Staycation Or Vacation-Chapter 2 ( A Beginners Guidebook-Maxine)

After leaving Zack’s house, I ran up to my place to help mom with the packing. The man was excited. Australia’s gonna be fun. And a road trip. This is gonna be the best vacation ever. I reached home and found mom getting ready to leave. “Mom, where are you going,” I asked her. “Zack’s house. We have a surprise for all of you. Come on, let’s go.” “Mom, I just got back from Zack’s house. And I know the surprise. A road trip from in Australia. I came up so we could start packing. Zack and Ms Martin are already done.” “Okay then, let’s go.” “Go where?” “To the mall. We need to get a few new clothes, and then pack.” 

The mall was super crowded. Wow, I guess people have already started Christmas shopping. I mean, it’s just the 11th. We have an early morning flight tomorrow. I’m honestly kind of nervous. Even though we’re vaccinated, travelling after so long is gonna be scary. Zack is so excited, I think he might burst. I mean, the closest thing we’ve had to a vacation in the past two years was last year, when we found that time machine and accidentally went back to the BCE period. All we use the time machine, for now, is the BCE cooking show. Apart from that it just sits in Rachel’s attic, going in and out as it pleases, occasionally taking Mr Smith along with it for a ride. Mr Smith has seen everything. Except for one thing. What came first- Chicken or egg? The next time the machine starts up, let’s go back in time to find out what actually did come first.

Two hours of shopping and three frozen yoghurts later, we were ready to go home. We went home, and packing was done in a snap. And for once, even Zack was done quick. Maybe because we were looking forward to tomorrow. I mean, three weeks of beaches, fun and summer. And on Christmas! The Martins were staying with us for the night. We would head out together the next day, and meet the Smiths at the airport. 

The next morning, we all woke up without our alarms ringing. Well, all of us except Zack. He was snoring. Loud. Come to think of it, that’s how we all woke up. We got ready as quick as possible. Alexandra was apparently already in summer. She refused to wear her sweater. All she wanted to do was run around the house saying goodbye to all the furniture. “Goodbye painting! Goodbye mirror! Goodbye chair!” Leo was his usual calm, composed self, sitting calmly in the car while mom and Ms Martin loaded all the luggage into the boot. Once we got everyone in, we headed to the airport.

When we reached the airport Mr and Mrs Smith were waiting for us outside. Tamara had taken everyone else inside. The triplets were sitting in their stroller, sleeping. By now even our very energetic Alexandra had fallen asleep, half on her seat in the stroller, half in Leo’s. We went inside for the security check.

The check-in was slow. And once we finally got to the counter, the computer stopped working. “I’m extremely sorry sir, our server is down. You’ll have to wait for five minutes,” the woman at the counter said to Mr Smith. “Let me see that, please,” Mr Smith said. He went to the computer, and unplugged it, and plugged it again. The system did not work. Well, I guess he can’t make everything work like it does in ‘Peppa pig.’ But seriously, what is with that show? Do you know the pig has two eyes on each side of her face? That is disturbing. 

Once everything started working again, and all our excess baggage had been settled (we had excess baggage that amounted up to an economy class seat), we went up to have the security check done. When my bag went through the scanner, it started beeping. I couldn’t carry my coke tins into the flight. I’m sad.

After everything was done, and we had settled down by our gate, the next question was breakfast. There weren’t many options by our gate, and boarding was in 15 minutes, so we needed to eat fast. Mom, Ms. Martin and Mrs. Lavigne went to check what our options were. All of us were alone with Mr Smith. He was wearing a clean white shirt. In two minutes the others came back with coffee and sandwiches. We put everything in carrying bags and went for boarding.

Once we got on the plane, aunt handed out the sandwiches and coffee. Mr Smith took his cup and dropped it because it was so hot. All over his shirt. Which, as mentioned before, was clean white. Mrs. Smith was probably expecting this, because she had an extra cup of coffee, and a spare shirt as well. 

After take-off, Millie and Alexandra started playing around. Leo, Rebecca and Tyson went to sleep. Me and Rachel started finishing off our holiday homework. Zack started a movie. And the adults were all discussing their itinerary. 

After finishing his breakfast, Mr Smith decided to start watching something. It was a 22-hour flight and everyone else was sleeping. He took the remote and started browsing. Finally, he came across something that he thought he liked. “Hmmm, the movie poster makes it look like a murder mystery. There’s a coffin and something white hovering around it.” But it most definitely was not a murder mystery. It was a horror movie (whose name I will not specify here due to younger readers…if interested you can ask in the comments). Five minutes later, the entire plane was awake. Mr. Smith was screaming his head off. The air hostesses came to check. “Sir, is everything okay?” “This is not a murder mystery movie, this is one of those movies where there are ghosts, and ghouls, and all those other weird things!” “Sir it’s specified that this is a horror movie.” “But the movie poster makes it look like a murder mystery.” “The movie posters aren’t a way of identifying the genre of the movie sir. In future I recommend you check the genres, which are specified next to the movie name.” With that, she left. 

After making sure Mr. Smith was watching something that wouldn’t have him running all around the plane, we all continued with what we were doing. After some time of binging, I fell asleep. I woke up with a huge earache. The plane was landing. Alright vacation, here we come!