The Cayman Islands

My family and I were packing for a trip at the start of summer.  My parents said I could invite a few friends on the trip as well. My room is a disaster, and clothes are everywhere. They are on my bed, my floor, and even on my door knob. My step mom stops by my bedroom and hands me a list of what I need, and at the same time, I see that she is also ordering dinner on the phone. I go over the list to make sure I have everything in my bag. Ugh, I know if I forget something, it won’t be the last I hear of it. I shove all my clothes into my bag when I hear the door bell ring. I race down to see who is at the door and I see my best friends, Emily and Micheal. Micheal in his Hawaiian shirt, flip flops, and a beach bag with random items like a beach shovel, arm floaties, and water shoes. I began to snicker when Emily got on to me.
“Don't laugh, I think it looks very appropriate for where we are going.”
Emily is the mom of the group.  She’s always prepared for everything and always keeps us in check. We walked down the hallway to sit at the dining room table. Emily pulls out her laptop and shows us what she has planned for the trip.
“Ok guys, so for our trip I have a couple of things that I think you guys will like to do. First, we can go see stingrays at Stingray City which is in the middle of town, the second option is to go to a turtle farm and see turtles hatch by the beach, or we can see the Crystal Caves.”
You could tell that Micheal was thinking through all of his options, so I just threw out a suggestion.
“Let’s go see the stingrays that will be fun! We’ll get to pet them and swim with them” I said.
“Zack, are you kidding? That is the scariest option of them all. What if we get stung? Or if we step on one, we could die” Michael replied.
“Michael, are you kidding? You are not going to die. We are supposed to have fun. That’s what vacations are for.”
Michael never wanted to do the stuff that I wanted to do. It is so rare that we ever get to agree on anything. He always agrees with Emily.
“Alright you two, my favorite out of the three options was going to see the Crystal Caves” said Emily.
            “Emily, I love that idea!” Micheal said, beaming.
Of course he agreed with her. I didn’t really care at this point. Whatever they wanted was always fun and I went along with it anyways. After we made our final decision on what we are going to do, we went to the airport and flew to the Cayman Islands. We took a cab over to the hotel that is on the beach. Emily had her camera out and ready. She was taking pictures of everything we saw. She said she was going to make something special for us so that we would remember our trip together.
Later that night, we walked on the beach to watch the sunset. We were all sitting on the beach when we saw something odd. A strange man was walking around by himself and he appeared to be talking to himself. I wondered what he was saying. I pointed out the man to Emily and Michael, but Micheal didn’t seem worried.
“Zack, you’re always so sacred of everything. Can you just relax, we are on vacation” Micheal said.
“I don’t know Michael. He looks a little weird. Should we go get Zach’s dad?” Emily asked.
“My goodness you two, you guys need to stop worrying, we are fine.” Micheal stated as he rolled his eyes.
We forgot about the strange man over the next couple days, and we really enjoyed our beach vacation. It’s probably one of the best vacations I have ever been on. There wasn’t much conflict between Michael and I, and we are all having a great time. Today is the day that we planned to go tour the Crystal Caves. It isn't that far from wear we are staying, so we decided to walk. On our way, we talked about what we thought the caves would look like. When we got there, there is a big sign that said “Crystal Caves” that we walked under. We got our tickets and walked into the entrances of the cave. When we went to meet our tour guid, we found out it was the strange looking man that I saw from beach a few days earlier.
I whispered to Emily,
“Isn't that the same guy at the beach? The one that was talking to himself”
“OMG it is him! We have to get out of here or get a new tour guide!” Emily said fearfully.
We told Micheal that it was the crazy man that we saw on the beach but he just started following him like we never said anything to him. We started to follow the man and he never said a word to us. Micheal started to ask him questions about the cave, but there was no response. I wondered where we were going. I turned to Emily and she looked very scared.
“Guys, I think we should go.”
“Yeah, I agree with Zach” Emily said.
The man turned around and glared at us. It sent chills down my back. I looked at Emily and Micheal and they looked terrified. The man mumbled something that I couldn’t make out at first. He started to reach into his bag, and began to fumble through it. We started to run away when I saw him take out a picture. I began to walk slowly toward him when I heard what he was saying.
“Help me find Mary. Mary! Mary! Where are you?” the man mumbled.
He started to say this over and over again.   Saying it to the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. I asked myself, “Is he ok? Do we need to take him somewhere?”
I talked to him a little more and he told me that he was looking for his lost daughter. Later we took him to the hospital, and they told us that they were glade we got him there. The doctors told us that he has been so obsessed for the past thirteen years trying to find his daughter, that it made him go crazy. They put him in a medical institution to get more help for him.
“Im glad that we got to help someone today” I said.
“Who knows what would happen if we didn’t find him” Emily replied.
When we got back to the hotel, I flopped on the bed exhausted. We were all so tired from running all over Grand Cayman so we all took a nap.
“Zach! Why are you sleeping on the last day of the trip? Have you guys been in here all day?” My parents didn’t even know we had left. We had been gone for the entire day. I was going to tell her that we saved a man who was very ill, but she probably wouldn't believe us and would tell everyone that we were imagining the entire trip. When we got back home, Emily had made a scrap book for us to remember our trip together. It would be a trip I would never forget.