Daniel:

     Daniel Coleman lay under the sheets of his bed, secretly playing with his new video game console: the Nintendo-switch.

     Playing video games under your bed sheets is a classic thirteen year old move, but it’s something that you probably shouldn’t do because of the damage it does to your eyes and the lack of sleep that it causes. Although in Dan’s defense, him doing this was his parents fault. All they had to do was not get him what he wanted on his thirteenth birthday, but they totally blew it. And now he was playing a video game under his bed sheets.

     Dan got to a reasonable spot to pause his game, and poked his head out of his sheets. To his surprise, a beam of sunlight slanted through his window and blinded him. He adjusted his eyes to the light.

     While he was playing his game, time never really occurred to him. He was thinking that it was still the night of his birthday, but it seemed like that had passed a while ago. He got out of his bed and gazed out his window. His room was on the second floor, but the only view that he had was of the highway.

     It was his birthday weekend, and he knew what that meant. “Dan,” he heard his mother called out. “Bring your suitcase down here and eat your breakfast. We can’t be late for our flight.”

     Dan grunted as he picked up his suitcase. He wasn’t so excited about the trip to Africa. His mom always gets the family to go on some crazy trip even on the smallest of occasions. It was his birthday and he wanted to just stay home, but his mom insisted on the trip. He told his mom that the only place he would go was Disneyland, but she dismissed him.

     He took his suitcase downstairs and sat at the table to eat his cereal.  His sixteen year old sister Jane was texting her friends at the dinner table. She was desperate to use her phone as much as possible because their mom told her that she can’t use it on the trip.

     Dan ate his breakfast and got to the door, suitcase in one hand and Nintendo-switch in the other. Because it was his birthday, he got to bring his device, unlike his sister who still seemed pretty annoyed about the whole no-phone-policy.

     They all got to the front door. His sister, mom, and dad left and headed out to the bus station. Dan took one last look at the house, and followed.   

 

 Zane:

     Zane wasn’t enjoying his day very much. He’d  turned  thirteen already, but his mother still gives him timeouts. She calls them time-of-regrets, but that’s basically just the explanation of a timeout. He has to sit in the corner of the room and stare at the wall.

     He didn’t want to get in trouble, because he didn’t want a timeout (or time-of-regrets—whatever)  but he just needed to see the outside world. I mean, he was a thirteen year old African boy that had been working at his house for his whole life. His father tells him about things far away, but he never gets to see them. He just feels like a caged animal.

     Out of all of the stories that his father tells him, the waterfall is always the most interesting. The way his father explains the amazing layers of water just sounds astonishing.

     The waterfall was what he had been trying to find.

     Once in a while Zane runs from the house to look for the waterfall, but so far he had no luck. That was why he was staring at the wall today. When he came back from his waterfall-hunt, his mother was furious. She immediately ordered him to go to the time-of-regrets.

     As he continued to stare at the wall, he could hear his mother wailing at his father outside the house, to stop telling their over-curious son about waterfalls.

     His mother was extremely worried about Zane leaving since two years ago, when his brother left the village. Zane was the only child she had right now, so she was desperate to keep him.

     Cold wind blew on Zane as if it was taunting him to come outside. It was coming through the hole in the ceiling that his mother didn’t fix yet, partly because they didn’t have the money and time to do so, and partly just to make the timeout experience worse.

     A crazy idea sparked inside Zane. He couldn’t believe how it never struck him before. It was so obvious. He felt bad about leaving his family again, but it would give him another chance to find the waterfall. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but he had to give it a try.

     He used the chair that he was sitting on as a footstool, and poked his hands out the hole in the ceiling. He couldn’t be completely sure that he could fit his whole body through, but it was worth a try. He used all of the strength in arms that he had to bring himself up above through the hole.

     By the time he got his head above the roof, his arms were burning. They felt like giving out, but he kept pushing himself up. He made a desperate grab for the sides of the roof, and he used his legs for momentum. He finally got his body through (which surprisingly fit through the hole pretty easily), and tumbled onto the cold roof.

     His arms felt like they just been through a pro athlete’s daily workout. He lay on the low roof of his house, staring down at his parents. They seemed to be ending their conversation. It was a matter of time until his parents will go back into the house and notice that he was gone.

    He jumped off the roof as quietly as possible and crept away from the house.

 

Daniel:

     Dan had some complaints about the airplane that they had used.

     The little screen that you could use for watching movies on the plane apparently didn’t come with earphones, and they charged you a few bucks to use them. Even after he bought them, they didn’t have any of the movies that he wanted to watch, so he had to read a book. It was horrible.

     When they got to the airport, all they did was waiting in lines for safety checks. As they finally got out of the airport and he thought he could chill out in the hotel, his mom announced that they were going to see some waterfall.

     As they were heading toward the waterfall on a tour bus, his mom kept throwing out random facts about Africa, while his dad kept nodding and making comments to show he was interested. Although, Dan knew that on the inside, his dad wasn’t that interested.

     Dan guessed his dad didn’t have a great sleep on the plane, judging from the dark circles under his eyes, and the fact that the only comments he made where “Ohh. . .” and “yeah. . .”.  Plus, Dan was pretty sure that the reason he was nodding wasn’t because of the things his mom was saying, but because of the rocking of the tour bus. Although, his mom didn’t seem to notice or care, and kept talking.

     Dan wondered how his sister was holding up  without her phone, and glanced over. She was fiddling with her zipper of her jacket, also paying no attention to what their mother was talking about.

     He must have been staring at her intensely for a while, because the glare that she was giving him was quite frightening. It was as if she was looking at her life long nemesis that came back from the dead just to get revenge on her. That image was from the book he read, which he was still a little embarrassed about. Reading a book made him look like a nerd, but it was the only way not to bore himself to death.       

     The bus came to a stop, and the tour guide gestured to get off the bus. They left the bus with the other groups of people, and started walking toward the woods.

         As they walked through the woods, the tour guide explained the historical artifacts they passed by. Although, the only thing in Africa that interested Dan was the two man eating lions called ‘Tsavo Man-Eaters'. Apparently, they were a pair of fearless lions that were responsible for attacking many construction workers. But they were killed by some engineer, so that left nothing interesting for Dan in Africa.     

     After a long walk through the woods, and his mother giving more information about Africa than the tour guide, they finally started to hear the sound of flowing water. They walked through the trees, and a waterfall came into sight.

 

Zane:

     Zane’s plan seemed to work, but he guessed his parents already had noticed his disappearance. Though he couldn’t dwell on that. He was determined to find the waterfall that his father had told him about his whole life.

     He got to the point that he always gets confused at. It was the spot where the path splits into seven. He had tried five of them before, and had no luck. But today he knew what to do. 

    On the way here, Zane had wracked his brain trying to figure out which path to take, and he’d finally got the answer: none of them.

     Zane had learned that waterfalls form in the upper course of a river in steep mountains. He had previously tried the two paths that lead to the mountain, but the one on the right just led him to a random shrine in the mountains, and the path on the left led him to a small village on the hillside. Every time he failed in finding the waterfall, it made him lose hope a little bit. If this didn’t work he was even considering giving up.

     He decided not to dwell on it.

     He had tried three other paths, but that didn’t workout either. The paths were hopeless. He decided that it had to be in the mountains, but both of the paths didn’t work. So that left him with only one choice— don’t take any of them.

     He started walking toward the mountain. Not through the path on either the right or the left— he walked between them.   

     The paths led off to both sides of him, and it felt weird walking were there was no path, and it left him feeling like it was leading nowhere, but Zane stayed with his plan and started walking straight through the trees. His track went through the center of the mountain, but there was no sign of people walking near him.  So far Zane could see, there was no trace of any people ever coming here— no footprints, no lost items laying around, nothing.  It wouldn’t make sense that there wouldn’t be a path on the way to a waterfall.

     Just as he was considering giving up, he heard the sound of flowing water.

     Right away, Zane took off toward the sound.

 

Daniel:

     They walked out of the trees and toward the waterfall. They came to the stopping point that was marked by a short wooden barricade, to get a better look at the waterfall.

     It seemed to be around eighty or ninety feet tall, but to Dan who had seen the three hundred fifty four foot tall Victoria Falls, this was nothing.

     Tourists around them gasped in amazement, but Dan didn’t see what was so great about it. There where way taller waterfalls then this, and sometimes there are artificial waterfalls at malls.

     “Amazing. . .” His mom said in astonishment.

     All Dan wanted to do was go to the hotel room  and play video games. And guessing from the fact that his sister was still looking down and fiddling with her zipper, he assumed she wanted the trip to end as well.

 

Zane:

     Zane couldn’t believe his eyes.

     When he ran through the trees and came out in the open,  the graceful wall of water shined into his eyes. It reflected the sunlight and sparkled as it fell. The sound of rushing water roared in his ears. The waterfall was mesmerizing.

     Zane ran down to the bottom of the waterfall, and felt the water with his hands. He could feel the rippling flow on his palms. He made the shape of a cup with his hands, scooped up some of the crystal-clear water, and pored it in his mouth. It was so clean, it somehow  tasted like air.

     He hadn’t noticed because of the sound of the falls, but there where other people looking down at him from behind a little wooden barricade. Tourists, he guessed.

     He saw a family of four walking away into a path that led down the mountain. There was a path. It just wasn’t on his villages side.

     Zane would have said that it was a happy family if not for the attitude of the two kids. The older sister was fiddling with something on her clothes. The younger brother was bonking his head against his mother in a bored manner, not showing any interest in the waterfall in front of him. The fact that they could come here so easily without even seeming to want to, but Zane had to work hard to even find this place sort of was irritating. Although Zane didn’t care.

     He accomplished his goal. He found the waterfall.

     A wave of relief washed over him and he suddenly felt exhausted. He hadn’t noticed how tired he was until that moment. He crumbled down onto the ground next to the flowing water, and closed his eyes.  

 

Daniel:  

     When they got to the hotel room, his mom started to explain their plans for the next day. “Tomorrow we’re going to the historical—”

     More days of boredom. Dan thought. Great. . .

     He stopped listening at that point, sighed, and turned on his video game.

 

Zane:

     As Zane came back home from the waterfall, as usual, his mother was glaring at him. He knew that she was going to send him to the time-of-regrets chair, but Zane didn’t care. He accomplished his goal.

     He ran to his mother and father, and just as his mother was about to bellow at him to go to the chair, he gave them both a big hug. This seemed to throw his mother off, and she hugged him back with a confused face.

     “I think I might stick around a little longer.” Zane said. “I found my happy place.”

     He dashed toward the house and sat in the chair, leaving his mother and father very confused.

     So. . . he thought to himself. Now I need a new goal.