A Diamond in the Rough: Chapter 1

[I'm finally posting :D
Oh, and for any words in this story that aren't English, I didn't type them using my knowledge. I got them from Google Translate, which may put out words that say they have a certain meaning but sometimes have a different meaning, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong on any not-English words in this story. Thank you for understanding, and if you don't understand what I'm talking about, please comment down below and I'll try to make it clear. Thanks again!]



I sigh, nodding my head towards my mother questioningly.

"Anything yet?" I hear myself say, but I already know the answer. She shakes her head and looks down gloomily. I glance behind us and see cars racing past and people walking by. It's a common sight from where my family lives.

I live with my mother, father, little brother and a pet cockroach called Pete. We live on the streets. Yes, that also means we're homeless. And hungry. And cold. And sick. And sad and lonely.

Nobody will talk to us, either. Once, I tried to tell a random passerby that me and my family are scared. I wanted to tell him we needed just a few dollars to get into a homeless shelter so we could be treated and fed and so we could sleep more comfortably than sleeping on newspapers and cans. I wanted to tell him all that, but I was panicking and worried and all that came out of my mouth was, "Help me, please." He made a face at me and walked away, muttering something like, "Stupid beggars." That guy must've said things about us, because now, when we are sitting in our home (An alleyway) doing nothing but staying together to keep warm, other people who just-so-happen to look at us make the same face he made and walks away with a scowl, frown or sneer.

Right...information about my family and me. My Mother's name is Skönhet, which is Swedish for 'beauty.' She was originally from Sweden, but then traveled to America and met my father. Then they got married. Skönhet has a loving personality, but at times she breaks. Sometimes, but very rarely, she yells at other people passing by us. She yells at them in Swedish, in words I don't understand. Skönhet also yells at them in English, but that's also kinda rare for her to do. She knows more of her Swedish language than she knows of her English. So, anyways, she's very loving and would sometimes give up the greatest things we've ever had to us. I vaguely remember her giving up a loaf of bread she bought with what money we found on the streets to us, and didn't eat any. Instead, she went to a lake and filled up on that. Sometimes I fear she'll starve. Skönhet has a calm temper, but as I said, she tends to break at times. She is stronger than other women I know, but she isn't strong like those female athletes. She's strong as in protecting us, like Skönhet could knock out a man in a few punchs if they hurt us - at least, that's what she tells me. Her parents were also right to call her 'Skönhet,' because she really is beautiful. Her eyes are bright blue and her lips are just the right natural shade of pink to make it look like she's wearing lipstick all the time. But she can't afford lipstick, or any kind of makeup for that matter. Her hair is a light blonde and her facial structure is round, with no seeable cheek bones and a small nose and ears.

Now my father. He is originally from America. His name is Jonathan Goldmann. He's also kind, but he gets frustrated more easily and is only ever happy when it's a holiday or something good happens, like when we get enough money to buy food. He doesn't yell at people like mother does, but occasionally he'll insult them for not helping us, or when THEY insult US, which doesn't help the situation we're in at all. But besides his rough exterior, I know he's a good man at heart. Mother told me that when my brother wasn't born yet, I was just a baby, and father and mother weren't homeless. She told me that father would give money to the homeless and would sometimes give store clerks nice compliments and would promise they'd see him at their store again some day. But she also told me that he never expected he'd someday be homeless, living off rotten scraps of food and dirty water. Jonathan has dark brown hair and green eyes and pale skin. His nose and ears are average-sized.

Now my little brother. His name is Richard. He has fun playing with Pete and I warn him to be careful not to squish him or something. Richard also has fun counting how many blue cars he can see driving across the streets. Being only a little kid, he cannot buy stuff unless Skönhet is with him. Richard has a nice and calm personality, and is easily entertained. But for a child his age, he's smarter than normal. I think he's about 15% smarter than other kids his age. He knows that we only need food and shelter and if there's a fire we need to stop, drop and roll, and that if a bad man tried to come and hurt you or steal you, you should try to call for help, and if that doesn't work, fight back unless they have a gun, and then if they do, you try to escape when they're asleep. At least, that's what we were taught by mother and father. Richard is blonde like mother and has light brown eyes. His nose is small like mother's but his ears are average-sized like father's.

And now there's me. I'm Jewel. I have black hair and violet eyes, with the same facial structure as my mother, yet I have average-sized ears like my father. My personality is...well, I guess it's what you see now. Sometimes calm and sometimes excited, at other times angry and sometimes sad. I'm not so easily entertained if it something that I already know or stuff that isn't that exciting, but I do get entertained at least. Me and Richard play games. I play that blue car game with him sometimes. Tag, Hide-and-Seek, Hopscotch, Make-Funny-Faces, Try-to-make-the-other-person-laugh, etc. It's stuff me and him do when we're bored or when mother and father tell us to 'go play.' So anyways, Skönhet is trying to teach me to speak Swedish because she dreams I'll be able to visit Sweden one day, and if that never comes, I'll still at least know a different language. It's hard to explain all the words she taught me so far, so I won't list them.

So as I was saying earlier, 'me and my mother were searching for leftover food in dumpsters. I asked her if there was anything she found so far, but she shook her head and looked down gloomily'. I sigh. This is what happens almost every single day. Just as I was about to turn around and head back to our 'home' in the alleyway, I see Pete crawl out from under the dumpster.

"Pete!" I gasp. "You're here! I thought you went missing, little guy!" Pete's antennae twitched. I lower my hand and point out my index finger, making the tip touch the ground. Pete uses his antennae to... 'sniff' my hand and crawls onto my finger, then proceeds to crawl up my arm until he's standing on my shoulder. I follow mother until I reach Father and Richard. My little brother was making his name out of sticks and Father was sitting in a ball-shape, his legs folded up, his arms over his legs and his head resting on his knees. We were all wearing worn-down clothes we wore for years over and over again, ever since we started being homeless. We never had enough money to buy new clothes, so we just wore them as we got into the water - it washed the clothes AND ourselves, but not completely.

Richard looks up at me and smiles a little when he sees Pete, but continues to make his name out of sticks instead. I look at my mother and she nods, so I walk over to him and watch him play with sticks. I sit in an Indian-style fashion with my right elbow on my right knee and my hand on the right side of my face. When he's finished, he looks up at me and I smile widely. Then he looks down at his "project" and gets up, being very, very careful while walking around it. I do the same.

I look at my shoulder and I realize Pete isn't there. I look behind me and I see him crawl away from me, going under the dumpster again. Sighing, I ignore him. He's a cockroach, he isn't a pet cat or something.

Richard goes over and sits on a curb. "Wanna see how many blue cars are in the streets, Jewel?" I nod. We start counting. This time we timed it to see how many blue cars you can find within 5 minutes. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11...12...13...

"TIME!" He whispers loudly to me, scaring me and making me flinch. I push him playfully - but softly - with a grin and he does too when I look at his face. Richard starts counting. In my head, I'm counting to '60' 5 times. After that, I nudge him and he groans.

"How many did you get?" I ask him.

"17."

"Aww, you won!" I say with a laugh. "I got 13." I give him a penny. Richard holds it in his hand and tosses it back to me.

"No bets this time. This was just for fun. It was fun, right, sis...?" He has an unsure smile on his face and I smile and nod once again.

All of a sudden, I hear people screaming. Thousands of people are cheering, yelling out stuff like "You rock!" and stuff like that. I gasp and smile widely when I look back at Richard, and he's doing the same thing.

I look ahead and see a large, shiny, black limousine driving slowly around the curb. It stops on the other side of the street in front of an expensive restaurant. When a man and a woman walk out, I see them clearly. The woman is a famous singer named Julia Smith. She's pale with a white, tight dress that stops just above her knees and starts below her clavicle. Her sleeves are short. She has black hair in a high bun. She has very pretty makeup.

Beside her is a man in a tuxedo. I already know his name. He's a rich movie star coming to town. His name is Joshua Howelenn. He's tan and has short, brown hair that's curved back with some gel. I can see it shine. His tuxedo is pitch black with a white undershirt and a black tie.

I look behind me and I see Richard with his mouth open. I know exactly how it feels, to be so poor but to have a famous and rich couple across the road from you. I stand up and stretch. There's now a crowd of people around them, and security guards are pushing people back. The crowd is so large that it's covering the entire road. I walk back to where father and mother are sitting. Mother looks up at me.

"Yes?" She replies. Both my smile and my eyes are wide.

"Can we go join the crowd?" I point over to the large group. Mother's eyes widen. She gasps and stands up, grabbing me by the shoulders and putting me behind her.

"No, of course not!" She's having a worried look and it looks like she was just scared to death. "Where's your brother?"

I point over to where we were sitting, but he isn't there anymore. Instead, I see him trying to push himself around people to get to the front row of the crowd. Mother shrieks and puts her hands to her mouth and I yell, running over to where Richard is. But before I get there, he's finally inside the crowd. I try and do the same, pushing and shoving to get to him...

...and I don't make any progress. The crowd is too tight for me to squeeze through. But I have an idea. Nobody gets between me and my brother.  I smirk, getting ready for my plan to get through.