Jazmin Avellaneda
The trip of a lifetime.
It was the warmest it had been in Los Angeles since the summer of last year. All over the city people were shedding their thick, bulky sweaters for flirty little skirts and colorful Havainas flip-flops.. After a long, cold winter and a spring that felt just as horridly cold as winter, summer was finally starting to show its warmth and splendor. There was a calm serenity all over the city, as people layed in the sun, played in their backyards on the newly exposed green grass. Everywhere was quiet. Everywhere, that is, except the room of the girl who lived in 45 St. every where except in the room of Liza Duke.
Liza was ecstatic, and had no intention of expressing her enthusiasm quietly. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard, and after a moment of stillness in a silent shock, she screamed a louder scream than had been previously expelled for her mouth. If she had heard correctly, and she was sure she had, then her best friend, Nikky Smith, had invited her to go to Ibiza that summer along with their friends, Reese and Lucy, in a mere three weeks. According to her also ecstatically excited best friend, Nikky´s parents had a gorgeous house on the beach in Ibiza and they were letting the four girls stay there for the whole summer, by themselves! Liza’s head was spinning with ideas of what the trip would be like, and what they would do there, and all the gorgeously tanned, muscular, charming Greek guys they would meet. She had taken a Greek course that year and so she had enough knowledge of the language to be able to easily interact with people. As the realization of exactly what the invitation entailed slowly sunk in, she commenced jumping on the bed, squealing continually.
“LIZAAA!!!” Nikky yelled, “You’re hurting my ears!”
“Whoops, sorry,” Liza had forgotten that she was still on speaker phone with Nikky. She smiled cheerfully at her pink furry phone, forgetting that Nikky couldn’t see her. “Oh my god, Nik, I love you, you are the best friend in the world, THIS IS GONNA BE SO COOL!”
“I know, right?” Niiky sounded just as excited as Liza, “But remember to ask your parents right away, don’t put it off ok? Because I know you always do that, and we don’t have time. We’re leaving in three weeks, so you need to get permission really soon”
Liza slowed her jumping to a halt, her smile rapidly fading, and a frown formed on her face. My parents, she thought, are definitely going to need some convincing.
“Ok, I’m going to go talk to them right away, I’ll call you later. Bye!”
Liza pushed the off button on the phone and tried to come up with a plan to ask her parents about the trip. She twirled her long, naturally blonde hair around her finger as she tried to come up with a way to convince them to let her go. She brought her hand to her mouth to bit her nails, realizing halfway there that she really needed to stop that disgusting habit before university, and so paused with one hand hovering in the air and one rapidly twirling a lock of hair. It was almost the end of her senior year, only one more day of classes was left, and then a week of exams. Liza would be going off to university in a few months, and so this was the time when most parents were giving their kids a bit of freedom. Well unfortunately, most parents did not include her parents. She was sure she had the most over protective parents in the world. She wasn’t aloud to walk to school by herself until grade 11, because her parents were sure she’d get lost or beat up, even though she’d gone to the same school since she was in Kindergarten 4, and was friends with just about everyone in her neighborhood. Yeah, she thought, this isn’t going to be easy.
Liza went through her wardrobe and tried to find the most conservative outfit she owned. Finally, she settled on a pair of high rise kakis and a cute pink blouse. She checked herself out in her full length mirror. I look completely nerd and childish, she though, it’s perfect! (Of course, this is the kind of perfection Liza´s parents like). She decided that it needed one final touch, and so she went into her bathroom to wash all of the makeup off of her face.
