I leaned far out of the van window, staring out at bird flying lazily in the distance. “Get back in the car,” Mom shouted. Sulkily, I sat down, wishing I could be on my bike, with the wind blowing in my face and the houses a brown blur in my vision.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the plan. This was supposed to be a “family” vacation, as Mom had said. Some kind of family I have. I looked around the crowded van. My two twin sisters, Faith and Hope, sat playing with their decapitated dolls and laughed every time a limb popped off. Darryl, my younger brother, was watching the latest episode of Pokémon, which he claimed was a “manly” show. My parents were in the front arguing about which exit to take while Grandma’s drool fell into the cup holder.
Yeah, that was my “normal” family. And where was this “normal” family going in the old worn-down family van, you might ask? We were on our way to Samuel J Tilden’s birthplace, the cheapest vacation my parents could find.
“Mommy, can I use the bathroom?” Darryl said, momentarily taking his eyes away from Pikachu’s latest attack.
“Sorry, the next rest stop is in 10 miles. HOLD IT!!!” Mom said.
“We would’ve been at the rest stop if we had stayed on that road,” Dad said, glaring at Mom.
“Dad, watch out!” I shouted as Dad swerved around a car.
“Are you blaming me?!?” Mom replied angrily and they went into another round of arguing. Darryl started to complain about his small bladder, Grandma started to snore, and the twins stated to argue about who got to pull the leg off first. The noise gradually increased and my temper continued to rise. Trust me; it takes a while for my temper to boil over. I’ve been living with this family for 16 years; I’m used to it.
But I couldn’t take it this time. “HEY, IF THE GUY HAS TO POTTY, LET HIM POTTY. IF HE GOTTA GO, HE GOTTA GO!”
My parents stopped arguing, Darryl stopped complaining, and the twins ceased fighting. Even Grandma woke up. Good thing too because I was beginning to think she was dead.
“Fine,” Dad said stubbornly and we exited the highway to find a bathroom. The van was filled with silence as we pulled up to a gas station. There was a hill-billy strumming a banjo.
“Howdy y’all. The name’s Billy.” he asked.
“Okay, I guess. How’s the banjo working for you?” I replied. Mom pulled me aside.
“You don’t talk to hill-billies!!” she whispered.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well,” Mom pondered, “because they’re hill-billies!!” I shrugged and I walked into the bathroom. My bladder needed some emptying out too.
That was the biggest mistake I ever made.
The bathroom STANK! And I mean stink like a dirty hobo plus a skunk plus a fat guy on the train that didn’t use deodorant. Holding my nose, I walked to the urinal making sure I didn’t squish any roaches that were scurrying along the brown floor. I’m pretty sure the original color of the floor was not brown. At the urinal, I looked in disgust at the mold and the dried urine that stained the porcelain. Even my pee didn’t deserve to go in a place like that.
After relieving my bladder and my nose from the horrible stench, I returned to the van to continue with our road trip. Or at least the spot where our van used to be. Instead, our suitcases were scattered across the parking lot and Grandma lay, sleeping contently on the black asphalt.
“That’s just great,” I muttered as I crossed the parking lot to wake up Grandma. As we walked back, we could hear the conversation about our stolen van.
“What are we gonna do?”Mom sobbed, tears streaming down her face. “This vacation is ruined!”
“Calm down, Mom,” I said. “You know this vacation only cost you $50. You’re not going to lose anything.”
“But what are we going to do?!?” Darryl shouted. “My Pokémon is still in that car!” We all walked away as Darryl continued to complain about his Pokémon.
“How about we just stay in a hotel for tonight? I know the perfect one.” Dad said, leading us down the road.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a worn down house with black paint peeling off of the rotten wood exterior. “What the hell is this place?” I asked in horror. Dad picked up a piece of cardboard off of the weed infested lawn.
“Gratitude Hotel. We thank you for even stopping by.” Dad read. I sighed as we dragged our luggage up to the front door.
The knocker had fallen off so we knocked on the door. “Helloooo, is anyone in there?” Dad asked. Nobody replied. Angrily, I dropped my luggage and stormed to the door. This had been a bad day for me. First the stinky bathroom, and then the van being stolen. This Gratitude Hotel was not going to ruin my day any more.
“OPEN UP!!!” I shouted, pounding my fist on the door. To my surprise, my fist went straight through, revealing rotten wood with termites squirming to escape the sun’s wrath. Then, the door fell down, blowing the years of dust on the floor into our faces.
After we ended our coughing spasm, we entered the hotel. Rats scurried across the floor as we crossed the lobby. There we saw an old man, with his beard growing dust bunnies. Snot colored the top of his beard yellow and a caterpillar was crawling above his eyes. Never mind, that was his eyebrows. Or eyebrow?
Anyway, Dad knocked on the desk, which collapsed, blowing dust into our faces resulting in another coughing spasm. When the dust finally settled down, and we finally stopped coughing, Dad tapped the man on the shoulder and he woke up with a jump.
“Who the hell are you people?!” he said. “And who this mighty fine lady you got right here,” he said to Grandma.
“We’re the Bensons and we would like a room,” Dad said, trying to hide the disgust in his voice.
“Well, I’ll show you the best room we here have. If you and this sexy mama will follow me,” he said and while taking Grandma’s arm, he led us up the creaking stairs. After what seemed like climbing for an eternity we finally entered a room.
Cobwebs hung all over the room, and a fine layer of dust was on everything. The mirror was cracked, and holes were all over the blankets and mattresses. “Is this really the finest hotel you guys have?” I asked in disbelief, wiping some dust of the window to reveal the scenic view of a garbage dump.
“It’s the only room we have without bugs,” the man said with a shrug.
“We’ll take it!” we all shouted at once. The man gave us the keys to the room and left with the dusty room.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked throwing myself onto the bed. The bed creaked under my weight, as if nobody had sat on it for a long time.
“We clean up this room, you idiots!” Mom shouted tossing us boxes of baby wipes. Why she was carrying them with her, I do not know. What I do know is that Mom was going to work us to death cleaning that room.
“Hey, Mom, I have to use the bathroom, so I’ll be back,” I said. After you guys finish cleaning, I thought. However, my mom seems to have the power to read minds and unfortunately she saw through my ruse. I was stuck with the rest of my”normal” family. While we worked like slaves, Mom felt it was convenient to take off her shoes and relax. After an hour or so, we finally turned the disgusting room into something decent. But we still had the problem of deciding who slept on the bed and who slept on the floor.
“I’m sleeping on the bed,” I said, quickly jumping on the bed which again creaked under my weight.
“Me too,” Mom said, pushing me over so she could have room. But before she could get comfortable and take up most of the bed, Dad pulled her off.
“No way! You’ve been sleeping while the rest of us have been working. You can get your fat self off of this bed!” Dad shouted. While Mom and Dad continued to argue, the hotel owner sneaked into the room.
“Hello, baby. You can sleep with me if you want,” he whispered and he led Grandma out of the room. Trying hard not to vomit, I turned my attention back to my bickering parents. Darryl and the twins quietly snuck into the bed and together we slept. It’s amazing how your parents arguing in the background can be a lullaby, rocking you to sleep.
The next morning, the sound of a bulldozer tearing through the garbage woke me up. Sunlight shone through the window. I got out of bed slowly, looking around. Next to Darryl’s mouth was a pool of drool where my head was a minute ago. Disgusted, I ran to the bathroom to wash my head. Instead of real water, which is clear and only liquid, some brown liquid came out, with small black objects floating in it. I decided to keep the drool on my head for now. As I walked back into the bedroom, everyone was beginning to wake up.
“Good morning.” Mom said sleepily, “Hope you guys had a good night sleep because I know I didn’t.” She stretched and strolled towards the bathroom.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I said. Mom didn’t listen to me of course and when she came out, her face was streaked with brown lines.
“Yeah, don’t go in there,” Mom said.
The door opened violently and Grandma came in as stressed as 90 year old woman who has climbed four flights of stairs could be. “The owner’s gone and the front doors are boarded!”
“Oh my gosh!” Mom shouted. “What are we going to do?!?”
“That’s not it. He stole my dentures!” Grandma screamed in horror. “Come on, son!” She pulled Dad out of the room and slammed the door.
“Is this a big deal?” Dad asked miserably. “And you don’t want to hurt your back again!”
“Who cares about my back? I want my dentures!” The stairs creaked as the unlikely duo raced down to find Grandma’s dentures. While the rest of my family went to get changed I decided to take a look around the Gratitude Hotel. After sneaking away from the room, I crept down the hallway into another room. Once I closed the door behind me, I turned around to face the ugliest painting I ever seen. It was a painting of a face; a face that was ran over by a car two times and then fell off a cliff. Two pink noses where the eyes were supposed to be, and the mouth hung off the chin by a string. Disgusted by the painting, I turned around to face another one and to my astonishment, the room was filled with these paintings.
“Hello, Dallas, where are you?” I heard Darryl say from the hallway.
“In here,” I shouted, and my siblings came. With the door closed behind them, the room returned to its eerie atmosphere and I wanted to get out. “Let’s get out of here,” I muttered and walked towards the door. The noses seemed to follow me as I attempted to turn the doorknob. The door was locked. I continued to push the door and to no avail. We were trapped in the room with the creepy paintings forever and ever. Frustrated, I began to bang on the door.
“Let me try,” Hope said quietly as she pulled me away from the door. She turned the doorknob and swung the door open. Embarrassed, I led my siblings back to our room and our parents weren’t there. The luggage was gone and the room was a mess. Well, it was already kind of messy but it looked horrible now. The blankets were ripped into shreds and the mirror was in pieces all over the floor.
“What happened here?” Faith whispered.
“It’s simple, our parents have been kidnapped,” Darryl said, putting on his best Sherlock Holmes accent. “As seen at the scene of the crime, there was a fight that took place here.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I said. This was too much too handle in one day. One more weird thing, and I’m was gonna turn crazy.
“We should hunt them down,” Darryl suggested. Yep, I’m going crazy. “We’ll need a couple of baseball bats, and butcher knives and a first aid kit.”
“And where will we find these things, General, sir?” I asked, as I walked away.
“We’ll find them around the hotel,” he said, leading the twins out of the room. Sadly, I had no other choice to follow them. Darryl led us into at least twenty rooms, searching for what he felt would be our “weapons of destruction”. I’m not sure how much destruction you can cause with a baseball bat, but I hope it’s a lot. Those kidnappers seemed serious.
Finally, we found all of our “weapons of destruction”. “What do we do now?” Faith asked.
“You two can go around the corner and see if there are any more baseball bats,” Darryl said, examining the first-aid kit. The twins ran, eager to help in the mission, but after they were out of sight we heard two shrieks. “Faith! Hope!” Darryl shouted and we dashed around the corner. Before us, laid an empty hallway; they were gone. Gritting my teeth, I came to the realization that this kidnapper might be a real person or persons.
“You ready?” I asked Darryl, who nodded back in return. We both picked up a baseball bat, and walked towards the lobby.
“Are you sure he’s gonna be here?”Darryl asked, after we had waited ten minutes.
“How else is he going to leave the hotel?” I replied.
“Well, he could’ve left through a window.” I sighed and turned my attention by to the stairs. Creaks were coming down the stairs. One by one slowly, it came down the stairs. It sounded like it was shouting; shouting to find its allies to kidnap. Then, more footsteps came and the kidnappers emerged, as Faith and Hope.
“What happened to you two?” I asked, breathing a sigh of relief.
“It’s a long story, we…” Faith started. A shadow was sneaking up behind the twins. It looked like it had a knife in its hand, ready to kill two sweet innocent girls. I ran towards them, Darryl following me.
“Watch out!” I shouted, throwing my bat at the kidnapper.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!?” Mom shouted. She had come out of the shadows, with her flat iron in her hand. Dad and Grandma were behind her.
“Well that solves everything but what happened to the owner?” Darryl asked.
“What about the owner?” a voice said. The owner of the hotel came down the stairs looking as ugly as ever. “I left the hotel to get some new cowboy hat, so I sold my sexy mama’s teeth to get this.” I would say what happened next, but I’m afraid that Grandma would get arrested for “near murder”. So what I will say is that we left the hotel with a cowboy hat on each one of our heads.
So we rented a car by selling the baseball bats, and our “normal” family continued on our trip to Samuel J. Tilden’s birthplace. I’m not sure what the rest of my family would say, but I think this was an enlightening experience. I learned that no matter how weird your family is, there are weirder people out there. Trust me on this one.
Laolu Ogunnailke
Age 13, Grade 8,
Mark Twain I.S. 239 for the Gifted and Talented
Silver Key