Many Mistakes, No Regrets

Chapter 24: It is Summmmma!

Chapter 24: It is Summmmma!                     

Rikki’s POV

            School’s out for summer. School’s out forever! Yay! It is officially summer. And I am thrilled. We are set to leave for a two week cruise tonight. Izzy and I are so excited for it. We have never been the Caribbean. So it is yet another thing to check off the bucket list.

            Just a few more hours in the house, and then I am free. For two weeks, at least. All I have to do now is pack. I know I should have pack earlier. But I didn’t want to pack and get ready for it and then have Aunt Jane tell me I’m not going after all. I kind of doubt she is going to change her mind now. We leave for the airport in three hours and then the cruise starts tomorrow morning.

            So what should I bring to the Caribbean? Shorts, tank tops, flip-flops, swimsuits, and a whole lot of sunscreen. That is just about all. I think. I hope. Everything is just in a pile on the bed. I have no clue how it is all going to fit in to the suitcase.

            It took ten tries to pack everything in a way that would maybe possibly allow me to zip up the suitcase, if Izzy and I sit on it. Even then it’s going to be hard.

            “Izzy? Rikki? Are you two ready yet?” Aunt Jane bellowed up the stairwell.

            Simultaneously, we responded, “Yes.”

            We raced down the stairs with our bags banging around behind us. “We’re here,” we said with a smile. 

            “Good because the taxi is out front. So let’s get going.”

            We piled in and the driver started off to the airport. We are flying out of a local little airport to JFK in New York and then down to Florida from there. Which mean a lot of sitting around and waiting.

            Our first flight isn’t for another hour and half but thanks to all of the security we have to go now. Yay... But since it is ten pm, security shouldn’t be a problem.

            The taxi stopped in a drop off zone in the parking lot. We climbed out and grabbed our bags. As expected, security took like ten minutes. So now we have an hour of sitting here until boarding.

            We sat down in the really uncomfortable plastic chairs. About ten seconds later, Izzy grabbed my hand and pulled me to the little news stand. “Let’s get some reading material for the flight.” I don’t have the heart to tell her I was planning on attempting to sleep the entire time. Or reading the book I brought, not reading some gossip rag.

            She went around scanning though magazines with me trailing right behind her. She finally chose a few and went to buy them. By the time she was done paying and we made it back to Aunt Jane our flight was boarding.

            The plane is one of those tiny little ones. It only seats like thirty people. We walked down the aisle and past 5 rows of seats. We are right in the middle of the plane. Izzy and I go to one side of the aisle and Aunt Jane went on the other side. That’s the way the plane is. There are two seats on one side and one on the other.

            We settled in and I took the time to look around. There are only four other people on the plane. A man came back and asked us all to unfasten our seatbelts and be prepared to move our seats to balance out the plane.

            He approached Izzy and me. He asked Izzy to follow him. He sat her down about two rows up. Aunt Jane is the being moved to the first row and I get to stay right where I am.