Holidays By The Seaside

Holidays By The Seaside: Chapter Three

The next morning, Irene was fast asleep on her comfortable bed and once again dreaming she was at the beach, only this time she was alone. The breeze was stroking her cheeks while she was lying on the sand staring at the sky. Suddenly huge black clouds covered every inch of the clear blue sky and a heavy storm started. Huge waves appeared. One of them carried Irene away into the deep blue ocean.

She woke up gasping for air. A moment later, when she calmed down she realised that her face was wet.

"Good morning Sleeping Beauty" a familiar voice said. She felt her stomach tingling when she saw Mark standing next to her bed holding an empty glass of water.

"Morning Mark" she said turning her back to him trying to fall back to sleep. She didn't care about the water because it was a very hot day.

"I haven't seen her for a whole year and all she does is sleeping without even saying hi " a more feminine voice said.

Irene opened her eyes and saw a tall, blonde girl with green-blue eyes. Within a second all the sleepiness was gone. She jumped out of bed like a spring and hugged her friend.

"When did you arrive?" Irene asked still wrapped around Xanthippi.

"If you stop squeezing me I'll tell you"

Irene sat on her bed, so did the other two.

"About half an hour ago and the first thing I did was to see you guys" Xanthippi said.

"First Mark and then me" Irene complained in a low voice so that they wouldn't hear her but Xanthippi had better hearing than she thought.

"Actually I wanted to see you first but I knew you would be sleeping and I needed someone to help me wake you up" she responded calmly.

"Thank you Xan" Mark said but everyone knew he said that just to stop us from arguing.

"My name is Xa- never mind" she gave up

"I'm really hungry lets go to the kitchen" Irene said and got up.

There, they found Irene's mum making breakfast.

"Good morning sweetie" Mrs Mays said.

"Hi mom"

"Thank you for the idea of waking Irene up with water Mrs Mays" said Mark and left the glass on the table.

"No problem" she replied serving fried eggs and bacon to everyone.

After eating the delicious meal they went to Xanthippi's cottage to hang out there.

If someone saw the house he would think he was in Greece in 500 B.C. Two gigantic pillars in Doric order stood by the two sides of the front door. On the grass were placed marble statues of the olympian gods. Inside, the house was decorated with wall paintings and pottery.

"Hello kids" Mrs Watkins  greeted them as they entered. She was short and plump and her brown hair reached her shoulders.

"Hello Mrs Watkins" Irene and Mark said at the same time.

"Come on, lets go!" Xantippi  waved her head towards the stairs.

When they entered the room Irene felt like she left from Greece and went to a fashion studio in Paris. The walls were painted in a very light blue color and the furniture was white. In the corner was a mannequin which Xanthippi used to dress it with her favorite clothes (now it was "naked" because she didn't have time to dress it) but Irene found her creepy especially at night. Also, a huge shiny mirror was placed beside her bed although now it was covered by a layer of dust, since it hadn't been cleaned for a year. The window with the view of the ocean was the thing Irene was most jealous of as her window faced the park.