Claire Emerson

One

It was a bright Saturday morning. The Emerson clan were headed to the Coast to move in with their grandfather who was letting them live with him after his daughter divorced her husband.

Claire could smell the ocean air and for a split second it was pleasing until nothing but fish hit her nose. She scrunched it up in disgust and scooted away from the window so their dog Nanook could stick his head out.

The car ride mainly consisted of the three Emerson siblings sleeping while their mother was driving. Claire and her twin brother Michael offered to drive but their mom had some kind of personal rule against letting her children drive her around.

Claire could see the Santa Carla sign in her sights and she hit Michael and pointed to it just as her mom spoke.

"Hey, we're almost there."

"Oh, what's that smell?" Sam asked with a frown on his face. Since both of the back windows of the car were down the smell of the ocean was floating into the car quickly.

Their mother took a deep breath and let it back out with a sigh of happiness.

"Ah! That's the ocean air." She told Sam.

"It smells like someone died." He shot back at her.

"Look, guys, I know that the last year hasn't been easy but, I think you're really gonna like living in Santa Carla." She spoke to her children trying to lighten the mood.

Michael and Claire looked at each other and sighed silently. They knew their mother wanted this to work out for the family for now. The divorce took a toll on them but no matter what is thrown in their path they're always stronger together.

Michael's head turned and looked to the back of the Santa Carla sign when he noticed a bunch of graffiti on it. The biggest writing was 'The Murder Capitol of the World.' This seemed strange to him but he just brushed it off. Probably a reasonable explanation for these things.

The rest of the car ride consisted of listening to music and the siblings looking around at everyone in town as they passed by. Eventually the family had to stop for gas so Sam and Nanook took off near the beach while Michael, Claire and Lucy fixed the luggage to make sure everything was still in place and fill up the tank.

After a few minutes Sam and Nanook came back running up to their mother. Sam was a bit out of breath but he wanted to tell his mom and siblings what he had found. "Mom! Twins! There's an amusement park right on the beach!" He said excitedly.

"Yeah Sammy. Some places have that." Claire rolled her eyes with a smirk as her younger brother looked up at her with a fake glare.

"Oh hush you." He snapped back to her causing Claire to laugh with Michael.

"Sam, tell those kids to get something to eat." Lucy told her youngest son as she pointed to some kids. Claire followed her mom's hand and noticed there were two kids digging into a garbage can and pulling out left overs. Sam took the money from his mom and walked over to the two.

Michael pulled out his motorcycle and asked Claire if she wanted hers as well. Claire politely refused and went to stand with her mother and wait for Sam to come back. Claire and Michael had gotten motorcycles because Michael thought they were cool. Since his twin and himself get along so well he thought he would teach her to ride one too and of course she refused at first but after a week of Michael begging her to learn she did so unwillingly. So now they both had motorcycles.

The family got back into the car and headed out to their grandpa's house to get settled in. They had a long car ride and Claire was more than ready to unpack so she could relax and settle into her new home.