Cassie's Perfect Vacation

Chapter 1

I was standing beside the grill, waiting to flip some of the burgers and hot dogs, my elbow length wavy red hair tied into a French braid, away from my eyes.

"Cassie!" yelled my mom, Josie, "Are you almost done? The kids are fussy!" I was five foot one and had turned eighteen in early January and it was now just about the ending of June. I had already started getting even more freckles spread across my face than usual, along with the round of bug bites for this year, and a very bad sunburn, not that I don't use sunscreen, I just burn easily.

I sighed, rolling my dark blue eyes up at the sky, "They'll be done in a second, Mom." I speedily flipped the burgers and hot dogs onto the empty plate by the grill, and slipped onto the patio. Our patio had a nice glass table and many chairs to go along with it.

We happened to be doing our annual barbeque party like always after a school year was finished.

Sitting at the table was my dad, Kenny, my mom, Josie, my thirty-three year-old sister, Penny (who happened to be pregnant for a fifth child), her husband, Toby, their kids, Christy, Don, Denny, and Shawn, my identical twin sister, Clara, and my younger brother by almost a year, Paul. These were the people I loved in my life, but sometimes the yelling got the better of me and I wanted to scream into my pillow until my throat was sore, but besides that, I knew that without them, this wouldn't be family.

I slid into a seat next to Clara, "Penny's going to take all the mustard again."

"Uh...as if," Penny said with her nose in the air, "I wouldn't do that unless I had a hot dog and relish to go with it."

Clara rolled her eyes laughing, "Are you going to cover the whole hot dog again?"

Clara pretty much looked the same as me. Some differences were her hair which was much straighter than mine, she was an inch taller than me, and she liked baseball and I liked hockey.

Penny straightened her blond hair out in her ponytail again, "Well Clara, that's the only way to make this thing delicious."

Paul sighed, ruffling his short blond hair, "Every single barbeque Penny, sheesh." We all laughed together, our dark blue eyes sparkling, all my siblings and I had dark blue eyes just like my mom unlike my dad who had green eyes.

"So," said my dad, "Any summer plans? Paul?"

Paul groaned, punching his fist on the table, "Again with me starting first? Seriously." Paul wasn't one to babble on about that kind of stuff, and for some reason, my dad always wanted to ask him the questions first, probably because he was the youngest.

"Come on, you can tell me," pleaded my dad, a gleam in his big green eyes.

"I'm not in the mood to " said Paul cut off by something, "AHH!" I then realized that it was my dad's fault, he had reached over and started tickling Paul. Paul stood up quickly, annoyed. He only frowned at everyone and ran back through the slider door to the living room.

"What's gotten into him?" questioned my mom taking a sip of water. I hid a small laugh. Why? Because Paul has been like this ever since...I actually can't remember when this started. Hmm...okay, I would guess around the time he started eighth grade.

"What's so funny?" Toby questioned quietly so nobody could hear but me and Shawn. Shawn was the youngest of Penny's children. Christy was a five year-old, then Don, a four year-old, next, Denny, a three year-old, and lastly, Shawn, a two year-old (he was almost three though). They all looked similar to Toby, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, except Shawn, who looked more like Penny.

I stopped laughing, keeping a serious face, "Nothing."

"Come on Cass, you can tell your old brother-in-law Toby, right?" Toby whispered.

I gave in, "Well, it's just...my mom and dad still haven't noticed Paul has had this attitude for many years."

Toby smirked, "Yeah, that's like when I didn't know I liked Penny other than a side star in the school play until that Bartholomew asked her to the prom, boy was I mad."

I laughed, "I remember that story, Bartholomew ended up getting sick and cancelling the date. You got your chance, I'm glad you did Toby."

"Me too," Toby responded with a grin. Ever since Penny had married Toby (about six years ago) Toby had always been like a big brother to me, and I planned on keeping it that way.

"Guys, I'm serious about this," said my dad running a hand through his blondish-grey hair, "Even if I just found out about this." Penny snorted.

"Penny," said my mom with a fierce glare on her face. Like Clara and I say, 'Don't Mess with the Boss' (the boss was my mom). Or like Paul said, 'the Queen of Quarrels.'

"If you're so serious about this, then why don't you go talk to him?" Clara wondered as she helped herself to another cheeseburger.

"I have a feeling he wouldn't listen to me," said my dad. Oh. He wanted Clara or me to talk to him. Apparently since we talk to Paul a lot we're stuck with this kind of stuff as well. I gave Clara the 'Twin Stare,' and she gave me the 'Twin Stare' back. We both stood up and slouched into the living room. This was probably a good thing anyway, about two years ago at our barbeque, I got so many bug bites almost every inch of my body was swollen and pink. Ugh...not a good memory.

Paul was lying on one of our two beige couches with some headphones on. I could hear a muffled part of a song. It was the song 'Help' by the Beatles. Clara pulled his headphones off.

A frown immediately flew onto Paul's face, "Cassie, you're sick!"

"Hey!" Clara exclaimed, "If you're going to insult someone shouldn't it be me?"

Paul froze and then sighed, "Ugh...whatever, Clara, whoever you are."

"Dad wanted us to ask you how you were doing " I explained. " So you better tell us the truth," Clara finished.

Paul groaned, "I just had a rough day at work." Paul was a piano teacher and while he wasn't doing that, he was with his best friend, Marie writing songs together, yeah, yeah, corny I know, I've been telling him for months.

Paul had always been a musician, and ever since he started hanging out with Marie, a girl who was also his age, they had just hit it off pretty well and continued to write songs.

"Was it that little Jeremy again?" Clara questioned interested.

"Yes, he really is getting on my nerves when he brings up movies all the time!" Paul exclaimed. "I mean, we should focus on piano if it's a piano lesson." Paul had only seen three movies in his life. First, 'It's a Wonderful Life,' then, 'Grease,' and then the 'Lion King.' We couldn't get him to watch another movie no matter how hard we tried.

"Man do we need a vacation," I said sighing loudly.

"We are on vacation," Clara pointed out, "it's summer."

"True," said Paul thinking this over, "But Jeremy, Christy, Don, Denny, and Shawn are making me so mad right now, not to mention Penny and Toby."

"We'll just have to work it out like every summer," I said ignoring the part about Toby (he didn't bother me).

"Are you guys going back outside?" Paul questioned.

"Nah, bugs always get the best of us," Clara said sliding beside Paul on the couch.

I sat down too, throwing a pink knitted blanket over the three of us, "Want to look at family albums?"

"I haven't seen those before," Paul responded.

Clara smirked, "You're in for a treat."

We spent the rest of the night on the couch, laughing over old pictures, pointing out things we never noticed, and falling off the couch when we were laughing so hard (that was Clara most of the time which always put Paul and me in a fit of laughter too). Looking through these albums did cheer us up a bit, but we still were a little upset.