Emma Doran and Jared Davis
Ms. Peller
English 91
1 Oct. 2012
Beach Bound

“Get in the car. We need to leave now if you want to go to the beach tonight!” Mrs. Doran said.
My family was headed to Myrtle Beach for a family trip with the Doran’s. It’s about a thirteen hour drive total, with eleven people in two cars, I can already tell that this was going to be crazy. About 3 hours in, we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s. The little kids didn't have time to finish everything so they brought their milkshakes to go. Of course with the luck of our families put together, somebody just needs to spill theirs!
“Emma, will you hold this for me?” asked Hannah.
“Yeah, hand it to me.” Emma replied.
Hannah reached forward to hand Emma her milkshake. As she took it from her the cup jumped out of her hands and landed all over my phone.
“Seriously!” I screamed. I wanted to throw her out of the car. I kept the funniest videos and pictures of my friends on my phone. “Give me a napkin! Now!”
We wiped it all off and went on with the car ride. My phone worked fine after a few hours. During those few hours of torture, Patrick and John kept fighting about what movie to watch next, and the first one wasn’t even over yet!
“No we’re watching Nemo.” John said as he threw the disk at Mrs. Doran.
“But I want to watch The Incredibles!” Patrick whined.
It was like they could go on for hours. The moms needed to stop for a break. We only had seven hours left and everybody was getting so annoyed with each other. I had my headphones in drowning out the whining from the girls, so we decided to put all the guys in one car and all the girls in the other.
“Holy crap, the girls are so annoying!” I complained to my dad.
“That’s how they are, and it only gets worse when they’re older, son.” My dad explained.

In the car we talked about college football, and had the usual girl talk. The dad spent the next two hours talking about nothing but high school. Such a drag.

We finally got there around seven and the beach was calling our names. The water felt like ice cubes because it was night, but we didn’t mind. We picked up some shells and wrote our names in the sand until it was to dark to see.
The next day was our first full day at the beach, everybody was pumped!
“It feels like a million degrees out here,” my dad said.
My mom and Mrs. Doran took the little kids down to the beach and the guys took Emma and I to the fishing dock. When we arrived, there was an overwhelming stench of day old fish and nasty bait.
“Guys, I don’t want to stay here anymore. It smells terrible!” she said pinching her nose.
“Chill out, you baby!” Mr. Doran yelled back.
We boarded “The Voyager” and headed out to sea. “It looks like a floating house,” Emma said. It was sat 70 feet long and about 30 feet wide. The sides were covered with stains and barnacles from being docked. After boarding, the captain informed us about the safety procedures while Emma and I chose a spot and plopped down. I hoped that I wouldn’t get sea sick. Then, we made our way through the inlets, under the long bridge, and entered the rough, choppy ocean.

We rode about twenty minutes until we reached the right depth to fish at. The boat swayed side to side like a see-saw. Emma was just learning how to cast her line out while I had already caught two baby fish. Mr. Doran laughed at my fish because they looked like sardines and he had a twenty pounder in his bag. My dad isn’t the best fisherman, but he kept up with us.
Once we were warmed up, we started reeling in big fish and had a family competition going. Mr. Doran and I were putting more bait on our hooks when out of nowhere Emma’s pole bends straight down and the line goes flying out!
“Oh my god!” Emma shouted.
“What’s wrong?” Mr. Doran asked.
We rushed over to help her attempt to reel the monster in! It came up fighting!
“It’s huge!” Emma screamed.
“It’s all yours too!” Mr. Doran replied.
We couldn’t believe that Emma, the least experienced out of all of us, hooked a shark! She was extremely proud, and we knew she couldn’t let us live this down. We fished for about forty-five more minutes and then headed back to shore.
“I’m tired.” I said exhausted.
After the family bonding, we decided that was enough for one day and fell asleep on the couches, the floors, anywhere we could find a space! It was day two. The day flew by down at the beach, and the parents planned on going out that night. Leaving Emma and I to babysit for the first time ever together, this definitely could get crazy! The sky looked as if it were on fire. The colors were amazing.
We decided to take the kids for a walk on the beach to run out their energy. They ran around, jumped in the water, and picked up shells. Josh was on a raft riding the waves. Emma and I were throwing the Frisbee for a while when we realized we forgot about Josh!

“Uh oh..” I said dumbfounded.
Josh had floated out too far!
“Jared, go get him!” Emma demanded.
Luckily, I had just enough energy to swim to the rescue. That scared all of us and we decided to go home before something else bad happened while the parents were gone.
The parents arrived about fifteen minutes later. They rushed into the condo singing “Red Solo Cup” and laughing uncontrollably. They were “thrilled” to see us. At least that’s what they were acting like. It’s as if they were Emma and I’s age all over again. Babysitting the parents again, always fun!
That night ended safe and sound, thank God! Today was just going to be a relaxed last day. Walk the boardwalk, go out to eat, and get ice cream were all on the list of things to do. Abby got a hermit crab, Hannah got neon pink sweatshirt, and Patrick got a Myrtle Beach t-shirt. Productive chill day so far, so good! Now it was time for dinner.
“We’re out in the sticks!” My dad proclaimed.
The dinner was phenomenal. Of course Mrs. Doran managed to somehow spill her spaghetti all down her shirt!
My second favorite part of the night. Ice cream! Everybody ended up talking about all the stupid mistakes we’ve made in the past and laughing about them. We decided to tell the parents how we almost lost Josh in the ocean, they laughed surprisingly! My mom told us about how she tripped down the steps on her way out of the hotel the night they went out. Apparently, Mrs. Doran went down with her.
“I don’t want to leave! The girls in Ohio are nothing compared to these girls.” Jared said.
“Jared shut up it’s not like girls like you anyways,” Emma said. The moms were rolling on the floor laughing.
“Ohhh, Jared she got you!” Mrs. Doran yelled. I stood there, my face fire truck red, laughing as I packed up my bag.
“Everyone have their chargers?” My mom asked.
“Yep.” We said in unison.
“Can we leave now? I’m ready to get this over with.” Mr. Doran complained.
We left the condo and were on our way when Emma shouted, “We left Patrick!”
Word Count:1,304