Getaway

Chapter 1

Eventually the case was safely placed on the floor and my brother had not injured himself – or any other people – causing my blood pressure levels to lower slightly.

The rest of the cases were collected much the same way. Kyle dangerously picked them up off the moving strip, nearly collapsing under the weight during the process. However all three cases were quickly retrieved and then the three of us were on our way, suitcases in hand.

Two holidays representatives stood in the exit of the airport, smiles that seem to be reserved for flight attendants and holiday reps on their faces.

Instantly, I tried to make my permanent scowl look just a little bit happier.

“Which hotel?” They asked in a cheerful tone, and I wondered if they always sounded like that or if it was a tone reserved for customers.

“Uhh...” I shuffled through my brain, “The pa-rai-so?”

The hotel had a Portuguese name, I found out during my Wikipedia based research that Portuguese was the main language spoken in the country, and I was not really sure that I had pronounced it properly.

“Oh you mean the Paraíso.” The rep said to me with a small laugh.

Not for the first time, I felt a very large desire to hit someone.

“Yep, that’d be it.” Dad said, taking over. He had obviously noticed that I was embarrassed, and he knew that I wasn’t the best at accepting that I was wrong. Especially not when people laughed at me.

They handed over an information pack and directed us towards a row of identical buses.

“Bus number two please.”

We shuffled off towards the bus, not saying a word. I was still pissed off at the holiday rep – did I look like I spoke Portuguese? – and Kyle was too busy staring intently at the buses to try to make conversation. Dad just didn’t speak much anyway.

Eventually the bus appeared – for some reason at the end of the row – and we placed our bags  on-board then made our way onto the bus.

Straight away it was clear that the air-conditioning was not working and that I was going to continue sweating until we reached the hotel with little relief. That was assuming the hotel had air-conditioning, it had to, it was supposedly a five star establishment.

Dad and Kyle sat together and the moment was instantly reminiscent of all the times I would be left to work on my own at school because I didn’t have any friends in that particular class or because we happened to be in an odd numbered friendship group.

I made sure to sit across from them and thankfully, by the time the bus pulled out of the car park – if the dusty ground that had been set out for the buses could be called that – there was no one in the seat beside me. That alone was enough of a relief to make my holiday, the last thing I wanted to do was awkwardly sit next to a random stranger for however long this drive took us.

It turned out that it wouldn’t have been a problem, despite the lack of tarmac on the roads the drive was less than five minutes. It appeared that the island was possibly even smaller than I had assumed.

That could be a good or a bad thing.

The hotel appeared in front of us in all its concrete glory. It was a stereotypical hotel that could be found in any country, with the outside walls painted a bright white and revolving doors leading into the reception.

It was a relief to step off of the bus; during the short journey I had learnt that it was actually colder off the bus than on it.

Stepping out into the Cape Verdean open for the second time I realised it wasn’t quite as warm as I had first thought. There were in fact clouds in the sky – which thankfully didn’t look as if they contained rain, that could be the only way this holiday got worse – and there was a strong breeze (probably due to the fact that this was an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean).