The Journal

The Journal
Aliza Amsden

July 24, 1982
I was sitting at my desk listening to the rain steadily tap on the roof. We had a big house but because of the amount of people in the house I had to stay on the “top floor.” That is what my mom called it to try and make me feel better but we all knew it was the attic. I hated the attic with all its spider webs and bugs. But on a day like today in a week like this week the attic was my favorite room. It was cozy when it is raining because it is such a small place, and also a place where I can get away from my crazy family members.
Jessica

Hi my name is Jessica and all I would like to say is…
“Jess get down here right now,” my mom screamed up the stairs. “Your family came to visit you and what do you do? Go hide in your room. Jessica Anne Isabel Landth come down here right now.
“Mom please stop yelling at me I’m coming”
“I don’t hear footsteps up there.”
My mother was the kind of person who was very and I mean very strict but still had the average snotty teenager in her. She had to have everything in order but was definitely a brat. She liked talking back to me and my brothers and sisters when she knew that we were mad at her but were trying to be nice.
“Jess, why are you up in your room again? Your family loves you and wants to spend time with you. Besides you never get to see them so it is nice to have them here.”
“I know mom but cousin Laura Jean made me mad, and I needed time to calm down and write in my journal.”
This seemed to satisfy my mom probably because she was a writer. She started making me keep a journal when I first learned how to write but now I enjoy writing in it.
“Okay, well then I understand but you really should come and visit with your family.”
“Fine I will come down but we all need to find away to stop fighting because it really gets on my nerves when my cousins yell at me.

***
I was sitting on the couch watching five of my cousins dance around the living room to Madonna with each other. They were obsessed with her song “Holiday”, so as I sat there I had to listen to it over and over.
When I heard the music stop, I knew they were coming over to bother so I started to pretend to examine my finger nails. When I looked up my cousin Anna was standing right in front of me. Anna was one of the youngest. She was six years old. She had shoulder length dirty blonde hair and big round blue eyes that sparkled when she was happy.
“Hey Anna what do you need,” I asked her with a little annoyance in my voice.
She obviously didn’t catch that hint and asked, “Jessica can you help us make up a dance. We want to do a dance for the family but we can’t think of any good dances.”
“I guess so Anna but only if you will leave me alone for at least a day after we finish the dance.” I knew I had hurt her feelings but I didn’t really care at that moment because she was just so annoying sometimes. “But there is one thing that I get to do.”
“What?”
“Pick the song,” I said with a smirk.
“No, please we already have a song picked out that we really want to use.”
“I pick the song or I don’t help with the dance.”
“Fine but make sure it is a song that is good because I don’t want to dance to a bad song.”
“Okay you guys keep yourselves busy for today and do not bug me about the dance and I will have it done by tomorrow.
“Oh we will but we will be expecting it tomorrow by lunch time. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I walked in to the kitchen happy that at least five of my fifteen cousins were going to stop bothering me for the day. That means that I still had to work my way around ten more of them.
In the kitchen I grabbed a banana and headed to the family room where seven more of my cousins were. As I stood there watching them play war, I shook my head and started to walk away when Teddy came up to me and said, “Will you play war with us Jessica so that our teams will be even?”
“After dinner you guys but I need to know who’s team I am on now.”
“You’ll be on the losers team with Teddy the baby,” said cousin Mark.
“I am not a baby.”
“You are to.”
“Am not.”
“Are to.”
Okay there, seven more of my cousins done. Now all I have is three more of them, but now I don’t really care about them. So since my little cousins were done I headed up to my room to get my journal . I was going to bring it out on the porch so I could plan my war with the boys and my dance with the girls. The porch is definitely my favorite part of the house because there is always sun shining on it and always a breeze from the ocean. As I was sitting down a big gust of wind came by and knocked me right into my chair. I could feel the sting in my butt, but I knew I would get over it soon. The porch was really calming today. I could smell and taste the salt from the ocean. I also loved the sound of all the children laughing and playing on the beach. I opened my journal to a fresh page but I just couldn’t write anything. I was too stressed about what I needed to do. But I knew that if I didn’t do what I promised my cousins would never leave me alone.

July 25, 1982,
My cousins are insisting that I give them attention but I just don’t want to. The girls are making me make up a dance. I don’t really mind Anna and Jen but Kate, Liz and Rose just really get on my nerves. I will just have to make sure to give them the bad part of the dance. And for the boys I don’t really mind Teddy, Johnny, Jake, Ken, and Jack but Mark and Zack I hate. I mean there might be some deep dark corner in my heart that I love them but I am pretty sure that isn’t true. Well my day has depressing so far I hope it gets better.
Jessica

Now all I had to do was think of a war strategy and I could do the dance later tonight. Hmmmm for the war, for the war…
Now for the girls dance, hmmmm what shall I do. Whatever, I will do that later like I said right now I’m going swimming. As I was turning the corner off of the third floor landing when my cousin Aaron.
“Hey squirt what’s going on,” he said to me when we collided.
“Nothing much just going to get my bathing suit so I can go swimming. Want to come?”
“Sure why not, nothing to do around this place anyway.”
“Okay I’ll meet you right in this very spot in five minutes,” I said to him as I started walking down the hall to the stairs.
Aaron was my favorite cousin only because he was so nice to me. All my other cousins treated me like a piece of poop. He is sixteen and so he has his license. Now that he has it he takes me everywhere. He says that it is just so he can spend time with me, but I know that really he knows how I feel and is helping me get away from my family. I was so busy thinking about this as I walked towards the stairs that I wasn’t paying attention and I almost tripped and fell on my face. Now that my attention was back I raced up the stairs, threw my bathing suit on, and a nice beach outfit and some flip flops and went back down stairs. I was coming down just in time to see Aaron come out of his bedroom and head for the landing. Now that he saw me we both knew it was A RACE. He was that kind of cousin, fun and loving. Here it goes I said in my head and sprinted towards the stairs. Again I almost tripped but this time almost fell down the stairs. Good thing Aaron got there at the same time so he caught me.
“That was a close one there, Jess. You really need to learn to be more careful.”
“I know,” I said. “But it is just so hard. Well anyway let’s go and let’s not tell anyone where we are going.”
“Okay.”
As we just about to step onto the sand a Frisbee landed right in front of my foot. This was not a good sign it meant that the beach bullies were around. They always threw warning Frisbees. Since Aaron didn’t know about the beach bullies I explained that they were a group of four kids who tortured bigger kids that were on the beach. I also told him that one of the kinds was Jake. He was so surprised that he almost went and slapped him. But before he could I stopped him.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He really just hates me so he will get them to all follow us for like ten minutes but then he will leave.
“Okay if you say so.”
“Hey what are you guys doing on the beach?” Jake yelled at me.
“We’re hanging out, getting away from all the little ones.”
“Little ones? Who talks like that anymore?”
“Alright,” I yelled at him. “I do not want to deal with you right now. Just leave me alone. You think you and your little friends are so cool, but your not. Come on just leave us alone.”
“Oh now look who’s talking. You’re the one that’s not cool.”
“Oh yeah sure. I’m not cool,” I said to him. “I HATE YOU! You are so mean I wish you just weren’t in my life.”
“Whatever, your just acting like a baby right now I guess I will just leave you alone. I mean I didn’t you might go tell my mom. But she won’t really care so your in trouble.”

***

When we got home from the beach later that afternoon I went straight to my room to get my journal. Every time I have a really fun experience with Aaron, I have to write about in my journal while the memory is still fresh. When I got to my room and I went to grab my journal from the self but it wasn’t there. Oh that’s right, I left it on top of my dresser before I went to the beach. Oh my god. I left on the dresser, in the open, where anybody would have seen it and taken it. Oh god. This was bad, very, very bad.
Running down the stairs I started screaming, “Aaron, Aaron, Aaron come here I need you right now. AARON.”
“What is it kido?” he asked opening his door to see why I was screaming.
“Somebody stole my journal and I don’t know who.”
His face turned pale because he knew how much my journal meant to me. “It’s okay kido we will find it. I promise you we will figure out who stole it before two days pass. This will be the adventure we always used to act out when we were little.”
“Okay thank you so much, Aaron…Thank you thank you thank you…I Love you so much. You are the best person ever.” As I was telling him this I gave him a big no giant hug that added to my thank you.
“Okay,” he said as he started to walk towards the stairs. “First we are going to start by checking your room. There might be some clues that you might not have noticed because you were too worried. So come on let’s go.”
We started walking up the stairs then at a very slow pace. I don’t know if we were both scared of what we might find or if we were both trying to recover from the shock. I think it was both I couldn’t really tell because my feelings were very mixed up at the moment. As we approached the top of the stairs we stopped to calm ourselves down a little. We both took a couple deep breaths and then entered the room. We walked over to my bed and sat down. We both thought that it would be a good idea to look at the room from one point of view then go look at things more closely. After surveying the room for about three minutes Aaron got up and went over to my dresser. There he barley saw the corner of the piece of paper but he did see it so that was a start. The paper was under my jewelry box. Aaron took the paper out from under the box and brought it over to my bed. It sat down and handed it to me.
“I think that since it is your journal that this note is probably for you and that you should read it,” he said as he handed it to me.
“Oh thanks Aaron,” I said in a sarcastic tone. “It’s a real honor.
I opened the note and then turned it over so I couldn’t see the words. I took three deep breaths and then flipped it over. All it said was…
You will have to find your journal if you want it back, but for now be prepared to be humiliated.
“Oh great, now I’m going to be humiliated in front of my whole entire family,” I said to Aaron as he looked at me with a very puzzled look on his face.
“Come on, it won’t be that bad. I will help you get through this. Everything will be all right and we will find your journal.”
“Let’s make a list of who could have taken it. We know that it couldn’t have been any of the grown-ups because they are all out in town. So come on, help me think of everybody.”
“It also couldn’t be me because I was with you the whole time.”
“Well,” I said “It couldn’t have been Anna or Teddy because they love me to much. Also they wouldn’t be able to reach my dresser.”
“It couldn’t have been Mary, Robert, Ken or Liz because they were all at Mall shopping for more summer closes,” Aaron said.
“Also it couldn’t have been Mark or Zack because they have been at Jacob’s house since 3 this afternoon.” I told him. “And Kate and Jen have been at Marion’s house since
8 this morning.”
“All of this really helps me. I will go and work on it in my room right now and how about you go downstairs and get a snack so you can calm down,” Aaron said to me in a very loving voice.
“Again thank you so much,” I replied as I walked away.
I went down to the second floor and took a shower. When I don’t write in my journal I need to take a shower. Also I had just got back from the beach so I needed one. Once I got out I went to my parents’ room to watch TV. I usually went there because they have a big TV and they have an air conditioner in their room. I went to sit down on the bed when I noticed another note next to the door. I knew it was for me because it was folded the same way as the other one and it said JESSICA on the front of it. I opened it with one eye open then once I was ready I opened both eyes. It said…I will give you a hint… I am a boy with eyes a nose and a mouth…try that one out!
I ran back upstairs and right into Aaron’s room without even knocking.
“What is it,” he said with wide eyes.
“I found this note.”
“That is awesome,” he said, “Now we are down to two people Johnny and Jake.”
“This is going to be really easy,” Aaron said. “Because I am so much older than them I can just weasel it right out of them.” “But I also think that I know who it is. I think it is Jake because he is always sticking his nose in places he isn’t supposed to so he probably did it.”
“Will you please, please go check there room,” I asked him. I kind of knew he would say yes because he felt so bad for me but I still had to ask.
Already walking out the door he said “Of course I will.”