It was way too early, really, for me to be awake during vacation, but for the sake of a beach trip with my blockmates, I was willing to make a sacrifice. I hardly had any sleep for fear of being left behind, plus I wanted to try and blow-dry my hair because it decided to go unruly the day before the trip. It’s just like life for me to have that kind of problem, really.

At four-thirty, I was already up and at ’em, and at five thirty, I was already out of the house and heading to our meeting place. I ran the brush through my hair excitedly as I saw my ride and bid a quick goodbye to my dad who drove me there. A couple more hours later, after waiting for and picking up a couple of more friends, we were well on the way to Batangas.

“I can’t believe it took us two years to do this,” I said to Jay, who was sitting beside me, wearing his “daddy shades.”

“The long wait was worth it, wasn’t it?” He replied cheerfully. He looked behind us and yelled, “Look, there’s Luis and the others!”

The guys on the second row turned to looked to the back just like I did, and true enough, a white Trooper followed us closely from behind. I could make out the outline of a thin guy in the driver’s seat (Luis) and another guy sitting on the passenger seat (Chek, most probably). Luis beeped his horn and then accelerated beside us on the expressway, effectively overtaking us.

Ley, the guy behind our wheel, laughed and revved his engine up. I laughed while Kaye squealed — she’d always hated it when Ley would do that, while I was much too used with my brother’s speedy driving.

A phone rang, and it turned out to be Justin’s, who sat at the passenger seat. We waited as he answered the phone, and as expected, it was the people from the other van.

“What? Caltex? Or Petron? Okay, Petron. See you!” Justin hung up the phone and said, “Stopover at Petron!”

“Yay, I’m hungry,” Kaye said in her high-pitched voice that warranted a laugh. We went back to our conversations from earlier as Ley drove us smoothly to the gas station for the stopover.

I wasn’t planning to go down, so I stayed in my seat. The others went down, so I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, marveling at the feeling of freedom of this vacation. Totally, absolutely well-deserved, I thought.

A little while later, the others came back and they piled inside the van. We had a hard time spotting the others for some reason, so Ley drove around slowly, until we finally saw the white Trooper parked a couple of feet away. He stopped as soon as we got there and Ervin opened the door.

Suddenly, there was noise everywhere. Our friends outside started yelling and greeting us while everyone inside started doing the same thing. It was almost pandemonium, with all cheerful and excited greetings coming from all our mouths.

Ley finally honked his horn and Ervin closed the door. As he drove off back on the way, he said, “Wow, it’s like you hadn’t seen each other for a year.” We all just laughed.

It’s going to be such a fun trip, I can tell.

[566 words]

Tags: 61, first person, non-fiction