Life of The New Girl

This is the first short story I have written and finished. It is about Isadora Miller who moves away from her old town to a new town with her mom, and starts a new life for herself.

    Isadora Miller looked out of the passenger seat window of the silver truck, driven by her mother, while listening to her iPod. She sighed, and checked the miniature clock on her wrist. Isadora realized that the five-hour car ride she was a part of was nearing its end. As the truck jerked over a speedbump, and Isadora heard a clattering of various items that were stowed away in boxes behind her.

“Isa, can you look in the back to see if the boxes are alright? We don’t want any broken dishes in the new house,” Elizabeth, Isa’s mom, asked. Isa craned her neck back toward the boxes of dishes and smaller pieces of furniture, looking for any signs of damage. She turned back toward her mother and blinked repeatedly, as if waking up from a deep sleep.  

“It’s all good, nothing broken. Is that Lenfant?” she asked, pointing to a blue street sign. Isa’s gaze fell onto the long road, surrounded by towering trees, covering the narrow sections of green with crumbling brown leaves.

“I think so,” her mom replied, turning onto the aforementioned road. Isa looked around, as if searching for some form of civilization, and focused her gaze upon a giant, grey brick farmhouse on top of the hill in front of the pair.

“I guess that’s our house then?” Isa said, still peering at the enormous building. Her mom nodded, and pulled into the driveway.  Isa opened her creaky door, and stepped out of the old car to face the large house that would soon become her home.

    A few days later, the two finally settled into their new home. The farmhouse was filled with tones of burgundy and browns, along with floral patterns that Isadora despised. The pair had unpacked, and Isadora started to fill her grey backpack for the first day of school. She put her old pencil case in, along with some fresh notebooks and folders, all color coded, due to her mom’s insistence. Isadora stood up and picked out her clothes for what will be the unofficial first day of school.

    When Isa arrived at her new school the next morning, she could not get the nerves out of her system. “What if nobody likes me?” Isa thought to herself. Isa wiped her sweaty palms on the side of her jeans, clutched the strap of her backpack, and opened the intimidating door of Pine Hills High School.

She shuffled up to the sliding window of the school’s office, and knocked once on it.

“Excuse me? Ma’am?” she asked the grey haired woman in the window, “I’m new. I need a schedule,” Isa told the secretary.

    “Oh, yes I heard you were coming. You will have the same classes as this boy here,” she said, gesturing to a brown haired boy standing behind her,”Just follow him, you will be fine,” she finished. The secretary murmured something to the boy, and he strolled over to meet Isadora.

“Hey, I’m Lou. And you? Wait, that rhymed, wow,” Lou said to the new girl.  Isa looked at Lou, as if trying to assess him.

    “Isadora Miller, but you can just call me Isa. I think we have to go, right? School starts at 8:05, or at least that’s what the paper I got said,” she replied. Lou smirked before saying,

    “Yep, that’s about right. Let’s go, we have history first, and Mr. Ibarra will kill me if I’m late again,” he said, snickering. The two rushed off to history, and Isadora was forced to endure a horrifically boring lecture about the cold war. As Isa watched the clock tick down until second period, she kept glancing over at the boy she met, seeing if he was even awake still.

    The bell finally rang, and almost thirty students rushed out of the classroom. Later that day, while on the way to Isa’s next class, English, she was stopped by a pretty girl about her age with long, black hair.

    “Hey! You’re Isa right? I’m Kayla, Lou told me about you. He says you’re pretty cool. I think that’s a good reason for us to be friends, to be honest,” the girl blurted out, without taking a breath. “So, I’m having this party, it’s for my sweet sixteen, and I think you should go,” she ended.    

    “Sure, I guess. I’ll ask Lou about it, but right now I really have to go. I’m going to be late for English,” Isa said quickly, speeding off to her next class. Over the course of the day, she  sat through four more classes, filled with people she did not know, and surprisingly, nobody else really talked to her. This was convenient, because now Isa could think about the party she was invited to. This would be a good opportunity to meet new people, but Isa was still hesitant. What if it was horrible, and nobody talked to her? She found reassurance when Lou texted her to tell her more about the party. He was going, and of course, Kayla would be there, so Isa would know some people.

    “Mom, I was invited to some girl from school’s party this weekend. I don’t know her too well, but I could probably meet people there,” she proposed, “Do you think I can go?”

    “If you want to Isa, you can go. I have an interview on Sunday at the grocery store in town, so I can’t take you then, but as long as I can take you, then you can go,” her mom replied.

    “Yeah, it’s on Saturday anyways, so we should be fine. Thanks mom, this really means a lot to me,” Isa said, before racing upstairs to her room to do her homework.

Finally, the day had arrived. Isa got changed into her nicer pair of jeans and her favorite shirt, and hurried downstairs to see if her mom was ready yet.

“You all ready Isa?” her mom asked, and was greeted with a prompt nod, “Okay then, we should get going. Wow, you look so mature. I can’t believe my little girl has grown up so fast!”

Isa smiled, and they walked out to the familiar silver truck, and headed to Kayla’s house. Isa arrived, and spotted one of the two people she knew. She waved Lou over, and they walked into the beautiful home together. The music was incredibly loud, and the lights were dimmer than what could be considered usual. Isa and her newfound friend sped off to the kitchen, which was brighter than the other rooms. Kalya was mingling with an assortment of other people, and she hurried over to the pair.

“Hi guys! I’m glad you decided to come Isa,” she said quickly, “There’s pizza on the counter, it’s kind of cold at this point though. I’ve gotta go though, I have stuff to do. You two have fun!” she said, parading out of the room.

“Okay then, that was intense,” Isa said, chuckling. Lou grabbed a slice of the now cold pizza, and started to talk.

“So, what’s your story? I know you’re new, obviously, but where are you from? Why’d you move?” he asked.

“Are you sure you want to know? It’s a long, dreadfully boring story, and I don’t want to bore you out of your mind,” Isa replied, exaggerating. Lou nodded, and pulled out chairs for them, so they could rest their legs.

“Okay, well… I’m from Connecticut, I lived there my whole life, well until now. My dad had a decent amount of issues, to be completely honest, and he liked to take out his frustrations on us. My mom got fed up, and they divorced. She couldn’t stand living in that house though, so we packed our bags and came here,” she said, falling into a puddle of her own thoughts. Lou looked at Isa, thinking about what she said. They waited in silence for a moment, before he finally conjured up  a noise.  

“Wow, that’s not what I expected. Not as ‘dreadfully boring’ as you said though,” Lou replied, lightening the mood. As the two chatted, they noticed people coming in and out of the kitchen to throw trash away before leaving. They continued to talk until almost everybody had left, so Isa texted her mom to get a ride home. Her mom pulled up in front of Kayla’s house, and Isa got in the car, waving to Lou and Kayla who were standing in the doorway. Her mom bombarded her with questions about the event.

“How did it go? Who was there? Did you eat enough?” she asked her daughter. Isa laughed and replied.

“It went okay. There were a bunch of kids from school, but my friends Lou and Kayla were there, and yes, I ate enough,” she said.

“That’s good. You should invite them over sometime, I’d like to meet them,” her mom said, before starting to drive. Isa nodded, and looked out her window until they got home.

Two weeks passed, filled with boring classes, but interesting notes being passed by her two friends. Finally, it was lunch, on a Friday, which meant pizza day. As the trio sat down at a lunch table, Lou turned to face Isadora.

“So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he started to say, “You are one of the best people I’ve met in this town. You’re kind, charismatic, not to mention beautiful-” he said.

“I know I’m beautiful, thanks,” she joked.

“No, hear me out. My point is, I really like you. Do you want to be my girlfriend?” Lou asked. It was like her heart stopped. Isa looked at him cautiously, as if waiting for him to shout, “April Fools!”.  Finally, she said yes, and they hugged. Kayla decided to take advantage of the opportunity to throw one of her fries at them.

“You guys are gross,” she said, laughing.

Isadora finally found an opportunity to invite her new friends over for dinner one night, thanks to her mom’s request. Her mom was delighted, to say the least. She introduced Kayla and Lou, adding in the fact that they were dating as well. Her mom practically jumped for joy, and Kayla rolled her eyes. Isadora realized that just because she moved into a new town, alone, does not mean that she can never make friends. She smiled, because she made more progress in this new town, with better friends than she ever could have made in Connecticut. Maybe moving was a good decision on her mom’s part after all.

Author's Note

This is my first official short story, which I wrote for a class.