(NaNoWriMo) The Stylish Adventures of the Ruggedly Good-Looking Andrew(PG-13)

W00T! Second NaNoWriMo fic on the site. This story is completely true, except for the exaggarations you will no doubt figure out. It is meant to be funny and is written badly I know, so enjoy. The title is meant to be an eye catcher and to mock me. All neames have been changed so as to not violate copywrite.

Any people that resemble people in this story, being living or dead, are entirely coincidental.


The Stylish Adventures of the Ruggedly Good-Looking Andrew

Chapter One- Are We There Yet?

“Promise you’ll call me?” she asked, her red hair shining in the damp, dark hallway.

Her being Chy Hope, the girl of my dreams. But then you already knew that, so let’s start over. I am Andrew, a ruggedly good-looking tenth grader, and it’s the last day of school. Good time to tell someone you like them, right? That’s what I thought too, and then I realized it would be stupid, plus I wouldn’t have time to enjoy it.

See, I’m half-Greek, which gives me certain advantages to others, one being the fact that I go to Greece in the summer. Cool right? Anyway, I look Greek, standing almost six feet tall. Yeah, embarrassing for my school, but I look good. Ever see those pirates in your fantasies girls? That would be me.

All right fine, I’m a nerd okay? I look like a freaking nerd. I have pimples; yes I’m not ashamed. I have brown hair that defies gravity, and I can twist my foot. Big deal right, but you’d be amazed at how much attention I get. I might not be full American, but I enjoy the qualities that many others enjoy. Like public urination. You may think I live in New York but I in fact live in North Texas, in Arlington.

I’m not a hick though, as you should know that I don’t live there by choice. See, my dad retired from the military a year ago, so we came back here to live among his family. Some fun. But they’re not too bad, I mean, yes they can be annoying, but when I lived in Europe I never got to live near family, so it’s kind of cool.

My mom is this huge control freak over small stuff like R-rated movies and South Park, but she’ll let me do some pretty cool stuff in Greece. You, the readers, will all be jealous. And cry for not getting the same chances. She’s small, wears glasses, and likes to pop pimples to an almost disturbing level.

My bro, a little baby named John, aka the biggest wuss on the planet, looks like a little version of me, except he’s twelve. He also has a big mouth, so I tell him none of my secrets.

My good friends that will be mentioned through the course of this story are Blair the Pyromaniac, Aaron the Yu-Gi-Oh fan, Scruffy the moron, and Magic the annoying dude. Because I am lazy, or perhaps owing to the utter haste in which I write this, I will reveal more about them later.

Now then, back to the story. We have four exams a day on the last day of school, pretty tough. On the day in question I had one exam, because I was cool and didn’t have to do the others, because I am a genius. My only exam for the day was Multimedia, an easy class that I aced without difficulty. My teacher, Mr. Baron, was an old man in his late forties, but looked like he was in his sixties. Yeah, he was old. But the man knew his computers, no doubt about it, he probably helped build the first one.

Anyways, I finished the exam easily and spent the rest of my time surfing the internet, because I could. I wandered into ZU for the last time for a while because my grandparents don’t own a computer. Oh yeah, my grandparents live in Greece, so that’s where I’m going this summer!

They live in the large, very smelly city of Salonkia, located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. A concrete jungle surrounded by pollution and noise, much like New York. But as I haven’t even made it to the plane, I’m getting ahead of myself.

As the bell rang, I felt what could only be described as the need to expel gas, otherwise known as absolute relief. I cheered with everyone else as I ran outside, chanting on how the school sucked and how I’d TP it later on in the summer. But I was lying.

A gigantic truck honked at me, signaling that my American grandfather was there to get me. He was a retired Army general, so I hustled like crazy to get over to the other side of the street where he was parked.

“Get in,” he ordered me, but I knew he meant well, probably because another car was heading straight for me, so I jumped into the passenger seat next to him. He had short grey hair, with a trucker’s cap on his forehead. His eyes twinkled, and he told me the words I would never forget, but I unfortunately forgot them. So much for remembering things.

“Yes sir,” I replied, sitting down in my seat, safe from the lunatics on the road.

My mom has this huge thing against American drivers. She’s always calling them stupid and crazy, to which I reply, “Mom, if driving in circles in crazy, then that is a crazy person.” She usually wins that argument.

“Ya ready to go?” my grandpa asked, navigating through the sea of testosterone-driven teenagers towards the road. “GET OF THE ROAD!” he shouted from his window, which was retorted by some rude marks and answers.

“Yeah Gramps,” I answered, setting my bag on the footrest in relief. Fortunately, I didn’t urinate, and we made it okay to my home.

I used to live at my grandparent’s house, until my mom decided to deprive my of the precious cable that had been denied to me for five years, and moved us to Westview Terrace. It’s a nice little complex full of families, including a family I knew very well, for they were my cousins. The Gruesome Foursome, or Tori, Will, Alex, and Angelica, lived right nearby, where we visited only to make sure my Aunt Helen was still okay.

But this story is not about them, it’s about me, Andrew, so we will continue looking at what I did over the summer. The houses all look the same from the outside, but our house has a little feature that makes us impossible to rob. As we pulled up and rang to doorbell, it made itself abundantly clear.

WOOF WOOF WOOF! went the sadistic monster we refer to as our dog Trooper, a Min pin with a big mouth. His short brown fur flashed up like a cat as we came inside, making sure we weren’t strangers.

“Hello Satan,” I answered the dog’s barking, going upstairs to my room, as I forgot to pack.

“Did you pack your things?” came my mother’s whiny voice from downstairs as I pulled the door open.

“Yes Mom, I’m always organized,” I lied back, she didn’t need to blow from pressure just yet.

A half hour later I had everything I wanted. My beautiful collection of mangas that I was taking. Books as well. I couldn’t take games because it wouldn’t work due to the adapter I would have to take for my Game Boy to operate.

I was also taking my notebooks for writing, as well as my Latin homework. If I was going to be tanning my hide I had figured I should do it while studying. Girls love smart dudes. My Yu-Gi-Oh cards were going as well, because my cousin there was going crazy waiting to duel me.

And I had a really small backpack to put them in. “Well,” I muttered aloud, “that sucks.”

After careful consideration, I decided to put away tearfully some of my manga. My Dragon Ball comics would never see the European shores, along with dot Hack. I shed a tear, then scratched myself and ate food until it was 3:45.

My brother gets out at four, an we need to be at the airport as fast as possible, so we headed out there with all our belongings and traveling gear. His school looks like mine, but is worse because it is a Middle School. When the bell rang, I heard the same cries of joy as I had at my school, only with more girly screams. I guess they just haven’t developed their voices yet. My brother came out of the front entrance to the school, looking as relieved as I had, perhaps even more so, it was his first time taking exams.

“Get in Wenus,” I muttered, as my baby brother walked up and jumped into the car.

“Shut up fat boy,” John, my brother, answered, shutting the door behind him. He always called me fat, though he was larger than I was, at least waist-wise.

I think we went to Dallas Airport soon afterwards, we needed to get on the plane fast, owing to the strange need of my mom to see her parents. Why does she always think about herself? Anyways, we managed to get to the gate just before the waterworks started from my brother.

Trooper was going to his kennel, my grandparents’ house, where he would be treated in a manner befitting royalty. “Lucky dog,” I muttered, my mom already had the summer planned. We were going to Salonika for a week or two, then my aunt Sara was coming. We would head then for Corfu then go to Olympus Mountain to climb it. Then, to Vovurou, the wonderful beach community that I lived for.

But more on that later, because we have to go through security. Airport security has really been vamped up due to terrorism, so they check for anything that could be used as a weapon. Corkscrews, chainsaws, nail files, the works. It’s getting to the point where a man can’t bring on board a decent katana. I never bring such things, none of my family do, but it never stops my Dad from being searched. Of course, he wasn’t with us, he had to work, so he would come later, just before we went to Vovorou.

I walked through the metal detector calmly, I had nothing to hide. I was saying goodbye to America for two months, the land of the free, the home of the Whopper. I was about to say hello to a land that was out taking a whiz when God handed out morals. The Greek homeland.

We sat into the terminal to wait for our flight to board. I noticed someone playing with a PSP, but I let him live. It was a hard choice, being fiercely Nintendo fan, but I managed. At last, our seats were called, and we headed to the line to wait yet again, only this time standing up.

“Flight no. 173953 to Salonika, Greece, is now boarding,” echoed the nasal voice in the speakers for what felt like the twentieth time. The woman refused to be quiet.

After a truly long wait that lasted a grand total of ten minutes, we made it to the front of the line, where we were given the pleasure of seeing the woman with the nasal voice. “Tickets please,” she droned in the same tone as the one on the speaker.

“Here we are,” my Mom answered, after fumbling for the tickets. She passed them over to the attendant, who grasped them with arthritis-ridden hands. She was not a pretty site, with ugly, tacky jewelry draped on her ears like bells. She had terrible make-up, and smelt strongly on vinegar.

“Seems fine,” the woman muttered, flipping through them while I faked vomited with my brother. “Here,” she finished, tearing off the part we actually needed to get on board.

“We could save trees by only printing that part,” I muttered to myself, before being laughed at by my brother.

“Don’t be such a hippy,” my brother teased, before getting a swift punch in the shoulder.

“Boys,” my mom muttered in Greek, she likes to threaten us in our native language. “Save your stupidity for when we get to Greece.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered back. I can speak Greek, my brother can’t do so very well. As we neared the plane, it occurred to me it felt too hot. I shouldn’t have worn my jacket in Texan summer, or in Greek summer as the case was coming to be.. I took it off, exposing my white t-shirt. Below that I wore my blue jeans and black shoes. I also had on green underwear, in case anyone was interested, under my pants.

Our seats were in the back, away from the rich folk that always travel in first class. I have only been in first class once when I was five, but I never forgot it. People bringing you things, talking to the pilot without asking. Decent food and not that slop they serve to other passengers, it was the best.

Ignoring an urge to steal a seat in first class, I settled for the small seat presented to me. At least I fit in in, which is more than can be said for another airline who’s chair I couldn’t even fit in.

I buckled my seat belt, looked from my aisle seat to the window, to ask my mother the age-old question.

“Are we there yet?”

2194 Words.

Very quool power shot! Hehe, we're both from D/FW! Quool. ^_^ I'll keep up with this.

This is a very amusing star Power Shot! Cheers for your endeavours; I look forward to seeing more of this!

Okay - I'm enjoying this one lots. ^_^ It rambles, it ignores the first couple of paragraphs after saying "let's explain something first", and gives lots of background information - but I like it!

Good luck, Power Shot. If you post something like this every day, you won't need it, but who cares?

Enjoy more of my ramblings today! This chapter has some ranting about various subjects, as well as hitting Europe. Please review, it's so far the only true comedy NaNoWriMo fic.

Chapter Two- Road to a Smelly Airport

“Ma, Andrew keeps kicking me,” my brother John whined as he stared through his window, looking at the bright Texan sun for the last time for two months.

See, my baby bro has this bad habit of lying about some of the things I do, be it carrying a large, blunt object or stealing his pants. He just goes on and on about them, even when I did do it he lies and blows it out of proportion. Like you really need pants to go to school, have you seen what kids my age are wearing? Sometimes I think they just wear huge t-shirts and go Scottish on us.

I was sitting next to my mom, who was sitting in between us so we wouldn’t fight, but I think she secretly knows that boys are age are meant to fight each other, to prove dominance and order of command. I kill my brother in each of these fights, not just because I’m sixteen and he’s twelve, but because I’m bigger. There was no actual way I could have hit him, when the fact was I had already tried and kicked the seat of a fat guy in front of mom.

My Mom smacked him, whispering in Greek, “If you two don’t stop fighting I’ll turn this around and go home.”

“Idle threat Mom, we all know you want us to go,” I muttered back, before getting a swift swipe to the head by her.

“Shut up,” she muttered, as the crew began the safety procedures.

Now, for me, I see the fasten seat belt and air vest thing as a bit ominous. I mean, if the plane was safe and all, why would it be necessary to have all those procedures? Just goes to show nothing is perfect. Like airplane food.

Airplane food might as well be renamed pig swill, because that’s what I think it is. Forget spam, mystery meat, and everything in between, airplane food could raise some interest. Like how it has that unique smell. I never eat airline food, owing to the reasons above, so I am therefore compelled to starve for the duration of the flight, surviving on small bits of food like peanuts and pretzels.

Some people might be thinking how cool it is to be going to Europe in summer, but do not kid yourself , before the fun, you have to endure the plane ride of death. An average flight to Greece would be a good fourteen hours, but noooo, we have to go through Germany first.

I chose to silently scream in boredom as the plane took off into the air. There would be movies of course, but those wouldn’t begin until we were a few thousand feet up or something. I noted the exit doorways that were carefully labeled “Do not Open” and thought it was a bit ridiculous. I mean, if we can’t open it, what’s going to happen in a real emergency? And for another thing, isn’t a huge sign that bans using it just going to make people want it more? Like that episode of Family Guy where Peter opens the hatch and falls out.

If you want to make something interesting, the first rule is to make it illegal. In Greece, nothing is forbidden, twelve year olds can buy beer, eight year olds smoke, and the porn section is located next to the ice cream and children’s comics. It really is a mess, but I think it’s a better way to live. Because people can do all that at an early age, they get it out of their system, and thus, do not go drinking around while driving because it’s cool. But I’m ranting again.

After a good while, the movies started up, the dumb, lame, censored versions that everyone wants to shoot up into little piles. Come on, if you’re going to watch a movie, don’t censor the parts that make it great. The movies in question were among others Taxi and other such movies, which made the flight a little more bearable.

About halfway through, I suddenly had this painful urge to go to the bathroom. But I couldn’t, because the flight attendants were serving the gruel otherwise known as airline food to people. So I had to wait until that stupid trolley that went five miles a day moved out of the way so I could make a beeline for the toilet.

With my luck, it was amazing didn’t see it coming, but the instant I managed to get through the aisles to the small, cramped urinals, I saw one word flashing on the door.

Occupied…

“Oh, you have got to me kidding me,” I moaned in protest. Five minutes later, it still had not opened, and I was practically hopping up and down on one foot, clutching my groin in protest. “…Hurry…” I breathed, it truly was unbearable. Why was there only one bathroom in the second class area? Why?

At last, just as I was on the verge of peeing myself, the door opened revealing a beefy man with a look of immense satisfaction on his face. It could only mean one thing so, taking a deep breath, I plunged into the toxic lavatory.

Trying as hard possible not to breath, I instantly felt relaxed as I relieved myself in the toilet. It felt so good, I had to sigh in happiness.

Then I remembered the noxious fumes around me.

My mind cried out for air just as I had finished peeing, and I slammed the flusher, creating that strange sucking sound that all airline toilets make. I wondered why for a moment, before remembering I was running low on oxygen, and nothing in the bathroom was anywhere near the life-giving gases my body needed.

Dashing to the sink, I washed my hands in the manner of a person imitating Superman. I quickly scrubbed off my hands, dried them, and ran out before I passed out.

Shutting the door on the infernal deathtrap, I took great gulps of fresh air, or as fresh as air gets on an airplane. I felt happy, so I returned to my seat, and promptly fell asleep while listening to classical music.

Now, many of you might condone me for listening to music made back in the dayz when they were figuring out that sunlight helps trees and other plants grow, but to those people I have but this to say: You have no idea how soothing it is to simply go to sleep with light music in your ears, as opposed to the heavy metal normal people listen to.

But as you may have already guessed, I’m not normal, so let’s skip ahead a few hours, because I’m sure no one wants to know about the hilarious dreams that arose in my head involving lettuce driving the Batmobile. We arrived in Europe by means of Germany, the land of chocolate and heavy drinking, much like Ireland.

Germans love beer, I believe it is part of their natural bloodstream, judging from the last Octoberfest I got caught in. Normally, minors aren’t allowed in Octoberfest, but sometimes people bring the drinking to you.

We were in Germany a few years back on Ski Week, which was my old school’s way of saying, “Go away for a week,” which everyone was happy to do. The normal place to ski was in Garmish, a mere nine hours away. After the first trip down, Mom bought us a portable TV to make us shut up.

By a strange coincidence, it was also Carnival time in Germany, which means everyone gets drunk and parties. We were dining at a local restaurant when a troupe of drunken morons decided to bug the living heck out of us. They came in wearing scuba gear, almost as if they were trying to get arrested, and started dancing on the tables, getting in the food and my books. I was even more surprised to find my old sixth grade teacher among them, so it was a fun night.

If one wished to buy chocolate, they need look no further than Europe. Forget Hershey’s and Milky Way, in Europe they take pride in their craft, turning food into works of art that will make even the worst chocolate hater drool. This is in part due to the fact that women in bikinis parade around on the posters advertising the chocolate.

After we exited the terminal I could almost breath the fresh European air I’d been missing for a year. Of course there were downsides to the trip, but being in Europe wasn’t one of them. It felt good to be back where I belong.

A major downside was the fact that I was isolated from my friends, except in my reoccurring nightmares, but the biggest was the loss of my European Charm, a mystical power that would have no effect in Europe, but I’ll explain more about it a bit later.

We didn’t need to pick up our baggage, as it would be placed on the plane for us by the airport, so it left us generally free for the short time until our next plane would leave for Salonkia. Four hours, man how come every time you think you have it made, life slows you down like that? Oh well.

As I hadn’t eaten, Mom bought me a pretzel in an effort to get me to eat. Pretzels in Europe are a thing of beauty, I really don’t understand why people in the States put sweetener inside their, but in Europe, it’s pure grain with great flakes of salt in the crust. Simply divine.

After I devoured the delicious snack, it occurred to me I hadn’t eaten for almost half a day, a new record considering my track record of eating six meals a day on average due to metabolism. I then decided to take a nap because I was tired, doing nothing can sure take it out of you, everyone knows what I’m talking about.

When I awoke from my brother’s poking at me, I threw a kick to his hand that caused my mom to be angry at me for some reason. Is it my fault that my brother tapped me? Of course not, it was all self defense. The boarding took less time than before due to some strange time thing I was unaware of, or possibly because I was barely awake while we got on the plane.

For those that don’t know, there is this power called jetlag. Basically, my mind was set to Texan time, but I wasn’t in Texas. I was in Germany about to go to Greece. Greece and Teas are separated in time by about seven hours, so when it is 12:00pm in Texas, it is 7:00pm in Greece. Don’t you all feel smarter now?

The flight was short and uninteresting, much like my brother but with better smells. We arrived in the evening in Greece, it had taken us a full day of traveling to get there.

Salonkia’s airport has an interesting feature that I feel is worth mentioning. It doesn’t have those things you walk through to get to the terminal from the plane, I forget what they’re called. The point is, they don’t have them, so the planes have to stop away from the airport, where the passengers are then transported to the luggage claims by bus.

Andrew’s first law of travel states that any luggage belonging to either me or my family will always be the last ones off the plane, and as usual the principle held up tradition, forcing us to wait in the crowded, smoke filled baggage claim.

If only a small majority of people in the States smoke, then the rest live in Greece. The tobacco industry is big there, at least 75 percent of the Greeks smoke. And yes, I am counting the small children in the census. I know that because once, I was at my baby cousin Elenie’s baptism, right, and when it was over, and we were celebrating in the area outside the church, these two kids, no more than eight years old, came off the streets wearing no shoes.

Wordlessly, the two pulled out a pack of smokes and fired them up right there, and they weren’t even invited. It made me sad, I still remember those two over the years, as a reminder of the evils of smoking. Most of my Greek family smokes, my aunt and uncle have cigarettes, my great uncle has a pipe, but my grandparents don’t smoke, so I’m satisfied with that, they set an example that everyone ignored, but still follow it. Even my mom used to smoke, although she said it was to lose weight. She doesn’t anymore.

But back to reality, our suitcases did come last, as we knew they would. We brought four, two red ones that are easy to spot, and two black ones that after so many years we know on sight. Plus it helps that our names are written on it. Helps a lot.

I piled up the suitcases onto a small cart, because that’s my token job to do the heavy lifting for my mom and brother, and we went through the screen doors into the true world of Greece.

My grandparents are easy to spot, because they stand out so easily. My grandpa, my papu, is tall and muscular from playing tennis. The man is obsessed with the sport, and follows it avidly. A part of coming to Greece means at least two weeks of tennis lessons guaranteed, he wants one of his grandchildren to continue his mania. He is starting to lose hair but white wisps of it still cling to his head. He is very tanned, an almost perfect physique.

My grandmother, my yaya, is short, about five feet tall, and portly. She has tall yellow hair that stands due to some concrete gel she uses, I have never once seen it worn down, or even move. She is a good hearted soul, as opposed to my papu who constantly tries to start fights, trying to see how tough I am.

They smiled and waved as we made it through the doors with our luggage, and we rushed to see them. And, as always, we go through the always expected, “Look how big you are,” mandatory grandparent thing.

Both of them speak English, as do many people in Greece, but it’s fun to speak Greek because I learned both English and Greek at the same time. When I was three, I could understand and answer Greek, but only in English. When I returned to the States, I understood English and answered in Greek, causing m great-grandfather to question my mental health.

But that look how big you are thing that relatives do, I could never figure it out. Of course I’m going to get bigger, I’m still growing. But I suppose it’s just a relative thing, so I always put up with it, because I’m the tallest member of my Greek family. Kind of sad really.

“Do you have a girlfriend yet?” my papu asked, the very first question he always asks me.

“No, quit asking,” I muttered back.

“Leave him alone,” Yaya told him, looking up at me. I scrunched down to her line of sight.

“Is this better?” I asked in jest, I had been bigger than her since I was twelve. She laughed, and we departed into the boiling Greek sun.

Now, if you thought driving in the States was dangerous, you have never been to Greece. There aren’t any police to enforce highway laws, so people pretty much just do as they please. Plus it isn’t good when you can drive sixty miles an hours in the city.

Papu is a hugely aggressive driver, shouting a curse here and there, honking, you get the picture. Funny, I’ve never been in an accident in Greece, though there have been close calls.

Now for the drive. As we past through the stupor, I noted all the billboards that we past. Remember how I said that morals was not the style in Greece? I was proven right again as I saw an advert for Billabong, a new type of condom. You would never see stuff like that in Texas, too conservative.

As we made our way to the city, the dusty environment of the Greek nature was paved through to make way for the urban jungle of Salonkia. We all chose to ignore the guy whizzing on the sidewalk, and focused on getting to my grandparents’ apartment.

No one has a home in Salonika, unless it’s a summer house like my grandparents have, they all live in apartments. It’s just the way of life. As we pulled into the parking zone, my papu chose to shout on about a guy that had taken his favorite parking space, and pulled in. There were no designated parking zones in Greece, you parked where your car wouldn’t be run over. Quite simple, and you parked where there was room.

As Papu shut off the engine, I felt happy, and not just because I had cheated death on the highway.

I felt home. Now for the welcoming party.

2883 Words
Total: 2194+2883=5077 Words

W00T I'm ahead of everyone.

Very nice! Lol, you and I do the same thing each time we meet our grandmothers. ^_^ This is awesome. I think you've got a slight advantage writing a comedy, you get to rant and go off the story line and it seems perfectly natural. Lol. Maybe next year I'll try doing a comedy. Well, good work, I'll keep an eye on this!

your mean. im not a moron im just special.

Here's teh party, I hope you like, it's not as good as the others, but the next one will be better.

Chapter Three- My Big, Fat, Greek Welcoming

Everyone lives in apartments in Greece. It’s part of life. The apartments are always above businesses that run during the daytime, some at night. Kind of convenient I guess, especially if you live above a twenty-four hour grocery store.

Papu and Yaya live above some kind of office thing, I never took the time to ask. A bunch of small time gigs work under my grandparents, like the alcohol salesmen or the car part store. Anyway, they aren’t important, because I don’t know who they are, so they have no place in the story.

My papu opened the door to the complex where they lived, overwhelming us with the smell of dirt coming from a plant area on the left that had been there since before I was born. Dragging our things up the small flight of stairs, we made for the elevator.

Now, elevators are cool, and this one is special to me. It isn’t very big, probably six and a half feet tall and four feet wide, but to me it’s the best one in the world. When I was younger, I would wait to get to that elevator, just to press the button to the sixth floor where my grandparents lived. Sometimes I’d get to go up all eight floors to where my uncle lives, but I really should say sleeps, because he comes downstairs for everything.

I’m really getting good at the reminiscing stuff, but we didn’t enjoy the ride up to my grandparents rooms because we were cramped up in the tiny elevator. When we finally surfaced for space, we were at the sixth floor.

Home.

I couldn’t wait to see everyone, my family is the craziest group of people you will ever meet. Ever, and that’s saying something. As we opened the door, loud shouts of joy emitted from the cozy apartment.

First, there was Tula, a middle-aged woman that served as a maid for my grandparents. She has red hair, a rather surly figure, and a really scary mole on her face. Classic, because waitresses in Europe aren’t all the pretty dames romance novels make them out to be.

My uncle Spiero was occupying the couch in the living room, to the right of the entrance. He’s overweight, but has a good heart despite the fact that he’s smoked a pipe since forever. We recently found out that despite his shape, he has no cholesterol. Cool huh?

The house is simple in design, which is made up for by the extensive European furniture brought into it. Both other couches practically scream Greece, as well as the paintings on the walls. A huge collection of photos is on display on a center mirror, showing all the faces of our widespread European family.

“Hallo Hallo,” Uncle Spiero coughed, his pipe stuck between his teeth. “So good to see you again!”

Yes, if there ever was a jolly uncle, the kinds you see in those corny movies, it was Uncle Spiero. He was almost always in a good mood, no matter what was going on. I just learned never to get between him and the food, he loved to eat.

“Nice to see you Uncle,” I replied, setting my backpack down, I was beginning to feel how heavy it was. “It’s good to be home.”

As my uncle nodded in agreement, Tula ran up and wrapped me in a spine-crushing bear hug. “Look how big you are,” she said in Greek, she didn’t really know English. I nodded, I was always embarrassed about being the tallest member of Paipeti blood.

In languages, I really don’t care what language it is you speak, as long as it’s English or Greek. They’re the best, and they always have been. Greek has been around since the time of the ancients, a classic language that should be learned by everyone. It’s really hard though, so don’t try it unless you’re really serious. English, or American as some chose to call it, is the most widely accepted language around the globe, it may one day become the standard and everyone will learn English and we’ll dance and sing and whatnot, and soon all the other languages will be forgotten, creating a terrible tragedy around the world.

Except French, which I think is just dumb, with its parle vu and such.

“He’s bigger than me now,” Papu answered in agreement, walking up and squaring himself against my height, just to be sure.

“Yeah, I know,” I muttered back. I was getting tired, but I hadn’t eaten for most of the day.

Now, let me tell you something about Greek food, it rocks. Fast food is perfected to art form, and properly prepared food is a feast not to be believed. Therefore, in the classic tradition of the magical time traveling elves, we had Roma Pizza, the greatest pizza on the face of the earth.

Forget Dominoes, Pizza Hut, and Mr. Jims, Greek pizza is the best anywhere in Europe or the United States. I know this because I’ve been a lot of places and tried a lot of kinds of pizza, but I still keep coming back to Roma. It is made with a little crust, just an inch at most, then hot tomato sauce, followed by two inches of the best cheese on earth. It may sound nasty, but don’t judge if you haven’t tried.

Oh, and Greek Fanta, don’t even get me started. We took with us three bottles of Dr. Pepper to enjoy, yet we headed straight for the Fanta. It is that good, not like the garbage that Fanta is in the States. It actually tastes like orange.

After I had gorged on pizza and soda, I felt that a good long sleep was in order. Uncle Spiero bade us good night earlier on so I followed his example at the early time of 10:30 and went to bed.

To be brief, Greeks stay up late, it’s their given power. They accomplish the task of staying up easily until two in the morning by taking a long nap in the middle of the day, keeping them fresh for a night of fun. I went forward into the dining room, then through the corridor that would take me to my room.

There are three rooms on the right of this corridor, and two bathrooms on the left along with the kitchen. The first room is small, with a simple bed with framed pictures and awards along the walls. On the door is a cane, left there as a reminder of who lived there.

The night my great-grandmother died, I knew my life would be different. A few months away from that magical one hundred, she tripped just as she neared the hurdle. She was a good woman, who lived through both World Wars, and taught me things about the wars that made them feel so real, like I was a part of them. How she learned to forge a commanding officer’s signature so he wouldn’t get tired from writing, and how she used to tell me the story when I was little of the little train that could.

When she died, I didn’t shed a tear, but she didn’t die inside me. I went to my room and started to write, letting my emotions come out on paper, rather than through special organs in my eyes. To me, death isn’t something to be sad about, it’s a chance to understand a phrase I wrote.

Love the ones you lose, to cherish those you have

That’s a philosophy at its finest. We past the room to where I would sleep, my favorite room owing to the pull out bed that doubled as a sofa. It has a huge mirror inside, perfect for looking at my wonderful physique. After I put on my pajamas, I sank into the most wonderful dream about celery beating up George Bush. That guy is dumb.

I awoke early the next morning, at the crack of dawn in fact. The clock next to me said 11: 45, but I couldn’t care less. I was in Greece, time to act Greek.

I chose to dress before I went outside my room, after grabbing my Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, a present from my mom for completing my driving school, something I wouldn’t be able to enjoy for another two months. Oh well, there are perks to being in Greece, as well as downfalls.

Jetlag was nowhere, I felt no more trace of it than whiplash, funny as I usually have jetlag after the trans-Atlantic flight. I walked into the living room to see my brother right where he usually is: in front of the TV, only now that he’s watching cartoons in Greek, it’s supposed to be educational. Yeah right.

Greece has no shame in its choice of movies, or its rating system. I rent movies from a nearby movie store, so I get a good look at what’s rated R and what’s considered “good, clean family fun.” Like, what was one I rented a while back, Goldmember. Rated PG-13 in the States right? It’s got a 7+ label on it. It’s just sad. Another thing about Greek movies is that everything is subtitled. I have never seen one American film that was translated into Greek, not even My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding was spared. Basically, if it’s not porn, you can see it without ID or anything like that.

Another thing about Greece is that porn is not only easy to get a hold of, it’s sold next to the children’s comics in some places like right outside my temporary home. Where are the parents in all this? Looking at the porn, because it’s the only way they’ll go toy shopping with their children.

I’m just kidding though, Greeks have all that stuff because they just don’t feel it’s something to hide, and that if children are exposed to bad things like that, it won’t lead them to do it illegally. I think it’s a more honest way to live.

Anyways, I bet you can’t wait to hear about more of my exploits, but if not then I feel that you should-

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Lol, celery beating up shrub. ^_^ Awesome.

This is very funny! Each chapter is wonderfully hilarious, especially when the commentary grows a bit arbitrary.

Jetlag and differing time zones are dreadfully annoying. Last time I traveled across country, I was about to keel over from it...

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Hahahaha, nice, the story is funny.

Why thank you for that wonderful...thing Scoria, it'll get better with tomorrow's but for now, here's some more of Greek eating.

Chapter Four- Are You Being Served?

Living in Greece can be stressful, especially for people that haven’t been there before. The language is hard to learn, really hard. It requires discipline to fully master, as it has a completely different alphabet. It takes you a while, but hey, if I can do it I’m sure everyone else can.

But then again I was three when I learned it, and then again this has nothing to do with my story, so let’s fast-forward twelve years to the present in this novel to me sitting at the dining table.

I was reading from my Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide when Tula interrupted me.

“Mr. Andrew, would you care for breakfast?” She keeps calling me Mr. Andrew because I’m way bigger than her.

“Yes please Ms. Tula,” I answered, pushing aside my hefty tome. “Could I have some honey and butter on bread, as I usually do?”

“Of course,” she replied kindly, before moving away towards the kitchen.

Now let me say this, I love Greek honey. Love it. In fact, I think it’s the best honey on earth, just because it’s Greek. But then I’d be lying, as it is truly awesome, no lie. It just drips through your mouth like a sticky goo that you just can’t get enough of. I myself usually have seconds or, or regularly, thirds and fourths.

After Tula brought in the food, I began to scarf down the chow as fast as my enormous mouth could go. It would have been sickening if it were not so beautifully tasty.

When I had pushed my plate of yellow-drenched remains up, I stood up and went to take it into the kitchen. I normally don’t do that, due to extreme laziness, but I felt that my grandparents could use a hand.

Their kitchen is of moderate size, with that feeling of warmth that everyone feels inside their grandparents’ home. I placed my plate atop the table where we usually put our things, and I went back inside to see what was going on.

Remember my dog, Trooper, otherwise known as Satan? He’s not here, he’s getting fat at my American grandma’s house. So I have no way of knowing when other people come to the door. In this case, it was the mandatory How Big You’ve Gotten Festival.

My Greek grandparents are very proud of me, because I’m the eldest grandson, so they feel the need to parade me around like a sideshow attraction in front of their friends. In this case, Mrs. Iliki had come to visit.

I hadn’t seen her in a year, but the woman never changes. She’s a rather large person, though stout in appearance. She commands respect, and is usually given it. She also has a moustache, and while it may not be bushy, it can still be seen when you’re ten feet away. But then I’m being rude.

See, I don’t know why, but it’s not as important for women to shave themselves as it is in the States. I should probably figure that out one day, but the main thing is that some women walk around looking like Bigfoot himself had just shaved on their armpits. In several cases it can be nauseating.

But Mrs. Ikiki has a good heart, so she’s nice to see every now and then. As I walked into the living room where she was sitting, I was greeted by the usual reaction that I get when my family sees me.

“Ah, look how big you are!” she exclaimed, leaping out of her seat to grasp me in another bone-crushing hug that will probably cause my back to deform one of these years. But they mean well, so I put up with them.

As I presented myself to her, I was reminded strongly of those skinny, anorexic supermodels that prance around on those catwalk things. But then again, this happens a lot because I’m the oldest.

“And how are Andrew?” she asked me, her eyes interested at my height, she only came up to my neck now.

“Fine ma’am,” I answered. “Can I go now?” I asked Yaya, who was enjoying showing off her gigantic grandson.

She laughed, then excused me. I grabbed my book and headed to my room, my fortress of solitude. I looked at the couch lustfully, and sank into the soft seat, burying myself in the adventures of Arthur and Ford.

An hour later, I emerged from the deep corner of my head as it was almost lunch, so I feel the need to rant about Greek cooking again in more detail.

Tula makes the best French Fries in the world, flat out. Even McDonalds cannot compare to the taste of her fries. They are hand made from potatoes in our kitchen, I don’t know what she does with them, but she would make a fortune selling them. Good thing she doesn’t though, or she wouldn’t be working for my grandparents.

We all sit together at the dining table to eat, me, Uncle Spiero, Yaya, Papu, Mom, John, and sometimes if we have guests, they dine with us. Greeks are very hospitable, they fight to get the bill most times.

Our meal was delicious, meatballs and French fries Tula-style. Ketchup is strangely absent from many places, but luckily my grandparents always have some at hand for me.

As we devoured the food set before us in the manner of pigs gathered around the slop tray, the doorbell rang, signaling that my cousins were here to say hello.

A word of caution, my cousins are crazy. To which you may be thinking, who cares, his whole family is nuts! They are psycho, and go insane whenever they see us, because we’re gone so much.

I opened the door, as everyone else looked like cattle grazing, to see my uncle and Aunt, with my two baby cousins.

My uncle George and his wife Sophie met a good long time before my memories start. They knew each other for seven years before they were married in my summer home’s church by a drunken priest who kept repeating his lines.

Uncle George is smaller than me, like everyone else, has short black hair, and practices Ti-chi. Cool huh? But I guess he needs it. My aunt is a short woman with a fierce temper when provoked, with moderately long black hair.

My cousins on the other hand are partially insane like everyone else I’m related to. The older one, Valerios, is seven. He’s named after my Papu, is still a baby right down to the blond baby hair he had when I saw him for the first time.

Eleni, my youngest cousin, looks a lot like my mom, except miniature, right down to the anger problem she has. I swear, this one time I got her mad, she started spitting on everything. Whiny brat, but she can be a good kid when you don’t make her mad.

They shrieked with delight and tackled me at warp speed, grabbing me in a big hug. I’m serious, next time I go, I am limiting the hugs people are allowed to give me.

“Andrew! John! You’re here!!” shouted my cousins in happiness, releasing me after I had come up panting for air.

“Hello Andrew,” Uncle George said, laughing at the display of myself on the floor. “It’s good to see you.”

“Same here, but haven’t you taught them manners yet?” I asked, hugging him tightly in the custom of my family.

“They still don’t know the meaning of that word,” Sophie answered me, staring up at my growth. “Look how big you are.”

“I’m getting tired of hearing that, but it’s good to see you to,” I answered, wrapping her in a hug, after releasing my uncle. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long,” I chuckled, as my brother was tackled by my cousins. “That’s it guys, get him!” I shouted in Greek, watching the best part of the day unfold, John getting taken down by two insane children.

As my brother struggled in vain to shake them from him, I was heading for the best part of the meal, desert. Greek desert means fruit, not ice cream or cookies. Fruit, and you’d be amazed at how good fruit can be. We usually have watermelon or melon, which in Greek is carpuzi and peponi respectively, or apples and grapes, r if we’re really lucky, everything.

I dug into the glorious flesh of the watermelon, savoring the taste with every bite as I went through my pieces, going back for as much as possible. Trust me, if you ever go to Greece and eat food there, you’ll understand why everyone but me gained weight.

I’m really lucky for my weight problem. While some people look at a cookie and they get fatter, and have to work out hours a day, I lose weight by sitting down and eating too little. Literally, I have a metabolism that ninety percent of the girls at my school would kill to have. I eat six meals a day, and I’m only 115 lbs. Amazing.

As I busted my gut eating as much Greek food as possible, my cousins had finished killing John and had left him unconscious on the couch near the TV. “I want to duel!” Valerios stated clearly, flashing me his Yu-Gi-Oh deck.

Now I’m never one to back down from a challenge, which is why I’m typing this at 10 at night, so I agreed, but I already knew the kid was toast. To make it fair, I pulled out my dragon deck, as it was weaker than the other one I regularly use.

And so we began. I won’t bore you with all the details, as I’m sure no one out there cares how I beat a seven-year-old at a card game from a bad anime, but I creamed him, without being attacked and without even trying. I have to give him guts though, in all the times I’ve dueled my brother the past two years, he’s only won four times. I know this because he keeps count of whenever he wins.

I’m tired, so I’ll stop here for tonight. Tomorrow, we’re going out on the town into the streets of Salonkia. Bo-yah!

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Stop talking about Greek food! You're making me hungry! Lol. ^_^

Do you have your towel?

Hahahaha, now I'm hungry! Heheheh, and my relatives always do the same thing to me cause I am also the tallest, even more than my older brother. They always saying "oh look how big you've/he's gotten!" Maybe it's a relative only thing...

Sorry, but my internet froze last night before I could post this.

Chapter Five- Immoral and Immorality

I had just finished my third day in Greece, everything was going fine. I was relaxing like I was supposed to, and starting the works on The Shattered Sword’s sequel. But there was something missing.

TV. Yes, call me a couch potato if you must, but I deeply missed the TV. Greek TV can only do so much before you just start to ignore it all together, so I felt the need to make a trip I had been delaying.

A trip to the video rentals across the street. Yeah, I know, call me pathetic, but it was getting boring, so I decided to walk there to get some form of exercise, build up those muscles before I hit the beaches, or at least get out of the apartment.

“Ma, I’m going to the video store,” I shouted, heading towards the door.

“Be careful,” she called back, reading a book somewhere.

“Yep,” I muttered, before opening the door into the strange, earthy scented hallway. I pushed the elevator button to summon up the small transport. I walked in, looked myself over in the mirror that was in there, then went to the ground floor and out the door.

As I stepped out into the Greek sun, I realized that I was in a whole new world. I strolled down the decaying streets around me towards the cross walk.

As I have mentioned before, nothing is immoral in Greece, therefore, it is perfectly common to ignore traffic lights. I always make sure that I wait a while before I cross the street at any given time. As the light flashed green, I waited my standard five seconds before crossing to the next side. I turned left, walking past the gas station towards the fruit stand, doing my best not to bite into the merchandise.

I noticed a Periptero, which are basically the one-stop shops that come up on the streets. They sell everything, from beer to ice cream, so they are without a doubt one of the best things in the world, as my brother and I are usually sent to them for beer. Ignoring the porno that was adorning the children’s comics, I passed the vendor towards the shop.

The video shop I go to is really good, they have so many movies in there it’s amazing. Thousands upon thousands are in there, in a space two times smaller than a Blockbuster. They have games in the center in a nice display, which would be nice if it wasn’t next to the porno videos. How do I know this? I can read a little bit of Greek, I’ve been teaching myself how for the past few years.

I, unlike every dude my age, am not a pervert. Dramatic, no? I can keep myself under control, so I went for the comedy and action movies, my favorites. And what brave man has combined those two genres to form a beautiful movie time and time again? Jackie Chan! Loading up on a few of Chan’s movies, I headed for the checkout desk.

Behind the desk is the same woman year after year, she has brown, short hair, with a few earrings and too much eye make-up. She was filing her nails as I walked up to the counter.

“Number?” she asked, moving closer to the computer that was on the desk.

“Stujanu, 1891,” I answered, telling her the number of Mrs. Ikiki’s personal account there, it was one of the few things I keep deep inside my memory.

“All right, these will be due in three days,” she muttered, scanning the movies into the computer, before going into the backroom to get the Chan movies. The deal with the place is that you watch first, pay later. It’s wonderful.

“Thanks,” I answered, putting the movies under my arm and leaving.

I took a different route home, away from the porno infested street I had previously traversed. Though I find porn to be without point, there are many who could disagree.

As porn has been around for a long time, and will probably continue for decades to come in the same stride, I suppose it’s just something I’ll have to accustom myself to. Then there are those who hate it in all forms, and want it all destroyed.

Such as Greek statues, I see nothing wrong with them. Yes, they may have full-frontal nudity, but they were made before clothing was forced upon us by others as a requirement, and they symbolize a time when it was perfectly appropriate to strut around nude in the middle of the road. These are my ancestors, and when you mess with one Greek, you mess with the masses of Greeks. We are all connected, as you will learn more about later on.

There was once a few Greek statues in S.H.A.P.E. where I used to live before the military forced me back to the States, with Poseidon, Zeus, and the rest displaying themselves fully. A few mothers like Kyle’s mom from South Park found something wrong with them and protested against them like there was no tomorrow. Stupid-

Oops, better keep my language under control, who knows who might be reading this. Anyway, I wandered back in one piece, though I did almost get attacked by a bus.

Most people in Salonkia travel by foot, there’s almost too much traffic to do anything else, not to many own cars, so the best bets in crisis are on foot or by bus. Guess which one I’m stuck with a lot. The streets are as crowded as the street is, so you need to be careful or you get lost feet from your own apartment area.

After getting lost once, which involved a fierce battle and tacos, along with a few musical numbers, I found my way back to the apartment, and had Tula buzz me in the building.

“Thanks,” I muttered to myself, opening the door and up to the apartment. After I got up, we ate as usual with the stuffing of the mouths in the manner resembling swine, then took a nice long nap, which I needed desperately. I had forgotten how tired going places was, I was still suffering from jetlag.

After watching a movie, I felt the need to burn testosterone, so I beat up my brother right before we went to Goodies, the best burger chain in Greece.

Think McDonalds, but ten times better, healthier, and tastier, as long as you request your burger without mayo. It has a thicker piece of meat, as well as thicker buns. The ketchup is sweeter, and better too.

We all decided to walk there to enjoy a night of fast food, except Uncle Spiero, who stayed in. We headed right this time, heading straight for the holy sign of Goodies. As we got there, I began reminiscing about the past, when I was younger.

One of the funnier memories are the ones about the bootleg CD and DVD sellers. It’s just amazing how many there are. If you were to sit down at any given restaurant there’s a better chance of seeing a vendor than avoiding one. They all look the same, mostly Greeks blacks for some reason. Not to be racist, but that’s the fact.

I ordered my usual order from Goodies, two hamburgers, fries, and Greek Fanta. I usually eat three hamburgers at McDonalds, but I wanted to make sure I still had it in me to eat two from Goodies. I did.

A thing about mayo, am I the only one disgusted by it? And on hamburgers, what has the world coming to? Everyone that has watched The Whole Nine Yards knows that the only things that should go on a true hamburger is ketchup. It’s just good sense.

After the wonderful food, completely devoid of mayo, we headed home to watch another movie courtesy of Jackie Chan. I love watching that guy kick the living heck out of bad guys, it never gets old. After, it was about midnight, so I turned in to write some more before retiring to be at two in the morning. This may be attributing to my walking up at eleven every morning.

The next day I was ecstatic, we were going to the bookstore across town, the best store in the town for me, as I loved the British gamming magazines they had, they’re so much funnier than the ones in the States. The writers insult each other, and they’re not afraid to be honest about a game.

We took the bus downtown, as it was way too far to walk. We paid a visit first to the travel agency we used to get to Greece, to make sure my aunt and father’s tickets were all right. Oh, I forgot to mention that my Aunt Sara is coming to have an interview for a teaching job.

Afterwards, when all the documents had been checked, we headed to my favorite place. As we walked in, we noticed that it had had a makover in the two years we’d been gone. It looked more modern with brand spanking white paint across the walls. I headed downstairs to where I knew what I wanted would be.

NGC, Nintendo Official Magazine, they were both there. I hugged both issues that I was to take home. One had a picture of Shadow from Sonic, while the other had a photo of Mario on the cover. I took both, and spent the rest of the day in Nintendo bliss. True heaven.

And the day was just getting started. When we got home, we were shocked to see a Nintendo Gamecube sitting on the floor, with Soul Caliber II, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, as well as the bonus disk with The Legend of Zelda: Master Quest, a game I’d been desperate to beat since I heard of it.

We plugged it into my grandparents’ bedroom, as it was the only one with the cables needed to work the Cube, and we got into huge fights in Soul Caliber.

We, that is to say my brother John and I, are the kings of Soul Caliber. Working together, we unlocked everything in the game in under twenty four hours of game time. With style, so we know how to fight. I dominate, while John comes in second every time, but he’s getting good. I think he might be one of the best people out there with Link.

We didn’t have long to enjoy it in the apartment though, as we were going to Vuvuru, where the beach house is, for the weekend getaway from the city. We would be taking the Gamecube, along with everything else we own. A last minute relaxing period before Sara came and we had to go to Corfu, the ancestral home of my Greek family.

We woke up early on the big day to get a good start in traffic out of the city, the roads are usually crowded by people desperate to get out of the city for a while. We loaded our stuff, and by we I mean me and Papu, into the tiny black car my grandfather owns. He was coming with us, as well as my brother and my mom.

“Do we really need to bring Wenus?” I asked her, just as I got into the car.

“Yes, quit asking,” my mother answered, slapping me upside the forehead again. “Did you remember to take those tapes back?” she asked as an afterthought.

I didn’t speak for a minute, causing her to exclaim, “YOU DIDN’T TAKE THE TAPES BACK?”

“Chill, of course I did,” I chuckled. “I just wanted to see your reaction.”

Her reaction wasn’t as nonviolent as I had hoped.

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Total- 10,452 Words

Chapter Six- Revenge of the PAL

Greece holds many things to many people. To some, it’s a land of tanning, for others it holds exotic foods waiting to be tried. To almost everyone my age though, it is one single thing.

Nude beaches.

Yes, you heard me say it. Nude beaches are famous around Europe to the horndogs like my friends Aaron, Scruffy, and Magic. As I sat bored in the car, watching my grandfather shout at random people driving on the road, I decided to make a rant about nude beaches.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure to the many perverts in America, as well as Asia and Europe they’re the greatest things on earth, but in Greece they’re not seen as immoral. But then again, neither is six year olds watching South Park, so I can see how that could be interpreted. They are considered freedom of expression, not free porn like so many places like that in the States that all the sixteen year olds want to be at. My uncle even owns one, and he and his many friends skinny dip with nothing wrong on their minds.

We were nearing the house, it had been so long since I’d been there, almost two years. I hadn’t even seen any of my friends there for the same amount of time. I was glad to be able to see them again.

Of course, I wouldn’t see them for another month, as they were still school. Greek school, like my old school in Belgium, gets out in June, and starts in September. I think it’s a better idea myself, but as my new school starts in August, I never get too long with them, owing to another factor of camp.

Camp isn’t just for nerds in Greece with nothing to do but learn about things. Instead, they are great experiences for teens to get away from their parents. Soccer, Tennis, Swimming, all kinds of camps. I remember one camp I went to for two weeks. I was scared at first because I was eight, but I soon got over it when I realized the amount of freedom I had.

But I grow away from the actual story which is about this summer, so let’s talk about my house instead of camp. It’s three stories high, and that’s just the house. It’s one of the bigger properties in Vuvuru, or at least the part that I go to. First, it’s located on a hill that leads up to the house. The hill is a small jungle, converted by my Papu and workers, with lush plants. In the back and on the sides are forests worth of trees.

The house itself is simple, designed for large amount of people to stay. On the second floor, where the living areas are for my grandparents and guests, there is a large balcony that overlooks the front and right of the house. On the bottom floor, where we live, there is a smaller living room with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

George, Sophie, and their children live in the room next to ours, while Uncle Spiero lives in a room nearer to the door. Both the rooms look the same, with windows showing the right side of the house’s forest. We pulled up to our home for the weekend, guess what my first thought was?

“Bathroom,” I moaned weakly, I hadn’t been able to go for the past hour and a half it had taken to drive there, but I needed to go badly. And it did not help that my brother kept mentioning water. We picked up our belongings and headed in, I made for the bathroom in the same way that I had on the plane.

After we finished unpacking, it was time to check the conditions of my main mode of transport furing all my stays in Vuvuru. My bike is simple, colored black and purple, and used to belong to Uncle George. It was missing air, but other than that, my six speed bike was fine. I had missed traveling my myself everywhere in the Greece countryside.

“How’ve you been?” I asked it, it remained strangely silent, but then again, I was talking to a bike.

“Talking to yourself again?” John muttered from behind me. “You are an idiot.”

“Said the man who took half an hour to figure out what two could be divided by,” I retorted, which shut him up pretty good.

After we got settled in, I headed for the best place in Vuvuru, the church. Yeah, condone me, but the gathering place for people for as long as I can remember has been the church. I knew no one would be there, but it was nice just to be there, feeling the memories flowing back to me.

I remember the nights of Hide and Seek, the Greek version of Dodgeball called Milo, where there are two people trying to get everyone else out. If you catch the ball before it lands you get an extra life, a milo. When the past man stands, they have to dodge for ten rounds or else they lose. It’s fun when you really get into it.

The church is a huge place, the walk in area in a plateau, the bottom half is much larger, after you walk down the stairs to it. Older kids go down there, while the smaller kids go to the top area, because it’s safer.

I walked up the road to Maria’s, from lack of anything to do. Maria’s is the usual gift shop slash teen eatery you’ve seen in beach movies. It has almost everything you would ever need for a cheap date, including the best sandwiches in the world. I love it there. It’s at least a mile away, but the walk is worth it.

The Periptero is closed now, ever since that car drove through it, the owners are getting too old to do the job. Makes me sad sometimes when I remember all the high-speed bike rides there for ice cream. My friend Cat lives across from the Periptero, but she’s not here right now. I passed Alex’s house, he’s my best friend from Greece, we used to live in Belgium before I moved last year.

The road is long, but there are plenty of bars on the way for those unable to walk so far without nourishment. The Boogie-Woogie was gone, replaced by the pool bar Mango. I would pay a visit to that later, but right now, my mind was on sandwiches.

The same people sell at the place every year, which is what I love about the place, no matter how many years I spent away from the place, it seemed the same every time. The woman who served that day had short brown hair, a stout figure, and a cigarette between her lips, colored red from lipstick.

“Ham Sandwich,” I told her, and she was happy to oblige, as soon as I showed her the money. She toasted my bun and I sank my teeth into the best sandwich in the world. I don’t care about anyone else’s opinions about the world’s best sandwich.

I walked back, eager to work out my thumbs in some Zelda on our borrowed Cube. It was getting dark as I walked up the driveway to get some work done in Master Quest. I opened the door to the downstairs where we were staying. “Ready to play some Zelda?” I grinned at my brother, who was setting it up for me.

“Drew? We have a problem,” he answered, pointing to the cables below the table.

I peered under to see that we needed a type of connection hook-up. I ceased moving.

“Are you okay?” my brother asked me, noting that my hands were shaking.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!”

The shout echoed through the trees as I expressed myself and my feeling towards the idiotic PAL system.

For those unaware, Europe has a different electric system. While Americans run on HTML systems, Europe has the ironically named PAL network, which requires all sorts of plugs and transformers to function. It sucks hard.

“What’s going on down here?” my mom raged, her eyes flashing as though possessed.

“The cables don’t work, we need another adapter,” I explained, before getting another swat in the face for shouting so loudly.

“Well, we’re going to Fotis’ place tomorrow, you can play there,” she muttered as an afterthought. “Now shut up.”

Fotis is the uncle I told you about that owns the nude beach. Now, while some people out there would find this amazing, nudity and video games, I groaned at the thought of having to go.

The next day, we drove down to the beach, where the TV that took the cables we had was said to dwell. After finding the place, we removed ourselves from the car and headed straight for the TV.

Fotis was sitting outside on a patio with a few of his friends, all wearing nothing but a towel. As we entered, he shouted in joy, grasping us in a hug.

“It’s good to see you,” my uncle said, releasing us.

“Same to you Uncle,” I answered, holding the Gamecube in its bag like the treasure it was. “We’re here for the TV.”

“Of course,” he replied, showing us into his house, which is for some reason unbeknownst to me filled with canoes. “Here it is,” he sighed with pride, a twenty inch TV was right next to the sun, perfect for getting a tan and watching cartoons.

This continued for the remainder of the time we were there, we would go there for a few hours and stare at the TV while everyone else went outside into the freezing water. I think it worked out okay, except for the time I saw Fotis’ butt. Most unpleasant.

All good things must come to an end, so we had to pack up and leave that Monday, because my dad’s baby sister Sara was coming, so we had to be there for her arrival. Tough having such a huge family huh?

1683 Words
Total- 12,315 Words

Okay, this is not an attempt to suck up to the mods. Just felt like that should be said beforehand.

Chapter Seven- Kenjin and Aunt Sara

When we got home, it dawned on me that our Aunt Sara was coming to visit us for the rest of the summer. I’d better start working on my grammar, because she’s an English teacher at this private Jewish school.

My aunt is in her early thirties, a slight age difference of nineteen years separates her from my dad, who’s fifty-one. My grandparents were baby boomers. She’s really short, what did you expect from someone who was an aunt at the age of four? She has blond-brownish hair that goes down to her shoulders, with a freckled face. Perfect teeth, which I found strange later on. She was coming for the first time in about ten years to have in interview for a position in Greece at a school my mom used to go to.

“Ma, when’s she coming?” I asked, flipping through a fantasy book while listening to the TV.

“Wait a little longer Jo-Andrew,” she answered, watching the news with Uncle Spiero. My brother was breaking in Soul Caliber in Papu’s room.

I feel I should explain something, my mom still doesn’t quite know our names yet. She calls me Jo-Andrew and my brother And-John and everything in between. Really gets on my nerves sometimes.

As the clock grew closer to the time, my mom and Yaya went and got their coats, don’t really know why because it’s about ninety degrees. “You’re not going to need those,” I muttered, only to get slapped again.

“Shut up,” my mom muttered back, grabbing the coat she takes everywhere.

“Threaten me in English when Aunt Sara gets here, that way I have a witness for child threatening,” I retorted, as I got swatted again. “You’re just mad because it’s true.”

“Andrew stop bugging Mom,” John muttered from the baby toys he was playing with on the floor. He must have come back while I wasn‘t paying attention.. “I’m trying to play here.”

“Do I seem interested in what you’re doing Barney-boy?” I asked, before turning to an excellent article about Resident Evil 4. I didn’t see the hand from behind.

As I contemplated a way to get back at my mom, she and my grandma went to the airport for my aunt. I was left to look after baby John and Uncle Spiero. Both were incapable of doing things.

“Uncle, you want to see a movie?” I asked, pulling out another movie, entitled Goldmember, from the confines of the bag I had used to bring home the bounty of the video store.

“Hmm!” my uncle nodded, indicating that he would love to see it.

As we watched Austin Powers save the world with Dr. Evil, I’m sure everyone knows the story by now, the time flew by. Whether it was Fat Bastard or something else about moles, the time went by without waiting for us, and before long, we heard a knock on the door.

I stood up, and walked up to the door to open it. As I opened the door, there was my aunt, her arms spread wide.

I closed the door.

“Hey, open up!” came her muffled almost-teen voice from behind the strong oak door. “I have gifts!”

I opened the door. Later, I learned that she didn’t really have any presents for us, so I was disappointed, but I laughed with everyone as she tried to reach my head for a swat like my mom could do. Some things just run in my family.

“How’ve you been?” I asked, after showing her into the living room.

In the days following, we spent the most of the time preparing for the trip to Corfu, the island of my family’s origin. I hadn’t been there in so long, it felt good to return to my roots. I was beginning to lose myself in my Greek family.

I wrote a lot, I was saving my homework for Vuvuru, despite what many of you might think, I wanted to relax in the city for a while before diving into Mrs. Copenhaven’s, a teacher who’s name I will never be able to pronounce properly, insane Latin summer homework. Then one day I decided I had spent the longest possible time away from ZU, and I remembered that my uncle had a computer. It was time to visit the house of the two cousins of chaos.

The things I do for ZU, trying to get online is hard enough when your grandparents don’t know what a computer is, so we headed out into the country where they live.

My uncle, years ago, decided that he shouldn’t raise his children in the smoke-filled city of Salonika, so they moved away to the countryside. The have a big piece of land, not as big as the house at Vuvuru. Most of it farmed out for some reason, I’ve never bothered to find out what it is they farm there. They have a rectangular white house, with three floor included a basement with some our old furniture.

We pulled up into the rain-ridden driveway, which caused us to hit the ground several times, because the cheap car has such a low height, it’s literally inches from the ground. The rains cause all sorts of potholes to appear in the ground. I’m just glad right now that I can’t drive in Greece until I’m eighteen. Who wants to drive through a pitfall like that? Maybe the Dukes of Hazard boys, but I don’t.

As we walked up the driveway, we were creamed, we didn’t even have time to say hello before we were attacked by the two terrors, and I’m not talking about the two dogs my aunt and uncle have, Sasha and Rex. They used to have two wiener dogs, but one killed the other and was put to sleep. No good news from my family huh?

We pulled ourselves from their death grips and directed them to Aunt Sara, who fell under the oncoming Greek children attack. Survival of the fittest at its finest. As we laughed at Aunt Sara’s attempts to understand Eleni and Valerios as they spoke to her in Greek.

“Very funny,” she muttered, struggling away from the hugs.

“I thought so,” I answered, laughing harder than ever.

I headed straight for the internet, I’d been away from ZU for too long. I surfed the rooms, posting every now and then, until something caught my eye.

Battle Arena, I mused in my head. It sounded interesting, so I clicked on it, I hadn’t been a member for very long, so I was eager to see what all was there to offer.

I looked at the rules and regulations for characters, reading some battles, and finally seeing the Battle School, which could help me learn to write better, and since I want to be a writer, I looked through it, it sounded like fun.

So that was where I created a fighter that would be my own, and a start to a new life on the internet. I looked at the other fighters, I wanted an original fighter, so I created Kenjin, the Master of Darkness. I worked all day on him, making sure he was just right for me. All my fighters in the BA reflect a part of me. The Master of Darkness is my bad part, the Master of Light is my light part. Elrick is my solitary side, and Chronos is me basically, my emotional side. Kinda weird, as he doesn’t feel emotions. Anyway, Wumpi accepted Kenjin a few weeks later, owing to my inability to return to a computer, and I began a now flourishing career in the BA.

We stayed the night, as we wouldn’t see our cousins for a few weeks while we were on Corfu. We were actually going for a week, but that sounds cooler. The night was terrible, despite the appearance of Roma Pizza in the house, because I am apparently a magnet for bugs. I didn’t sleep much because of it, and ended up spending the night online, for lack of anything better to do.

As my brother awoke the next morning, he screamed at the amount of insects crawling over him, I had removed the blanket he was using as protection against the parasites. I laughed as he awoke the entire household, despite everyone else’s thoughts to the opposite.

I didn’t bother to dress, as I had stayed up in my clothes. I also had forgotten my toiletries, so I was forced to handle my terrible breath until I could get to my house. I had some food, can’t remember what, it wasn’t the most memorable meal I’d had in Greece, before the two terrors had to go to school, they were still having to go to that terrible place. I felt sorry for a moment, but then I remembered what they tried to do to my hair, which I will not mention, as it involved attacks with plastic swords and fists.

Later on, we returned to the city by way of Aunt Sophie’s car. It was uninteresting, I won’t deny it. Sometimes you can get bored in a foreign country, I remember all the museums my mom and dad drag me to just trying to get me interested in history. I don’t need help, the class is an easy A! The only times I have fun sightseeing are with my friends like the good old days in my Belgian ROTC group, where we went to Drill Competitions in other countries like Italy, Great Britain, or the Netherlands. We even went to France, where I was forced to stand still for an entire hour while people said speeches in English and then repeated them in French for those ignorant people that don’t know English. Yes, I hate France, they stink and have no control.

1639 Words
Total- 13,774 Words

Chapter Eight- The Island of Corfu

Traveling to Corfu has never been something I’ve enjoyed. Granted, it has been about ten years since I last went, so my mom decided for me that we would all go. I was stuck in a car with mom, Aunt Sara, and John. Of course my grandparents weren’t in the car, they got to go by way of a plane.

I, on the other hand, was dragged through the Greek country side, swerving through smelly mountains and going through dangerous turns I thought I’d seen in some James Bond movies, or maybe it was Johnny English. Anyway, it wasn’t nearly as cool from this side of the TV, it took too long, and wasn’t accompanied by theme music either.

The only thing we stopped for was the bathroom, we quite literally returned to our roots through the wilderness we were forced to pee in. I chose the graceful approach, and peed of the side of a mountain. Aren’t I great?

After five hours of driving, we reached the port we were supposed to leave from. In a dingy old ship that looked like it was made back when Titanic was still all the rage. Hopefully, this ship would end up the same way. But of course it didn’t, or how could I be here writing this for you? I’m not a ghost.

We parked the car onto the loading area, which is fancy talk for, “You have to pay us to go with your car.” After we put our car in, we were told not to come back. I thought it was so they could steal our stuff. I headed up to the top deck to take a look at the mainland one last time before I went to the island.

It didn’t look all that pleasant, to be honest, so I didn’t look again, as I mostly saw raw sewage or something like that in the water. I soon found something lese to be interested in. The Snack Bar.

Snack Bars in Greece are beautiful things, they don’t just carry soda and chips, they also have fresh fruit, squeezed orange juice, and buffets. Me and John gorged down on the fruits, as they were easily the most editable things on the ship, and let’s face it, on cruise ships that take half an hour to go places, that’s not as much of a compliment as you might think.

I read Comic Party manga, one of the many things that inspired me to write, as the main character, Kazuki, is a struggling manga author. Pretty deep stuff, interrupted at excellent times by random kung-fu matches.

I drank my orange juice in silence, looking out at the waters of the Mediterranean. I felt strangely at peace, trying to think of a few new ideas for my story. As I did so, time flew by, and so did the last of the gas I’d been trying to bottle up while in the car. A few seniors weren’t very happy, but they were in the smoking section, so I thought they wouldn’t mind the smells.

I moved further away so they wouldn’t think it was me, as we neared the island of Corfu. I walked out onto the deck for the second time to look at the home of my ancestors.

Greeks take family very seriously, so seriously in fact, that our family has a few mass graves for people we were related to when they die. The family is very branched out, so I have connections everywhere. I have them near Mount Olympus, Tokyo, everywhere. It’s amazing, but most of the family is situated in Corfu, my uncle is the president if the oldest book club in Greece, so I have connections.

Soon, we wandered into the island by way of our non-looted car. Our first destination was the house of my Uncle Andrew.

Now, if my grandparents are proud of me, what do you think an uncle with my name reacts to me? I’m named after him, so he gets pretty excited when he sees me, especially when I’m one of the few with his blood to pass six feet in height, so he makes a big deal about me. I put up with it, because he’s a good guy, he can just be a little obsessive sometimes.

We parked across a tennis court, just what I needed. Knowing Papu, he would go insane again and force more tennis on me. He’s a huge tennis freak, and he wants one of his grandchildren to continue his mania. We had been taking tennis lessons to satisfy him while we were in the city, but I never really liked it. Hockey is more of my sport, I used to be part of a four man team in floor hockey that was unstoppable. But after an accident I sort of gave up on sports to sit on the keyboard and type. Aren’t I noble?

I was bored, but we had to meet my uncle, because he was about to go nuts over me. We went up into the old building where he lived. It was simpler than my grandparents house, only about five rooms, including the bathroom and the bedroom. It was simple, but I liked it.

Especially when I saw my uncle’s DVD collection. Stacks and stacks were piled on the floor. See, in Greece, they sometimes promote their newspapers by giving out free DVDs of oldies but goodies movies.

I sat into the seat closest to the TV, my uncle hadn’t gotten there yet, they said he was out looking for us, and by us we knew it meant me. I sat and watched The Whole Nine Yards on his widescreen TV.

He arrived later, just as we were about to leave for dinner at the house of a relative that I couldn’t remember. He headed straight for me, without even looking at my brother.

“Andrew, who has my name, how are you?” he asked, embracing me tightly. “I missed you.”

My uncle is shorter than me, like everyone else. He has small glasses that look like the ones that I’m forced to wear now from burning my eyes on the Internet. His head is balding, with a bright patch in the middle of his grey, dull hair. His eyes still burn thought, with his passion for the arts. He is the president of the oldest book club in Greece after all.

“Fine uncle,” I answered, releasing him. I’ve never been one that was too happy with the way Greeks recognized one another. “You coming with us to the place?”

He smiled and nodded, and showed us out the door.

We headed out onto the street, aiming directly for the apartments of my relatives, where Papu and Yaya were staying during the duration of our trip. It was much fancier than Uncle Andrew’s house, which was a disaster waiting to attack. This one had nice furniture, while my uncle’s house was clearly unable to take guests, this one was able to easily give the king a good time.

Not that Greece has a king, they gave up the royalty long ago. It’s too bad, as our family was pretty far up at one time, thanks to Granny’s hard work, and knew the king and queen of Greece. I am well connected, though I’ve never met them before, my mom has.

We devoured the food served to us by the host and hostess, you’ll forgive me, but I don’t quite remember what they look like, a terrifying discovery was unearthed at this party, and most of it was blocked out.

A high point for me was Mom’s reaction to seeing both of us presented with three hundred Euros. See, my mom hates when we get money, she even fights against birthday presents, but as these were for our birthdays, I could see her views on it. We still got the money, which was roughly three hundred and sixty each in dollars.

As I sat in a comfy chair, trying to ignore the fact that my brother was watching Free Willie 3, he left to go to the patio for a moment, before emitting a shriek so girly I thought we had another visitor. He returned to inform us-

“Aunt Sara is smoking out there!” queuing the dun-dun-dun-dun you’ve all seen in movies. I was shocked, I had been smelling it without knowing it for all the time she was there, but hadn’t figured out what it was. It all fell into place as I pretended to smoke a pipe, but felt it was not a good time and abandoned the idea.

My brother was of course in shock, I on the other hand took a more reasonable approach. We went home soon after by walking, and got lost as a result. It gave me time to think, though John didn’t speak to her the whole time.

“So, how long have you been doing it?” I asked.

“Started back in high school, quit, then started last year,” she said, reaching for another. “Is it a problem?”

“YES!” shouted my brother.

Sara didn’t answer, but put the butt between her lips in reply.

“Do what you want,” I muttered. “Just make sure you stand downwind from now on, I can’t stand the smell.”

She smiled. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Make your own stupid mistakes, I think you’re old enough,” I chuckled, she was twice my age.

The night was okay after that, even as we went through the obscene t-shirt sale that would make Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, and Stan blush in shame. I won’t go into details, as I wish this to still be rated PG-13.

We came home close to midnight, Uncle Andrew was already asleep. Me and my brother were to share a bed, I slept on one side, and kicked him away as I wrote. Life was simple, but being Greek sure is a tough fight.

Sometimes I think I’m singled out, but then I remember my vision of God. A force outside my powers, waiting to crush me like an ant. My philosophy towards religion is something like this-

God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul

1707 Words
Total- 15,481

Chapter Nine- Those Boring Trips Your Parents Take You On

Anybody know those lame trips your parents think are cool, but you find them to be as much fun as reading my stories? Just kidding, but the truth is sightseeing with parents can be dull to the point of violence from the child’s part. I mean, have you ever had to go to that really old museum with things that look about as old as a history teacher?

So I walked down the streets of Corfu, because it’s even too crowded here to go and drive a car, heading to a beach where we would happily swim in thirty degree weather, because it was cold that day, but then I’m exaggerating a bit. But it’s an old beach with old people on it, so I’m not going to have the best time I could if, say, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were there. I saw them today at a pep rally. Dang everyone, all I can say is dang.

I wandered through the streets practically chained to my mom, as she still doesn’t think I can be trusted on my own. Just because I get lost easily doesn’t mean I should have to be chained to someone to walk in a big, unfamiliar city. I see no reason for it.

The beach itself was cold, the old people were sucking up all the life there. It had been a long walk, made all the better with the knowledge I would have to walk back the same way. Just freaking great. I went over to the food court that was there, hoping to score some chow.

A thing about Greeks, they don’t believe in the wait for thirty minutes before going in. They have a different rule, that states if you’re not in before that time is up, you’d better have a good explanation. So I changed into my suit, which is not a speedo, I feel I should point out, and headed to the food.

A thing about speedos in Greece, every old man wears them. In fact, it is my belief that every man over sixty is issued one by order of the government. It’s really nasty and can induce nausea, as they wear nothing else. All the old people were wearing speedos, making me wonder why I agreed to this.

So we ate first, because I hadn’t really had a good breakfast out of the cocoa cereal that my uncle had, so I ordered a burger, which I did not finish due to its vast size and over beefiness. My mom then gave me the traditional speech that small children in the world are starving and all that jazz, to which I thought, “Mom, if they’re so starving, why don’t they go where there is food?” Common sense from a Greek redneck wannabe.

We headed to the beach, which was surrounded by massive dunes of sand for no apparent reason. I faked throwing up as we gazed at the old bags sunbathing. Just sick, they should arrest people that sunbath and are ugly for indecent exposure.

I avoided gazing in that direction and decided the water was too cold to swim in, so I went over to a dune of sand and attacked my brother with wet mud.

“Why you-” he shouted, reaching for some sand, and so another sand war had begun. The rules are simple, no hitting in the face, anything else is fair game.

As we blasted each other, getting each other filthy with wet sand, my mom’s blood pressure started to go into overdrive. “BOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSS!” she shouted, signaling it was time to dive into the sand and not emerge. “THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR FOR WHEN WE ARE NEAR STRANGERS! STOP BUGGING EVERYONE!”

“Ma, you’re the only one who seems bothered by it,” I muttered audibly, so she could hear it.

The resulting injury shut me up good for a few days, right up until they made us go to a museum. A really famous, very boring, very dull museum about some famous statue or something. It was about an hour away from the city, so of course we were going, but at least it wasn’t on foot.

When we arrived, I noticed immediately that is was actually a palace. It was pretty big, with the columns that no Greek old place is without. So I did what any other half American would do.

I headed for the bathroom to see what it was like to pee in a palace. I headed in through the main entry, because I’d been dying to go for about the entire trip. I went through the main hall, along the red carpet, to the bathrooms in the corner.

It was there I learned that peeing in a palace is not really all that different from taking a whiz in that airplane I got here on. The stalls were, in fact, probably worse kept than the ones in the airplane. You’d think the guys would make more of an effort. I peed, but later bragged to my friends how a sat on a seat made of gold. Aren’t I honest? Didn’t think so.

My family and I went to the west side of the building, where we would see the finest possessions of some rich dead person. What makes me stop from projectile vomiting? The fact that his wife had shiny things, like gold and sapphire. I’m rather taken with shiny things, I’m drawn to them, which is bad on Corfu because there are literally thousands of lame trinket stores that sell the same thing, and I have to stop and look through the window of every one of them.

The old people sure knew how to live though, at least in the parts I wasn’t carted away from. If you’re going to put a sign that says “Do Not Enter,” at least make sure it can block trespassers. Rule number one about things that are cool: they are often things you’re not supposed to do, hence the marijuana problem in the States…

As I wandered through the place in partial coma, it occurred to me how much I hate sightseeing with my parents. I remember the good old days when I used to go on rips with my friends and we’d enjoy sightseeing, because our parents weren’t there. I miss Belgium.

I didn’t bother paying attention after we left the fine shiny things place, because it was just a bunch of nude statues. Ignoring the porn of the past, we headed out of there an hour later, because my mom insisted in seeing everything. Sometimes I wonder if she notices how bored I am.

You, the readers, might notice hat my characters don’t talk very much. Well, I feel that as I don’t really have a log of what they said word for word, it’s best to not let them say much and avoid a lawsuit.

After I had died at least three times from utter boredom, we finally were allowed to leave by mom. If my dog controls the house, my mom controls the family. We have to obey completely or face her wrath of the many slaps of the hand to the head.

We forgot what we were doing, so we headed to a nearby beach, which was the only thing I was there for, as my mom had promised us we would go to a good beach. I wasn’t disappointed, as we were at a nude beach.

And not just those lame ones with guys everywhere trying to spy on chicks, there were women everywhere, naked from the waist up. I was stunned, to say the least. I feel it’s a better and healthier way to live to just present everything rather than hiding it like in the States and, to a greater extreme, Texas.

I passed out onto the sand, after changing into my swimsuit. I was way to tired to swim right away, so I headed to where the chairs were. Sunbathing would be good for me, so when I go back to the States I can boo-yah all my friends who didn’t go to Greece and get a tan. That would be all of them.

I didn’t put on sunscreen, because I never need it. I guess I’m just special that way, so I baked in the sun for a while, just relaxing after all the forced learning.

“Can I have some money to buy some drinks?” I asked my mother, who was also sitting on a hair.

“Sure, whatever,” my mom answered, throwing money at me. “Bring one for your brother.”

I walked up to the stand and purchased two orange Fantas, and shook one up for John, and sipped my own in bliss. The stuff never gets old. I thought that as I finished my drink, and headed into the water as my brother got a face full of soda. He screamed at me, but I laughed and dived into the water.

Or rather, collided with the bottom, the water wasn’t as deep as I though it was. I waded out some more, trying to find the deep parts, but couldn’t and gave up after three hundred feet. At which time my brother came out to attack me for the soda.

“Hey, want to race to the shore?” I challenged him. “Running back, no swimming.”

He didn’t want to, but I chickened him into it. I’m a good negotiator, so good if fact I once got four holographic cards for the price of two. Pretty cool, I might have ripped off the person, but whatever. The deal was bondage of slavery until we got off the island, because we always wager that when we compete.

“Ready? One, two, two and a half,” I said as my brother tripped and fell, the signal I was waiting for. “THREE!” I shouted, dashing past him through the water.

Now, if you’ve ever done this kind of racing before, you know how hard it can be. The water works against you, so you have to move extra fast to make up for it. Stressful but fun. So we did this a few times, before my brother brought out the beach ball he’d just bought.

Now, I’m sure you all know how light beach balls are, and what they do in windy weather. This ball in particular just had to blow away when my brother threw it at me. As I’m a believer in the rule that you get it if you lose it, I sent my brother out to get it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t swim fast enough, leading to where it was about five hundred feet away from shore. I went in.

At first, I swam with the speed of an eel to try and catch up, but of course, we all know how fast that dries up, so I was stuck at a constant area thousands of feet away from shore and three feet away from that stupid giant ball.

After half an hour, I could barely see the shore. I reached out with a weak arm, and grabbed the ball in my hands. I immediately balanced myself on it, and slowly paddled it back to shore. It took a long time, I forgot how long, but I managed it somehow, on my own.

I slept on the way home, I felt I’d done enough hard stuff for the day.

A few days passed with decent memory, but nothing happened worth noting, until my uncle took us to his book club. Now, as I mentioned before, he is the president of the oldest book club in Greece, so he carries weight around the place. It has its own building, though it’s small, but I thought it was cozy.

There were mountains of books that my uncle had spent time preserving, most of them looked old enough to give Queen Victoria of England a run for her money. Some were hundreds of years old, but we weren’t allowed to touch them. I can’t really blame them, especially after my brother and I tried to play chess on this really old board that had been covered by glass.

We went upstairs to the lecture hall, where my uncle got plenty of pictures of me on the podium. I think my brother felt left out, but my uncle has never been shy about who he loves more. Comes with having his name.

We went into his own private office, which was crammed with so many old books I thought the bookcases were going to collapse from the weight impressed on them. There was a large desk, with an even bigger book on it, I didn’t think it was possible. Apparently, my uncle’s club looks through these books and translate them, as they’re in old Greek which I cant understand. This explains why I can’t understand the priest in church.

We sat in there for a while, I wanted to look at the books, but of course I couldn’t because they were valuable. Jeez, break one priceless heirloom and suddenly you can’t touch anything that can be sold.

We went downstairs to look at the private dining facilities that are opened in the winter. It was nice, with those laid back chairs that those Roman emperors had to eat from. Oh, and a bar.

After that, we headed across the street to another museum, the only Oriental Art museum in Greece I think. I love things about Asia, because it’s all cool. Swords, pottery, and armor, those guys knew how to live. Much like my ancestors lived their lives butt naked.

I actually enjoyed the place, I don’t know whether it was the art, the swords, or the fact that I sneaked security and went into a life-sized throne room, but I had fun. There were plenty of shiny things there to keep me occupied, as that samurai armor was just awesome.

We went through the first rooms without incident, there was pottery not to be believed, of every shape and size. I wanted to steal all of it, but of course that would have been a bad idea, so I kept my hands to myself. A few rooms even had pipes and stuff like that, I swear one looked like Peter Griffon. Tapestries were laid out on walls for us to see, it was just amazing.

On the top floor, there was more, but what really caught my eye was the throne room, which could have given England’s a run for its money. It was delicately made, red curtains cascading on each side of this big throne that could seat at least Sally Struthers. Utterly massive, so I couldn’t help myself. Noting the cameras along the edges, I avoided security and went in. I just stared at the taped off area with wonder.

After the museum, after being escorted out by security and getting slapped by the mighty and understanding mom, we headed down the stairs that led to the museum. Behind us, Uncle Andrew hobbled to keep up when-

CRASH!

My uncle went tumbling down the stairs after losing his footing, slamming his rear on the pavement. We all heard it, and turned around to make sure he was okay. See, we have a Granny in the States who fell once, and she ended up in a retirement home months later. At least Uncle Andrew was okay, buy limped for the rest of the day. He was better the next day though, when I went souvenir hunting for my friends.

Me and my family wandered the streets for decent stuff to buy. I went to a card shop for something Scruffy might like.

See, in Theater class last year, we didn’t do much and got A’s for it, but for most of the year, I learned the fine art of winning like crazy in games such as Thirteen, BS, and Poker. We had a deal, me, Aaron, Scruffy, and Magic, that if you lost the worst three times in a row, you got an umbrella shoved up your butt while listening to Michael Jackson songs. This was during the trial which I’m pretty sure he rigged but anyway, I was planning to buy Scruffy a pack of cards from Greece.

I looked over some of the less risqué, for lack of a better word because I hate France, card packs and decided to buy a pack with sightseeing beaches without nudity. I also bought a small crystal dog that I knew Blair might like. She’s really big on those animal deals and she‘s crazy about dogs and wolves.

I couldn’t really find anything for Aaron, but I found a patch for Magic that says the classic phrase, “I’m With Stupid.” I saw all sorts of bootleg stuff too, like Cuban cigars, fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and non official merchandise from movies.

Now, I’m going to go on a rant here about fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I really can’t stand them, half the time they don’t even look real. If you’re going to fake something, make it look like the thing it’s a bootleg fake of. Some cards even have a different background, proving they’re fake just by a glance.

As we passed the city’s shops, we stopped by this jeweler that our family knows because their family was going through some problems. It had a whole bunch of shiny things, so I decided to buy something.

It was a small piece of jewelry made of silver, it looked like a fat sword blade, with half circles opening the sides. On the bottom of the blade, because it was upside down, there was a diamond of blue enamel finish. Freaking sweet, because it only cost thirty bucks. That day I learned a very important lesson: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I agree with that rule, but I don’t like it.

I showed it off for a while, my brother only wore his, a coiled cobra, for about two weeks then abandoned it. I still have mine, but I save it for special occasions so I won’t lose it.

The week passed so fast, I almost forgot to tell you about this great pizza I had. The catch was that I had to travel about three miles on foot with Uncle Andrew, and he’s in his seventies.

Granted, it wasn’t a picnic for me either, but at least the old guy didn’t complain once, and kept up with me. I admire my family for having strength in even their old age, something I look up to in some way. But the pizza was totally worth it. I mean, this stuff was just great, and the before bread that came before it was just, was just great.

So therefore, after I had finished gorging myself on about an entire pizza and a loaf of bread, it was that good. I then got to enjoy the stomach problems that soon followed another three mile walk. I followed my brother home this time, because he seems to have some kind of global positioning system that lets him find his way back home. I don’t question his abilities, but I can beat him up because he’s a wussy, so that makes me feel better about myself.

At the end of the week, we finally had to leave. It was a great time, but we needed to leave to get my dad who was coming. Then we were heading for Mount Olympus. So we headed by car to the docks to go back to the mainland. My Papu and Yaya were coming by airplane again, but this time they would have a little change of plans.

As I watched us sail away from the island, I remembered that I was going to play a big part there one day. Our family has a lot of property, so it will one day fall a great deal to me as the eldest grandson. I’m going to have to perfect my Greek reading, or else we might lose our homes.

We went back to the city as planned, and I managed to catch one of my favorite shows, subtitled of course from the United States, I believe it was called Stacy and Ned, or something like that. Decent, but it got me through parts of the day. My mom flipped on the TV. On the news, there was a very important announcement about my grandparents, or at least it was important to them.

AIRLINE STRIKE CEASES ALL PLANES

Just great. And my dad wasn’t getting near the country either. My grandfather later told me that he felt utterly powerless without his car on the island, the strike lasted for about four days. My dad arrived soon after that, he only had to stay one night in the airport, which he used to read and drink coffee.

Everyone got to the wonderful mainland of Greece safely, I know because I had to go to the airport to pick up Dad. See, me and my brother have this bet that says that he has to go and pick up Dad when he comes for the weekend from Kansas. He works there and comes home every weekend, so my brother lost a basketball game and has to go with Mom every time because she’s scared of going to the place by herself. I don’t see why, because she’s never been kidnapped before.

The problem was we had no idea when he would come, there were two flights. It turned out that he came on an earlier flight, so we had trouble finding him. I headed up to where the book stands are, but got sidetracked and forgot why I was up there. I figured it out eventually, and we all went home. Dad had shrunk to an unimaginable level, I had grown a lot in the time we’d been apart.

I was happy to see him, so we all went home to prepare for the big trip to Olympus. We didn’t half to pack much, we were only going for two days. We were going to stay at my aunt’s summer house for the night, then we were climbing the mountain.

I wasn’t looking forward to it, mostly because I was doing it for my mom, who felt that if she could do it again, as she had done it once before, she should and boo-yah those who could not.

Isn’t she sweet?

3746 Words
Total- 19,227 Words

I present one of the funniest chapters I've written. It only gets better from here.

Chapter Ten- Olympus, Home of Dung and Other Tales

It took about an hour to get out into the Olympus region to begin with. It’s really not that far away, just that traffic takes its toll on the iron constitutions of even the mightiest highway warriors. Man, I’m starting to miss the states, at least there people weren’t trying to kill you just because you’re out on the street. At least my dad isn’t the honking maniac that my grandpa is.

Picture that guy who is always calm, no matter what happens. Now picture him about fifty, getting his white hairs, with small glasses. Picture him at five feet eight inches, with grey eyes, and you have my dad. He’s the calmest guy, and rarely panics. He was housetrained completely by twenty-eight years in the military, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The only time he gets excited is on roller coasters, where he calls us wimps if we don’t go on the biggest one.

So he can be fun, but it requires coaster tracks most of the time. He’s also utterly stuck in the seventies or fifties, because he doesn’t like any new TV. If it isn’t in black and white, it’s not interesting to him. In fact, we have a system in my house to measure how good a movie is. If Dad falls asleep during a movie we measure how long and how good he sleeps to tell how bad the movie was.

We will one day look back on these and laugh, but all I could do is think about how boring it was going to be. I hate all forms of physical exercise, so this is going to be torture for me. We drove on until we were under Olympus’ great shadow.

My parents climbed it last time they went to Greece, they said they were guided to the top by a dog of the gods. Yeah right, the dog was probably heading for the same things they were. Food and shelter.

We managed to get to where we would be staying for the night, a small set of houses by the beach. They’re owned by my Aunt Sophie’s mother, so they are tended to in the meantime by a shirtless guy that smoked the strongest cigarettes I’d ever smelt. I couldn’t even be close to them, they reeked so bad.

They were two story, with basements. We were to be staying in the left one. It had a large living room with no dining room in sight, but a small bed on the second floor. In the basement there were about three small rooms. Me and my brother were going to be stuck in the second floor room, right next to the guy’s smokes.

As I contemplated why our mom hated us, I went back to work on my story, as I thought it would be a good thing to waste time. My shows weren’t going to come on for a while. I had just finished a very important part of the story, so I felt like working harder on it, so I could make my mentors proud.

My mentors, who I truly look up to, even if I haven’t seen them in over a year, are three women who took the time to teach me how to control myself. Barbara Humphrey, Lindsey Weber, and Hayley Heineken, and I admire them. Everything I do I do for them, because I want to pay them back.

As I contemplated an idea for the story, my mom strolled out onto the balcony where I was sitting, telling me we were going to go to the museum, because she loves to control me.

I said no.

She exploded. Quite literally, she got in my face in rage, she hates when I refuse.

The long and short of it was this: I would not go, as I had no interest in being lugged around a boring museum. My brother would go, so I laughed at him for that later on. He had a boring time, and cried about having to go in that baby look.

I had the whole place to myself, the guy was out cold. Any red blooded American would have ransacked the place for porn, but I’m not full American. I chose the high road and worked for most of the day, until my aunt, brother, mom, and dad came back. Then we went to the beach, though it was very late in the day.

Needless to say, but I will for your pleasure, we didn’t go swimming, and mostly used it for down time until the big climb the next day. It was windy and cloudy so we didn’t have the best time. I just realized, because I could feel it in my bones, that something was going to go wrong the next day.

And like many of my predictions, this came true as well. But I’m skipping a lot of the story. SO I went to sleep soon after we got back to the beach house, but didn’t get much rest because of the smells the cigarettes were giving off, leading me to fake a gag occasionally into my smelly pillow.

As we awoke the next day, I put on some standard climbing gear. My sweat jacket, my rough jeans, and some sneakers that I still wear. I should get a sign that says, “My sneakers and I climbed Mount Olympus,” but I won’t because it’s a retarded idea. So we drove out to where we would start to scale the mountain, with all our stuff. I brought a few books in the bag with all the water, so I wouldn’t get bored if we had to stop for too long. I just wanted it over with.

We stopped at the station where we could leave our car while we hiked up the mountain. I hoped I wouldn’t die, I had made a solemn pledge to climb without food or drink, because I am daring like that.

We walked past the starting point, soon finding ourselves on a winding trail to the top. Only a few things would stand in our way.

The first being stamina. While I had eaten to be able to go the whole day, the others did not have that same ability. I never get tired when I’m full, so stopping is never an issue for me unless the others need to catch up.

The second, and more important one, was of course the fact that donkeys travel up the trail. And what do donkeys do in large numbers? Big, fat poops on the roads leading up to the Refuge, the stopping point at the top. Sometimes you have to just stand on the fallen trees to walk around it. It’s really nasty.

As I avoided the manure, I felt ill from the smell as we slowly ascended the mountain. You have no idea what tons and tons of feces smell like unless you have truly experienced it for yourself. Not a pleasant memory.

After a while, we stopped on a cliff to take a break, and so Aunt Sara and Mom, who had forgotten to go to the bathroom, could sneak off discretely. I handed the backpack I was heaving up the mountain to my brother, as I was annoyed that the thing was slowing me down.

“Take my backpack slave,” I yawned, tossing the pack in his face. Before he could start shouting, I was already heading back up the mountain.

About a half-hour later, I came to a small clearing carved into the mountain filled with all sorts of flowers and wildlife. One particular that made me keep walking. Bees could be heard from everywhere, buzzing like kamikazes ready for an ambush. I kept walking, and reached a real resting point, a small bench. I sat down to wait for my family.

A good twenty minutes later, I could hear my brother showing up, so I took the backpack and continued before he could do anything. I still wasn’t tired, but I was a tad thirsty, but I had sworn not to eat or drink until I reached that Refuge. And I always follow up on a challenge, that’s why I’m typing this up.

So I trekked on alone, the others would just slow me down. I went about halfway up the mountain before I heard them below me. So I decided to do something that I would remember forever.

We were on a slope following zig-zag patterns carved into the mountain by hundreds of prior travelers. Around us was the mountain, in all its glory. They couldn’t really see me, so I gave them a head’s up that I was close to them.

I yodeled, loudly like I’d seen actors do on TV, for all the world to hear. I believe it went something like this:

“YOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEE EEEEIIIIIIIIHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO O!!!!!!”

After I got breath in me, I shouted to them, “I’ve always wanted to do that!” reducing Aunt Sara to tears of laughter, or at least that’s what she told me when the finally caught up to me.

“I can’t believe you did that!” she exclaimed. I don’t know why, it’s always been a great dream of mine.

When my parents caught up with us, we ran into some Germans who were going down the slope. They spoke English, and told us we were almost to the top. Unfortunately for us, they were more advanced hikers than we were. So, that meant that “almost to the top” translated into two more hours of hiking. I was starting to get really thirsty, but my challenge outweighed my common sense, so I continued up the mountain, not tired but hungry.

After about an hour, we saw the Refuge for the first time. Pretty nice too, a log cabin on the top on one of the summits. It was rather big, easily twice the size of our summer home. A family lives up there, the donkeys carry supplies up to them every day, as the Refuge is just what its name suggests. An inn for travelers.

Panting, gasping, and near death from hunger, I ascended first. I walked up those last steps with pride, and resisted the urge to scratch “Andrew wuz here” into the walls like I’d seen so many others do. Plus, I did it without food or water, so I felt really good about myself. I wasn’t stupid enough to not eat before going down, so I headed into the inn with my family to order something.

As it turned out, they really didn’t have anything I’d eat. I’m a very picky eater, I’m not proud of it, but that’s what I am. I settled for the hot chocolate, which didn’t really have that much of a chocolate taste. More of a bland taste, but the place was beautiful.

It was larger than I had thought, owing to the fact that I didn’t know it was an inn. There was just one family living there, a mom and dad team with one daughter. I thought it was cool how they live so far away from civilization. Might be a simpler life in fact, just out on a mountain. But I digress.

There were a few bathrooms on the lower levels, none of which had hot water or toiletries. I went back up to where my parents were eating at there request.

“Do you want something to eat?’’ my mom asked, holding out a moldy food package of who knows what.

“Nope, don’t think I’m getting into that stuff, I didn’t need it to get up here.”

This of course prompted the mandatory parent lecture that I had forgotten about. I had made it to the top without food or drink, posing a terrible risk to my well being and health. At the end of the talking to, I had to drink an entire bottle of water to make up for what I hadn’t drunk. I did so in half a minute, and guzzled it right down without another thought.

Maybe I really am a freak, but that’s not the coolest part of the day. When we went in to pay the bill to the owner, a young man with black hair, I saw the greatest thing to boo-yah all my friends upon returning to the States.

Patches proclaiming climbing Mount Olympus. I got one, as did my brother. I need to go and get my mom to sew that on one of these days.

We headed down at about three in the afternoon, because we had to go get ready for the big push to Vuvuru. Doesn’t it seem like I’m always on the move? We were going down the same trail, as it was the only trail we actually knew about, so it made sense. I scratched myself, and began the hike down, shouldering the backpack.

As I wandered down the trail, something very bad happened. Something that would cause me to laugh until the tears began to well up in my eyes, then induce karma like you wouldn’t believe.

My mom fell in the donkey poop. Oh yes, she fell right splat in it, and we all laughed very hard, even though we were on a tough part of the mountain, no one fell down.

Right up until about the instant I did. I fell right in the stuff just as my mom did. They laughed, but my pride was destroyed. I pushed my ruined sweater into my mom’s hands, and walked down the mountain.

I forgot where I was going after a while, but I kept on because of my anger. I just followed the trail. Without my family to slow me down, I took no breaks to get down, because I didn’t need them. In the end, it took me two hours to go back down, not bad for a first-timer. I was tired of course at the end, but I felt that it was better to get it over with first then relax. I’m following a different principle writing this, I need to write more.

Anyway, I wandered down the mountain, careful to avoid everything those donkeys might have made. And don’t even get me started on something the donkeys didn’t make. Let’s just say that some guy didn’t have a port-o-potty available and involved something with the word two in it on the mountain for all to see. Maybe I was wrong about living away from civilization. You start living like an animal. Not good.

I was still mad, though it had simmered down to mild rage, even as I passed everyone ahead of me on the way down. I finished the hike, so I felt the need to boo-yah everyone that hasn’t.

BOO-YAH!

But back to normal, or as normal as I can get, I sat down in the shade and read part of my Dragons of Deltora book. Those things are really good, and inspire me a lot when I’m looking for a god twist. Oh yeah, my family arrived forty-five minutes later, and angry at me for taking the pack with most of the water. Whoops.

We headed back to the city after that, no one was interested in staying much longer. And by no one, I begged not to go back to the cigarettes the strange guy had. They smelt so bad they made the perfume isle smell good, and that’s hard to do. Seriously, some of the smells they have in stores just make me gag, why do chicks want to smell like old flowers anyway?

Our trip home was without incident, as was the unpacking and the eating of Greek food that soon followed. The next real big thing hit me about a week later, when we were told we were going to a party for my cousins. And all their little friends, doesn’t it sound like fun? At least it was a chance to get on the computer again, so I said yes and went with my brother to what would shortly become World War III.

Greek school ends later than American school, but they start later, so the system works. However, that meant that we would be attacked by about a dozen of Valerios and Eleni’s schoolmates in gladiator combat. See, my cousins have never taken the time to properly explain that me and my brother are not full American, but that doesn’t matter to young ones, who shoot first and ask questions later.

We walked innocently in, like lambs to the slaughter. I had a nice hour on the internet, where I posted and put up Kenjin, as he had been approved. I had a nice time, I wasn’t bothered at all. It threw me, so I decided to see what was up outside. I headed down the stairs that led up o the computer and went outside.

Now, keep in mind that my uncle and aunt have a lot of land for children to play in. And how were they playing? They were attacking my brother in unholy combat. All twelve of them with sticks, my brother with one he had stolen. All my base common sense told me to walk slowly back inside and hope they don’t notice, while my gut told me to fight with my brother.

Guess who won? I grabbed a nice sized stick and headed out to the cliff, or at least a small cliff, where they were fighting. My brother was up on top of it, fending them off to keep them below.

“Mind if I join?” I asked grinning, blocking a thrust coming from his left.

“Fine by me,” he groaned, the fight had been taking its toll.

“DEATH TO THE AMERICANS!!!” they shouted in unison, despite the fact that we weren’t fully American, but then again they wouldn’t have bothered to listen.

I fended them off, we made for the backyard. I grabbed a second stick, my preferred weapons of choice are dual blades, my brother’s in a long sword, so we settled for tough sticks.

My cousin Valerios was leading them with this big, old stick, I guess he thought it was an axe or something because he was swinging it like a Wildman. But my and John know how to fight, even if we don’t do so often. We battled for our lives.

Blocking a Power Ranger knife thrown at us, we headed to the east side of the house, which is on lower ground than the south side we were on. Jumping down, we were followed by one half of them, so we split it up. I took three while my brother dealt with the other half. Their weapons were multiplying, they were starting to throw stuff, making it harder to block.

I took a hit on the shoulder, and I signaled to John to fall back. We started to head to the north, but were cut off by the other half I had forgotten about.

“Oh, boy,” I muttered, we were surrounded.

“Got any ideas?” he asked, preparing his weapon.

“As a matter of fact,” I mused, looking at Valerios’ stick. “Maybe there is a way.”

With the speed of a cheetah, I darted forward before they could move, snatching my cousin’s weapon out of his hand.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” he shouted.

“Stand down cousin,” I said, and he obeyed out of need for his weapon. “And surrender your weapons, then this will be returned.”

I was certain the bluff wouldn’t work, until he shouted for them to stand down and turn over their weapons. When they had all been striped of sticks, Power Ranger swords, and everything else that could be used against us, we picked it all up and threw Valerios his stick back, then ran for our lives, they would be back soon.

We had to prepare better.

I suited up all the projectile sticks, while John took all the offense weapons. I kept my two short sticks, but added more long rage to keep them at bay. Then we waited.

They came soon enough in a congregation. I stood in front of John, as much as I hated him sometimes, we had put aside our problems to fight a common foe. Valerios stood at his front.

“CHARGE!!” he shouted, as his minions poured in to attack.

“RETREAT!!” I shouted, as me and John circled around them and headed for the small cliff. It was our best bet against the numbers.

We got up faster than they did, and held them off. Sometimes they would reach up the cliff, but we blocked them back down.

“KILL THE AMERICANS!!!” they shouted again, charging up the cliff together, overwhelming us. We smiled, and leaped off the slope, landing away from them and out of reach. They had found new weapons, so it was best to hit and run until we could wear them down.

The fight escalated, turning into all out warfare. I wasn’t even sure who was leading after a while, me and John became synchronized in our fighting, working together to battle the overpowering midgets. But we were wearing out slowly, I was getting hungry and John didn’t have a great deal of endurance left.

“Valerios, let’s duel!” I shouted, hoping my little cousins ego would overpower his common sense. It worked, and he called them off. “We will fight on the condition that if I win, you will become our slaves until you leave.”

“Agreed, as long as you accept the same terms!” he shouted back, as we began to really get into the roles of leaders. It was time for a duel.

We were encircled by his followers, all bearing weapons to show I wasn’t going to go anywhere. I decided to act out my role.

“Let us duel!” I shouted, bearing my swords high.

“Prepare to lose!” he answered, attacking with his mighty blade.

I blocked, though it jarred my shoulder, with one blade, and swiped at his feet with the other. He leaped over it, and attacked again with a downward swipe.

I flipped past the attack, and ran through the crowd of children, heading for the cliffs, which were the best place for over-dramatic fighting. I headed up the slope, followed closely by my pint-sized cousin, who’s role had been spiced up for your entertainment. We battled on and on, dodging ever blow we threw at each other.

I took a running leap and grabbed his stick right out of his hands, flipping over him and kicking him down the cliff-slope thing we’d been fighting on. He fell off, but didn’t get hurt. I was happy for that, because my mom would have skinned me if I had harmed a hair on his head, despite the fact that it’s okay for him and his friends to attack and slaughter us without mercy.

He surrendered, as I knew he would. They were ours, all for the rest of the day. What did I do with them?

I had Valerios line them us, which he did with precise moments, shouting at them to suck in their guts and the like. I picked out two warriors that had fought well against me and my brother during the warfare. One was a kid with an orange t-shirt, the other boy was wearing a white t-shirt. Both held sticks. I had the other children stand back as me and my brother climbed up the slope with Valerios to watch something grand.

Child gladiators, oh the name shall strike a cord in my heart when I hear it. I had them battle to the near death against each other, the simple minded fools. And they even enjoyed it as I lorded over them, making them battle for my personal pleasure. Now I know how the power Roman emperors felt over their subjects.

But soon it was time to leave yet again, and we said goodbye to our slaves. They had a good time fighting for my entertainment, though I may have spiced up that fight scene with Valerios for you all.

As we headed back to the city, I remembered how temporary it would be. We were going to Vuvuru for the rest of the summer. One whole month.

And I wasn’t sure if anyone knew, but there aren’t any computers in Vuvuru. Or cable and anything like good TV. This was going to be a long month.

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The big day finally arrived, so we all had to get everything in the car. Our family is so big that we have to travel in shifts. I was going in the car, with my dad and mom. John was coming as well, and Athena, on of my Yaya’s housemaids, was coming to clean for us for the month. I thought it was a pretty sweet gig. She works a lot, but also is only a two minute walk away from the beach.

Uncle Speiro was coming, he was to sit in the front, causing everyone else to feel cramped up in the back. I noted that my mom was putting a blue thing on his seat.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the pad.

“Don’t mind it, just get in the car,” my mom muttered, placing it down.

“Ma, what is it?” I whined.

“It’s a diaper thing, okay? It‘s to make sure he won‘t wet the seat. Now don‘t talk about and get in the freaking car,” my mom hissed at me, and I jumped in without daring to make a lame joke.

We headed out without incident, because I decided it would be wise not to provoke my mom’s temper further. The city around us slowly turned to the dry lands of Vuvuru, with yellow, dry grass and great bars. All of which are surrounded by beach, the best times were ahead. It sort of sounded like a teen movie. You know, the ones about summer, love and discovery. Those are always so predictable, thankfully, my story is nothing like that.

Always unpredictable was the first item on the list. I had taken the time to buy a certain adapter that would let us play Gamecube on the TV in the downstairs area. It’s a good thing, up until the bad stuff started.

See, we had been playing a lot of Zelda, my project was to beat the Wind Waker with only three hearts, as I had beaten it three times before. I was stuck waiting for my friends, because they were all at school or at camp or whatever. Alex was coming, along with Anna and Leia, but they would arrive next week. A few old friends from the gang I hadn’t seen in about two years. I wasn’t even going to recognize a few of them.

I went down to the beach every day that week, but it wasn’t as fun by myself, John wasn’t going to fight me. I felt isolated, until they came.

Valerios and Eleni arrived that weekend, bringing some entertainment into my days. Then Alex arrived.

Alex is a good buddy of mine, my best friend in Greece. Our moms are even best friends, and came to Vuvuru as we did now. And boy did he change in the year I’d been gone from Belgium. We both used to live there, until I had to return to the States.

He was taller now, his growth spurt had started late, in the young age of fourteen. I remember when he wasn’t much bigger than John, and John’s a shrimp. He wasn’t as big as me though. He has this yellow hair and brown freckles. His face also smirks a lot.

I felt at home when we started hanging out, and we headed for Anna and Liea’s house, not with John, because we had ditched him.

We have a special way for getting onto Anna and Liea’s property, crawling in through a back entrance. I was okay with it, because we had been doing in for years. So we headed to the back of my home and went through the small tunnel to next door. Sure, we could have gone through the front door, but where’s the fun in that?

I led the way, as I take leadership being older and smarter. Of course, Yaniis is the unofficial leader of our little group, because he knows how to have fun. He likes taking my advice, so we get along. But you’ll meet Yaniis later.

As I headed down to where they lived, I took detail on the house. It hadn’t changed, its patio was still there. There was a balcony at the front of the house above where the girls’ bedroom was. We headed for the balcony, where we were ambushed by Mrs. Anna.

Mrs. Anna, not to be confused with my friend, is an elderly woman in her eighties at least.

“Hello, hello,” she said in Greek, she didn’t know any English, rare for a Greek, as they almost always know some English. “Who might be have here?”

“Andreas, and Alex,” I answered, using my Greek name. Rare for me too, because I think it sounds girly.

“Andreas and Alex?” she exclaimed, hobbling up and hugging us. “It has been too long.”

It had been a long time, but she hadn’t changed much. Her hair was still wrapped in the bun I remember, she still had those mouse eyes. Wrinkles were still attacking her face in squadrons, but it was her.

“ Where are Anna and Liea?” I asked, looking around. They were not there.

“Oh, they went to the beach,” the old lady answered, pointing a finger to our favorite beach.

“Thanks, we’ll go see them,” I thanked her, before heading out with Alex.

The beach in question was one I frequented often, as it was more private than the one next to it, and the other one was vacant as Yaniis hadn’t gotten to Vuvuru yet. It is a semicircle surrounded on all sides by rocky walls. To get there, you must first go down a whole lot of stairs that I hadn’t bothered to count.

Then we received a surprise we weren’t expecting. Anna and Leia, in bikinis. But there were two other girls there too. Both had long, bushy hair, but one wore glasses.

Anna had changed, she used to have a tad more weight than the average girl, but was now skinny and delicate. Leia had grown up, she was thirteen with the body of a sixteen year old.

“Hello,” I said, stepping up. They looked stunned. I had changed quite a bit since they’d last seen me.

24,330 Words, I'm catching back up!