The Newness Of Life

Chapter 2: Something Unexpected

3rd July 2016

Our house was amazing. I mean, seriously amazing.

I had lived there since I was about eight and had loved it as soon as we moved in. It had a huge downstairs with a few different rooms that were kind of open plan. There was a sitting room, a kitchen, a dining room, a study, a laundry room and a toilet downstairs, and we had four bedrooms, a guest room and two bathrooms upstairs. The kitchen and sitting room area was the hub of the house and it was where we all spent most of our time (except Harriet, who spent her time holed up in her room socialising with her friends. Not that she was ever bothered to actually go out and meet up with them).

The sitting room had a massive TV and a big, brown, squishy, comfy sofa on which I spent a lot of my holiday time, watching things like Modern Family, Friends and random films from our huge collection. The room itself had pretty blue walls with a bird theme around the rest of the room - there were cushions with birds on the sofa and a big painting on the wall of a dove. Our family was also a fan of candles, and we had many cute candle holders with candles in which we had collected over the years. My favourite part of the room, though, was the fireplace, which was a proper wood fire. I loved to set it up in the winter with care and feel the pleasure of a nice fire on cold hands at the end of a long day.

But this wasn't the point. What is important is that I was sat on the aforementioned sofa writing a story on my laptop when my mum came in. This didn't bother me in the slightest - she came through the archway from the kitchen every so often to collect used cups or plates and put them in the dishwasher. Lizzie, Harriet, Mum and I had had lunch about an hour before, and then Mum had gone to do a bit of work in the study, so our lunch stuff was still on the coffee table.

Lizzie, being eleven, was furiously typing on Instagram on her new-ish iPhone that she had gotten for her last birthday. She had recently discovered the social media app and was quite emotionally invested, but I could tell from her manner that she was already getting a bit bored and would go off it sometime soon. She had never been that into technology.

Mum picked up the plates and was trying to balance some cutlery on top when Harriet stood up. She was meaning to go on back upstairs but Mum intervened before she could get past.

"Ah, Harriet! How kind of you! Would you be a darling and please take the cups into kitchen for me?" she peered at Harriet from over the top of her wobbling stack of crockery. Harriet groaned and looked annoyed, but when she saw Mum giving her the raised-eyebrow look she got on with it. I could hear her grumbling away as they walked but Mum wasn't giving her an inch.

A moment later, they walked back in empty-handed. Harriet went to pick up her phone and was just turning to go up the stairs when Mum stopped her in her tracks.

"Actually, Harriet, darling, we all need to have a chat. Something quite important has come up and it will involve a bit of a change around here," said Mum with an easy-going smile. We all trusted that smile instantly so sat down on the sofa next to each other. Mum dragged over the armchair from the corner of the room.

She sighed, and slowly looked at us each in the eye, with a pleased and proud look on her face. Lizzie started fidgeting. She wasn't very good at sitting still, and I knew that Mum would have to start talking soon if she wanted Lizzie's full attention. I was just about to speak when Harriet got there first.

"So...? What did you want to talk about?" she asked slightly irritably.

Mum started, as if she had been lost in thought.

"Right! Yes!" she said, "Sorry about that. What I wanted to talk to you all about is something that I have already chatted to Lucy about a little,"