For this set piece, I wrote about my summer of 2023. So, I went on a road trip with my 6-year-old Tuvi, Tuvi, her family, and my parents. During the road trip, we stopped by SeaWorld. Sea World is an amusement park, which is also an aquarium where sea animal shows are held. I tried to use a first person point of view for this story which I don’t use much. I normally write in third person which is very different from first person.

I wanted to go on a ride called Manta, which was a rollercoaster, whereas Tuvi didn’t. Now this was where things started to go downhill for her, but uphill for me. Since she was too scared to go with me, I had to go alone because the adults either had height sickness, motion sickness, or were just too scared. I went and stood in line, panicking, because I didn’t want to be that one person riding alone on a two-person ride. As I was imagining all the worst possibilities about what someone might say to me, a girl came up to me and asked, “Are you Charvi?” I just stared at her for a couple of seconds trying to see if I recognized her. That's when I realized the silence was awkward and in a low but clear voice I replied, "Yes. Do I know you?”

She sighed and told me that she too, just like me, had been abandoned not by her friend but by her brother. We kept talking until we got on the ride. There were alot of twists and turns, though it looked scary from far, it was actually not that bad. We were quiet until the first drop was over. We looked at eachother, wondering if that was supposed to be a bit more scary. She started a conversation and we both began to talk for the rest of the ride.

When we came back from the ride, we told our parents we wanted to go on more rides together. Our parents said yes and told us to go alone so they could take Tuvi and my friend’s brother on rides they liked. Just as we were about to leave, her brother and Tuvi stopped us. Anger written all over their faces. I don’t think they were thrilled with the idea of leaving us. We had to explain to them, bit by bit, how if we went with them, we’d be bored. They argued that they could come with us and that they wouldn’t mind being bored. My friend and I looked, and each other had to explain to them how they wouldn’t be able to go on any rides if they came with us because they would be too scared. They tried arguing that they wouldn’t be, but failed to convince us. We then decided to make a deal with them—not to make them happy, but to keep them away from us. We told them we will be with them after lunch. After our mini-argument, me and my friend went on a couple of rides before we decided to go have lunch.

After lunch, we grabbed my dad’s phone and a piece of garlic bread. We told them we would be going on more rides and that we’d meet them later, completely forgetting that we told her brother and Tuvi that we’d go with them after lunch. Our parents waved goodbye to us and told us to text them around 5. I don’t think that Tuvi and my friend’s brother liked that very much, so they clung to our legs and cried. We had to explain to them again that if they came with us, she would be bored and wouldn't have fun. Tuvi told me that me and my friend promised to go with them after lunch. That's where we got them, we told them that we MAY go with them after lunch, we never promised. After we told them that, they looked like they were going to explode. Eventually they still let us go. Even though they didn’t completely agree with what we were saying, they knew we were right and had to let us go.