Inspired by ‘The House on Mango Street’

Cora Connolly—Honorable Mention, Glimmerglass Festival Youth Writing Competition
Grade 7, Home Study, Cooperstown Central School District

This is the third state I’ve lived in, fourth town, fifth move, sixth house. I like that the numbers march perfectly in a row, without any gaps. And I like reciting them to people and hearing them say “Wow” because it is “wow,” even if it’s not always a “wow” I’m fond of.

This house still isn’t permanent. We’ve been here 11 months and the rent is too expensive and we’re moving. It’s five miles from town, too many miles for me. Town is Cooperstown, New York, where I’ve always wanted to live. Before it was Vermont for 10 years, two towns, and four houses, and before that it was Virginia for almost three years and one house.

This house is a duplex we share with a doctor whose apartment is the same as ours except it’s only him in all that space of kitchen-dining room, living room, three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and in ours it’s Mom, Dad, our cat Santiago, and me.

To me, this house is a luxury. To my parents, it’s a Lego house with unneeded space.

The outside of the house is flat and gray-green and looks like an office building, at least until we moved in and with us our shoes and chairs and potted plants.

The doctor has one garage on his side and one on our side for his other car, a fancy sports car.

Before arriving, I’d only heard descriptions, and I fantasized about the long, winding driveway and big, open lawn of Arundel, the estate in my favorite book. But it’s not Arundel. Yes, the driveway’s long. And the lawn is big, but scrubby and often too long for soccer. It gives way to a meadow of milkweed and goldenrod that I’ve dubbed Firefly Meadow, for the hundreds of blinking fireflies I could see while looking down on it from my bed on summer nights.

It’s basically treeless and birdless here, except for the crows chorusing loudly at six in the morning. Rabbits and deer are everywhere, and we’ve seen foxes, a bobcat, and a coyote. We’re surrounded by horses, and our closest neighbor is a kind older lady with two gray-bearded dogs smaller than Santiago who greet us each walk to our mailbox.

The inside of the house is modern; curtains that looked like they belonged in a hotel were on most windows until my parents immediately buried them in a closet and put up a pair of our 10-year-old water-stained ones.

My bedroom is the best I’ve ever had. It’s big and light, with two windows, and the way I’ve decorated it feels like me.

Half my once-perfect list will change, with a sixth move and seventh house. It’ll be a much smaller apartment, the second floor to ourselves in a house with two apartments downstairs. The rent won’t be so expensive. It’s walkable to the village with soccer fields just down the street. I think I’ll still like my bedroom.

Chances are, it still won’t be permanent.