Wrong Place, Wrong Time

“Come on Macy; get your bag in the car so we can go already!” My older sister, Bridget yelled from downstairs. I sighed and threw my toiletry bag into my hold all and zipped it up quickly, knowing my sister would come upstairs and personally drag me down there in a few minutes.

She was incredibly eager to set off. I couldn’t blame her. This was our first holiday without our parents. They had decided now that Bridget nineteen, she was old enough to go on holiday with her friends without parental supervision. I had somehow managed to convince them that my sister was old enough to look after me as well as her, and had wriggled my way onto the trip.

It wasn’t anything special. We were going camping in Newquay for a week. This at the end of the day was a week of rain, mud and even more rain. Now, it wasn’t usually my cup of tea, but Bridget had promised that someone she knew who was also going had a caravan, so I would probably be able to convince them to let me sleep in there.

And if that didn’t work then I would sleep in my sister’s car. It didn’t matter that I was too tall to be able to lie down straight on the back seat. I would survive.

“Macy!” Bridget yelled once again, her voice more frustrated then it had been the last time she had called me. I heard her start storming up the stairs and I quickly grabbed my coat and lifted my bag so I could put the strap over my shoulder.

“I’m coming!” I shouted back and raced out of my room, picking up my phone from my bedside table before I did. My sister met me at the top of the stairs.

“I told you that you should have double checked that you had packed everything last night.” She mumbled and started back down the stairs.

“And I told you that I need to triple check everything because I practically have OCD.” I stuck my tongue out at the back of her head and followed her down the stairs. My parents both stood at the bottom of the stairs close to the door. I knew that they were glad enough to be getting rid of Bridget for a week, but with me gone as well they would probably feel like they had won the lottery or something. My Mum looked all worried about us going, so I smiled reassuringly at her.

“I'm going to miss you two!” She cried and pulled us both into a hug. Bridget managed to look over at me and roll her eyes, despite being crushed together. I laughed quietly.

“I know, I know Mum. And we’re going to miss you too.” Bridget managed to pries herself away from my mothers arms and smiled. “But we really need to get going if we’re going to follow the guys down.”

My mother nodded and stepped back away from us, putting her arms behind her back to avoid hugging us once again.

It didn’t last long. Once the bags were in the boot and everything was ready, my mother pulled us both into a hug once again. A shorter, less desperate attempt to get one of us to stay.

“Have fun you two, and don’t get into too much trouble.” My Dad warned us once we were in the car, Bridget driving and me sitting in the passenger seat. I had wanted to sit in the back so I could stretch my legs out and maybe try and sleep a little on the journey, but my sister had refused and dumped all the bags on the back seat. She didn’t want to look like a taxi driver.

“If there was even a slight chance of us causing trouble, you wouldn’t have let us go on this trip.” I pointed out to my father, whose head was sticking into the car through the wound down window. “Everything will be fine.” I promised him and he accepted that. If it had come from my sister, I don’t think he would have been fully convinced.

Finally, much to Bridget’s dislike, about half an hour later, we managed to set off. Once we were off our street and round the corner, that’s when I really started to feel excited. My sister pulled up outside her friend’s house about ten minutes later and honked the car horn twice. Another reason I couldn’t sleep on the backseat was that my sister’s best friend and long time ‘partner in crime’ was driving down to Newquay with us. Only my parents didn’t know this, because Emma’s parents didn’t know she was coming either. They were away on a second honeymoon for two weeks and wanted Emma to watch the house because they thought that her twin Alex wouldn’t be able to.

Which they did have a point, but Emma had demanded that she came along with us, and what Emma wants most of the time Emma gets.

“You are never going to believe what I heard.” Emma squealed as she climbed into the car, shoving all our bags up into one side of the car. “Justin Harrington and a group of his friends decided they were going to go down to Newquay after all.”

My sister rolled her eyes. “Is that all you care about?” She asked Emma, who shook her head. “Come on, we would probably have a lot more fun without Harrington and his cronies hanging around.”

“Yes, but he is gorgeous. Have you not seen him?” Emma sighed and adopted that puppy dog eyed look that she only used when she was fantasing about boys. My sister rolled her eyes again.

Emma and Bridget could not be any more different. They were polar opposites, and if you saw them walking down the street, you would not thing they were best friends. But I think the fact that they were so different made them so close.

Emma was the kind of girl who had posters for movie stars and boy bands all over her wall. She was a blonde haired, green eyed dreamer who wore a little bit too much pink.
My sister on the other hand was the type of girl who would shut herself in her room and listen to music or read a book all day if she was given the chance. Bridget was pretty grounded; her head wasn’t up in the clouds like her best friend’s. She was the kind of person who would over analyse everything, where as Emma was the kind of person who would run blindly into a battle without any backup.

Bridget was the kind of person who would let a guy make the first move and Emma was the kind of person who chased after guys that most of the time weren’t interested in her.

“Yes, I have seen him and he’s really nothing special.” My sister sighed and looked at her friend via the rear view mirror.

“Oh, come on. Even Macy agrees with me.” Emma squealed and my sister glanced over at me. I blushed a little and shrugged.

“The whole female population of my school probably agrees with you Emma.” I pointed out and turned my head so I could look at her.

“Still, he’s going to be there with a huge group of his friends. I’m thinking a summer romance is on the cards.” Emma sat back in her seat and looked out of the window in a dreamlike fashion.

“Don’t you mean a summer one night stand?” Bridget chuckled to herself. “You never pick the right guys Emma, let’s face it.”

“Oh shush you.” Emma waved off my sisters comment as if it were nothing, “I’m going to find you a guy whilst we are down in Cornwall, and you are going to be forever thankful to me because you will stop being so cynical.” Emma grinned and Bridget shook her head and rolled her eyes.

We had pulled onto the main road now; I kept an eye out for the familiar red BMW that my cousin Jackson and a few of his friends would be driving down in. Once we met up with them, it was non-stop (not including toilet breaks) down to Newquay. I’d lost interest in my sister’s conversation by now. Emma was still arguing why she didn’t pick the wrong boys, they just never understood her outlook on life.

I took out my ipod from my coat pocket and unwrapped the earphones before plugging them into my ears. Once my favourite songs were playing into my ears, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat.

“Jackson!” I ran into his tent and yelled his name again. “Jackson!” He looked up at me with his familiar brown eyes, startled.

“What do you want?” He asked.

“Don’t tell Bridget I told you this, but we really need help with the tent.” I sighed. “Can you do us a favor and, you know, casually walk by and offer some help?”

Jackson stared at me. “Erm, I guess I could help you.” I crouched down and hugged him before walking back over to our tent. We had been trying to get it up for the past two hours, and it was starting to drizzle a little bit. Bridget’s friend who was supposed to be coming in the caravan had called to say that he wouldn’t be able to make it till tomorrow, so I couldn’t even go hide in there till the rain had stopped.

My sister stood leaning against the side of her car, staring intensely at the set of instructions before her. She frowned and looked up at the sky, holding her hand out to double check that it was raining.

“Macy, I can’t make any sense of this.” She sighed when she noticed I was there. “We might have to wait in the car till it stops raining, and then set the tent up.”

“Yeah, but what if it doesn’t stop raining?” I asked and took the instructions out of her hand. I understood the logic of how the tent was supposed to go up, but I just couldn’t seem to put that logic into practice.

“Help me then!” She cried and pulled the hood of her jumper over her long black hair.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” I asked and pulled my own hood over my hair. I glanced over my shoulder to see Jackson walking down the field like I had asked him to, and then turned back to face my sister. She was staring at the instructions still. Emma was trying to stop the actual tent from blowing away before we had even put pegs into the ground.

“Do you guys need any help?” Somebody asked from behind us. I spun around, expecting to find my cousin but being greeted with a different sight.

I heard Emma gasp from behind me and I could tell my sister would be rolling her eyes right about now.

“We’re doing just fine thanks.” My sister sighed and I glanced over my shoulder to see that she wasn’t even acknowledging the fact that someone had just offered us help, or that said person was Justin Harrington.

Emma on the other hand was more then eager to accept his offer. “Justin, don’t listen to Bridget, we need help. Now.”

Justin rushed over to where the tent was laid out on the floor and held down the edge that was flapping around violently. He looked up at me.

“Can you come and hold this down for a minute?” He asked me. I nodded and half ran over to where he was crouching down. He smiled at me and then stood up and went to get the instructions from my sister.

Now, I knew Justin. Well, I knew of him. He used to parade around the school corridors like he owned the place, and he almost had the right to. He was by far the best looking guy at Reed Hill Grammar for years. Even when he had left sixth form, all the girls (and a few of the boys) from years seven to twelve all agreed that he was gorgeous. Saying all that, I had never actually had a real conversation with him, I don’t think I had even said two words to him until today.

Eventually he didn’t need me to hold down the flyaway tent anymore, so I sat in the only dry place I could, in my sister’s car, and watched Justin set up our tent, with the help of my sister and my cousin. Emma had also taken refuge in the car to avoid the rain. She had been as helpful as I had, which was not very.

Bridget walked over to the car about half an hour later and pulled open the door. “It’s officially safe to come out now.” She told me. “But if you do, it means you’re stuck at Harrington’s barbecue later on. It’s your choice.”

Emma jumped straight out of the car and practically ran over in Justin’s direction. I sighed and climbed out of the car, it would give me something to do. I climbed out of the car, half glad that it had stopped raining, and walked over to where my sister and her best friend stood talking to Justin and a couple of his friends who had suddenly appeared.

“Justin, this is my little sister Macy.” Bridget smiled once I had joined them. I scowled at her for calling me little, I was only three years younger then her, and I was technically an adult now.

“I think I’ve seen you some where before.” Justin told me. “You did go to Reed Hill didn’t you?”

“Yeah, though I was a couple of years below you.” I nodded and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. I suddenly felt like the baby of the group. Probably because I actually was the youngest there.

“I thought I’d seen you some place before.” He smiled at me and I looked away timidly. Then he turned his attention the rest of the group. “So, are you guys joining us for a barbecue tonight?”

Emma answered for us. “Well, considering we have nothing but pathetic little sandwiches and we don’t even know how to get to the nearest shop, I think it might be the best idea.” She nudged me, knowing I would agree with her.

My sister must have noticed her best friend nudge me on the arm because she agreed. “Yeah, we’ll come, why not?”

“Don’t worry; we know how to throw a party.” One of Justin’s friends, who I didn’t know the name of announced.

“It’s hardly going to be a big party.” The other of Justin’s friends replied. “I’d bring some water proofs though, it’s supposed to rain again tonight, and our tent’s not that big really.

“Pah, a little rain never stopped anybody having a little fun.” My sister laughed and motioned to her jumper. “I think we will survive a little downpour after this afternoon." So, it was sorted. Just like that. I knew that after tonight, we would be spending a lot of time with Justin and his friends, and at the time I thought that it was probably a good thing.