AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My eyes widen when I see a huge moving truck and people out front at the next-door neighbor’s house. I didn’t hear all the commotion when I was out back, but I guess the tadpoles stole my attention.
The black cement burns the soles of my feet as they hit the pavement. My mom walks out the front door, the screen slapping against the frame behind her. She’s shoeless herself as she walks over to me, her feet gliding through the green grass.
“I saw the new neighbors pulled up a while ago. Thought we should go introduce ourselves. What do you say?” she asks, brushing her brown bangs away from her forehead.
I shrug. “Sure.”
I don’t really want to go say hi to the new neighbors. I was friends with the boy that used to live there. But their parents got a divorce and he had to move to Iowa. The small brown house next door has been vacant for the past month.
My mom places a hand on my bare shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Then you can come inside afterward. Your shoulders are turning pink. I can put on some more sunscreen.” She ruffles my hair a bit, and my cheeks pinken.
She sure likes to embarrass me. I’m seven, almost eight, yet she still treats me like a baby sometimes.
We walk across the yard, and there’s a bunch of people trudging in and out of the back of the truck, moving furniture into the house. A woman steps out of the trailer holding a box, her eyes widening when she sees us standing there.
“Oh!” She sets the box down on the edge of the trailer and slides off. “Charlie! Get over here! We have some guests.” The woman brushes her hands over her flowy dress as she smiles at us. Her smile is bright, her blonde hair wavy as it brushes over her shoulders. A man steps out of the house, shoving the door open and propping it with a brown box. His bell-bottom jeans are too hot for this humid day and his white button-up shirt sits halfway unbuttoned down his chest.
My parents talk about people like these. What does she call them?
Oh, yeah.
Hippies.
“Hi, we live next door. I’m Goldie, and this here is Roman.” My mom ruffles my hair again, and I want to look up at her and glare. She’s taught me manners, though, so all I do is smile at the new neighbors.
The hippies.
“Oh! So lovely to meet you. My name is Jane, and this here is Charlie,” the woman says, wrapping her arms around her husband’s arm. “We have a little girl, too, just about your age. Where’d she go, Charlie?” She turns around, looking toward the house I know inside and out. “Luna!” Her voice is soft, unnatural in a way that shouldn’t be used for yelling. Maybe for singing or humming a lullaby like my mom used to do for me at night. But yelling?No.
It’s feels like the school of fish from down in the lake made their way into my belly and are bumping into every wall of my insides as a little girl walks outside.
My entire body freezes. My entire mind, and maybe a part of my soul, too.
Her skin is as pale as freshly fallen snow, and her hair is black like a night sky without any stars. Kind of weird-looking, if I were to be honest, but I can’t take my eyes off her. Her face is round, with a dainty nose and eyes too big for her face. Her black hair matches her dad, who has stick straight hair just as dark as hers. But her eyes.
Her eyes.
They don’t match her dad or her mom. Her dad has blue eyes, and her mom has a weird hazel.
Luna has gray.
No color against the whites of her eyes or the black pupils in the center. Only a pale gray.
She’s wearing a blue dress that flows to her shins, with two bright yellow suns crocheted onto the sides.
I stare at her, this unusual creature that came out of nowhere. I’ve never seen anyone like her.
And I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like her again.
“Luna, these are the new neighbors. Roman, and his mom, Goldie,” Jane says, smiling at her daughter. Her entire face brightens with her smile, like there’s nothing wrong in the world.
“Hi.” Luna gives me a small wave, and I stand like a big dummy in front of her. I can barely form the words on my tongue as I look at her. Her voice sounds like when my dad plays a soft song in the evenings, only plucking the strings on his acoustic guitar.
It makes the world around me freeze.
Luna stands a few inches taller than me, but that doesn’t really surprise me. All the girls are weirdly tall in my grade, towering over my short frame.
“Hi.” I puff my bare chest out, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in my red swim shorts and nothing else.
