I stuffed my last t-shirt in my bag and sat down on the floor. I just finished packing for my month long stay at Tablerock Lake. We were leaving tomorrow morning, at around 10:00, or so. My parents were getting the house cleaned up a little, and packing some last minute stuff. My older brother, Aidan, was packing as well. It wasn't just the four of us going down there, my aunt and uncle and their kids had a room as well. I haven't seen them for five years, ever since my three oldest cousins, Isaac, Taylor, and Zac, got started in the music business. Yes, my cousins are Hanson. I've seen Jessie and Avery, but they were both pretty little. I've never met Mackie or Zoe. Aunt Diana and uncle Walker did send cards with a check inside them for our birthdays and Christmas, but it's not the same as seeing them and getting the present in person.
"Grace! Are you finished yet?" My mom called downstairs.
"Yeah!" I called.
"Did you remember to pack two nice outfits for the pictures?"
Whoops. "No, I haven't yet."
"Hurry up, Aidan's got his stuff down here already."
"The point is?" I muttered silently to myself. I pulled out two pairs of khaki pants and I took a sweater vest and a short-sleeved blue plaid shirt. I put them on hangers and in garment bags and took everything downstairs to Mom.
"Thanks, sweetie. Do you have your stuff for the car packed?"
"Most of it. I'm going to grab some other stuff later."
"Make sure you do."
"Do you need any other help?"
"No, I think we're good for now."
"Okay, then I'm going outside."
"All right."
I went past Mom and downstairs. I passed Aidan. He was wearing his glasses and intently concentrating on playing a piece of music on the piano. I didn't interrupt him. Playing the piano is a tradition in our family. I myself have been playing ever since I was 8 (I'm 15 now), but I'm nowhere near as serious about it as Aidan is.
I pushed open the sliding glass door and went outside. I ran up the hill and I sat on our porch swing. I gave myself a gentle push. I was thinking about my cousin Taylor. He's a year my senior. We've been writing letters back and forth for a long time. He sounds pretty nice. He sends me pictures of them, and aunt Diana always sends some to Mom (and Mom does the same), so I do know what they look like (the younger kids, I mean. I just have to open a magazine to see Zac, Taylor, or Isaac). It's been five years, though. Maybe they've changed. Maybe the letters are just a false front. Maybe...
"Gracie! What's up?"
"Not much, Mike." Mike Young is my best friend in the whole world.
"Getting ready for your trip?"
"Yeah."
"Don't worry, I'm sure your cousins'll be fine. It's only for a month."
"A month is a long time. It's 1/12 of a year."
"Still, they can't be that bad. You write to Taylor all the time, you've shown me letters. He seems like an okay guy."
"Yeah, but what if it's a false front?"
"Well, what if it isn't?"
"Thank you Mike, the optimist."
"I'm just trying to stop you from worrying. I'm gonna miss you while you're gone, Gracie."
"Don't worry, Mom said that you can still swim in the pool and jump on the trampoline while we're gone."
Mike's face brightened. "Okay, then in that case, have a good trip! Just kidding," he added when he saw my expression.
"Thanks."
"Hey, no problem. Wanna do something?"
"Sure, wanna swim?"
"Okay. Let me go home and change first."
"No, I was going to make you go skinny dipping."
"I'll be back." Mike ran off towards his house. I went back inside to go change. I met Mike back out in front after 5 minutes had passed. We went in the backyard. Aidan and his friend Matt were already there, jumping off the board. We played this game of catch, where you jump off the diving board and catch a ball, mid air. Matt won at that game. Then, we played a game where someone throws a ball at you, and you gotta try not to get hit or else catch it. Mike eventually won at that. We swam until 8:30 that night, then Matt went home and Aidan went inside. Mike and I dried off and lay flat on our backs on the trampoline. We looked at the sky, filling with stars.
"Stop thinking about your cousins, Gracie," Mike said.
"You know me too well," I replied.
"Seriously. Just wait till you meet them, then make your call."
"All right. I'll listen to you, just this once."
"Good." We listened to the crickets chirp for awhile.
"Grace? Will you write me?"
"Well yeah, sure Mike. I'll snail mail you a few letters."
"Okay. I'll write you too. Will you call?"
"Sure, if my parents let me."
"Okay. I'll try, too. I really will miss you, you know. Not just because of the pool and everything," he said with a half-grin.
"I hope not! Otherwise, I'd have to beat on you!" I said, grinning.
"Ooh, I'm scared," he taunted. We started play-fighting on the trampoline.
"What time are you guys leaving in the morning?" Mike asked, mid fight.
"Ten o'clock."
"I'll be there to see you off."
"You don't have to do that."
"Yeah I do."
We stopped bouncing, and then sat back down. Mike was about to say something, but was interrupted by my mother.
"Mike! Your mother just called. She wants you home!"
"Okay, thanks Mrs. Rapisardo!" Mike jumped off the trampoline. "I'll be by tomorrow morning, Grace. I promise."
"Thanks, but you don't have to."
Mike looked me in the eye. "Yes I do." He then turned and left.
* * * * * * * * * * *
I sat in my room, again. I packed up some things for the car trip. I get so bored if I don't have anything to do. I wanted to put a TV and VCR in the car, but Mom and Dad vetoed that idea. I thought it was a great one, personally. We were taking a VCR for the room, though. Mom said there was bound to be one rainy day while we were down there.
I heard a knock at the door. "Come in," I said. Aidan pushed the door open.
"Hey Gracie," he said.
"Hi Aidan. What brings you to my neck of the woods?"
"I came to ask you if you have your Wallflowers CD."
"I do have it."
"May I borrow it?"
"What do you need it for?"
"I just wanna listen to it."
"Okay." I handed him the CD. He said thanks and left. I followed him out of the room and went down the hall to the computer room. I flicked it on and got onto Hotmail. I e-mailed Taylor from my account.
"Hey Taylor, what's up? Not much here, I'm just writing one last letter and checking some e-mail before I must depart. I can't believe that we'll be seeing each other tomorrow, finally. I can't believe it's been 5 years. Are you all ready? I sure hope so. I just finished packing tonight. I started, too. How's everything going? Mike just left. He's going to see us off tomorrow. I can't believe that the vacation is already here. It seemed like yesterday (instead of 3 months ago) that my parents and your parents were talking about taking a vacation together. I bet you guys are glad to have the break. I would be, if I was travelling as much as you were. Aidan's listening to my Wallflowers CD in his room. Earlier, he had his friend Matt over, and the four of us played a game of catch off the diving board. Maybe there'll be a pool and a diving board where we're staying at. We can all play. - Gracie."
I clicked send and then gave the computer a few commands to shut itself down. I got up and stretched. I went to Mom and Dad's room, where I found the two of them climbing into bed. I crawled up on the bed and sat between them.
"Hi sweetie," Mom said, wrapping her arm around me.
"Hey champ, what's up?" Dad asked me.
"Not much. I just thought of something," I started.
"What did you just think of?" Dad asked.
"Dad, you know that laptop you got from work? The one you basically gave me because you have no clue how to use it?"
"Yes, I know that laptop. Not personally, though. We're just acquaintances."
"DAAD! You know what I mean. Can I take it with us on vacation?"
Dad looked at Mom. Mom shrugged. "I don't see why not. It'd give you something to do."
"I thought you would have already had it packed," Dad admitted.
"Cool! I just wanted to check. Thanks!"
"You're welcome. Now, go on to bed. It's going to be a big day tomorrow," Mom said.
"All right. Night Mom," I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"Night, lamb," she said giving me one back.
"Night Dad."
"Night champ. Sleep tight!"
"I will!" I bounded off their bed and shut the door behind me. I headed back upstairs. I noticed the light on in the computer room. Aidan was in there, surfing the web.
"Why are you using the computer in there? You have your own."
"My web browser isn't working. I wanted to see if this one would do any better."
"Oh okay. I'm going to get my Wallflowers CD, okay?"
"All right. Night Gracie."
"Night, Aidan." I went into his room and got my CD out of his CD player. I shut his door behind me and went back into my room. In case you were interested, the reason Aidan has his own computer and I don't is because when Dad gave me the laptop earlier this year, Aidan didn't get one, and they got him a computer for his own usage. He could have gotten a laptop, but he wanted a regular computer. Can't say that I blame him, although I love my laptop. I pulled if off of my closet shelf and set it next to my bookbag. I looked around my room. I had a set of bunkbeds in the far left corner, a mini basketball hoop over my closet door, a TV and VCR, a desk, a blow up couch and a beanbag chair, a huge bulletin board over my bed which displayed many different things, posters galore, and my trumpet case, resting in the other corner of my room. I admit it, I have an awesome room and I am spoiled rotten. I climbed into bed. I heard something rattling against my window. I went and checked. It was Mike, throwing pebbles at it. I opened my window.
"Mike, what do you want?"
"Don't you remember?" he asked plainly.
"Remember what?"
"What we were doing tonight."
"Oh yeah. I'll be right out." I threw on a pair of denim shorts and an oversized white t-shirt advertising Old Navy across the front of it in navy lettering. I pulled on these brown sandals I have and I carefully climbed out the window.
"Welcome," he said.
"Thanks, although I should be saying that to you since this is my own yard."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. What are we waiting for?"
"Lets go!" We ran back over to my trampoline. Mike and I were going to stay out as long as we could that night. We jumped and did a sumo-wrestling game we invented a few years ago on it. Then, we kicked a soccer ball back and forth. Mid kick, Mike stopped.
"What? What's wrong?"
"You want to do something really fun?"
"That depends, what?"
"Lets get our bikes, ride up to the nearest Walgreens, buy as much junk food as we can carry, then take it to the tree house."
"Excellent!" The tree house was a tree house that we built in the middle of Warson's Woods. Nobody knows about it, except for us. I grabbed my bike out of the garage, very quietly, and Mike got his out of his garage. We pedaled down our street and hung a right onto Woodbury. We kept riding until we approached the Walgreens. We locked our bikes on the bike rack and went inside. We bought plain M&M's, Twizzlers, Everlasting Gobstoppers, Sour Jacks, Gummi Bears, and two Mountain Dews to wash them down with. We took the plastic bags and threaded them through our handle bars. We then rode back to our house, but heading the opposite way down Woodbury. We cut through the Schultz's yard and headed back to the woods. We rode the familiar path and made it to the tree house. We loaded our arms with bags and took turns climbing up.
"Careful, Gracie," Mike warned.
I didn't answer him. I made it into the tree house, and then took a few bags from him and helped him up. We sat down in our tree house and spread out the snacks. I turned on a little radio we leave up there. They were playing a Third Eye Blind tune. We ate a few snacks and talked a little.
"What all are you going to do there?" Mike asked, reaching for some M&M's.
"Oh, tons of stuff," I said, stuffing a piece of licorice in my mouth. "We're going to Silver Dollar City at least one day, we'll go shopping, we'll go to a water park, we'll go see some shoot-out stuff which I really don't want to see, but it could be fun, we're going to rent a pontoon boat for a few days, we'll do some water sports, we'll go out to eat, we'll play miniature golf and drive go-karts, we'll have a lot of fun," I said. I noticed Mike looked sad.
"Mike, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just realized that I am going to miss you more than I thought," he said with a half grin. "I kinda wish I was going with you."
"I wish you were coming with us, but I'll call and write. I get to take the laptop down with me, we can talk on AOL every night if you want."
"It's not the same."
"Oh come on. You'll be hanging out with Brian, Chris, David, Emma, and Michelle so much you won't give me a second thought," I said. Brian, Chris, David, Emma, and Michelle are part of our group of friends.
"I know, but it won't be the same without you."
"Awww, do you need a hug?" I said teasingly but Mike nodded that he did. I moved closer to him and I wrapped my arms around him. He wrapped his around me. We held each other for a few minutes.
"Mike, you're going to turn me into a waterfall. We don't have to say good bye yet. I'm not leaving until tomorrow," I said.
"I know, but I want to get it out now," he said.
"All right. Just think of how much fun it'll be when I get back. I'll have all those stories to tell about my relatives and you can tell me what has happened here."
"Yeah," he said. We ate the rest of the snacks in silence.
"Hey, lets go swimming," I said suddenly.
"Your parents'll wake up. They'll hear us," Mike said.
"No, I'm talking about in the lake."
"The lake? Are you crazy?" Mike asked.
"No, I just want to have some fun."
"Do you have your suit on?"
"Whoops. And I can't go in these clothes."
"Exactly. Your mom'd kill you."
"Then I guess we'll have to take our chances at my house."
"Aww, come on Grace. We'll get caught."
"No we won't. Are you chickening out?"
"No, but.."
"Then lets go!"
"Okay!" Mike and I climbed out of the tree house. We pedaled our bikes back to my house. We parked them by the pool. I looked at him.
"Lets jump in!"
"You first!" he protested.
"All right," I said boldly. I jumped into the pool, not making too loud of a splash. Mike quickly followed. We swam semi quietly. I didn't even hear a stir from my house. We swam for awhile, then rode bikes around the subdivisions for us to dry off a little. When I looked at my watch, and it read 2:30, I knew it was time to go.
"Mike, we gotta go now. It's two thirty in the morning."
"Aw, man. I'll be over tomorrow to see you off," he promised.
"And what time are we leaving at?"
"Ten o'clock!" he said proudly.
"You got it!" I said with a grin. Mike rode with me back to my house.
"See ya later," he said.
"Bye! Thanks for coming."
"It was fun. I'll definitely see you tomorrow," he said. With that, he rode off again. I climbed up on the air conditioning vent, pulled myself up on the window ledge, and used my strength to pull myself into my window. I put on some dry clothes. Instead of climbing into bed, I went to my movie case. I pulled out "Tulsa, Tokyo, and the Middle of Nowhere." I sat on the blow-up couch and I watched my three cousins on the TV, again. I turned on "Road to Albertane" and climbed into bed. I said my prayers and immedietely fell asleep.
Chapter 2
Vacation
Kelly's Hanson Stories
