Man, does this place suck! It’s always so cold and foggy, absolutely nothing like Arizona. My uncle and cousin, Manuel and Julio were still sleeping. I woke up around three and just sat on the old couch, still being mad about going here. I then, noticed a T.V. remote. Well, at least there was something to do. I grabbed the remote that seemed to have a layer of dust over it and tried to brush it off. This, of course, failed and I accidentally turned on the T.V.. It blared loud Mexican music. I jumped, dropping the remote and scrambling on the floor to find it. Once finally turning off the darn T.V. I sighed and sunk back into that very squishy, weird smelling couch.
“Hey, what happened?” Julio’s groggy voice echoed behind me. I jumped once again. I peeked around the couch and saw Julio down the hall. He sort of did a stumble and walk toward me. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine.” I stood up and walked toward the kitchen.
“Hungry?” Asked Julio, as he began to dig through the fridge. Julio pulled a large container out, carefully trying not to drop it. I sat in a small wobbly chair and watched him cook whatever was in the container. Once we were finished with our breakfast my uncle came in.
“Morning.” He muttered as he plopped himself next to me.
“Hey dad, can Joaquin and I go out now?” Julio said excitingly. Was this kid crazy? It’s only five right now!
“Eh sure, can’t keep you in this house forever...” Uncle fell asleep on the table. Julio pumped his fist in the air. He ran straight down the hall and, (In what seemed like 30 seconds) he was back in some jeans and a large hoodie.
“C’mon man, let’s go!” He urged me to come with him. Why? I have no idea. I can’t understand this weird kid. I followed him because I was bored. Julio opened a door and I could just feel the cold dampness of the air. It was still pretty dark and very cold. There was the usual fog so I couldn’t see in front of me.
“What are we doing out here at five?!” I shivered.
“We’re going somewhere special!” He answered me enthusiastically. ‘Somewhere special’, real specific. He raced down the slippery staircase and waited for me. I rolled my eyes and slowly walked down, trying not to slip. Once I got to the last step he gave me a big smile, like it was my first time going down the stairs. I followed him as he happily jogged down the hill. It felt like forever before he stopped.
“We’re here!” He had a strange lilt in his voice.
“Uh, where?” Julio didn’t even answer me and he zipped up to the porch. The house we were at was very old. There was an eerie feel to it as well, like nobody really lived there at all. Julio knocked on the warped damp wooden door. There were thuds coming from the other side. Then, somebody opened the door. It was a young lady, black hair tied up in a messy bun.
“You here to see Louie?” The woman asked. Though she made it seem like an unnecessary question. Julio nodded vigorously with a big, stupid grin on his face. The woman opened the door wider to let them in. Julio gave her a polite ‘thank you’ and we walked inside.
What I saw was a strange old man in a big armchair, who resembled an old squash. His face looked lost in thought.
Julio walked over to him. “Mr. Brown? Mr. Brown?!” Is what he shouted in his face. The old man got out of his trance and looked up at Julio.
“Hey, old sport! C’mon sit down.” The old man who I’m pretty sure is Mr. Brown said. “Who’s this?” The ancient man looked at me curiously.
“He’s my cousin, Joaquin! Say hi!” Julio replied. I simply waved and sat next to Julio.
I don’t remember much about what he said, I wasn’t really listening. All I heard that he was a sailor back in his youth. I recall things that were very hard to believe, like a twenty-foot long shark and other mythical beasts.
Joaquin and I walked out of the house and the sun was up. At least I thought so, the clouds made it hard to tell. It was still a little foggy but warmer.
“So, what do we do next?” I asked Julio.
“Oh, so much more!” He exclaimed. I rolled my eyes at how annoying he was.
For the rest of the day we wandered around the neighborhood. We walked toward the ocean and hung around the bakery and convenience store. He showed me around the small shopping area. When I got tired we went home. The little exploration was okay, if it wasn’t for Julio to keep bothering me it would have been amazing.
It was six when we had gotten back. Who knew time passed so fast? We went into Julio’s room. He showed me his weird shell and sea glass collection.
“Here, you can have this one!” He handed a shell to me. It was a mixture of a pale pink and orange. It sort of glittered in the sunlight. I hid it in my pocket, and we continued to sort through his shell collection.

The past few weeks were going alright. We explored the town by the ocean and the area uphill past our neighborhood. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I was having fun. Today when we went back home uncle was standing in the kitchen on the phone. He looked very worried. He noticed us enter and put down the phone.
“Julio, c’mere, we need to talk.” He said. He walked into the dining room table and sat down. Hundreds of thoughts ran through my head. Was it something I did? Did something happen? Were my parents okay? I tried my best to shun the thoughts and sat across the table from uncle. He clasped his hands together like all adults do when they’re about to say something serious.
“Julio… Your parents…” He was hesitantly speaking.
“What? Are they okay!? What happened!?” I interrupted him. Even if I did hate my parents, I can still love them a little. I waited anxiously as he continued.
“Your parents… Are getting a divorce…” Uncle looked at me and I could tell how sorry he was. I looked at him in shock. I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I was still so shocked. Why? I sat at the table for at least twenty minutes. Uncle patted me on the back and left. There I sat, for what seemed like hours. Even more questions ran through my head.

The next day I was moping in the kitchen until I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and saw a petite woman. She was holding a small baby and looked like she never got a minute of sleep her entire life.
“Are you Julio?” She asked. You could tell from her voice she was exhausted.
“No, but I’m his cousin.” I said. I was starting to wonder what exactly she was doing here. The baby suddenly started crying.
“Alright, close enough. Could you please let him know if he wanted to babysit my son, if yes then tell him to come to my house at noon.” Her voice slowly got more and more rushed. I just nodded so I didn’t have to talk over the screams of the baby. The lady smiled and left. I went to go tell Julio about it and he was all up for it. He even insisted me to come. As unenthusiastic as I was about it, I went with him. Thinking it could distract me from the horrible news I just barely learned.
We arrived at her house and she let us in. We saw a boy who looked like he was four playing with blocks.
“Just make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.” The lady told us and left with her baby.
“Er... hey kid, what do you wanna do?” I asked the little boy.
“I wanna go to Toby house!” He said excitedly.
“Uh, who’s Toby?”
“He my friend! He live over there!” The boy pointed his chubby hand at a house across the street.
“Alright, let’s go then.” I opened the door to let him out and Julio followed close by.
“Alright Nate, let’s go one step at a time.” Julio said to the little boy. We did exactly that. Nate even counted each step we took. We reached Toby’s house and knocked on the bright green door. The door opened and a boy that was about Nate’s age peeked out. I could hear a lot of ruckus coming from the house.
“Hi!” He yelled. “Eliza and Mary are here too!” We went inside and two girls who were wearing crowns were standing behind Toby. There was a teenager sitting on a couch nearby.
“You can take ‘em” The teenager said before I even asked him.
Julio and I now had a pack of four year olds following our tail across the neighborhood. We went to the forest area up the hill to look around.
“Let’s go there!” Toby was wandering toward a bike trail by the sea cliff.
“I’m not sure that’s safe.” Said Julio guiding him back to where we were. The kid pulled away from his grasp.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Toby said in a very defying tone. Julio just looked at him in shock as he stumbled on the trail. The other kids soon followed him. I gave up and walked on the trail. It was super windy and cold. I shivered and squinted my eyes. After a few minutes of silent walking, Julio caught up to me.
“So, how do you feel about your… parents?!” He yelled trying to sound louder than the roaring wind. Oh great, intervention time.
“I was kinda expecting it, I don’t know what will happen after though…” I told him. I shoved my hands into my sweater pockets. But I guess he didn’t hear me.
“What?!” He yelled.
“Whatever…” I gave up on trying to speak to him and walked off.
“What?!” He yelled again but I had already left him behind.
We reached near the end of the trail. Exhausted, I sat down on a nearby rock.
“Look, Look!” One of the little kids yelled. He was bent over the safety rails. What he was looking at was a small island in the bay. There were small blobs of brown lying on the lone island
“Seals! They’re so cute!” Mary squealed. Her hands squashed her face as she set her arms on the railing.
“Yeah, big deal, it’s not like they do anything.” I added sourly. For the first time, Julio glared at me. It reminded me of my mom’s glare and It scared a bit. We also heard the sounds of seagulls over us. I noticed one of them was diving toward us.
“Uh guys, we should probably get out of the way.” I started to back away from where I thought the seagull was heading. In a few seconds, the seagull was already in front of us. It waddled toward us a nipped at our feet. The little kids started screaming and scared the seagull. It was now frantically flapping its wings and hitting our faces in the process. The bird finally somewhat got control and flew off. Now the kids were crying.
“I wanna go home!” Nate wailed. Julio and I did our best efforts of comforting them and went back into the town.

My summer’s almost over, and I’m pretty bummed about it. At first, when I went to Pacifica I thought the torture would never end. But instead, I found new people, places, and happiness. I suppose that saying is true, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ I was still recovering about the big shock about the divorce, I’m a lot better though. As soon as I got on that plane, I missed the small, quiet city. With its never ending forests and the salty wind in your face. I would miss uncle, Julio, those little brats, and even that crazy old man. My parents had already gone to court. It was my mother who would take care of me. I could tell she was heartbroken, but I didn’t know what to do. So I stayed in my room, just worrying about my dumb problems. She came into my room. She told me I could go back to Pacifica next summer. Boy did that cheer me up. I jumped and clapped with joy. I had something to look forward to for once. After my mom left, I pulled something out of my shelf, a small pink and orange shell. I held it close to my chest and said in my head. I couldn’t wait to see all of those weirdos again.
    The End