Sitting on my front porch, I cuddled my Angel plushie. Brown cardboard boxes were piled up around me, making me feel like I was a princess within a castle. Some might call that ridiculous, but with what’s going on right now, I don’t care. Labels were stuck onto every box, big and obvious, and although I was almost twelve years old, I couldn’t read a thing. The letters jumped at me, mocking me, telling me what everyone’s been telling me for about half a year; You’re moving…

My father came out of the house, lugging the rest of the boxes in his big, strong arms. My mother was across the street trying to help our neighbors come to an agreement. Being Taiwanese-American, we could all speak Chinese, Taiwanese, as well as English. It really came in handy when neighbors that couldn’t speak each other’s language get into fights. The second her shoulders relaxed, I knew she had solved the problem, but that also meant we would be leaving soon. The UHAUL truck had come half an hour before and was helping us move everything into it.
My friends had come the day before and had given me goodbye gifts. Amanda had given me a scrapbook kit and a cheap camera. Meena had given me a necklace with the first letter of my name, V, which stood for Vera. She always said it was a special name. Then there was Holly, who has been one of my closest friends since preschool. She handed me a box. Inside it, was the Angel plushie. She knew I loved the Stitch series and that the only plushie I didn’t have, was Angel. “Take good care of her Vera. And remember your friends in the states. Come back soon and we’ll have more play dates! Hey look that rhymed!” Close to tears, I hugged my friends and said I’d try to come back every summer and visit them.
Snapped out of my reverie by the violent rumble of the truck starting up, I realized I had been crying. Salty tears slid down my cheeks like a waterfall that just wouldn’t stop. The boxes piled around me were gone and I felt unsafe once again. My dad was gently pushing me towards the shuttle as I glanced at the house once again. The one-story house had been my home for my entire eleven and a half years and it held so many different memories. I remember running through the kitchen in my kindergarten Halloween costume, pretending to be Tinker Bell as I sprinkled ripped up paper all over the ground. “Daddy look! I’m sprinkling pixie dust! Now everything in the kitchen can fly!” Or that one time when I accidentally spilled cake batter all over the floor and had started crying. “Mommy I’m sorry! I spilled everything on the floor! WAHHHHHHH!” We got it cleaned up in the end, and she even made me a special cake even though I had caused such a mess. The house was so special to me that I couldn’t leave without making a mark on it. I begged my dad to let me run back in and do something and of course, he let me. Grabbing my super-special-magic purple marker, I raced back into the house and up the stairs into my room. In the far corner where possibly no one would ever see it, I wrote down; Vera loves this house. Take care of it.
Running back down the stairs and out of the house, I was met with the arms of my father and mother. “We know you’re going to miss this house and your friends but just think of how many friends you’ll make in Taiwan! I know you’re a very social person so it’s going to be all right! We also managed to get a very pretty house so I’m sure you’ll love it. Plus, you already know both Chinese and Taiwanese! This will be a cinch for you!”
“Sure mom…” I looked down at the ground with uncertainty, but then looked down at my Angel plushie. It was as if all my friends were staring at me through her sewn in eyes and nodding at me, urging me to go on. I knew that my life wouldn’t be over because of this move and that I could always come back to the states and talk to them, at the expense of my parents of course. And who knows? I really might make quite a few friends.