Shifted #Wattys2016

I

Maxine

The train was a white noise soundtrack. Every once in a while someone spoke softly. The train would stop and the conductor would speak over the intercom, reading the name of the closest town.

"Andover, Kansas."

I stood up and grabbed my two bags. Stepping off the train I saw an old woman with a sign that had my name on it. Maxine Clarke.

The old lady smiled.

"She'll have pretty curly hair, nothing like mine, and she's taller than you'd expect. Blue eyes." Mom explained the night before I was to leave. "She'll most likely be the only one at the station. Her name is Julie."

I smiled back. "Grandma Julie."

She wrapped her arms around me. Mom was right, she was taller than I expected. "You've changed so much."

The last time I would've seen my grandmother would've been just after I was born. Seventeen years ago. Of course I've changed. "Thanks, I guess," I didn't want to be rude. Julie is doing so much. Letting me spend a whole summer at her house. I didn't really want to go, but my mother thought it'd be better for me than another summer in the city.

She grabbed one of my bags from my hands. "Come on, let's get home."

The car smelled like old lady, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. The drive took another hour. We passed dozens and dozens of fields, small farm houses scattered around. There were also a good amount of cattle farms and a few pig farms. Some rivers, some creeks, but mostly farm.

We passed through a small town. The school was tiny as hell, and the houses were either really nice or really sketchy. We passed the downtown area where more shops were closed and boarded up than open. There was a diner that was pretty busy, though.

Another five minutes outside of the town-Pleasant Ridge, I think it was called-Julie pulled down a dirt road and down a long driveway. Perfectly placed at the top of a hill was a small yellow house. It was surrounded by more farm land and I had a pretty good guess what the main source of income was around here.

On top of the hill, you could see for quite a few miles in each direction. To the north and east was farm land, to the west was the town, and to the south was forest. Miles and miles of it, standing out alone on the flat landscape. It was so oddly placed, right in the middle of nowhere.

I could already tell that this would not be an enjoyable summer.

I followed Julie inside. You walked into an outdated kitchen-carpet?-behind that was a small library, to the left of that was a formal dining room and beside that was a living room. There were stairs going upstairs and downstairs breaking off of the living room. Upstairs there were two bedrooms. The first was Julie's, the second mine.

There was a Jack-and-Jill bathroom between our two rooms. The walls were a gross pink rose color with matching tile and toilet to go with. It smelled like old lady in there too.

The bed was made with a pink quilt, in the corner was a rocking chair with one creepy ass bear in it, and everything couldn't've been newer than twenty years. The only thing truly enjoyable about my room was the fact that there was a window seat that faced the forest.

"I'll let you get comfortable. Downstairs is the rec room. Explore later. I don't go down there much, so it'll be pretty dusty. Those stairs are much too steep for my old knees." Julie smiled and walked out of the room, leaving the door open.

I'd need to go shopping before I can get truly settled. Tomorrow, I'll ask to borrow the car and I'll go into town. I think we passed a store on the way through...