The school bell rang, much to everyone's delight, signaling the beginning of summer vacation.
"Have a good summer, everyone!" the teacher shouted as shouts of excitement filled the air.
"You too, Mrs. Nagel!" I shouted over the noise, waving at her. She smiled back at me, happy that someone acknowledged her.
I walked out of the classroom, carrying my book bag over my shoulder. This bag would soon become something else, maybe a mail bag that I carry secret notes to my friends in, or a laptop bag for obvious reasons. Or maybe I'd turn it into a pillowcase. A denim pillowcase. How uncomfortable.
"Evan!" my best friend Elsa shouted, grabbing my shoulders and jumping up and down. I refused to let my friends call me Angel, because that's what He called me. So they called me Evan instead. "Are you excited to go to South Padre? Because I so am. Are you packed or do we have to wait in your living room again?"
"Oh, my dear Elsa. What the chatterbox you are," I said, laughing. "I'm almost finished packing, I promise. I just have to find something and I'll be good to go."
"Good, because the rest of us are packed. You're the only one that's not," my best guy friend Dusty said, poking my arm.
"Hey! Be nice! I'm paying for the trip this year, so I'm actually allowed to be lazy on my packing this year," I defended myself, pretending to be offended. I poked his stomach. "You were pretty lazy yourself last year."
"Okay, in my defense, Elsa was paying last year and I thought she would never get enough money," he said, playing with my hair.
"And she didn't. We had to sleep in tents, remember?" I said, pulling my head away from his hands and tickling Elsa.
"Hey! It's not my fault! Mom took away my credit card! She almost didn't even let me go," she said, slapping my hands. "Stop tickling me!"
We walked out to the parking lot to my bright red 2013 Dodge Grand Caravan (a 16th birthday present from my mum) sat waiting for us, next to Aubrey and Carson, our other best friends.
"Alright troops! Load up!" I shouted, clapping my hands above my head and grinning. Dustin poked my dimple, like he always did when I smiled. I slapped his hand away.
"Yes, sir!" Elsa shouted back, opening the trunk of my van and throwing her stuff neatly into the pit. She always packed the van, no matter what. She was the best at it, and even when we had a ton of stuff to put in there, I could still see out my rear window entirely. And everything was always in the trunk. She's weird that way.
"Thanks, Elsa!" I shouted, pressing the autostart button on my keys so the van would be at least halfway cooled off by the time we got in.
"Next!" she shouted, which meant she was ready for the next person's bags. Dustin sauntered up to her and handed her his duffel bag and pillow, then his sleeping bag. She shoved them in the trunk, then repeated the process with everyone else's bags.
I got in my van and sighed when I felt the cool A/C hit my sweaty skin. I had lived in Texas for two and a half years. I don't think my body would ever get used to the heat. The trunk was shut, then everyone piled in to the van, chattering excitedly. I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, listening to the chatter. Before I knew it, I pulled into my driveway and everyone repeated the process, except backwards. Except the packing. That didn't get unpacked from the trunk.
We all ran into my house, hoping to escape the heat again. A collective sigh filled the mudroom when the A/C hit our skin, and I laughed.
"I'll be back. You guys chill in the living room. There's ice pops in the freezer if you want any," I said, going up the stairs to my bedroom. I grabbed my small duffel bag and purse, then took a crate from my closet and went out to the kitchen to get munchies.
I packed Pop-Tarts, granola bars, water bottles, candy bars, brownies, cookies, animal crackers, and peanut butter, along with an assortment of nuts and gummy candies. I toted this all out to the living room, where all my friends were licking ice pops and chattering amongst themselves.
"I hope you lot have packed food, too, because this is all I have right now," I said, shrugging at the crate.
"Holy shit, Evan! Did you pack for a small army or something?" Elsa asked.
"Yes. The lot of you are food lovers and I have a feeling that we won't be eating out every night. I'm going to run out of money by the second night at least," I said. "My debit card only has so much on it, you know."
"Yeah, yeah. Can we go now?" Aubrey said excitedly, bouncing in her seat.
"Throw away your ice pop stick first. I don't want that on my coffee table," I replied, pointing disapprovingly at the stick. Aubrey picked it up and skipped to the wastebasket and dropped it in, and was followed by three other excited teenagers.
"Y'all ready?" Elsa asked, looking around. She was answered with a chorus of yeses, and we were off to my van, Dustin carrying the crate and Elsa carrying my duffel bag.
Once we were all packed, we set off on our long drive to South Padre Island, Texas.

Notes

Elsa's outfit


Aubrey's outfit:


Evangeline's outfit:


Okay, so this is my third story and I'm really excited for this one. Sorry if I don't use correct British lingo, because I'm American and I know almost nothing about British lingo, just American. I had to correct "mom" to "mum" in there twice, then deleted the second occurence, so don't sue me. I'm trying. Really. :)

I've been to South Padre Island myself, and the sand there is SOOOO soft. I'll probably post some pictures in the next chapter of what we saw while we were there. There was one side of a doll house on one of the sand dunes. It was funny. I'll be sure to put that picture on here. :) :) :) :) ;) ;) ;) ;) :)