Summer vacations are always my favorite time of the year, specially the month of July. This is my dad gets his vacations this month, and we always get to go out on a trip outside the city. The best trips are when we go to Tegucigalpa. There we always have to go to my mom’s hometown: Valle de Angeles. I love going there. It is a long trip (about half an hour) from Tegucigalpa to Valle de Angeles, so most of the time I sleep for part of it. It is located on top of a high hill, and to get there we go up and down many more of them. Instead of having good old fashioned butterflies in my stomach, I feel stampeding elephants making me nauseous. This doesn’t stop me from looking in awe the amazing sight. There are rows of pines decorating the never-ending hills that form part of my horizon. When I arrive there, it feels like home. My story takes place in this beautiful little town about five years ago.

I went out to the park with my cousins Rebecca, Cristina Paulette, Cristian, David, Sofia, and Luis, and my brother Romulo. Rebecca and I were chatting and eating some ice cream sitting on a bench near the stoned street. God, my ice cream was delicious. Behind me I could hear the buzzing of the moto taxis passing by and the chatting of many tourists from all around the world, especially gringos, passing by as well as town’s people. Everywhere I look, there were little restaurants, kiosks, banks, souvenir shops, museums, candy shops, and many other stores that sold from plastic key chains and wooden earrings to diamond rings and $8,000 paintings. Children were running, laughing and screaming, hanging from the branches of the trees, and playing hide-and-seek. In those children were three of my cousins. Two others were with my brother and a group of their friends entering the internet café. Cristian was sitting on the edge of the fountain in the center of the park.

As Rebecca and I were chatting, when out if the blue, Rebecca said: “Diana, look at Cristian!”

She pointed to my right as she started to giggle. “Look at what he is doing,” she said as a new round of giggles bursted from her lips. What was that little devil doing now?
I turned around and laughed. You had got to be kidding me. This was the ultimately dumb thing Cristian was doing today. He was leaning in the fountain and snatching coins from it. I stood up and went towards him giggling.
“Cristian, what are you doing?”
“Earning some money.” His hand was filled with pennies and dimes and quarters.
“Why do you want money? What are you gonna buy?”
“Something,” he said defensively. “but I am going to need more of these for what I want.” He bent down to pick up more.
“You know Ana’s going to kill you if she finds out, right?”
“But she isn’t going to find out. Do you see her here? No. She is at Johana’s making lunch. So don’t mind me.”
“Don’t fall in there. Like you said, lunch is being made and we have to go to Johana’s in about fifteen minutes”

I turned around and headed back to the bench. I will laugh my butt off if he falls in. Three minutes later, I heard a splash. My head whipped to the right and I choked on my ice cream at what I saw. Cristian had fallen into the fountain! I felt like I would literally die of laughter. I couldn’t breathe; my stomach was like a time bomb ready to explode, my cheeks were cramping, my eyes were tearing up, and I bet I was as read as a cherry. My whole body hit the floor as I died in my hysteria. People stopped and stared at the scene Rebecca, Cristian, and I were making. Two girls were rolling on the floor laughing at a boy in the park’s fountain. Yeah, we made quite the scene; so much so, that many other people were laughing too.

The rest happened in slow motion. Cristian came out of the fountain soaking wet from head to toe. I managed somehow to get to my feet and started walking towards him.

“Kids, time for lunch. Let’s go back to--” Ana’s eyes bulged. “CRISTIAN GABRIEL!” Ana yelled at him as my brother and cousins were coming out of the internet café. “Why in the world are you wet? Do you want me to kill you?”Ana came stomping to where Cristian was. She grasped her arm right on time when he was about to make a run for it. “Oh no, mister. You are grounded! Why in the world are you wet? Did you fall into the fountain?” Cristian was getting killed here. Should I help him? He’s dying in there. Nah. He deserves it.

“Let’s go to Johanna’s house for lunch.”I said.

“Tell Johanna Cristian is not going.” She glared at Cristian while she talked to me.

“Sure.” I turned around, grabbed Rebecca’s hand and left.