Water & Blood When Auntie invited Brook, Mom and me to go with her and Trent to Noah's Ark Water Park, Dad demanded to know why he wasn’t invited. Brook said, “It’s, like, a girl’s thing,” and Dad responded, “Trent’s not a girl.” So here we all are, Dad driving Trent, Auntie, Mom, Brook and me up the Interstate Five. It’s not even four a.m., so we’re one of the only cars on the road. I’m in the very back, sitting to the left of Trent. Brook is sitting on Trent’s other side, sleeping with her stupid mouth open. Auntie has to sit in the front with Dad ‘cause Mom is taking up all three middle seats with her stupid knee that she “strained” from “sleeping weird or maybe just by being old.” Even though Auntie is a nurse, I was the one who had to tell Mom that she had a “sprained knee,” not a “strained knee.” Nowhere California About two hours into our drive, the sun comes up, and we are finally allowed to get out of the car to stretch our legs and/or pee at this gas station in the middle of Nowhere, California. Trent points at two flannel-wearing women …show more content…
She says, “If we don’t stop for breakfast, we’ll die before we even make it to the park.” We’ve begun to climb the foothills of Mt. Shasta, and Dad says Noah Ark’s Water Park is only about an hour away, but then Brook wakes up from her pretend sleep and says, “Daddy, please! I’m seriously about to pee myself.” If there is one thing you should know about Brook, it’s that she is a huge suck-up. Her greatest talent in life is getting whatever she wants. My greatest talent is that I’m not afraid of anything. Not heights or mountain bikes or the first day of school or holding my breath under water. The order of who is the toughest goes Dad, then me and Auntie are probably tied, then it goes Trent, and way, way below Trent is Brook, then Mom. Mom used to be tough, but then she used up all her strength working at the