Radiance by Alana Curran (best english books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

“I thought you said you weren’t going to buy me anything else I wanted,” I reminded her.

“Unless you need it,” she smiled. “Ok, so you’ll need stationery.”

“Doesn’t the school supply those kind of things already?”

“Apparently not, oh well, let’s get them anyway,” she sighed.

Mum was a little weird during the shopping trip, she kept buying me things I didn’t need, or want for that matter. Things like suitcases, ear plugs and even a photo frame. Random or what? I didn’t even have any good photos to put in it.

It wasn’t until we were having lunch that she dropped the bombshell.

“You’ll love Knoughville Alessia, it’s such a nice place,” she insisted, mouth full of pancakes. I glanced. “It’s not the sunniest place, but whatever, right?”

“Are we going there for a holiday or something?” I asked.

“Well, no, but...”

“Business trip? Not again,” I whined.

“No, sweetie, it’s not a business trip,” she sighed. “Chellewood is in Knoughville.”

“Oh, so are we moving there or something? Did you buy a house, it better have four bedrooms.”

“We aren’t moving there, you’re moving in with your grandmother,” she confessed.

I stared at her. Surely she was joking. Moving to Grandma’s? I hadn’t seen her in five years, what was the point in starting now?

“Can’t I go to a school here?”

“You haven’t been accepted into the schools here, but Chellewood was kind enough to welcome you with open arms,” she explained.

“I DON’T WANT TO MOVE TO GRANDMA’S!” I yelled.

“Calm down, sweetheart, people are staring,” she ordered.

I grunted and folded my arms stubbornly.

“Mum’s house is beautiful, you’ll have plenty of space...”

“What about my friends?”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“TINA!”

“One girl, you could make loads more at Knoughville,” she promised.

I didn’t say anything, I just looked at the floor.

I had nothing else to argue against, mum knew I wasn’t a ‘home bird’. I loved staying over at other people’s houses and even went on a ten day residential at school.

I had nothing to save me from going to this horrible place.

The thought of living in a small bedroom with no bathroom of my own made me sick and the feeling of wearing a raincoat everyday and carrying an umbrella with me everywhere I went made me feel lousy.

I lived on a very warm island called Costa Lapris just off the coast of America, it wasn’t on many maps and it was very small, but I loved it.

The sun was always shining and it only had light showers probably once a week, or twice a week if we were lucky.

The only reason I wanted the winter coat was because Tina and I were planning on going to the alps.

It lived under the same laws as Britain and the school system was exactly the same, so that was the thing that really got me into this big mess. The law always seemed to mess up my life. 

Saying goodbye to Tina wasn’t as hard as I imagined. I stopped off at her house on our way to the airport, but she wasn’t home. So I wrote her a note and slipped it through the letterbox.

Brenda and Thistle decided not to come to the airport, so they said their goodbyes before we left and then we got into mum’s Mercedes and we all took off.

I was going to miss Costa Lapris, I rolled down the window and stuck my head out, something I always loved doing in the car but my mum told me not to in case a car came along and knocked my head off.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it if it was pouring rain and the clouds I were looking up at weren’t pearly white in front of a clear, blue sky, but instead a foggy, grey colour with all the sky covered.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset about going to your grandmother’s house,” mum sighed. “You used to love going there, remember you used to play fetch with Arthur.”

Arthur was grandma’s Labrador, he was so small and cute. I knew seeing him again was going to be a highlight.

I don’t remember much of the flight. I was asleep for half of it and had a headache for the rest of it.

The first thing that hit me when I got off the plane was the temperature, I couldn’t believe how cold it was and it was raining.

I expected more constant light showers, but instead it was like having a bucket of water being tipped over the whole town.

All my raincoats were in my suitcase, so I stuck my hand in my backpack to pull out my compact umbrella which I had bought at the small shop in the airport back in Costa Lapris.

Things got worse, when I collected my suitcase and went out into the parking lot to see if I could see my grandma anywhere, a big gust of wind blew against my umbrella forcefully.

I kept a firm grip on it until the umbrella finally gave in and snapped inside out.

No wonder mum put in all those socks and winter clothing.

As I awkwardly tried to fix the umbrella, my hair getting soaked in the process, a tall woman with grey hair ran up and held a bigger, stronger umbrella over my head.

“Quick, get into the car,” she ordered, pointing to a red jeep not far from where we were standing.

“Who are you?” I asked,

“Your grandmother,” she replied, as we ran towards the vehicle.

“How do you know who I am?”

“I know my granddaughter, sweetheart,” she insisted, as I jumped into the front passenger seat.

She ran round to my side of the car and asked for my bags. I had brought two suitcases, one backpack, a big and a pretty, shoulder bag.

She threw the bags into the boot and got into the driver’s seat.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Alessia,” she smiled, giving me a hug. “You’ve grown into such a beautiful girl.”

“It’s nice to see you too grandma,” I forced myself to say.

She let me go and put the car into gear.

“I can’t believe you’ve been accepted into Chellewood,” she gasped, I rolled my eyes. “What an opportunity.”

Then, it hit me.

Since everyone was declaring how good Chellewood was, how could I, a girl who only attended school for a week in her whole life, get accepted.

“Grandma, you don’t think mum paid the school board to let me in?”

“Oh no, that’s not your mother’s style, she wouldn’t waste her money on that,” she scowled. “The school probably just saw your potential.”

“What potential?” I laughed. “I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“Aw, well I’m sure it’s not that bad,” grandma insisted. “Do you like art?”

“Yeah, but I can’t draw.”

“Music?”

“Can’t sing.”

“But you could...”

“Or dance.”

“Hmm, what do you like that you’re good at?”

I thought for a moment, there was a lot of stuff I liked.

“Shopping,” I finally answered.

“There you go,” she smiled. “You could be a shopkeeper.”

I frowned.

“Who can live on that tiny salary?”

“It’s a starting point,” she said optimistically.

“I like clothes,” I told her, trying to change the idea of shop keeping.

“What about a designer then?” she asked, turning her gaze from the road to look at me for a second.

I thought for a moment.

Designing didn’t sound too bad at all, in fact, it sounded quite interesting. I loved the idea of having my own office where I designed lots of gorgeous things with my own intern and being seen as a more popular designer than Chanel or Gucci.

“I suppose that’s a good idea,” I murmured.

“Marvellous,” she smiled.

Grandma did the rest of the chatting from that moment onwards.

She babbled away about numerous things. Chellewood, how nice the town is, how friendly everyone is, what Christmas is like in Knoughville, etc. I was actually surprised how many things about Knoughville she managed to fit into the half hour trip to her house.

I was surprised to see that it was a bungalow on top of a hill. It was very pretty. It was quite picturesque, I enjoyed just gazing at it, it was so cute.

The rain had eased up a little, but the ground was wet and that the atmosphere was filled with that smell of dust you get after the rain.

I had a warm, comforting feeling at the pit of my stomach. It felt like I was at home.

“Follow me,” Grandma ordered, sticking her key into the keyhole and pushing the door open.

All of a sudden, this large dog jumped out of the house, wagging his tail happily and barking.

He headed straight towards me and the next thing I knew, I was flat on the ground with the dog hovering over me and slobbering all over my face.

“Arthur, get off her!” grandma scolded.

I was surprised to see how big he had grown, I knew Labradors were big dogs, but this one could literally knock you down.

An smaller Labrador limped out of the house nervously, to see what all the fuss was about and Arthur ran right into the house.

“Who’s the new one?” I asked, pulling myself up and grabbing two of my bags.

“That’s Daisy, she hurt her leg the other day so she can’t really move around much.”

“Is she a newly bought dog, or is she one of Arthur’s puppies?”

“One of Arthur’s,” she replied as we walked through the door, Arthur was jumping round excitedly while Daisy followed grandma into the living room.

The hall was moderately big and very pretty, but it wasn’t as nice as the foyer in my house in Costa Stalluna.

The living room was quite small, but very cute. The same with the dining room and kitchen.

“Your bedroom is right at the end of the house, it has your name painted on the door in big, black letters. You can’t miss it,” she informed.

“Thanks,” I smiled, making my way to my bedroom.

She was right. I couldn’t miss it. The house wasn’t very long and the door was noticeable from the other side of the hall, but when I went inside, I realised it was my old bedroom from when I used to visit her in my early childhood.

I only knew this because on the door border, were some pencil marks from when I measured myself. I used to measure myself every time I visited grandma and every time I was about two inches taller.

I decided to mark myself, just due to tradition and I was obviously more than two inches taller from when I last marked it (when I was eight).

I went in and sighed at the room. It had obviously been redesigned. The walls had been painted a light green colour and some colourful furniture like a pink sofa, a matching coffee table, a colourful ribbon canvas hanging on the wall, etc, etc.

A double bed had replaced my cheap, little single bed which I used when I was a child.

The bed had a colourful duvet cover and a matching overhead, canopy.

It was all a bit much for me, but it was still, admittedly pretty.

I set my cases on the bed, sighing happily and beginning to unpack my many pairs of ugg boots, Hoodies, sweaters and leggings.

Turning round, I gulped at the sight of my old cat bed which belonged to poor old Fluffy, who got ran over by an ice cream van. I never bought an ice cream from a van since.

The sight