Chapter One

This is me. My name is Avi. I don't know where my mom got that name, but she spent 9 months trying out baby names, and she didn't like a single one of the normal names people give to babies. So she just made one up.

 I'm 15. I know I'm not an exotic beauty like my mom. Grams always said that what I was born with, inside and out, was as beautiful as it could be, and that I should remember that. She said to keep sight of who I am and what I dream of, and I'd go far.

Well, who I am is nobody yet, and what I dream of, more than anything, is to be an artist.

Dad died not long ago, and although he was a good man, he was an unrealistic dreamer like me, and he left a lot of debt. In fact, there wasn't really enough left for Mom and Grams and me to live on, and we had to move. We ended up in this cute little Norman Rockwell town called Sunset Valley.

 The house we thought we were going to get had been torn down because it was old and not up to code, so all we have is this big, empty piece of land.

As soon as we got the rental truck unloaded and returned, we decided to hike up to a lake in the mountains near our property for a picnic lunch, to cheer ourselves up. It was a fatal mistake. Grams, always the cheerful one, snuck up behind Mom and gave her a scare just for fun.

She couldn't have known that Mom's heart had been weak ever since we lost Dad, and the climb and the strain was too much for her. She clutched her chest and died right on the spot. To my horror, the shock gave Grams her own heart attack. It only took seconds, and all I could do was watch in shock as my family and my world crumpled at my feet.

I'm alone now. Every few minutes, it seems like, I burst into tears and it feels like a giant is squeezing my chest.


 

                                                                     Then I think of Grams and how she always believed in me, and I tell myself I'm going to make it. Somehow.

 I dug my sleeping bag, my radio and my art books out of our meager belongings and set up my little camp, and made myself as comfortable as I could.

It still seemed like forever before the sun came up.

 

I guess it's time for me to see what this new life has in store for me.

 

author's note: I didn't count on having to do this without a grownup to provide a living wage during those busy teen years. Now I have to make her go to school, scrape a living from the land, reach her skill goals, and stay sane. And of course she's going to try for the honor roll. This could be a very short blog. We'll see whether she crashes and burns or makes her dreams come true.