I cracked my eyes open a bit, the clock on my desk read 9:30 in Roman Numerals. I wanted to force myself out of bed an shower and get dressed. But my eyes felt like they were made of lead and it was hard not to let them droop. Maybe just five more minutes, it’s not gonna hurt anyone… I thought. But then just as I was about fall face first back to my comfy pillow and sleep for another eternity my mom decided to barge into the room, and tell me to get ready to go to Arwen’s house.

Arwen is one of my best friends, I met her at the start of sixth grade in band one day. She played the flute as well and we loved playing our sheet music together in band when we had the time. We grew closer with books, art, and music.

Arwen invited me and  a few of our other close friends to hang out with her on her birthday. Her parents were going to take us to a place called “Livermore Limitless Escape Games”  A few weeks before I looked it up once I was given the invitation. The website explained that we would be going to and escape room. We are given sixty minutes to figure out our way out of the room we were currently in with small but intricate puzzles. Then with all the clues you either escape or are taken to another and final room. You have a staff member help you and you are given limitless amounts of clues to help you.  Arwen told us we were doing the “ Escape the Kracken” themed escape room. Basically we were a band of pirates who unleashed a massive curse therefore letting the “Kracken”( a mutant octopus/squid ) wreak havoc amongst us. We( the stupid pirates who idiotically decided to steal treasure that wasn’t ours) have lugged ourselves mindlessly into a cave, but we must escape the island before the savage mutant sea creature decided to come back and have our pirate booty for dinner. Therefore we must flee the island in sixty minutes or we are completely killed by an unnaturally large sea creature that looks like an octopus and a squid mushed together.  Okay, that just sounds really weird. Just forget I said that.

I slipped out of bed, gods why are my calves so sore? I glared at my legs before heading to the bathroom. I brushed, showered, and headed to my room to change. I put on my black jeans, a long, comfortable grey, half cotton, half sheath shirt, a dark blue and purple flannel, and these really thick black socks. I strapped on my watch and put on perfume and put my glasses on. I went to the huge bathroom mirror a braided leather headband in hand. I ( sort of) brushed my hair and put the headband on, tucking some strands of hair away with a pin that didn’t hurt my scalp.  My mom told me to put her phone in my jeans pocket. I tucked it in and when downstairs to grab an apple. My dad was seated on the dining table. He tossed me an apple and I legitimately dropped it. I washed it and to a huge bite. Okay, to be honest, in my case, a “big bite” in something will probably actually be the size of two pennies. But my dad. Oh ho, he is the total opposite. So as I peacefully ate my apple tiny bite after tiny bite. But then he plucked it out of my hand and he took a behemothic bite out of my apple. Arwen’s parents texted my dad saying that it would be best to arrive at there house at eleven forty five so we can all drive at twelve o’clock to go to Livermore Escape Room. I slipped on sturdy black Puma shoes and my dad followed. Before we opened the door my dad was like:

“Okay you remember when you have to call me right? Okay tell me.”

“I call you once we leave her house and start driving, I call you when we arrive, when we finish the Escape Room, when we leave to the restaurant, leave the restaurant, and when we arrive at Arwen’s house again so you can pick me up.” I said nonchalantly and without hesitation.

“And remember EVERY TIME I CALL YOU, YOU HAVE TO ANSWER ME. YOU HEAR?” Okay he actually didn’t say the last part but he definitely almost did.

I grabbed the huge envelope with the drawing and gift card for Arwen and I stepped out the door. I was really excited to see a few of my friends because we’re still on summer vacation but school is gonna start really soon. It was a fifteen to twenty drive and we arrived at the same time as my other friend Kate. Arwen’s parents were outside talking to Kate’s mom about the schedule and they filled in my dad about it too. My dad soon said goodbye and reminded me to call him. Kate’s mom did the same. Arwen’s parents greeted us. They are really nice and sweet and have these awesome polite accents. Kate and I walked into the house and I took in the art work hanging on the walls, the house was definitely cozy and roomy. Arwen, Ava, and a girl I didn’t recognize walked out. “Kanmani! Ava and Arwen said as they squeezed me into a long warm hug. All of us doing the same for Kate. Turns out the girl I didn’t recognize was one of Arwen’s close friends. Her name is Loreline and she’s really into theater and super nice. We became fast friends, I was a bit sad that she didn’t go to our school. We all decided to go into Arwen’s room and wait for our other friend from school, Aiden.

Arwen started laughing hysterically. The rest of us just looked at each other in confusion until she finally said “Aiden’s gonna be the only guy with us!” We all grinned like we were crazy, before bursting into laughter of course. But the problem with when I laughed was that I just snort. It happens naturally and it’s just super embarrassing. So I wasn’t surprised when the other girls laughed even harder as I blushed. “Aww look at you a wittle and small, and adorable. OH MY GOD ARE YOU BLUSHING?! YOU LOOK EVEN CUTER!!!” Ava cooed. I met Ava on the first day of school because we had homeroom together, and the first thing she said to me was “Oh my god you are so short and cute and pretty, and adorable and just eeeeeeeeh.” She had squealed. So it was no surprise that everyday I saw her she would call me cute or something similar. I noticed that Ava had cut her normally neck length hair really short, only up the the bottom of her earlobes and she has rainbow braces. I also noticed that everyone else was wearing dresses, while I was standing there in pants and a flannel. I felt under dressed with my friends dressed in, well, dresses! Kate and Ava must have read my mind because they both placed there hands on either of my shoulders and said

“You look great, I mean I regret not wearing pants and a shirt.” Said Kate “Yeah! I mean look at me, I don’t even have on leggings!” Ava chimed in. I smiled as we continued our conversation. Suddenly Arwen’s dad popped in and said it was time to go to our impending doom. Aka, the Escape Room. I was really excited to go, it was my first time doing this so you can only imagine my reaction to the website. Aiden had finally arrived and met us in the car. As we drove I talked more with Loraline and got to know her, I goofed of with Aiden and Ava, and the other girls and I all sang an acappella version of Hedwig’s theme from Harry Potter. As Aiden recorded us and Arwen’s parents listened. We were in the middle of pretending to accept a Grammy award when Arwen’s mom pulled into a parking lot and opened the doors. We all clambered out and walked to the Limitless Escape building. While Arwen’s dad checked in, we were all told to put our phones in a little locker so they were safe.

First we are taken inside( an extremely air conditioned ) room that looked incredibly like a cave, with a treasure chest, ropes, vines,
and other pirate thingies. The staffer was really nice and smelled like raspberry cheesecake. The TV screen mounted on the corner of the wall counted down our time. We searched every corner and looked through small places. In under four minutes we managed to find multiple things that could help us. I managed to find a key that unlocked a small window on the wood plank door on the other end of the room. I screeched for the others to come and peak through the small opening. Inside we saw a room lit by black lights and I noticed something. On the pirate flag draped along the wall in the other room there were numbers scrawled onto it. My eyes widened and I told someone to write it down. I put the numbers on the number lock that locked us from the other room. I heard a click and we all whooped so loud that we heard people outside the room gasp. We still had about thirty minutes. We scrambled inside and it was a treasure trove of clues. We all split up into pairs. Ava linked her arm with mine and we searched and looked. I then saw a sketch of a traced hand on black ink I pressed my hand against it, aligning my small hand against the gargantuan one.

“Awwwwwwww your hand is so cute and tiny and small and adorable, and your fingers are so short and itty bitty just like you!!” Ava squealed. She knows that I hate being called cute, especially for my physical features.

“Shut up Avacado and focus.”

“Kay Pretzel Princess.”

I hate being called princess and I hate pretzels so at school my friends gave me the nickname.

“Ava be quiet or by the end of this hour your going to be just like him.” I pointed at the fake pirate skeleton on the wall.

“Awwww you go Wise Girl, you put the cute in execute.”

I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at her. I needed to focus on the clues and see if there was anything that would help us escape in time.

Suddenly I felt a sudden shift. I looked and saw that the plank of would slipped and revealed a clue. The number eight in big bold yellow. Everyone high fived me as I uncovered a bunch of other numbers hidden under the sliding planks.

We asked for a clue to help us. As soon as we were given the clues I wondered how staffers memorized all of them. We uncovered a ton of other things keys, puzzle pieces, word puzzles, illusion answers. I was really impressed by how well all of us( a rag tag group of twelve year old barely normal human beings) uncovered the puzzles and solved them. But time was running out. We were struggling with one key part of our escape. The wheel. It had metal inscriptions and we managed to decode it all, but we were struggling with the instructions. But then Aiden said: “ I think we should read the directions more carefully, oh and we also only have seven minutes left.” I decided to try doing it and suddenly we heard a sound, like a door opening. We all lifted our heads and saw that there in all its non air conditioned glory: The door was open. We just stood there not believing that we a bunch of insane twelve year olds, managed to escape a room most adults don’t escape in time. We looked at the door then at each other. We all screamed like banshees in joy and scrambled out of that amazing yet freezing room.  Then the staff gave us signs to hold up for a victory photo.

The staffer who helped us showed us the picture on the TV and said it would be sent to Arwen’s dad who would send it to our parents. And surprise, surprise, I was the shortest out of everyone. It was like being an apple tree in a forest of redwoods. We all headed outside, Arwen’s dad told us our reservation for the restaurant was in an hours so we would just hang out in downtown until we can go. We went to this grassy spot and all of us except Arwen’s parents who were watching us a few feet away sat down on the grass. We all talked about how fun it was. And we were all really impressed at how detailed and well thought out the rooms were. But we all still wondered what would’ve happened if we didn’t make it in time then being the comedian Ava is she said “Maybe a dude wearing this really cheesy octopus costume that shows his face jumps out and says: YOUR DEAD KIDS!” In a really stupid pirate voice.” We all laughed until our sides hurt, and we managed to attract the attention of a bunch of teenagers who were in other corners of the area. We all lay in the grass in a circle, our heads meeting in the middle, all of us laying on our backs. We all played truth or dare until the adults came back and told us it was time for lunch. We walked to the restaurant, it was called Simply Fondue and apparently it had really good fondues and salads, and awesome dessert fondue.

I have to admit the place was REALLY FANCY. And by fancy I mean SNAZZY. Like,  i did not expect that. I could tell my friends thought the same as well.  We went to a private room with a huge window, and a curtain to seclude ourselves. This was my first time eating fondue but it was surprising fun to eat and really good. We ate this really good pizza fondue where we dipped this really good squares of basil bread into the fondue and it tasted EXACTLY like pizza. We ate and talked and goofed of. I took videos and pictures of my friends as we laughed our heads of. Then for dessert we ordered a campfire fondue where it would actually be lit on fire, and a snicker doodle one that had crushed up snicker doodle cookies mixed with white chocolate and cinnamon and brown sugar. We dipped fruits and bits of cake into it, and we dared each other that if we dropped something in it, we would have to dip a vegetable in the sweet fondue. Soon our stomachs felt like they were going to explode so we all left and walked to the car. Arwen’s dad took a group picture of us, and I brought out my mom’s phone and took a selfie with Ava, Kate and Loreline photo bombing us. We climbed into the car, Kate fell asleep, Loreline, Arwen, and Aiden chatted, and Ava and I talked and goofed off just as we do in school. Soon I started getting kinda tired and my head dropped to Ava’s shoulder, I was to tired to lift me head back up again. Ava must have been tired too because I felt the light weight of her head resting on mine.

We both soon woke up and Arwen told us that we arrived at her house. We pulled into the curb and Loreline’s mom and Ava’s mom picked them up after we said our goodbyes. Arwen, Aiden, Kate and I were left. I called my dad and told him that we arrived and he told me he would arrive in ten minutes. We all walked into her house, and we were greeted by her two little dogs. They were so cute and playful and I couldn’t resist cuddling with them. For the rest of the time we all just hung out for a while, talked about school and our summer. Then my dad arrived. It  was such a long day and it was awesome and I had so much fun. I said my goodbyes to my friends, wished Arwen happy birthday once again and thanked them before stepping into my dads car.

(Disclaimer: So sorry for the delay in content, I was quite busy as you can tell and I feel like a hypocrite for not writing.)