Unexpected

[5] Catastrophe

An obnoxious beeping interrupted my sleep the next morning. Groaning, I twisted onto my stomach and tried to ignore it. Suddenly the sheets were ripped away from me, leaving a chill on my exposed skin. I groaned louder and groped for the blankets. When I came up empty handed I sighed and cracked open my eyes. Olivia was standing in the middle of our room, a pile of blankets by her feet and an annoyingly cheerful grin on her face.

    “Rise and shine!” She exclaimed in a sing-song voice. I hated morning people. So very, very much.

    “What is going on?” I asked sleepily as I resignedly sat up. I could tell that my hair was a complete disaster, but I was too half-asleep too care and just stared up at Olivia.

    “We’re all going hiking! Come on, up and at ‘em!”

    Once we’d all been dragged out of bed and I downed a couple cups of coffee in order to keeps my eyes open we all piled into Dean and Olivia’s cars. Apparently, since they were the two oldest of all the cousins, they decided everyone between the ages of twenty and twelve were going hiking. Whether we liked it or not. I spent the whole trip complaining to Jake over text messaging about being awake this early, but by the time we got there I was ready to enjoy the experience. There weren’t many mountains in Michigan, so normally “hiking” really just meant “walking.” One of the things I loved about California had to be the diverse landscape. I’d always loved mountains.

    “This is actually kind of nice,” I admitted once I’d caught my breath at the top. “Despite the fact you’re forcing me to exercise on my vacation.”

    I sent Dean a playful glare but he just made a face and went back to enjoying the view. A high pitched scream startled me and I spun around with my heart starting to race. I thought someone had gotten hurt, but it turned out that a bug had just landed on Ava. We all chuckled and Aaron shook his head.

    “We’re outside, Ava. Bugs are going to land on you. Please try not to burst our eardrums.”

    She just scowled at him and dusted off her shorts. Out of all my cousins, I think Aaron was the hardest to figure out. Sometimes he was quiet like Hannah, but sometimes he was more involved and talked a lot. I guess it just depended on the day. He was the only one out of all five of Aunt Emily’s kids to get their father’s light hair and eyes, but his personality wasn’t as straightforward as the rest. Mason was OCD about certain things but other than that was more laid back like his father; I had yet to be able to describe Aaron’s personality.

    “Anyone know what we’re doing today?” Mason asked after taking a long drink of water.

    No one seemed to know, so we all explored a little bit and then headed back down the mountain. The hike down was definitely easier than the one up and didn’t take us nearly as long. When we got back Aunt Emily had made breakfast and the house was filled with the warm, delicious smell of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. I had always loved to cook and offered to help make the meals when we first got here, but she’d insisted it was taken care of. The food was good, but I knew that if she had let me help it would have been amazing. Breakfast foods were my specialty, other than desserts. Mom always complained that I was going to make her fat because I was always making way too much food for breakfast and her favorite desserts. Regardless, I was starving and didn’t mind too much that the eggs and pancakes had none of my favorite spices in them.

    As it turned out, today was a beach day. Aunt Emily had everything planned out perfectly (because she was a total control freak) and Mark had paid for a boat rental. And by “boat” I really meant “yacht.” I couldn’t deny that I was excited when I saw it and I may have even let out a small squeal. Once everyone had been fed we all changed into our bathing suits, slathered on some sun screen, and ran for the waves. Even though the water was much colder than I was used to in Lake Huron when I went with my friends it didn’t take long to adapt to. Most of the adults except for Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Leah, Uncle Adam and Grandfather just lounged on the chairs by the house and never went into the water. Dean and Noah tried to spray Aunt Emily and Rachel with water, but they were caught by Mark and banned from their devilish schemes. After lunch I just laid on my towel for a while, but soon enough I was ready to hit the water again.