Stranded Hope

Stranded Hope: Chapter 1

Setting: July 21, 2003

New York City, New York, 1:25 P.M

There is no clouds in the sky, the sun is shining bright on a nice warm day.

At the dock is many ships, but we are only traveling one.

Our family is too poor to fly overseas so we asked some of our friends if we could have some money to take a trip.

They offered us some money just enough for this vacation.

We haven't had one in years.

My name is Josh.

I am 12 and a half years old.

My brother, Carson, is 9 and almost into double digits.

My parents are John and Ashley, but I call them mom and dad.

That makes up the Andersen family.

We are at a dock to get ready to go overseas and I am very excited!

I have never been overseas before.

My brother is the same way too.

"I can't wait!", he said.

Everyone could tell he was excited, especially my parents.

The captain is now allowing passengers to come on board.

When we walked aboard the ship, we ran into the captain.

The captain introduced himself, and he had a deep voice and he was tall.

"I am Captain Henry, pleasure to meet you," he said to us.

"Hello sir, my name is John Andersen and this is the my wife, Ashley, and our two sons, the older one is Josh and the younger one is Carson," said my dad trying to be confident in himself.

"Well then, welcome aboard!" said the captain.

We walked on board and looked around, the ship was really big and there was so many things to look at. We found our room and it wasn't too bad.

It was about the size of a school classroom.

It had one bed and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and a shower.

We could live with it.

But, my parents weren't too pleased with it.

Just the feeling of going overseas takes the thought of the room away.

We explored the place a little but when the captain made the announcement that we were departing in half an hour, Carson and I prepared to head back.

When we began to head back I accidentally bumped into a kid my age and he spilled his smoothie.

I gasped and went immediately to the floor and picked up as much as I could and gathered up a handful of glass and got a few napkins to dry up the spill and stood up.

"I am really sorry, it was an accident and I hope that your not upset," I said.

He said to me,"It's ok, thank you for cleaning it up, I appreciate it, do you want to go to pool table and we can play 1v1?

"Sure let's go, but watch the time cause I have to be back in my room in about 10 minutes ok?"

"Got it," he said and we started to walk off to the pool table.

It turns out he was really good and I'm glad I had a competitive match.

I took every chance I could to win but I lost 2 games to 1.

Then before I knew it I needed to check the time.

"Hey, can you check the time?" I said.

He peeked at his watch.

"It's been 12 minutes since we started playing," he said.

"Oh crud!" I exclaimed.

"I have to go now, see you later," saying as I was running the other way. "Oh, one more thing!" I said as I stopped.

"What's your name?" "Ethan," he said and we took off different directions.

I later met up with Carson who was at least twice as much ahead of me.

When we got to the room my mom said," Just in time, the captain is about to give the announcement, where have you guys been?"

"Just looking around, nothing bad or anything," I said.

"Yeah," Carson said awkwardly.

"Hello everyone, this is your captain speaking, we are now beginning to depart, thank you for your cooperation and we hope you enjoy the ride, thank you," said the captain from a speaker in our room.

I guess everyone had a speaker in their room.

But now we are ready to embark on a journey.