The Straw Bale House Part 1

Ducks jumping. Not much to do with the story. Just a nice picture

The Straw Bale House

Part 1 

What do you say when your parents suddenly tell you that you’re moving to the country? I don’t mean the country like a place you go for holidays. Not the beach with ice cream shops and fish and chips. I mean a town with ten shops, one school, and fifty million cows and sheep.

As there are also horses, my little sister thinks it’s fine.

I don’t.

My parents like to decide things for themselves. They don’t ask us until it’s too late.

One day they said, “How would you like to move to the country?” Out of nothing, just like that.

I said, “You’re kidding. No way.”

Paige said, “Yeah, if there are horses.”

Mum said, “We’re looking at the block of land this weekend.”

Dad said, “We’ve found a nice place to rent until we’ve built our new house.”

I didn’t say one thing, all the way there.

It took four hours.

Mum and Dad smiled and laughed with the man showing us the land.

Paige was happy. There was a horse, and the man said it came with the block.

 The house in town was small, huddling behind the world’s biggest hedge, and it smelt funny.

“What atmosphere!” said Mum.

“It might be haunted, Mimi,” said Dad, and smiled at me. But I looked the other way.

I heard kids go past. “They sound nice,” said Mum, “They’ll be your friends before you know it.” I didn’t think so. No-one could be such a good friend as Katy.

“Katy can come and stay in the holidays,” said Mum.

Even though I told them it was a bad idea, they bought the land, rented the house and we all had to move. Katy promised to ring, and write, and email.

 School’s okay.

My new friend India is cool. (I thought everyone in the country was called Mary Lou and stuff like that.) Her parents have llamas. Some of the other people in my class are Rebecca, and Hannah, and Lizzy, and Tom and Den. It’s short for Dionysus but he likes to be called Den. They’re okay. It’s funny; they’re just like people in my old school.

You should see Paige playing horses with her new friends. It’s embarrassing. All of the girls in her class do it. She’s worse with the mangy old horse out at the land. He’s called Earl. Can you believe that? Earl? He came with the land, and he came with the name. I want to change it to Orlando, but he won’t answer to that.