Chapter 15-Surprises

Mom clapped her hands. "Attention, everyone! Today is Monday, so it's homework day! Lily has all your schedules in the kitchen, so be sure to check that out." We all immediately stood up. "Wait!" she said. "Make your way to the kitchen in an orderly fashion," she said, crossing her arms. We slowly walked to the kitchen where Lily was sitting on the granite counter. She gave each of us a schedule and then asked us if there was anything wrong with our schedules that we didn't like. It was all pretty clear, so nobody said anything. Basically, the whole day was working on our project except for a break in the afternoon. The strange thing was, that break was a few hours long.

"You. Bryan," Lily said, "You're coming with me, Michael, and John." He looked confused, but went to stand next to Lily. She turned back to us. "You guys can do anything you want, as long as you're working on your project," with that, she grabbed Bryan's arm and dragged him out of the kitchen. We all stared at each other for a few seconds.

"Okay.... Well, what do you guys want to do?" Steve finally asked.

"Bake cupcakes!" Krystal squealed. In the end, Krystal and I would be baking cupcakes while Tiana and the guys were playing cards at the table. I was in charge of making the frosting, while Krystal created the batter out of a recipe from the internet. "Uh oh," Krystal said slowly. I glanced over at her.

"What's up?"

"I accidentally added too much flour," she said sheepishly.

"That's okay, we can just take some out," I said, getting a spoon.

"But I already mixed it."

"What?! Then how do you know that you added too much?" I demanded. She held the bowl out to me. Obviously, something was very wrong. It was too chunky and thick. "Well. I guess we'll just have to start over," I said. The next time was still wrong, but I didn't think that Krystal was that bad of a baker. I looked at the recipe. Everything seemed fine. I had already made the frosting, so I offered to make the batter. Krystal begged me to let her try again, so I played cards with Eric for a while. I beat him in Speed five times before he finally gave up with a sigh. I went back to the kitchen to see Krystal furiously mixing the third batter.

"This is just not working!" she cried. "I want you to make it." Obviously, she wasn't going to be talked into making another batter, so I washed the bowl and started over. I was going to follow the recipe, but since Krystal hadn't been able to make it, I decided to improvise. In the end, I ended up covered with flour and a mixing bowl filled with golden batter. It didn't look too bad, so I stuck it in the oven and went upstairs to clean up.

When I came down, Krystal was playing Old Maid with Tiana and Justin. I went into the kitchen to check on the cupcakes and found Steve and Eric...eating the frosting?!?

"What do you think you're doing?!?" I screeched. They looked up sheepishly.

"Umm...well, we thought you guys were done making the cupcakes because you guys took so long and Krystal went out to play cards and no one was in here...." Eric trailed off at my look.

"Really? Really?" I asked. I told them to wash the bowl and started making a new batch of frosting. When I was done, I turned around to see Eric and Justin still there. "What do you want?" I sighed.

"We just want to help," Justin said.

"Yeah, we feel really bad about eating your frosting," Eric added. I frowned at them, but told them to get the cupcakes out of the oven. Surprisingly, they didn't burn themselves or make a mess out of things. After I was done making the frosting, we went back to the dining room and played more card games.

After an hour, I went back into the kitchen to frost the cupcakes. When I was done, I added sprinkles and put them in the fridge to chill. I went back to the dining room to find everyone staring at me. "What?" I asked.

"Where are the cupcakes?" Tiana asked.

"In the fridge. Why?" Everyone stood up and dashed into the kitchen. I mentally face palmed myself. How could I not have guessed? "Don't eat all of them!" I shouted. I ran back in to grab one for myself. We still had a few hours left before we had a break, so we went outside and sat in a circle.

"Those were really good, Eva," Krystal said, "I'm almost glad that I couldn't make cupcakes." Wow. That was seriously a compliment.

"Thanks, Krystal," I smiled at her.

"Water fight!" someone shouted. I quickly rolled out of the way, but Krystal got soaked.

"AAAAAAH!" she screamed. Justin was the one who had thrown the bucket of water over her. She stood up and ran towards him, probably trying to tackle him into the mud, but somehow she slipped and fell into the mud herself. I sensed someone behind me and slowly turned around. Eric was holding two water guns.

"Oh, no," I said, "You wouldn't." He grinned devilishly.

"Or maybe I would," he said. Tiana appeared behind him with the hose and sprayed him down with it. I ran and yanked the water guns from his hands. Tiana and I quickly made an agreement to not spray each other, and ran opposite directions. I shot the water at Justin and Steve, who were taunting Krystal as she tried to fling mud at them. Someone grabbed my arms and pulled me down.

"Ow! Eric, let go!" I yelled. Somehow, I managed to aim the water guns at him and spray him in the face. He released his grip on me, and I scrambled to my feet. Tiana appeared and sprayed water at me. "Tiana!!" I shouted. I was drenched! The water guns had ran out of water, so I rushed towards her. In the end, everyone was wet, but Krystal was the only muddy one. We sat in the sun to dry off while Krystal took a shower.

When we finally dried off, we had an hour left until "break" so we decided to do whatever we wanted to. I went inside to grab a book I had brought, but my cousin Sarah was reading it. Whatever. I went back outside and found nobody there. Where they going to jump out of the trees or something? I cautiously walked around to the side of the house, and found everyone kneeling in a circle looking at something.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked, walking closer.

"Be quiet!" Krystal hissed and motioned for me to kneel down, "You might scare it even more."

"It?" I asked, but did as she said.

"It's a bunny!" Tiana whispered. A bunny? There weren't supposed to be any wild rabbits in Hawaii. As I stared at it, it looked more and more familiar.

"Red-eye?" I said in awe. Indeed, it was my cousin Henry's bunny! He was still very young, so he was probably in his room with Aunt Harriet taking a nap.

"Red-eye?" Justin said, "What kind of a name is that?"

I glared at him. "Henry couldn't think of anything else to name him."

"Yeah, instead of 'Bunny' or 'Hopper' he named it the creepiest name ever, 'Red-eye'" he said sarcastically.

"He was three years old when he got him!" I said defensively.

"But why would he want a red eyed bunny?" Eric asked.

"I don't know! He insisted!" I said, throwing my hands up in the air. I picked up Red-eye. "I have to put him back in his cage," I said, walking back towards the house.

"We'll come with you!" Krystal cried.

"Fine, fine," I said impatiently, "But we have to be quiet." After they swore to silence, we walked into the house.

It turns out that Henry did know he was missing. When I opened the door to his room loud wailing spilled out, I found Aunt Harriet assuring him that Red-eye would come home. I walked over to Henry and put the bunny in his arms.

He looked up at me with wide eyes. "You found him!" he shouted gleefully. He started crying again, but this time it was in relief. "You're my hero!" he said, giving me a hug.

"Actually, it was them," I gestured towards the door where my friends were. Yes, I even thought of the guys as my friends now.

"Yaaaaaay!" he squealed. He ran around hugging their legs randomly.

Aunt Harriet smiled at me. She still looked the same after all these years. The smile wrinkles near her eyes and her dark brown hair hadn't changed one bit. "He was giving me a headache," she said, pretending to swoon. Her dramatic-ness was still there, too.

"We're going to go back outside it's technically our break time," I said making quotation marks in the air with my hands. She nodded knowingly. "Do you know something about this?" I asked suspiciously.

She smiled, "All I can tell you is that you should go around the back to the beach."

When we walked down to the beach, I had a flashback of something that had happened here long ago.