Summer - Short Story

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I threw my covers off of me and sprang up in bed. Glancing at my clock, I remembered why I chose to wake up early and slammed the off button to silence it.

I jumped off of my bed and walked to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth quickly and brushed out my shoulder length blond hair. I left it down and rushed out into my room.

Taking off my pajamas, I put on a strappy coral swim top with plain black swim shorts and placed a sheer white cover-up on top. I looked at myself in the mirror and then at my clock.

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a cereal bar, and kept running out into the morning air. The dawn sky was a beautiful shade of pale pink and orange and the air was warm. A light breeze lifted my hair and cooled me off. A perfect last day of summer vacation, I thought.

Tearing the cereal bar wrapper, I looked around for my surfboard. It was propped up against the side of my family's beachfront bungalow. I took a bite of my snack and went over to grab my board.

I threw out the empty wrapper in a garbage can and dropped my cover-up on the sand as walked onto the beach with my surfboard under my arm. I walked into the sea and put my board in the water beside me. I kept walking until the water reached my waist and then I jumped onto my board and lay on my stomach, paddling forwards with my arms and hands.

I looked behind me and saw the shore about 100 meters away with the small waves crashing onto the sand. I turned back around and saw something in the water. It's either a shark or a dolphin, but I'm hoping it isn't the first one, I thought. After all I had gone out at 6am to go look for dolphins swimming around, and my parents said that sharks are very rare in these waters.

Suddenly, I saw a light gray fin come towards me and my heart lurched. I curled up into a sitting position and got my arms out of the water. I froze, waiting for something to happen. The fin disappeared under water and I looked around frantically, unsure of what to do.

Abruptly, a gray dolphin squealed and leaped out of the water, splashing me.

My body loosened and I was no longer filled with the fear from moments ago. Another dolphin jumped out of the dark blue water and disappeared underwater as fast as it had come.

I could finally check "go dolphin watching early in the morning" off my mental bucket list for this summer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a considerably large wave come near my board and I quickly went back onto my stomach and propelled myself towards it. The wave built up and the crest crashed beside me and I stood up to ride the rest of the wave back to shore. What an eventful morning, I thought.

Just as I neared the beach, my board slipped from under my feet and I fell headfirst into the shallow water. My head hit the sand with a thud and my elbows and knees dug into the grainy sand painfully.

"Ow," I mumbled incoherently as I pushed myself up and out of the water. I looked around for my surfboard, and found it in my friend Caleb's hands.

He stood a few feet away from me and seemed to be laughing his head off.

"To think that you won the Orange Coast Junior Surfing Championships a month ago!" he kept laughing loudly.

"Shut it Sanders, or I'll throw you to the sharks, that's a promise," I glared straight at him.

"Whoa, I'm sorry for laughing at you Sam but you looked funny falling on your face!" Caleb reasoned.

"If you want to look at something funny, look in a mirror," I grabbed the board from him.

"Oh, you just got burned!" Jackson, Caleb's immature best friend yelled from Caleb's porch. Jackson and Caleb's families were very close and they shared a beach house. They allowed the two boys to have it all to themselves as a treat before they both left for university.