This is a short story written by Emma Lairson. The challenge was to write a story incorporating these words: Sunday, secret, wallpaper, swap, sister, curiosity, island, notebook, marathon, demand.

I step off the private plane and into a tropical paradise. The island has belonged to our family since my grandfather was a young boy. Since passing away last Sunday, the family decided to have a week-long get together in memory of grandpa.

I take in the warm breeze, tropical plants, and the giant fucking mansion before me. It seems that our family is the first to arrive judging by the lack of planes.

Grandpa had four children and those children gave him eleven grandchildren.

“Gorgeous. I haven’t been here since my twenty-first birthday,” my sister comments.

“You mean when you and your friends completely trashed the place?” I ask, wryly. “You ruined grandpa’s favorite wallpaper,” I add.

“Whatever,” she grumbles, “Lane thought there was a secret message behind it.”

“Lane,” I mumble.

Lane is my sister’s longest friend and an absolute menace. She can be a nice girl but she is a bit of a bubble brain and her curiosity gets the best of her.

Our parents disembark from the plane and we walk up to the front door as a united front. The door is unlocked and as Mom opens it, I come to the realization that we are not the first ones here, as a projectile flies through the air and lands at my feet. Looking down, I see that it is an actual banana peel.

“What the hell, Brayden?” my mother shouts.

“Sorry, Aunt Clara, I didn’t see you.”

This prompts Mom to throw her body at my twenty-two-year-old cousin, forcing the back of his shirt up and over his head, covering his vision. This is just the way my mother’s family acts. My father has tried to force my mother to change her ways but she doesn’t do “demands” and my father loves her just the way she is now.

Sloane joins our mother while my father and I make our way to the kitchen. We always tend to congregate there every time we are together. We find my uncle Remy standing over the stove while his teenage daughter scribbles furiously in her notebook in the breakfast nook.

I sidle over to Reese, my cousin, “How are you?” I ask.

Reese mumbles something, looks up and then smiles at me.

“Hey, cuz, I’m just writing in the journal that I share with my friends. We start with our own and then swap with another person until we get our original journal back.”

“That’s a cute idea,” I muse.

Reese returns to her journal while I zero in on my father and uncle’s conversation. I don’t even bother to stay when I catch them talking about the recent marathon Remy completed. I meander around the house, looking for memories in grandpa’s knickknacks.

I pause next to the mantel over the fireplace, taking in the picture he has of us in greater detail. I go to pick it up but it seems stuck. I pull forward and hear a click and thud before the mantel and fireplace swing inward. No one comes running and I don’t call out. I want to find out what this house is hiding on my own first.

Walking down a long hallway, that is oddly clean and lit, I come to a staircase spiraling down. Carefully making my way down, I step off the last step and in front of a door. I sigh, knowing I don’t have a key. I still give the handle a twist and to my surprise, the door opens.

Inside is a spacious living area and sitting on the couch is an older woman. She whips her head to me as the door opens and I gasp.

“Grandma?! We thought you were dead?!”