I still remember the first time that I met Alex. It was around eight years ago, when we were seven, well it was my birthday in a week but we were still seven. My mom had walked into my room and told me that we had new neighbours and we were going to say hello to them. So I put my shoes on, my mom tied the laces up for me, and we left the house. We walked to the front of the house next door to mine and mom knocked on the door. A few seconds later and lady answered the door with a boy about my age hiding behind her with his arms wrapped around her left leg.“Imogen this is Alex.” The lady said as she moved out of the way so that I could see Alex. He had light brown hair and brown eyes. The lady must have invited mom inside because she walked in so I walked in with her. “My name’s Isobel and I’m Alex’s mom.” The lady said, holding out her hand for me to shake it. Instead of shaking her hand I gave her a giant hug. “I’m Imogen.” I said with a giant smile. “Alex why don’t you go and show Imogen your room.” Isobel suggested. Alex removed himself from Isobel’s leg and held his hand out for me.
I placed my hand in his and we began to make our way up the stairs. It was a big staircase and we were eight years old so it took us a good few minutes to get up there. Alex pushed open the door to his room and walked over to the corner of his room where he had an orange guitar. “My brother Tom is teaching me how to play it.” Alex said with a smile. “You wanna meet him?” Alex asked. I nodded my head so he held my hand again and we walked out of his room and to the room next to his. Alex pushed open the large oak door to his room [back then it was too big for his tiny arms to open it by themselves] and a person on the other side of the room opened the rest of the door up for him.
The first thing that I noticed was the sound of someone singing ‘I talk to you every now and then, I never felt so alone again’; little did I know that I was going to end up loving that band to bits. Alex walked over to his brother’s bed and sat beside him. “Tom this is Imogen, she’s our new neighbour.” I still remember Alex struggling to say the word ‘neighbour’ at first. “Hi Imogen, I’m Tom, Alex’s older brother.” Tom smiled. He was about thirteen when I first met him. “So do you have any favourite bands?” He asked. I shook my head, not knowing what a band was. The word was foreign to me.
Tom walked over to a bookcase and grabbed a few CD cases and spread them out on his bed. I went and sat by Alex who looked really interested in what was put in front of him. “Pick one and I’ll play it.” Tom said as he motioned his hand to the CDs in front of me and Alex. The first one that caught my eye was a CD with a black cover. It had a white hand holding a heart grenade with some words on the front. “I like this one.” I said pointing to the newly discovered album. “I’ll just got and see if your mom will let you listen to it, I’ll be back in a minute.” Tom walked down the stairs, leaving Alex and I in his room.
“So do you have an older brother or sister?” Alex asked me. I shook my head. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.” Sometimes it got a little boring not having any brothers or sisters but I didn’t have to fight over anything with anyone so sometimes it was a good thing. Tom walked back through the door and sat in between Alex and I. “Your mom said that you could listen to it as long as you don’t repeat any of the bad words.” Tom explained. Alex and I nodded our heads and Tom began to play the CD.
A few days after I had met Alex and Tom I was making my mom buy me the CD with the bad words on it. She took me to the music store and held up albums until we found the one with the heart grenade on it, just like Tom’s. I listened to that album every single day.
Alex had started at my primary school not long after he’d moved in next door. Alex said that he wanted to make his own friends and he eventually did. Jack and Rian. Jack was a year younger that Alex was but the two of them got along surprisingly well. Rian had another friend called Zack that lived down his street but he went to a different school so Zack didn’t hang around with them at school. I had my own friends as well; Alex didn’t really want to meet them so we kind of separated ourselves at school.
On a Wednesday I would go over to Alex’s house and we would sit in Tom’s room with him and listen to music. This week it was Alex’s turn and he picked out a CD with an explosion on the front of it that had planes flying around it. Tom happily put the CD on play and the three of us sat there and did our homework. Alex and I only had spelling words but Tom was doing his algebra homework. He had tried to teach Alex and I some of it once but we didn’t understand it so we gave up.
On a Friday Alex would sleep over at my house. We would watch movies and eat popcorn and ice cream until we were tired enough to fall asleep on the couch. My mom came and put a blanket on us because she didn’t want to wake us up. When we woke up the next morning Alex met my dad for the first time. My dad was never around much because he was always out on work business but he seemed to think that Alex was a pretty cool kid and he got along really well with Mr Gaskarth.