Catastrophe

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John Hammond: "All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!"

Ian Malcolm: "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

— Jurassic Park

•••

ALL FAMILY VACATIONS EVER SEEMED TO DO was prove that Liana Clarke was in no way, shape, or form, a morning person. The sixteen year old liked her sleep, which was fair enough. However, when there's a flight scheduled to leave from JFK in a few hours and a half empty suitcase lying on the floor of her bedroom, refusing to get out of bed is no longer an option.

"Lia!"

Silence.

"Lia!"

More silence.

"Lia!"

Even more silence.

"Liana Marie Clarke, don't you dare keep pretending to be asleep!"

This evoked a small groan, followed by a mess of brown hair being buried into a pillow as Liana miserably managed to spit out an annoyed "I'm awake." After a few seconds, she sat up in her bed and saw her mother standing in the doorway of her bedroom with both of her hands on her hips (a typical stance for her mother, honestly).

"We have to leave in forty-five minutes," Heather Clarke stated, her eyes narrowing at her oldest daughter. "We can't be late. Start getting ready."

"Fine," Liana mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She slid out of her bed, not bothering to fix the blankets or arrange the pillows. She held a very strong belief that making your bed had no point whatsoever. After all, no one was going to see it. It was her bedroom, and she was the only person who would be sleeping in the bed. On her way out of her room, she glanced at her suitcase — which was open and not even close to being packed. It had been half empty and set next to her bedroom door for the past two weeks. If all she had to do was shove some more clothes in her suitcase and double check to make sure she had packed everything, Lia didn't understand why she had to be up at such an ungodly hour.

She threw her hair up into a knot on the top of her head and made her way downstairs. Her father was standing in the kitchen with his back turned to Lia, pouring out three cups of coffee.

"Morning sleepyhead," he said without looking up from the coffee mugs.

"Morning," Lia muttered in response, swiping a cup of coffee from the counter and exiting the kitchen, not even bothering to put any milk or sugar into her drink. On her way back upstairs, her mother passed her on her way down, shaking her head.

"Chop, chop," she said, clapping her hands together twice.

"Yup."

Liana rolled her eyes, wondering why her mother thought that wearing linen dress pants and a blouse was a good idea considering she was going on a plane to a tropical island. She was going to a dinosaur theme park, not having brunch in The Hamptons. Lia walked towards her bedroom and nearly dropped her mug of coffee when she swung open the door.

"LIANA! ARE YOU EXCITED?"

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!"

her ten year old twin siblings, Ryleigh and Daniel, were jumping up and down on her bed, messing up the already messy sheets even more. The two were dressed and ready to go, yelling incoherent words of excitement.