On my tenth birthday, I woke up to the sweet, savory smell of the pancakes and bacon cooking in our new, remodeled kitchen. I rolled out of my covers and saw all of the decorations that my mom and brother had put up for me and the clean basketball shorts that were washed just the other night. I made my way down the hallway to the bathroom to brush my hair and teeth before eating breakfast. Then, I went to the kitchen and sat down at the table that I had helped my mom pick out from the furniture store last year.
“ Hi birthday girl, ” my mom called out to me while she was frying bacon.
“ Good morning, ” I said tiredly.
“ Ready to go innertubing? “ she asked me.
“ Yea, I’m super excited! “
She brought me the smiley face pancakes and bacon on my favorite purple plate and set it down. I gobbled it up happily and then went to get ready to go before lunch. We had to drive to Santa Cruz, so I had to get ready fast. I went to my room and pulled on my favorite purple, striped bathing suit and threw my long, dark hair into a messy bun. I ran to the towel closet and pulled out a bright, pink towel, ready to go to the lake.
“ Ready to go? “ my mom yelled through the long hallway.
“ Yea! “ I said in reply.
We went to our red Honda that was parked in the garage, and got ready to go. I sat in my booster and strapped in. My mom backed the car out of the garage and we hit the road. I had a wide smile stretched across my face, but what I didn’t know was I was in for a treat.

After spending a full 45 minutes in the car, we finally reached the lake. It was the biggest lake I had ever seen. It looked like it was about twelve miles wide and sixteen miles across. The water looked a pretty crystal, blue and it was surrounded by beautiful redwoods and a lot of campsites. My mom opened the trunk and pulled out a big bag of sand toys and a few paper bags full of chips and hot dog and hamburger buns. After helping bring the bags to where the grown ups were sitting, I raced my brother over to the sand where our friends were playing. I lagged behind because I was heaving the big bag of sand toys.
“ Hi! “ I called out to my friends from a distance.
Of course, being the peppiest of all of my friends, Ally was the first to say hello back to me. I walked as fast as I could, trying not to trip, to join the game that my friends were playing. They were trying to find seashells and sand dollars that were buried deep in the sand. Sea shells were worth one point and sand dollars were worth three. Whoever had the most points at the end would win the game. I found one sand dollar, five sea shells, and a stick which, unfortunately, wasn’t worth any points. By the time we had finished playing, it was time to eat lunch. A few of my friends’ dads as well as mine, had cooked up some delicious hot dogs on the charred grill near our picnic benches. The smoky smell of the hot dogs wafted toward where me and my friends were sitting. We gobbled up all of the perfectly cooked hot dogs and hamburgers, and then it was time to go innertubing. My friends all seem really excited, but secretly I was really scared of the massive lake and what could be swimming inside it.

My friends and I all walked over to my uncle’s boat, ready to go tubing. We all hopped in and sat down in the comfortable, brown leather seats. My uncle revved up the engine, and we were ready to go. Out on the lake, we played a game, seeing who could spot the most fish swimming under the clear, sky blue water. There were many fisherman and water skiers around us. After driving around the lake once or twice, it was time to bring out the tubes. We had two inner tubes with us in the boat. One was a lighter blue color and the other was pink and gray.  My uncle hooked both of them to the boat and told my friends Kristyn and Ally, to hop in. He started driving the boat very slowly to get them a good distance away, and then ZOOM! We took off at jet speed over the vast surface of the Santa Cruz lake. My friends on the innertubes looked like they were having lots of fun on the water, lifting on and off of the water splashing happily. On the inside, I was really scared. My uncle said since I was the birthday girl, I would get to go last. All my friends took their turn splashing and having fun in the water, then it was finally my turn. My uncle pulled in my friends Kelli and Kaitlyn from their 10 minutes of fun on the tubes and told me to climb down the ladder into the freezing, cold water. Kelli and Kaitlyn climbed back onto the boat and wrapped themselves in the warm, white towels lying on the deck. I climbed into the tube and gave my uncle a thumbs up to let him know that he could start the boat’s engine. With a loud roar, the boat took off. Being as light as I was when I was ten, the tube started to lift off the surface of the water and turning. I was flipping over! Before I could yell and tell my uncle to stop the boat, I had already fallen off into the water. I watched as the boat vanished, and I was left in the lake, alone.

After about a minute of treading the icy, blue water, and screaming like a maniac, I started swimming the 15 miles it would take me to get back to shore. They’ll come back and get me. I started thinking to myself. Right? I felt things slowly moving underneath the tips of my newly painted toes. I didn’t know if it was seaweed or just a few fish, but I was starting to panic. All of a sudden, I heard a loud motor boat’s engine right behind me, getting closer and closer. When it got directly by my side I started yelling and screaming again, trying to get the captain’s attention. There was no captain, there were just a whole bunch of teens messing around on a brand new, expensive looking motor boat. After wasting all of my energy yelling at the boat that didn’t belong to my uncle, I decided to wait where I was for my uncle to come back for me.

After waiting for what felt like hours, I heard a familiar voice echoing through the water. It was my mom! They had come back for me!
“ I’m here! “ I yelled.
In a split second, I heard the loud roar of my uncle’s boat. For some reason, this sound sounded beautiful to me. I started swimming as fast as I could towards my mom’s voice. I finally reached the boat and climbed onto the creaky, silver ladder. I ran to my mom and gave her a big, wet hug. She wrapped one of the warm, white towels around me and sat me down on her lap. My uncle started up the boat and started driving back to land.
“ Are you okay? “ My mom asked me like it was some big emergency.
“ I’m fine mom,” I said in reply.
I told her the whole story about what happened, the boat full of teenagers and the fish swimming beneath my feet. When shore came back into view, all of my friends and their families looked relieved to see that I was okay. I rushed toward the warm, yellow beach sand and gave everyone hugs. When we all got settled, I spent what seemed like forever telling all of my friends about what happened when I was stranded in the middle of a Santa Cruz lake.

THE END