16

Finally, the seagull beat me in our tug-of-war and flew straight up through the sunroof, taking the cheese curls with it. But the seagull didn't get far with the bag. About three-quarters of the cheese curls ended up BACK in the minivan, and from there it was a total nightmare.

A few of the seagulls flew up front, and Rodrick got so freaked out he hit the gas. When the birds finally cleared out and things settled down, we had a whole NEW problem to deal with. Believe it or not, the people in the car that we rear-ended were actually pretty nice. It was a man and his wife, and they seemed to understand it was an accident. So they exchanged insurance information with Dad, and the police didn't even need to get involved. If anything GOOD came out of the accident, it was that it got us out of going to the beach.

The BAD news was that now our van wouldn't start, and we had to wait an hour for a tow truck to come. All the traffic went down to one lane, and that didn't make us too popular with the people trying to cross the bridge. The guy at the auto repair shop said we cracked the radiator and it was gonna take at least four or five hours to fix it. That meant we needed to find something to do for the rest of the day.

When we stepped outside, I was pretty shocked to find out we were only two blocks away from Soak Central, which is where I wanted to go in the FIRST place. I BEGGED Mom to let us go there while we were waiting for the van to get fixed. She said she would rather we did something "wholesome" like go to a local library, but this time she was outvoted four to one.

So we walked to Soak Central and paid for tickets at the gate. Then we got a locker and put in all the stuff that we didn't want to get wet. We changed into our bathing suits and met outside the restrooms. It was SUPER crowded, and there was no way we were gonna find five lounge chairs all together. We eventually found ONE chair with a few broken straps, and dumped our towels and the rest of our stuff on it.

Mom and Dad stayed back with Manny, so me and Rodrick were on our own. But Mom said she wanted the two of us to stick together. We went to the giant wave pool first, but there were about a BILLION people in it. Rodrick suggested we play hide-and-seek, but with all the people and rafts in the pool, I knew it would be impossible for the seeker to find the hider.