I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was 8:30 am and I couldn’t wait to start the day. “Ellie,” I whispered across the room ,“You awake?”

She rolled over to face me. “Yep,” she said,“You wanna go downstairs for breakfast ?” I nodded.

“You sure you’re not gonna fall over again?” she said teasingly, a cheeky smirk at the corner of her mouth.

“I‘ll be fine,” I said,“And anyway, I told you it wasn’t my fault, my strap got caught on the hook.”

“Yeah, yeah, course,”she said seriously,“And you’re just so clumsy.” The smirk returned.

I frowned, but couldn’t hold a straight face for long before we both burst out laughing.

“But just remember,” I said as the laughter began to cease,“Don’t tell anyone, mum and dad will murder me.”

Later on, we padded downstairs to join the rest of the group eating breakfast. “‘Morning girls, how did you sleep?” Mum questioned. I looked at Ellie, we hadn’t slept great. Though that was because we had spent the night midnight feasting, telling scary stories and generally chatting until the early hours of the morning. “We slept great, thanks, Monica!” Ellie butted in before I gave us away. I’m rubbish at lying, but she’s an expert at it.

“Oh, hello sweeties!” my Aunt Belinda cried, coming over to give us both big cuddles. She was always super loving. As she hugged us I felt something bulky and oddly shaped inside one of her bright pink, flared trouser pockets. One of those calming crystals she carried around with her, no doubt. According to her, hippy trinkets were in. Boho was the shic. She was our family’s success story. She was a super famous Hollywood actress that had been in pretty much everything and owned a big hair care and beauty business. And it showed. Her curly gold hair was always big, crimped and perfect. And I’d never seen her without a full face of makeup on, looking super gorgeous. Ellie always got nervous around her. She wanted to be just like Belinda when she was older. A star. She was already trying to come up with a stage name, like Belinda had (her actual name was Isabel, I think it had always slightly upset my grandparents that she had changed her name for stardom). Although Ellie, like me, hated how so many stars had plastic surgery done and was determined to be ‘o’natural’, as she called it, just like my aunt. So I had decided not to tell her about Belinda‘s lip fillers, nose job and general facelift. Her son Conrad was the complete opposite. All mysterious and leather jacket even though it was 30 degrees outside. He had Belinda’s brown eyes and curly hair, except his was deep brown and he had a much darker complexion. He was 19, so 5 years older than me. I remember we used to be quite good friends when we were younger, and would hang out a lot whenever he and Belinda used to visit from America. I‘d always tease him about his twangy American accent that stuck out like a sore thumb in our all round British family. But then they came over less and less and before I knew it, we weren’t friends anymore. We never really hung out together anymore. I was great friends with my cousin Renuka, my Auntie Lori‘s daughter, though. She was 26 now and had always been like my cool older sister. She had beautiful long black hair, hazel eyes and smooth, coffee coloured skin. And she always wore really pretty outfits and trinkets on a bracelet on her wrist that made her jangle slightly wherever she went. I had always looked up to her and really appreciated the fact that, even though she was so much older than me, she had always treated me like a best friend. Although, now that she had a proper serious boyfriend, she was becoming more and more distant, I felt. “Hey,” she said, smiling as we slid onto breakfast stools next to her.

“Okay girls,” Auntie Lori said,“What do you want to eat? We have cereal, fruit salad, yoghurt, croissants, pain au chocolates, toast, bacon, eggs, beans, hash browns …..” And the list went on. Auntie Lori was the most organised person I knew. The complete polar opposite of her sister, who’s life motto seemed to be ‘Float through life and what happens will happen’. Auntie Lori‘s seemed to be something more like ‘Organise through life and what you force to happen will happen’. She was very tightly strung. An extremely successful entrepreneur in the banking world. She had the same curly gold hair but it was cropped close to her face, and the same big brown eyes, but not coated with makeup and instead mostly squinting behind glasses. Even the same full, pink lips but not usually stretched into a wide smile, instead usually pressed together into a thin, unimpressed line across her face. I wouldn’t say she was a boring auntie, we had lots of great chats and we had always been very close, but Belinda was much more interesting and… free spirited. “Pain au chocolat for me please, Lori!” Ellie said.

“Can I have a fried egg please?” I asked.

“Well, I‘d have to cook that and I‘ve only just turned the stove off after spending the whole morning slaving over it before you girls finally showed up so late and-”

“It’s fine, I’ll just have a pain au chocolat, like Ellie.” I interrupted, feeling like a student who had just been offered a detention.

“Here you go,”she said sternly , passing it over. She reminded me of a super strict, scary teacher sometimes.

“Oh, Lori, it’s okay, I‘ll cook it for Sienna.”Grannie Ally said, winking at me. I smiled back in thanks. Grannie Ally had always been the peacemaker of the house. She was quite short, with sort of fluffy white hair and pale blue eyes

that seemed to be full of wisdom and patience. She was in her mid eighties now, like grandad, but was still strong

and clever as ever. She was still very assertive and present, much more lively than my grandad. I looked over at him, sitting quietly on the other side of the large, open plan kitchen. I grinned at him, expecting one in return, but it never came. Instead, he seemed to be scanning the room, focusing on certain areas, people, with an expression I’d never seen before. It seemed to be a sort of unsure dislike of whatever he was observing. Although it was gone in a flash when he saw me looking at him.

I was sitting near Ellie, Renuka and Luke, Renuka’s boyfriend of 7 years. He was 25 and hadn’t come on holiday with us before, yet everyone seemed to really like him. Well, I wasn’t sure about grandad but I’m sure he was just being picky because he was with his granddaughter. He had dark black hair, thick eyebrows and pale blue eyes that oozed concentration. My little brother Niall was obsessed with him because, in his words, he was ‘so cool’. So they were chatting away energetically about how many kills they had got on Apex Legends before they had left their precious PlayStations behind to travel here. Next to them, my dad was talking about something, probably quite boring, with Ellie’s dad Farran. He was really tall with short, black hair in tight mini curls. He was quite a shy man and had always been really friendly towards me whenever I had gone round to her house (which was a lot) yet I sometimes got the feeling from him that maybe he thought I was a bit of a bad influence or something. That he didn't really like me and perhaps didn't really like me hanging out so much with Ellie for some reason. He always seemed just a little bit gloomy. But I couldn't ever be sure. And anyway, it didn't matter, he had come along with Ellie on this holiday. Lastly, a few seats along, was the final member of the group, my Great Aunt Betty. She was Grandad’s older sister, frail and very placid these days yet nevertheless the heart and soul of our family. She had long, pale silver hair and large blue eyes that seemed permanently ever so slightly faraway. She was still struggling to cope with the loss of my Great Uncle Sean, a year and a half ago, but was a very warm, loving woman with a sharper brain than she let on. She had always said that I reminded her of her younger self, which had always made me feel special to her.

“Now!” Auntie Lori announced once we’d finished breakfast,”It's our first full day here and we need to explore the area. There will be no lazing around here by the pool all day.” Ellie and I shared a disappointed glance. That had been exactly our plans. This holiday wasn't getting off to a very good start. “So, I have got lots of leaflets of tourist attractions here for you to look through and decide where you each want to go today. There are too many of us to all go somewhere together so instead we can all go to different places in small groups of twos or threes. Here you go.” She dumped a whole load of leaflets onto the table, looking at us expectantly to get us to all pick something up. So we all did. As everyone began looking through them and discussing where they wanted to go, I saw my auntie’s face all of a sudden fill with worry, guilt and what looked like fear even for a split second before she slipped a small folded piece of paper that had also been dumped on the table into her pocket surreptitiously. Though it only lasted a split second before the usual determined frown set back into place.

Once we had all looked through the leaflets and discussed groups it was decided. Great Gran Betty, Grannie Ally and Grandad David would go to a nearby cafe. My dad, mum, Aunt Lori and Farran would go to some old cathedral ruins (I know, BORING! I'm glad I opted out of that one). Belinda and Conrad would go to see Aphrodite Rock (the supposed birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty). Niall and Luke would go to the arcade (already missing their PS4s, honestly) and Renuka, Ellie and I would head down to the beach. “Alright, now that’s sorted, I suggest we leave at around 10. You can all eat out and be back for 4, on the dot for some time here altogether before we go out for some dinner at around half six. Does that sound good?” We all nodded. A couple hours later and we were all ready to leave (except my grandad, who had decided not to come as he wasn't feeling very well). Renuka, Ellie and I were the last to leave and we each gave grandad a quick hug before setting off to the beach. Once we were there, we found some deckchairs, set down our stuff and lay there for a bit, sunbathing. Then, we went for a paddle in the sea before seeing an inflatable sofa being pulled through the sea really fast by a speed boat, so obviously we had to give that a go.

As we clumsily ran over to ‘Silly Sofa Station’, I finally took in the breathtaking view. The waves rolled in teals, greens, midnight blues and blinding whites in the foam that crashed against the glowing sugary sands. It was ten ten in the morning and the beach, as we had suspected and hoped, wasn't too busy. It was way too hot today, being summertime, and therefore, many people were lying by their own pools or blasting the aircon inside. Most people go on holiday to Cyprus during Easter instead anyway because of how extreme the temperatures are this time of year. There were a few kids playing along the shoreline, teenage girls and young couples posing before the idyllic setting for their Insta stories and a small, pretty wedding set up by the caves. Once we had reached the station, after waiting a couple minutes in a short queue, we got strapped in. “Okay,”the instructor began, “Sit here and hold tight to the handles. I’ll be pulling you girls along from the speedboat, so if you need it to stop, just call me. Otherwise, enjoy the ride!” He got into the speedboat. We all looked at each other excitedly. This was going to be awesome! He turned round to look at us. “Ready?”

“Yep!”we said in unison. And the ride began. We sped across the glistening water, whooping and squealing as we were jerked in all different directions. I looked out across the beach, salty spray colliding with my face. The scene that looked back at me was gorgeous. Beyond the golden sands, I could see the bright green hills, within which was our villa. But before that I could see the town, mildly busy with tourists and locals, milling around as they shopped, jogged and took in the view. I saw my brother and Luke amongst them, heading into the next arcade with their tickets, my Grannie and Great Gran chatting away with their iced teas in the cafe and Belinda and Conrad sat on a small bus on their way to Aphrodite Rock. She was on the phone, no doubt to one of her many agents, and my cousin sat there, glumly looking out into the distance. Just below, on the road, I saw my dad hurrying along in the opposite direction, a look of concentration on his face. Shouldn't he be with mum, Auntie Lori and Farran at the ruins? I thought. My focus drifted off to the ride and I had soon forgotten all about it.

The rest of our day at the beach was amazing . We paddled in the sea, splashing each other, lay tanning in the sun, made mega sand castles with moats and little windows, ate ice cream after a delicious fish and chips and generally enjoyed life to the fullest. The holiday had gotten off to the most perfect start. I couldn't wait for it to get even better!