MOVING OUT - PACKING

"You don't really want to move out, do you?" Mum asked.
I sighed to myself. Today was the day I was finally moving out and into somewhere where I could become more independent. I thought that Mum totally supported the idea, but now I wasn't so sure.
"Don't be silly, Mum," I answered. "I've been wanting to move out for ages. I thought you supported the idea. You was the one who rang up Social Services."
""It's okay, Chantelle," Mum said. "I was only joking."
I wasn't sure that wasn't true. All my life, I've totally depended on my mum. I've never really been sure of myself. I mean, I could cook dinners if it was only dinner for myself, and I could hop into town on the bus on my own, but I've always relied on Mum to sort me out if I got into a spot of bother. One day, I had told her I wanted to move out; learn to be more independent, and she rang up Social Services to sort it out. The Social Worker who was dealing with us had found a nice, quaint little bungalow where people like me could go and live and be taught to be more independent. We have to pay bills, do shopping, cook dinner for everyone. But we get left to our own devices.
Already, it was the day that I was moving out, and Mum and I were in my bedroom packing my possessions into large cardboard boxes. I already had filled one up with books and CD's, and another with videos and DVD's. I was right now filling another up with my clothes, but I was only halfway and already the box was crammed.
"Mum, I need another cardboard box," I told her.
“I don’t think I’ve got anymore,” she replied. “I’ll just go into the attic to look.”
I watched her leave my room to go to the attic. Then I heard the ladder coming down and then she creaked up it into the attic.
I sat down on my bed to wait for her. I started to think what it would be like to actually live somewhere without Mum around. I had slept away from home before, but that was just sleepovers at friends’ houses or on school trips to Disneyland or whatever. But that was usually the coarse of a few nights, not permanently. I was feeling excited that day last week when I was told that they had accepted me. There was me and two other people who wanted to move into the place, but I was the one they’d liked to move in. But now it was finally happening, I was feeling kind of nervous, and I wasn’t so sure I did want to move out after all.
I couldn’t really let on to Mum because right now it felt like all she was doing was trying to stop me from moving out. When I’d told her I wanted to move out, it took her at least two weeks to actually even get round to calling up Social Services. And then the Social Worker called out to talk with me. I say it was me, but it was actually Mum who did most of the talking. She kept on about how I couldn’t do this and I may need help with that, that sort of rubbish. The Social Worker kept asking me questions about myself, but Mum would butt in before I’d get a chance to talk. In the end, the Social Worker had to resort to asking Mum for a cup of coffee so I could answer them myself.
Even now that Mum was up in the attic looking for another cardboard box she was taking forever. It was possible she was genuinely looking for one but to me it felt like she was taking her time deliberately so she could come back and say she couldn’t find one.
I heard her come thundering down the ladder and towards the stairs. “Mum, have you got a cardboard box yet?” I shouted out.
“Just a sec!” I heard her shout back. “I have to do something first!”
‘Yeah, to ring them up and say I can’t come after all,’ I thought bitterly to myself.
I heard her come running back up the stairs and back up the attic ladder.
I wondered what on Earth she was doing. Did she find a box and was looking for somewhere to hide it?
“Chantelle?” I jumped and turned. Mum was standing in the doorway, clutching a cardboard box. “I’ve got you a box.”
“Okay, bring it over here,” I popped off the bed and over to where my clothes sat waiting for me to carry on packing them.
As I carried on packing, I thought I’d ask mum:
“Look Mum, are you alright with me moving out?”
“Well, if it’s what you want, darling, then yeah, of course I am.” She frowned at me. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that you keep asking me if I really want to move out and it’s got me thinking that perhaps you’re not fine with it.”
“Oh, Chan Chan, of course I’m fine with you moving out. I was just kidding around.”
It didn’t twig what she said for a couple of minutes and then I just stopped and looked at her.
“What is it, darling?”
“Chan Chan?”
Mum looked at me, confused. Then: “Oh! While I was up in the attic I found your baby box.”
“My baby box!”
“Yeah, when you was a baby I saved most of your stuff. The dress you wore. The first painting you did at nursery. The first copy of “The Little Mermaid” you owned.”
“What was my first painting?”
“It was one of me, when you was two, and you’d painted underneath, Mummy, love Chan Chan.”
“Chan Chan?”
“Yes, when you was younger, you couldn’t say your name properly, you would only repeat the first syllable twice. So I would call you Chan Chan.”
Then it started coming back to me. I started to get visions of being really small, really tiny, and being held in someone arms, and being told; “I love you, Chan Chan.” That someone must have been Mum.
“What will you do with the baby box once I move out?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve relabelled it. Called it; “MEMORIES OF CHANTELLE.”
At these words I felt a lump in my throat. I started to feel guilty that I ever thought Mum didn’t want me to move out, and renaming this baby box meant she really did support me in wanting to move out.
“Oh, Mum,” I sniffed, and I reached over to hug her. “I love you, Mum.”
“I am supporting you in moving out. I think it will be great for you to learn how to be independent. I love you too, Chan Chan.”

The End by Charlene Samm.