Author: Katrina
Cysweski
8th
Grade
Educator: Kelly
Moormann
Bismarck
I slammed
my laptop shut in frustration and immediately regretted how hard I had closed
it. I put the lid down with such force that it made a loud bam, which awoke my
dog, Cody, from his slumber and caused him to jump and almost fall off my bed.
I had just gotten my laptop from my parents as an early birthday present, and
it was by far the best gift I had ever received. The top had three big stripes
that bled into one another like an ombre. I knew it wasn’t broken; I just hoped
my parents didn’t hear the slam. My parents were pretty laid back for the most
part, but when it comes to treating your things properly, it’s a different
story. I let my head fall onto the dark, navy blue blanket that covered my bed.
I was just about to reach for my laptop when I heard the familiar ding-a-ling
of someone texting me. I frantically opened my laptop hoping it was the reply I
was waiting for. My heart sank when I saw the text had been sent from Sophia.
I entered
the photo of you into the photography contest!
Attached was a photo of me at
Miami Beach. Sophia had such a talent for photography; she was truly brilliant.
She always seemed to have an eye for when it was the best time to take photos,
and where to take them. The sun was just beginning to set, and the sky was
turning a dull shade of rose gold. There I stood in my blue and green,
leaf-patterned bikini, drinking from a coconut cup and letting the wind blow my
wavy, light brown hair just enough so it was out of my face. It’s fascinating
how Sophia can capture detail so effortlessly. The freckles scattered across my
nose and cheeks were vibrant against my lightly tanned, caramel colored skin.
She was even able to capture my bright turquoise eyes so well that they looked
crystal clear, and you could see the dull reflection of the palm trees that
stood all around me, swaying in the wind.
This is
amazing! I really hope you win! I replied.
I felt
sort of bad knowing that the photo she entered into the contest was a picture
of me; I wanted Sophia to be the center of attention in her work. I was just
about to ask Sophia if she was sure that she wanted to enter a photo of me,
when I got a text. My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the text was from
Ella.
I talked my way out of it. My
parents said I can come, but I had to promise them I would pay for the hotel.
My
birthday was coming up next week and it was Ella’s idea that she, Sophia,
Brooklyn and I go to Grand Cayman for summer break and to celebrate me turning
eighteen. We all decided that it would be fun to go without our parents, and
when we all got permission to go we could barely contain our elation. Our plans
had almost been crushed when we found out Ella had gotten grounded and wasn’t
allowed to go with us anymore. Ella’s parents were very wealthy, and they
agreed to pay for our hotel, but when Ella got grounded they said they weren't
going to contribute any money to our trip anymore.
I’m so
glad you can come, but I can’t let you pay for the hotel by yourself! I
replied.
It’s okay,
I need some kind of punishment. Ella replied.
I always
admired how sincere Ella was. Even though her parents were rich, she was never
spoiled and was very kind-hearted. There was no way I was going to let her pay
for our hotel by herself, not after all she had done for me. I texted her and
the group back, and everyone agreed that we were all going to split the cost of
the hotel. I smiled and ran downstairs to tell my parents we were able to go on
our trip. It was a whole week away, and I didn’t know if I could wait that long
because the anticipation was already killing me.
The week
had passed slowly, and I was so excited when the day had finally come for me to
leave.
“Toothbrush?”
my mom asked.
“Yes mom,
I promise I have everything!” I replied.
“Okay.
Wait, Emma, do you have your phone? What about your passport, don’t forget your
passport!” My mom said frantically.
“Yes, they’re
in my bag,” I replied, beginning to get annoyed. My mom is usually frantic when
it comes to the last minutes before we leave for a trip; she’s always worried
she’s forgetting something.
“Promise
you will call me every day to check in?”
“Yes, Mom,
I promise,” I must have sounded irritated because she gave me a tight,
restricting hug and told me how she wasn’t ready for me to be eighteen yet. I
pulled up the handle on my navy blue suitcase and swung my bag over my
shoulder.
I heard the beep beep of a
car in our driveway, looked at my mom and said, “Okay, I’m ready.” I gave her a
hug and said goodbye. Then I rolled my suitcase out into the living room where
my dad was watching TV.
“You’re
not going to leave without a hug are you?” my dad jokingly asked. I smiled and
gave my dad a hug, then I promised him I would call him every day. As I was putting on my shoes, my dog, Cody,
and my little brother, James, ran out of the kitchen. Cody jumped up and licked
my nose, and I buried my face in his dark brown fur and said goodbye. As I was
gathering my things, I heard James whining about how it wasn’t fair that I got
to go on a vacation with my friends and he didn’t.
“James,
I’m five years older than you!” I said.
“No,
you’re only four years older than me!” he yelled.
“It’ll be
five years this week,” I replied.
“Okay,
both of you stop arguing, please! James go say goodbye to your sister,” my dad
instructed. James gave me hug and said goodbye. I grabbed my suitcase, said one
more goodbye, and walked outside. Ella’s mom helped me put my things in the
back of her truck, and I stepped into the truck to join the other girls.
Once we
got to the airport, we gathered our bags and walked to the ticket counter. Once
our tickets were printed and our bags were weighed, we waited in line at
security. The security line was long, and it took us a half hour just to get
through the line. The lady in front of us in line was being very burdensome
because she was arguing with a security guard about her water bottle for
fifteen minutes; that is until she finally agreed to throw it away and move
forward in line. On the way to our gate, we decided to stop at Starbucks and
get something to drink. We walked to our gate and we saw that our flight had
been delayed by almost a half hour. We immediately started to panic because we
had to catch a connecting flight in Orlando, and the flight was scheduled to
leave only fifteen minutes after our first flight was originally scheduled to
arrive.
“There is
no way we are going to make that flight,” Brooklyn remarked.
“Oh well,
all we can do is hope that flight gets delayed,” Sophia replied.
The flight
to Orlando was long and tedious, and I was so glad I could stretch my legs
again when we finally landed in Orlando. I barely had time to grab my bag when
Sophia reminded us that we needed to get going if we wanted a chance at
catching our flight. As soon as we stepped off the plane and into the tunnel,
we were sprinting. The fact that it was eighty degrees outside and I was
carrying a big, lumpy bag made this particularly difficult. Exhausted, we
finally arrived at our gate devastated to find out we were too late.
“You
have got to be kidding me,” I said disappointedly to my friends.
“I knew we
were going to miss this flight as soon as the flight was delayed,” declared
Sophia.
We walked
up to the counter and a tall woman in a dark, navy blue jacket and skirt said,
“I’m very sorry, girls, but there’s nothing I can do, the door to the plane is
already closed.”
“Can you
find us another flight?” I asked.
“I can see
if there is another flight leaving today,” sighed the lady behind the counter.
As the lady pressed the keys on her keyboard, I let my head fall onto the
counter in frustration. This was not how I imagined this day going.
“You said
four seats, right?” the lady politely asked.
“Yes, four
seats,” Ella replied.
“Okay, I
have you on a flight leaving at noon today and arriving in Grand Cayman at
around five o’clock.” the lady announced.
“Thank you
so much!” exclaimed Brooklyn, Ella, Sophia and I as we settled in to wait for
our boarding passes to be printed, and for our flight to board. About two hours
passed and we were called to board the plane. I was so excited I thought I
might burst like an overfilled balloon and fly across the room. I took my seat
next to Ella and Brooklyn, and I got situated while the other passengers
boarded the plane. We were on a fairly small aircraft, and after everyone was
boarded I could only count fifteen other passengers. However, a certain
passenger, in particular, caught my eye. He was probably in his late forties,
and he was a fairly heavy man with graying hair and a scraggly beard. I didn’t
notice him for these reasons, but because he was staring at me in a very
uncomfortable way, the kind of way that sends an eerie chill down your spine
and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up in the air.
I turned
to Brooklyn and whispered, “This guy gives me the creeps.”
Brooklyn
looked over my shoulder and whispered back, “Yeah, me too. Just try to ignore
him.” I took Brooklyn’s advice and tried to ignore the man for the rest of the
flight, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that someone
was watching me.
As the
pilot announced we were making our descent into the Grand Cayman airport, Ella
lifted up the window cover and revealed the ocean below us. I could hardly
believe my eyes, for it was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever
seen. Brilliant shades of bright turquoise blue and dark navy blue surrounded
the L-shaped landmass that, from above, looked as if it were floating in the
ocean. White, sandy beaches made up the perimeter of the island. I was so
excited to get off the plane and let the salty air blow back my hair and let
the sun kiss my face. We finally landed, and I ran off the plane and onto the
tarmac but was stopped in my tracks when I hit a wall of humidity. I had never
been to a place so humid in my entire life! The air felt hot, sticky, and
heavy, and it surprised me at first, but I was still ecstatic to be in such an
alluring place.
Sophia,
Ella, and Brooklyn followed me out of the plane and had almost the same
reaction when they stepped out of the plane and into the hot Caribbean air. We
walked to the rental car shop and obtained our temporary licenses and picked up
our rental car. While we were driving to our resort, I took in all the
surrounding scenery. The ocean seemed to stretch forever in all directions, and
the palm trees surrounded the streets with their leaves slowly swaying in the
warm breeze. We finally arrived at our resort, and we got to our room and
unpacked.
Over the
next few days, we did things that I could only have ever imagined before our
trip. We swam with stingrays and dolphins, held baby turtles at the turtle
farm, snorkeled with all kinds of tropical fish and turtles, and held starfish.
It was the night of my birthday when we all decided to go to the bar at our
resort and have a few drinks (with our parent’s permission of course) as a
celebration. Everything was going fine, and we had a few drinks when I realized
Ella hadn’t come back from the bathroom.
“Sophia, have you seen Ella?”
I asked, beginning to panic.
“No, not
since she left to go to the bathroom,” Sophia replied, sounding worried. We
asked Brooklyn if she knew where Ella was, but she didn’t know either. We went
to the bathroom to look for her, but she wasn’t there. We asked the security
guards too, but they said they hadn’t seen her either. Now frantic, we called
her phone, praying she would pick up. She didn’t answer. We called our parents
and they told us to have a guard escort us back to our room, and to lock our
door and to not go back outside. They told us they would file a police report
and have a security guard hired to protect us if anyone tried to take one of us
too.
The next
day, I was walking with our security guard on the beach outside our room. I
needed to calm down and clear my head. Our security guard, Tim, said he needed
to go to the bathroom really quick and promised me he would be right back. The
next thing I knew someone grabbed me around my waist and was pulling me
backward. I kicked and I punched, and I could hear the man struggling to pull
me. I was screaming. I was screaming, but no sound was coming out of my mouth.
I couldn’t hear myself screaming because everything went silent. I could see
Brooklyn and Sophia rush out of the door of our room. They were yelling too.
They were running down the stairs towards me. I knew they wouldn’t be able to
make it down three flights of stairs in time, so I tried my best to pull away
from the arms that were leading me to a place I did not want to go. I tried so
hard to get away, but it wasn’t enough. I was shoved into a vehicle and a man
got into the car with me. I tried to open the door, but it was already locked,
and we were already speeding away from what used to be my paradise. As we were
speeding away to what might be the place that I die, I had only one thought, only one prayer: dear
God please let them have gotten the license plate.
I looked
ahead and I was shocked to see that the man that had taken me was our security
guard, Tim. Tim pulled over to the side of the road, turned around in his seat
to face towards me, and put a bag over my head so I couldn’t see where we were
going.
Cold. It was cold and dark,
and the rope that tied my hands together behind the back of my chair was tied
so tight I could feel it digging into my skin. Pretty much what you would
imagine a place where you are being held against your will to be like. There
were no windows, the walls were a light shade of gray, and the room smelled
very musty. I could hear two men arguing. Wait, no, I could see them too. They
were right in front of me. It was Tim and the man from the plane. The same man
that had stared at me and sent an icy chill down my spine. The same man that
could now, easily end my life. I shook away the thought, I had to stay positive
if I was going to make it out of wherever I was alive. You are going to make it
out alive, you’re going to find Ella and both of you are going to live to tell
your stories.
“What do
you mean you don’t know if they saw the license plate or not!” The man from the
plane angrily yelled.
“I’m sorry
sir,” replied Tim. They looked my way and saw I was awake. A chill of fear
swept through my body. They clearly had more pressing matters to attend to,
because they walked into another room and continued arguing. I let out a sigh
of relief.
“Oh my
god, Emma? Are you awake?” a shaky voice muttered. I couldn’t believe it! It
was Ella!
“Ella? Is
that you!” I answered.
“Yeah, I’m
behind you,” she replied. I tried to move my head to see her, but I couldn’t
turn my head far enough to be able to see her. Just as I was about to ask her
if she was okay, I heard the dull sound of sirens coming from outside. It was
the police, we were saved! Relief flooded my body like a tsunami. Just then,
the two men rushed in from the other room and started to yell. My mind started
to race a million miles a minute. Would the police arrive in time? I thought.
The men looked at Ella and me, and the man from the plane walked over toward me
and punched me in the face, rendering me unconscious.
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