The Girl In Black

Chapter Three

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."

Charles R. Swindoll
•••

We were packed and sitting in my grandmother's fancy, black limo in no time.

My eyes widened and jaw dropped when I first saw our expensive way of transportation. My initial thoughts were the same as any other seventeen year old in my situation;

My grandmother is rich. Ridiculously rich.

She had to be.

What other woman, in her late sixties, had security guards trailing after her and travelling in limos?

No sixty year old in this neighborhood, thats for sure. I was half-expecting the tires to be punctured and the doors scratched but I guess the boys who usually lounged about in the street decided against it. It might have had something to do with Anthony and Louis, my grandmother's ever so reliable security guards. It seemed like they made a habit out of scowling like spoilt, aggressive teenagers. It was enough to put even the most rebellious of people off.

"Woah! This is sooo cool. I can't wait to tell Maria that I sat in an actual limo. Is this how famous people feel?"

Lucy's excitement over everything and anything was really beginning to rub me the wrong way.

"Well that's if you're ever going to see Maria again. We're moving away, if you hadn't already noticed. That means new school, new town, new friends." My tone is bitter and I can feel Lucy stare at me, her eyes wide and her expression shocked. My grandmother is mirroring Lucy's expression perfectly.

I wait for a witty response, from either one of them but they don't speak.

In fact they don't speak to me for the rest of the journey.

********

"We're here! Home sweet home!" My grandmother says with a huge smile on her face.

I roll my eyes.

I kind of guessed we'd arrived when the limo turned into a gated driveway. Through the tinted windows I could see the house I'd be calling home for the next year. Well, until I turned eighteen and finished my senior year.

The house is big. But I wasn't expecting to see anything less. Anyone driving in limos would have a house to match.

And boy it did.

I have to physically restrain my face from showing any sign of shock, wonder or awe. Lucy was doing it all for me.

"This is your house? This is where we're going to live?" Lucy can barely contain herself.

My grandmother smiles again , "Yes, this is where you're going to live and you better get used to it because this is now your home too."

Lucy skips towards the house and spins round the white pillars built outside the grand doorway.

"It's not going to hurt you to smile." My grandmother watches me carefully, in the same annoyingly  observant way she had been since the moment we met.

"It's seven thirty in the morning. What do you want me to do? Jump up and down?"

"No not that." She replies with a sigh, "but a little enthusiasm won't do you any harm."

"I'll work on it." I tell her just to close the subject.

We walk towards the two-door entrance. My eyes narrow when I see Lucy converse with a middle-aged man stood on the porch.