The Safe Place (Bridge To Terabithia) || ✓

Ch. 1 - Neighbors

     "Leslie, you packed everything else yet?" Bill Burke, husband of Judith Hancock and father of Leslie Burke, was bringing the boxes to the U-Haul and was extremely cautious with the small boxes that carried some very valuable items.

     Eleven-year-old Leslie trailed behind with her own boxes piled up in her arms. "Yeah, I think I only have a few left in my room."

     Bill put the boxes down and then took the boxes from Leslie. He smiled and jerked his head to their house. "What about your mom?" He chuckled, knowing that his wife was still stuck with packing her clothes.

Leslie gave a giggle and then ran back to the house to help her mother. The house was almost empty, with only a handful of stuff inside already covered in plastic. It was a big house with three floors up and five rooms altogether, three rooms at the second and two rooms at the third floor. She went up the stairs and walked inside the master bedroom where her mom was trying to squeeze in the remaining of her clothes.

Judy, (that was what everyone called her) had a large quantity of clothes that she never really even wore for most of the time. She was a simple woman who would repeat a shirt three times a week. She even thought of donating literally all of her expensive clothes to charity but her husband insisted that she shouldn't, saying that she might need them for the future when they would attend a ceremony or something. In the end she only donated a quarter of her clothes to charity. At the moment, she was trying to fit in about twelve clothes in her luggage that looked full, but due to her stubbornness, she still tried to fit them in.

Upon entering the room, Leslie found her mom sitting on the luggage and trying to zip it. "Mom, why not just use the other bag?" Leslie lifted an eye brow and grabbed the small empty case that was under the bed, showing it to her mom.

"Well Leslie, that's because if you put your whole effort into something," she grunted as she tried to zip the bag. "You can succeed in doing... whatever you are doing..." she spent a few more minutes of trying to zip it up and finally gave up. "Oh gosh, Okay, never mind."

After she had helped her mom pack in the clothes into the small case, she walked to her room to get the remaining boxes. Her room was your average room size, a king sized bed, a balcony and her own bathroom. Compared to other girls, hers was less girly and pinky. She never really was into those girly stuff where everything would be pink and she'd have her crushes pictures on the wall... not that she had one anyways.

     Once everything was packed inside the U-Haul, the family went inside the little Italian vintage car that was the least noticeable car they owned and drove off to where they were going to call their new home.

     Leslie didn't have much fond memories in Arlington. She didn't have many friends, and everyone pretty much hated her because she didn't follow the crowd... and also because of the way she dressed. Although before she left school early that day, she did say her goodbyes to the few people she could call as friends. And that was only two people. They shared their ups and downs, but those two were quite good to her in the years she attended her soon-to-be former school.

A few hours later, they finally arrived at their destination. A place called Lark Creek. It was pretty different from Arlington. The schools they passed by on the way were a lot more smaller compared to the ones in Arlington and there weren't many luxurious cars around either. Soon they went to the neighborhood where the house they bought was. The first thing that Leslie thought when she saw the 'neighborhood' was that it was going to be pretty lonely, judging by the only other house that she could see was just the one opposite theirs.

     The house was a little compared to their former house. It was painted in white and it looked a little worn out. When they came in, it was barely furnished and the walls were battered with ugly colors. It wasn't really a house that you'd want to be in. Leslie went up the long flight of stairs that at least looked safe to be stepping on and found herself standing in the hall of the rooms. There were three rooms there, one bathroom and three bedrooms. The master bedroom had its own bathroom of course and the other room which Leslie presumed to be hers, surprisingly looked to be in good condition compared to the other third room.