Kenneth Manor (Haunted)

Chapter One

 (2012)

This is so unfair; I didn’t ask for any for this, nor did I want to drag myself from the beautiful scenery of San Diego to the cold and unforgiving land of Casbury, Maine. It’s my parents’ fault. If you want to blame anyone for being unreasonable, blame Mr. and Mrs. Viston, the orchestrators of this “grand move to an exciting new place.”

No, I am absolutely not moving to a new place where none of my friends live, who are, by the way, my best friends since kindergarten. Do they really think that moving to a “beautiful place with a nice school” make it all better? I didn’t think so either.

Yet here I am in the backseat of my car, wedged between my older and younger brothers, who constantly fight about every little thing. Whether it is about playing a specific video game or what restaurant we should eat at, or even which player was better at basketball. Yeah, you should feel bad for me.

“Move over, Angela, I don’t have any room!” cried out my younger brother, Adam.

“Be quiet, Adam; I am trying to take a nap in what little space we have here,” said my older brother, Quinn.

“Ugh, could both of you stop? You guys always drive me crazy,” I muttered.

“Angela, we already talked about this,” said my mother in her don’t-antagonize-me-anymore tone. “Quinn, Adam, there is nothing I can do about the space; your father and I are trying to save up money for a bigger car, remember? So please be patient a little while longer. We are almost there.”

Yeah, this was pretty much the usual around here. Me, wedged in between the arguing duo, and my parents always telling me that I should be more optimistic about things.

Optimistic? Yeah, try being happy about being dragged halfway across the country, and, at the same time, cramped in a small four-door Toyota Corolla with two allegedly academically intelligent boys, who, are half the time, morons.

“We’ve been in this car since, like, the beginning of time, Mom,” I told her. “Can’t we take a break or something?”

“We will, just as soon as we spot a gas station,” she replied in a sweet voice.

I was pretty sure that we had passed by three gas stations in the past hour and was very suspicious that my mom was lying to me just so that we could get to that awful house faster, but I ignored it simply because I wasn’t in the mood to get into yet another argument with her.

Fifteen minutes later, after we finally found a gas station, I went to the bathroom, knowing my mom won’t let us stop again like this until we travel the last two hundred miles to Casbury until we get there.

As I was washing my hands, another person knocked on the door.

“Hold on; I’m almost done!” I yelled out.

Though, when I stepped out of the bathroom, the person who knocked on the door was nowhere to be found.

Not knowing what else to do, I asked my mom for ten dollars so that I could buy some candy and snacks. I’m starving. You would think that my parents don’t feed us by the noises that my stomach is making.

“Okay, be quick; we’re almost done filling up the tank,” she said to me.

I bought two Hershey bars, a Lay’s chip bag, and a water bottle so I won’t be thirsty. I know it might mean that I had to go to the bathroom later, but it was better than being hungry the whole ride.

“Oooh, Hershey’s; can I have some?” asked Adam.

“Sure,” I said as I broke off a piece.