid that I will get teased about how I write and how I have a funny accent and if I dress differently. It's going to be hard but I'll try to fit in...

I close my diary and look around me.  I am sitting on Mrs. Jenkins's, my new next door neighbour's, front wall looking out onto the black asphalt road. I tie my blonde hair into a French Bun. I like to wear it down and let it flop around my cheeks; it makes me feel alone and caged in. It helps me bring up word vomit to write in my diary.

One of my purple streaks falls out and gets in my eyes. I swipe it away with one hand and tuck it behind my ear. I remember what my best friend Angie said to me when I got them:

"Blonde hair and purple streaks, genius and slightly sexy."

I smile and tuck my pen into the slot at the spine of my diary. I'm not boastful but I am quite pretty, clear white skin, long thick hair but I am a little short. I heard that all Australian's are tanned and love surfing...well that's going to be a problem considering my pale complexion and unbelievably bad balance.

I miss my old friend Angie. She was completely fashion obsessed and would always fret about her hair and makeup, she tried so hard but got little reward form the people she wanted to attract. She was my closest friend, now the only contact we have is through the internet.

I hear Mrs. Jenkins open her front door. If she catches me on her wall again she'll talk to my parents who will make a complete fuss about it. I could imagine them lecturing me:

You cannot sit on other people's walls!

It's rude and makes a bad impression!

You do want to be considered to be a nice girl, do you?

I hop off and pretend to not notice Mrs. Jenkins trudging up her stone pathway.

“I hope you weren’t thinking of sitting on my wall Miss Smith!”

I turn around all innocent eyes and smiles “No, Mrs. Jenkins. I was just walking home and you can call me Jessica or Jess.”

“Oh." Obviously this wasn't the answer she expected. "Miss Smith is just fine...but don't sit on that wall! A woman has to see the road once in a while."

I suppressed a giggle, all the road Mrs. Jenkins ever saw was probably made of dirt and in Victorian Times. I took that as my cue and hurried on towards my house. I walked up through the sad looking lawn and opened the front door.

My house wasn't at all new and fancy with long corridors and enormous paintings. It had one of those entrances that leads you straight into the living room joined with the kitchen. There were boxes everywhere with "fragile" and "this way up" written on them. I walked down through a little hallway towards my bedroom passing my parents room and my kid sister's, Pip's, room.

I swung my door open and flopped onto the creaky bed. I still had heaps of unpacking to do...sigh.

I made my way to the first cardboard box and brought out clothes, all bright and flowy. Mum took me shopping just before we came to Australia because my clothes were for cold weather not for stinking hot oven weather.

I crammed the clothes into the wardrobe and opened the next box.

Possessions, photos and masses amounts of stuffed animals filled it, this was going to take a while...

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Once I had unloaded the army of soft, stuffed animals, all of the blurry photos and chipped figurines I belly flopped back onto my new bed. It wasn't the same as my old one, well it was the same one, but it didn't feel right. All lumpy and bumpy and it sagged underneath my weight.

 "Jess?" It was a quiet voice coming from outside my door. I went over, opened it up and looked down at my sister, Pip. Her hair was in two long braids and she had leaves and twigs all through it. She was looking at her feet and fidgeting with her hands.

 "What a mess!" I said in that over enthusiastic voice. You know, the one people keep hidden away and only use when they speak to kids or puppies.

 "I was playing fetch outside with Buster. Can you do my hair again? Mummy will get mad if she sees it messy."

 "Sure thing pet." I ushered her in and hauled a box full of books in front of my bed. I patted it and she came over and sat down. I took out the hair ties and unfolded the messy caramel hair.

 "Jess?" She said, turning her head slightly.

 "Yeah Pip?"

 "I don't want to go to a new school...it's gonna be hard to make new friends." She sounded on the verge of tears. If it was hard for me to think about fitting into a new school than it will be ten times harder for Pip, changing schools, let alone countries, so young made it hard to find new friends.

 I cuddled her from behind, wrapping my arms around her body. "I know pet, but you'll make great friends, we'll get through it together."