Days Like This by Stephanie Sloan
"Steph, Steph."
"What? Is it time for school?"
"No, stupid," Mum replied. "We're going on holiday! Remember?" She then walked out of my room singing happily to herself. I sighed and dragged myself out of bed and looked at my watch. Two in the morning! Everyone must think we're crazy getting up at this time. Already dressed, as it was easier at this time, I grabbed my bag and a pillow and sleepily walked down stairs, outside and into the car. "You better get some sleep because I don't want your lack of sleep to be taken out on me on this holiday," moaned Beth. "don't worry," I replied. "I'm going to get as much sleep as I can, mainly because I don't want to listen to bad eighties CD's all the way there." Beth laughed. I cuddled in and within seconds I was happily dreaming of the perfect holiday.
"Thank God, we're finally here" I heard Beth say. I sat up and look out of the window. I saw a huge APH sign and lots of car parked. This was place we left our car at last year and I can clearly remember what it looked like. It hadn't changed one bit, even the workers. All hefty and loud-mouthed. "Oh. You've finally decided to wake up" Mum said. "I thought you would have been woken up ages ago, when Dad was reliving the eighties." I laughed. We then had to get onto a bus and wait for more people to come before we could set off to the airport. Four cheery, middle-aged women hopped on, wearing pink cowgirl hats. You would know straight away where they were going, except Beth of course, she had to ask why they were wearing pink cowgirl hats, and Mum replied by saying they have obviously been to a hen party and were now probably going to the wedding abroad. I had to laugh because for Beth being a bright ten year old girl, she did ask some silly questions at times.
We arrived at Manchester Airport at half six. And just in time, because just after Beth and bad had finished going through the spiralling queue the proper way, whereas Mum and I just dived under all of the wires, everyone stared flooding in and queuing up. Once we had got our tickets and said bye to our suitcases, we made it to the security check The man told me my belt would be okay to keep on, but as I walked through the detector. It beeped. So the woman had to ask my mum if it was all right for me to be searched, as she also made the detector go off. So the scary woman searched me and told me I should of took my belt off, when the man told me it would be fine. And when I told my Mum, she wasn't happy about it. But we went on to have a wander round the shops. We found some magazines to read beside the pool and for the flight and Beth and I tested" lots of perfumes, which was funny because Beth didn't know how the bottle worked and ended up spraying it in her eyes and mouth. All the shops prices were a rip off, so we ,just went to the allocated gate and watched other planes take off and land.
Our gate eventually opened and we got a bus over to our First Choice plane. When we got into the plane we found that bad was going to have to sit next to strangers as it seats were arranged as three on each side and I was going to have no TV for four hours. Which didn't make me happy. However when they went to show us the safety rules the TV's folded down from above us. While sitting there waiting for the plane to start moving all sorts of things started going through my mind. Why was it taking so long to take off? Was there something wrong with the plane? These thoughts seemed to get worse by the minute until the plane started moving to the runway and when we finally started to speed up and be pulled to our seats and lifted off, I felt better. I couldn't see out the window as Beth got the window seat, as usual. Although I didn't mind as Kung Fu Panda was starting. Then it wasn't long until our breakfast came. I took off the foil lid and even though it looked horrible I still ate it all as I was so hungry. The film then finished arid Pingu came on so I went for another sleep.
I woke up with a bump and then everyone started clapping. I looked out of the window and saw the sun shining on the calm, turquoise sea. We were in Lanzarote. We got off the plane and went through passport control, where some funny looking men checked our passports. We collected our suitcases, which took so long we thought they had been lost. We found out where our bus was parked and within fifteen minutes we were at our apartments. At this point I was sweating as I had jeans on but the reception was nice and cool. We got our key and were told what way to go. We walked by the main pool, it looked quite deep and at that moment I felt like jumping in, but Beth had found our room. We went up some steps and Beth opened our door. The room looked plain with a sofa, TV, table and a little kitchen, with Mum and Dad's room and a bathroom, but we knew we wouldn't be in it much. We had a balcony and as I stepped out and looked across to the pool. glistening in the hot sun. The place seemed calm and relaxing. This is when I thought my dream was actually going to be real.
