The summer vacation was starting. I was as excited as a ballerina dancing across the stage, smiling to the audience. But after a week of the school closing, I became as bored as if I was watching a snail climbing a mountain, because there was nothing to do in the holidays.

Me and my brother, Shazil, wanted to go somewhere for vacation. It was so boring to just sit at home, but my parents were very busy and couldn’t take off from their work. So most of the time, all I did was watch TV, as I was doing this afternoon.

The doorbell rang, “Ting tong!”

“Shazil! Please see who is on the door!” I screamed. I could also go to the door, but my most favourite TV show was on so I didn’t want to move.

“Mama!” screamed Shazil, excitedly.

I went on the door. Mum was standing there. “Oh Shazil! It is just mum who has come from the office. Why are you screaming?”

Shazil was dancing like a monkey all across the house screaming, “Vacation!”

I couldn’t understand why he was dancing and screaming. My head was bursting with a lot of questions. Curious, I asked mum what the reason was. She created a lot of suspense just to tell the reason for Shazil’s excitement. Just when my head was ready to burst, mum started speaking and held up aeroplane tickets. I was totally blank at what was happening.

Then mother spoke, “We are going on a trip!”

I was super excited. I screamed with excitement. “Oh I wanted to go somewhere, so much!” I then asked mum where we were going.

She said, “Hunza! Pack your bag and show me what clothes you will put in your bag.”

I went in my room excitedly and started packing my things. My curiosity again woke up, and a question started dancing across in my whole head. I ran downstairs to mum’s room and asked the question before she could even look up from what she was doing.

“Mum, by the way, are we going tomorrow?”

She answered, a bit irritated, “Yes, we are going in the morning.” She disclosed the details quickly so that I would not disturb again her while packing. “We are going in an aeroplane in the morning at 7:00 am. So be sure to get ready in time.”

I was beyond excited when she added that we were going for 11 days.

I went to my room, completed my packing, but kept going through the things to make sure I had not missed anything.

Finally, mother had to come and tell me, “Please, just go to bed now. If you will not sleep early, then you won’t be able to wake up early too.”

I finally put all my things and went to bed. I lay on the bed, but I couldn’t sleep because I was so thrilled to be going to Hunza. After a long time I fell into a light sleep, when suddenly my door slammed open. I was so scared that I sat up on the bed.

It was my brother. He had come to only tell me that he was done with his packing! I was so livid at him that I wanted to slap him for waking me up. Shazil rushed out of the room because he knew my anger was a dangerous thing.

Somehow I managed to sleep until my mother woke me up at 5:00am. I could hear birds chatting to each other. The sky was orange and yellow. It looked so beautiful, like a painting on my art wall. I woke up happily, came out of the bed and yawned. I was so enthusiastic to go that I was ready in no time. I went down for breakfast with my suitcase. I saw that there was no breakfast there.

“Oh! Where is the breakfast! I am starving,” I shrieked loudly.

Mother came to the dining table rushing, “What happened my darling?”

I said, irritated, “Where is breakfast mama! I am starving!”

Mother said, “Insya, we will do our breakfast at the airport.”

“Oh!” I sighed, but my stomach was grumbling.

Our cab came and we started for the airport. We ate pizza on the airport, which was so delicious. The cheese melted in my mouth and the vegetables had delicious and amazing taste.

We finished our breakfast and boarded. I was very happy to be off to Hunza! We sat in the airplane and soon most people slept once we took off. I didn’t want to sleep so I opened the window’s blind to look out.

Wow! The sky looked like a beautiful painting with orange, brown and yellow colours. The clouds looked like a cotton candy and the sky seemed to be on fire. A little bit was blue. It looked so attractive.

During the journey, we were served yummy and delicious cake with fillings of strawberry jam and chocolate. When finally reached Islamabad, we took a ride and drove to the mountainside. Though it was only a four-hour journey, it seemed like it took forever for us to reach Hunza.

Hunza was so beautiful, it’s greenery so soothing.

I was again starving. I could hear the screams of my stomach, saying “I want food!” I asked mum if we can go somewhere and eat first.

She said excitedly, “Darling, first we will check in, then we will put our luggage in our rooms and then we will go somewhere to eat.”

I meekly said, “Okay mum.”

Well, we checked in and I had a beautiful room with a beautiful view. I unpacked my clothes and finally we went to an amazing restaurant for lunch. It had a beautiful waterfall on one side.

My parents started taking photographs and we then noticed something — Shazil was missing. We looked everywhere but couldn’t find Shazil.

We started screaming, “Shazil! Where are you?”

We went across to the waterfall and looked around. Shazil had fallen into the waterfall.

I screamed “No! Shazil!”

“Mama! Help me!” Shazil screamed.

He knew how to swim, but he couldn’t get out because of the waterfall’s pressure. Luckily, there were many people around and one of them jumped in and rescued him. He was dripping wet and shivering, so we quickly took him back to the hotel and mum got him into some fresh, dry clothes and in bed to warm up.

This scary incident had driven all thoughts of food out of our minds and when finally everything was settled, we ordered something from the room service and went to sleep to get over the journey and all the tiring excitement of our first day of the trip. I leave you to wonder how the rest of the trip would have turned out.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 16th, 2021