Banner Stand

This is just a rough draft for part of my first chapter. Keep in mind I’m only 13 and a shy author, so make negative feedback sound as kind as possible please!!!

It was a dark, rainy day, the kind that made you want to just drop everything you were doing and curl up on the couch, sipping hot cocoa and listening to the pitter-patter of rain droplets hitting the soggy ground. The kind that made the whole town feel sleepy, and almost a bit magical. The kind any little girl would love to just start dancing in, twirling around as the rain soaks through her coat and hair, but she‘d laugh cause she wouldn‘t care. That’s what my mom, Alison, and I used to do. We’d spend hours in front of the house running around and getting dirty from playing soccer in the mud, but mostly we’d drive down to this special little meadow. Going there was magical. It even felt magical, as if everyone in the world suddenly stopped moving, and it was just you and the lazy, rolling green hills that surrounded the clearing. There was a very unique willow tree that meant everything to me and my mom. Sitting there with the cool, wet mist from the rain spraying my face was my favorite thing to do, because no matter how bad of a day I had, somehow just being near that tree made me feel like everything would be okay.
Those days with my mom were also the kinds where my dad, Jared, would stand safely on the dry porch, laughing as he’d shout for us to come back inside or we’d catch pneumonia, but we all knew that no amount of words could stop us. I guess that’s why since my mom died, he hasn’t looked at me the same way. No longer am I that sweet, beautiful little girl, but instead the reason why his beloved wife, my mother, no longer could laugh her sweet bell-like laugh, wouldn’t ever practice her ballet in the living room while the two of us would watch her, and never again will either of us fall asleep to the sound of her playing the piano, trying to relax before going to bed herself. It was the kind of day that made me just want to go home, safe underneath my covers, and cry about Her. At least, that’s the name Dad gave my mom once she died. Her.
“Miss Hunt! For the last time, wake up! Sleeping in my class is unacceptable, and if you can’t understand that, get out of this room!” I awoke to the bright, angry face of my AP English teacher, Mr. Banner, glaring over me, his cheeks getting redder by the second. Just from a quick glance out the window, I knew that Mr. Banner was right, it wasn’t the kind of day for me to be sitting in that stuffy, cramped class, listening to him drone on and on about Heathcliff, “the tortured lover whose passion destroys both him and the world around him.”
Quietly I left, pausing only to steal a peek at my Tyson, my best friend’s, face, and, seeing his signature crooked smile, I could tell he knew what I was about to do.
The slow walk down the halls was much more difficult than I thought it would be; I wanted to go, more than anything, but at the same time, the last time I was there was right before my mom died, and I was 8. My face began to heat up and my eyes felt puffy, like they usually do right before I begin to cry. I quickly ducked into the nearest bathroom, just to splash some water on my face and get rid of the burning sensation creeping up the back of my neck. The sink water was cold, and for a minute I just let the faucet run, and stared at myself in the mirror. I always looked different than the other girls growing up in the area. Instead of their bright, golden-pink skin, I look like a little kid who had played around with chalk and forgot to go take a bath.
I’m a whole lot shorter than most girls my age, My hair is so blonde that if you look at it quickly, it almost looks white instead, and makes me stick out like a sore thumb against all the other girls with their glossy brown, almost black, hair. The angles of my cheeks and chin are so much more defined than anyone else in my family. In fact, when I was younger, my mom used to joke around and call me, “Charlie, my beautiful little pixie girl.” When I was younger, I used to get teased about the color of my eyes: a blue so strange it almost looked like lavender instead.
But it wasn’t just the way I look that made me feel different. All my life I’ve felt like I don’t belong, like this world isn’t the one that I am meant to be in, and that somewhere, somehow, I’ll find it. But all of that changes at the meadow, which is such a big part of why it feels so magical to me. It feels like home, a place where I’m invincible and no one can stand in my way, not now, not ever.

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