Cassie's Perfect Vacation

Chapter 4

"CASSIE!" It was Clara, yelling for me to come into our room. I flew up the staircase as fast as I could. As soon as I walked in, I was confused. Clara was sitting on top of her suitcase trying to close it, and from my view it looked like her whole wardrobe was in it.

"Clara, what " I said but was cut off.

Clara got off of her suitcase, "Mom said we would be staying in Cape Cod for likely most of the summer, I need to fit as much of my things in here as possible."

I sighed, opening her suitcase up, "You won't be able to if you don't fold any of your clothes."

"Oh," said Clara sheepishly, and then with a gleam in her eye, said, "Should I steal some of Paul's shirts?"

"No Clara," I said fiercely, "He's mad enough with us already."

"Fine, I'll just have to wear tank-tops instead, which isn't as great," said Clara frowning with her arms crossed. "What else should we bring?"

"Well, sunscreen for one," I decided, "Oh! And 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban!'"

"Good one," said Clara excitedly, "How about our iPods?"

"Great," I said, running to the hallway, "I'll get our flip-flops!" We spent the rest of our days here doing extra chores to possibly get our parents to change their minds, and packing when they said we still had to go. My dad had told us that this trip would be a perfect one for a road trip, our very first road trip in fact.

He had said: "You and Clara are getting much older now, why not drive up there yourselves?" Now that was exciting! But no, I still didn't want to go.

Clara and I had to split the ride up into at least seven hours each which would be the most I would drive in my life! I had told Cory about this trip over the phone after he had told me how great Maine was. He said the hotel they were staying at had a milkshake place and he joked that it wasn't as good as the one back home because I wasn't there. That had made me a bit sad.

Clara had already said goodbye to Dan and they were fine about not seeing each other for a while, I didn't get it. Why was I the only one who was so sad about someone leaving who was special to me?

Clara just told me, "We'll see each other soon enough, besides, this generation has cell phones."

"Are you two ready to go?" called my mom from the porch. I walked out of the house, dragging my suitcase, my field hockey stick (I was a big fan of it and played it just as much as hockey on ice) my hockey stick for ice, and holding a cooler along with that. Clara was behind me, with her cooler and suitcase as well.

"Yeah, we just needed to go to the bathroom first," said Clara hugging my mom goodbye. I hugged her too, and then we hugged our dad, and Paul was last.

"I'm sorry about how angry I was," said Paul who truly did look sorry, "My days are just so long and Jeremy doesn't seem that interested in actually learning piano. I really do wish you could stay, I'll miss you guys."

"We'll miss you too," we said in harmony. We hugged him.

"I did happen to get you guys some going away gifts," said Paul.

"Really?" we questioned excitedly. He nodded as he handed us each a small box wrapped in pink wrapping paper and yellow wrapping paper. Our presents were always wrapped in these colors to remember whose was whose; mine was the pink one, and Clara's was the yellow one.

Just as we were about to rip the paper off, Paul said, "Just...open them when I'm not here."

We both nodded, heading for mine and Clara's car, a green Toyota. Clara hopped in the drivers' seat, and I hopped in the passengers' seat, throwing our luggage in the back.

"Sure you don't need car seats?" Paul joked who was the only one on the porch now (my parents were looking out the window). Everyone in my family always joked about how short Clara and I were but we didn't care, we had plenty of things to tease them about, especially Paul.

"Ha, ha, very funny!" Clara yelled back. She was being sarcastic, but she had a large grin on her face anyway.

"Bye Cassandra Elaine, bye Clara Eileen!" Paul called.

"Bye Paul Ashland!" we yelled. For some reason, we all called each other by our first and middle names a lot, it was just a habit. And that was that, we drove off, for a long, long ride, away from our family for the summer.

***

"What do you think it will be like there?" I whispered to Clara. We were lying in the back seat of our car together covered in all the spare picnic blankets we stored in our car.

"What do mean?" questioned Clara.

"You know, Grandpa and Nana's house," I said thinking it was obvious.

"I don't know," said Clara sitting up to look out the window. I did too. It was very dark aside from the streetlamps gleaming down on us. We had already driven more than halfway which was a relief in some ways, but in others, not so much. Clara and I were getting more and more nervous by the minute. We both had major goosebumps, but that could also be from turning the car off so we didn't have any heat.

"Hey...um...," said Clara flashing a nervous smile towards me, "We still haven't opened Paul's gifts."

"Oh yeah, you're right," I said smiling too. We each took our packages and started tearing the paper up and then crumbling it in a ball that would soon be tossed on the floor.

"AHH!" Clara and I exclaimed excitedly. I had gotten a long pink tee shirt with 'Winnie the Pooh' on it and a pair of yellow shorts, along with another long pink tee shirt that said: 'Think Pink' on it with the 'Pink Panther' on it.

"What did you get?" I asked Clara. Clara held up a long yellow tee shirt with 'Tigger' on it, another long yellow tee shirt with a picture of bananas on it, and a pair of pink shorts. These were possibly the best gifts Paul had ever gotten us. Yep, they were.

The only other thing he had gotten us was the movie 'Say Anything' and it was only to get us to shut up about it which we never did. He has already forgotten many times what it is called but I think he's just messing with us to get us annoyed.

"Let's leave him a message," I suggested. Clara nodded getting ready to press the button on her cell phone.

"Three, two, one...Thank you Paul Ashland!" we shouted falling into a fit of laughter and pressing end message.

"Do you think somebody outside heard us?" I whispered falling back onto the seat speedily as Clara did.

"I don't know," she answered, "But...do you think it's a sign?"

"What?"

"You know, a sign that this summer will be awesome," Clara explained.

"I hope so," I replied, "Goodnight Clara."

"'Night Cass."