Short Story Time #1: "Young Cardinals"

A short story I recently wrote and posted on my Deviantart account. I don't think it's the best writing I've ever done. Plus, it's romantic, which means I basically left my "man card" at the door while writing this. But it was an idea I've had for a long time. In fact, it started out as an idea for a film. So I basically tried to put some ideas down from the framework instilled in my memory. This piece will continue to evolve, because I plan to revise it continually in order for it to be a better piece:

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The diesel-fueled bombast of Ryders and U-Hauls woke David Procnahl instead of the usual sound of cardinals perched in the large oak outside his bedroom window. She arrived without fanfare in August 1994, the new girl next door, skipping playfully out of her car and into the glass-faced doorway of her new life. A permanent smile glued on her face, Amber Pauley was an innocent girl in those days, a future teacher, the next Prime Minister of Canada, Ben Savage's biggest fan, an expert in geography who could name nearly every country in the Western Hemisphere by heart if she so desired. She had many friends in Moncton and cried when she had to leave them all for a strange new British Columbian existence. Although she heard Daddy would be happier there and meet new friends of his own at his new job. Mommy, of course, adored their new house and promised Amber a bigger bedroom with her own television. All she had to do was be a big girl, at least for a little while.

Her long, brown hair bounded on her thin shoulders as she ran into her empty future. The house was barren, boring. Nothing except for slippery wooden floors and a cavernous echo bouncing off every white wall and ceiling in sight. Her pale, pudgy face morphed into a spunky pout, raven-eyed and disappointed. She turned around and ran outside the front door. And saw her new neighbor, a skinny, sand-haired kid of about six, still in his pajamas, standing directly in front of her doorway. She jumped six feet into the air and landed like a cat with two legs. He smiled.

"Heh-low," his Charlie Brown voice said. Amber was frozen in fright. Who was this strange boy? She couldn't move. They stood, facing one-another in awkward silence. A look of confusion crept up from behind the boy's freckles and messy red hair. "Heh-low?"

The word, without thought, emerged out of Amber's open lips in a soft ribbon. "Hey." Her face turned tomato red and she relaxed. "Sorry."