Maria Scott had lived in a little town called Prattville, which is in Al, her whole life. Prattville is one of those towns where everyone knows everyone, if you’ve lived there long enough. So Maria wasn’t used to new people. She was a very friendly person, for example if there was ever a new kid at school Maria would be the first one at the door introducing herself and everyone else, but having a new kid in town was very rare. She had never moved schools or was never in a position where she was around a lot of people she didn’t know. Maria was also very popular and outgoing, and was always up for anything. Her family was great; they would let her do almost anything she wanted. Her life was pretty much perfect and she loved it. She would never change anything about it, if she could help it.
During the summer Maria and her friends in the neighborhood would play tag pretty much every night. During the day they would go and get all the neighborhood kids and play football in her neighbor’s yard. Maria’s neighborhood was one of those neighborhoods where everyone knew everyone and invited each other everywhere. They were all friends. Maria’s neighbor, Mr. Brian, would always have random cookouts. Some would be for football games and some were for holidays like Christmas. Most of them were just because they wanted to. But they were always a lot of fun. The parents would be out by the grill sitting on lawn chairs drinking beer and talking about what there kid did to get in trouble that time. While the parents were doing that the kids would be running around the neighborhood playing tag and football, or riding bikes, sometimes they would rollerblade, and whatever else they could think of. When there was a cookout it meant, to all the kids, that they were going to be able to stay out past midnight. That’s probably why they were so much fun.
When 6th grade came around, it was just like any other year to Maria. That is, until about halfway through 6th grade. Maria was sitting on the couch with her mother watching t.v., just like any other day, when out of nowhere her mother said to her, “Your dad lost his job.” She had a really serious or maybe scared look on her face; it looked almost as if she was going to cry. Maria looked at her mother with confusion and said, “Why did he lose his job, was he doing something bad or what? What was it that happened?” Maria’s mother started to explain to her that her father had gotten layed off and once Maria understood that, she started to realize why her mother looked so scared. Her mother then said to her in a rush, “We’re going to have to move to Pennsylvania, Maria, and it’s going to be a really big change, but it’ll be okay. Just don’t worry about anything” Maria looked away from her mother, she didn’t want her mother to know what she was thinking, because her parents had always told her she talked with her eyes. So she sat and just looked at the t.v. for a while to take it all in and then got up and went to her room and cried. At that point Maria still didn’t know how much moving to Pennsylvania would change her life. She wouldn’t fully understand until after she moved.
It was October 12th that she finally moved. That day was a Saturday and she had to say goodbye to all her family and her friends that were in her neighborhood. Maria was very upset, she wasn’t the kind of person that liked surprises, and she likes to know how everything is going to be when she gets there. So her having never been anywhere other than Prattville, was a very big change and she didn’t know what to expect and she was very worried, but didn’t want anyone to know how scared she was of moving. She didn’t want her parents to feel bad about having to move.
When she got to Pennsylvania she liked it a lot. She thought it was very pretty. The next thing Maria had to worry about was school. She didn’t know how the kids would react to her being new and from a little town in Alabama. Even though she was worried, she was still kind of excited about meeting new people.
It had been almost a week since she moved and her first day of school was approaching faster than she thought. The closer it got the more scared and nervous she was. But her first day wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Everyone was pretty friendly and would laugh at her deep southern accent. Maria didn’t care that they laughed because she thought they were laughing with her rather than at her. That wasn’t always the case. A lot of the kids would say things such as, “Say I, you say it so weird its hilarious.” Or more mean things along the lines of, “Why do you talk like such an idiot?” Maria would just look at them and say, “Well I am from Alabama. I just talk with an accent.”
She got really frustrated by about the second week of school there and started hating everything. She had never hated her life so much, that she cried every single night. She missed all of her friends and her old school, she missed being able to go to her grandparents house for dinner, or go to her cousins house to go swimming during the summer. Now that she was 16 hours away she couldn’t do that anymore. She only saw her family on the holidays and when her family decided to visit for a weekend. She also missed the games her and her friends in the neighborhood would play, such as tag and football. She missed her old life. It was also extremely cold in the winter. Maria hated cold weather, she wasn’t a winter girl.
There was nothing Maria could do about it. She had to make the best of what she had. One good thing came out of moving and that was that she became a lot closer to her parents and brother and little sister. She spent more time at home, which was a tiny apartment. It was nice but small for a family of 5 with 2 dogs and a cat and another baby on the way.
When Maria had found out her mom was pregnant again, she wasn’t very excited, but then she thought about it a little and started getting excited about it. She thought it would be more chaotic and interesting and Maria liked that. She didn’t like for things to always be the same, it got boring. But about halfway through her mothers’ pregnancy, Maria’s mother had to go to the hospital just as a check up. When her mother got back from the hospital her mom and dad sat Maria, her brother Dustin, and her sister Sophy, down and told them that there was a complication with the pregnancy and she wasn’t going to be having the baby. At first Maria was shocked; she wasn’t sure how to react. She just asked her mom what happened with the baby and how it had happened. All that did was confuse Maria, so she just stopped asking her mom questions.
They had lived in Pennsylvania for about a year when her mother had the miscarriage. Maria was in 7th grade at the time; but towards the end of her 7th grade year, when she had finally made friends, and was getting used to it there. She still didn’t like it but having friends made it a little easier to bear. Once again Maria and her mother were sitting on the couch watching television, her dad was there this time, when her father told her happily, almost as if he knew Maria would be thrilled, “I found a new job. It’s down in Georgia. It’s a lot closer to the family and I think you’ll like it a lot there.”
Maria was shocked in a way, and also very happy; but then she thought about how she had made friends and how they would take it. She wasn’t too worried about making new friends because she figured it would be just as easy, if not easier, the second time around.

A few months later Maria and her family moved down to a little town in Georgia called Cumming. Maria’s friends in Pennsylvania were very sad about her leaving and kind of mad about how excited she was to leave. They got over it within a few days though. Maria started school immediately because there was only 2 months of school left when she moved. So she went to her new school expecting many people to be overly nice to her because she was new, and that’s how they were when she moved to Pennsylvania, but they weren’t. Most people just ignored her. It was like she wasn’t there. The only thing that would go through her head was, “I really hope that it gets better. Maybe it will next year.” But 8th grade came along and still people were acting like she wasn’t there. They would run into her in the hallways and nock things out of her hands and without saying sorry. Then she began thinking, “Okay well my brother has a lot of friends and he’s in high school, so maybe ill make some friends when I get into high school.”

A year later when high school came along for Maria, she started making a lot of really good friends. In one of her classes the teacher made them make videos and so she started hanging out with the people she would make videos with and ended up being best friends. She started to love Cumming, Georgia and that is where she lived to this day.