The Summer Holiday

Chapter 2

It took a while but Drew finally left, only after laughing at me for getting upset about his wee ‘joke’. As he walked away I turned to Dad and gave him an evil glare, usually reserved for my little sister.

“I can’t believe you went along with his moronic idea of a joke. You are supposed to take care of me, not make fun of me!” It seemed that Dad was in on the joke the whole time but just wanted to see how I’d react.

“C’mon sweetie, it was just a joke,” Dad chuckled, “You should’ve seen your face.” Now that I thought about it, it was kinda funny but I couldn’t let Dad know. He’d never let me live it down, and then he’d lord it over me for the next month while we were on holiday.

“Dad just let me get my tent and stuff, so I can set up.” Dad moved out of the way so I could grab my new tent (it was a bribe from my parents to get me to come on the ‘fun, family holiday’), my double air mattress, the air pump and a small suit case with all my crap in it. I carried it all over to where I would usually set up but just as I was about to unfold my tent Mum called Liam, my older brother, Ashlee and I over.

“Now kids, I know in the past we’ve all been able to fit on the one site but now you’re all old enough and each have your own tents and there just isn’t enough room on this one site anymore.” She looked at each of us in turn; we all had on confused expressions. “So we have got two sites this year. This one will be for your father, Ashlee and I, and the second one, which is just on the other side of the creek, will be for Liam and Sophie.” She gave it a minute to sink in and then Liam and I were jumping, whooping, cheering and hi-fiving, while Ashlee was whining to Mum about how it wasn’t fair that we got our own site. For once, Mum didn’t give Ashlee what she wanted and Liam and I got the site all to ourselves.

“This is gonna be awesome!” Liam and I kept repeating to one another as we snatched up all our stuff and carried it over the bridge to our site, before Mum and Dad could change their minds. I started to set up my tent. I nailed the base in and put the poles in it to make it stand. Next I pulled the waterproof cover over it and nailed the pegs into the ground. Once I had put my tent up (quite speedily, I thought, seeing as this was a brand new tent), I set about pumping up my air mattress. Now, this may sound like an easy task but, believe me, it is one of the most tiring things about setting up your camp. Your arms ached from pumping it, your back aches from bending over to pump it and you get frustrated because it’s taking so bloody long. In the end I manage to convince Liam to pump most of it up for me. But I had to promise not to tell Mum and Dad if he brought a girl to his tent at night. I thought that it went without saying so I got the better end of the deal here. Once I had put my mattress in my tent I put a sheet on the bottom and shoved my sleeping bag, blanket and pillow on top. Now all that was left was putting my suit case in and laying out my ‘door’ mat. After I had completely set up my stuff, I was once again feeling rather hungry and thirsty, so I walked over to Mum, Dad and Ashlee’s site to grab a small chilly bin of food we could keep at our site.

“MUM! Can Liam and I PLEASE have some food at our site? Just some snacks and stuff, so we don’t have to walk over here if we want an apple or a drink of water.” I yelled at Mum through the canvas of the awning of the caravan. Mum didn’t reply so I called, “You don’t want us to starve to death or die from dehydration do you?”

“Okay, okay jeez Soph. Just empty the smaller blue one into the big green one, and grab some snacks. And when I say snacks I mean healthy ones as well as the chips and crap you kids eat constantly. Also take some water and not just fizzy drinks, don’t want to have to take you to the dentist, do I?” Mum ranted.

“Sure thing Mother dearest” I muttered. I did as I was instructed and grabbed some chips, lollies, chocolate, nuts, fruit, some cans of coke, L&P and lemonade and lots of bottles of water. As I was shoving as much food as I could fit into the chilly bin, Liam wandered over, sat down beside me and watched me struggle to close the lid.