by Olive Pea
“Plunk plunk!” went the rain on the metal roof of the car. It was mid afternoon on a rainy day in January, and my family and I were visiting my grandparents in Rocklin, California. It was my brother Liam’s Birthday, and we were going to play laser tag at the nearest arcade. I was sitting and watching the cars out my window speed down the slippery road. Up in the front seats, my parents were playing some rock music with humorous lyrics through the car speakers. I was sitting next to Liam and my cousin Ethan. Ethan, who was 12 years old, was always one year older than Liam and one year younger than me. He had tan skin, floppy and curly copper-colored hair that he wore in a headband that matched his red-and-white basketball jersey. Sometimes he was quiet, but mostly he was cracking jokes and fooling around. Liam and I both got the preferable seats that were adjacent to the windows and would have gladly given ours to Ethan, but for some reason he wanted to sit in the middle.
Mom was asking Ethan about his school year and basketball practice when we made a right turn into a parking lot and stationed the car in a spot next to the entrance of the arcade building. We all hopped out of the car onto the wet pavement, and made quickly for the big glass doors before we got too wet. I checked my bag for the billionth time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten my ear-muffs. Dad had mentioned that it would be loud in the building, and I abhor loud noises. They made me nervous, and I was already nervous as well as excited. I parted the opening of my bag, and sure enough my neon-pink ear-muffs were nestled safely inside. Mom had said that I wouldn’t need them, but “better to be safe than sorry,” I thought.
We thrust the arcade doors open, and inside there was a small lot of kids playing arcade games. Sound effects of shooting laser rifles and exploding spaceships filled our ears as we journeyed towards the tables in the food court. Our grandparents, Uncle Justice, and his girlfriend Kayla were anticipating our arrival around a table that was in the middle.
“There you are!” Grandma exclaimed.
“Where’s Evelyn and Isaac?” Mom inquired of Grandma as she retrieved her credit card from within the seemingly endless depths of her purse.
“I don’t know what the heck is taking them so long. Isaac is driving Evelyn, and they left at the same time as us, so they should be here by now.” She said with a disapproving shake of her head.
“I’ll be right back, I just have to run to the restrooms,” Grandma announced as she walked at a leisurely pace toward the Ladies Room. Evelyn and Isaac were cousins of Liam and mine. They were Ethan’s older siblings. Evelyn was 15, and Isaac was in his early 20’s. Evelyn had the same tan skin as Ethan, and had long curly brown hair. She was quiet, but she was still pleasant to make conversation with. She usually wore black-and-white Converse with green camo pants, and a two-sizes-too-big shirt with a band logo on it. Isaac was not loud, but he also wasn’t quiet. He always wore a light-colored button-up shirt with jeans, and either combed his hair or wore a beanie. He also had recently acquired a beard, but I am not sure if it counts as an official one because it was always quite stubbly.
Grandma arrived back at the tables after her trip to the bathrooms, and we waited near the round white tables for a short length of time for Evelyn and Isaac to make an appearance. When they still didn’t turn up, the adults decided for us to make our way to the front desk and purchase our cards for the laser tag. We walked back towards the arcade, and headed for the counter. Two older teenage girls stood there, looking very bored. Mom and Grandma started talking to one of them and began to arrange the purchase for everyone to play. Liam, Ethan, and I formed a separate group a short ways away from the desk. Uncle Justice joined us, and we started talking about whose team we wanted to be on. Uncle Justice always looked like he was ready to go hunting. He wore a black T-shirt and black jeans with a chain and a pocket knife in his right pocket. He had a small black beard and a mustache, and completing his look was a hunter-green baseball cap and a silver nose ring. He was Mom’s brother, but he was only in his late 20s.
Dad came over and told us that we could enter our player names on the three screens that were to the right of the front desk. I typed my name onto the screen. “Loki” was my player name. Ethan put his as “Eazy-E”, and Liam’s was “Clonk”. Grandpa decided he was going to play too. Grandpa was on the shorter/stockier side, and wore a gray heathered polyester shirt with a button and small collar at the neck. He also wore green camo pants, and he always wore hiking shoes no matter where he was going. He entered his code name as “Best Dad Ever”. At the last minute, Evelyn and Isaac walked over to the front desk.
“What took you so long? We were about to start without you!” Grandma half whispered, with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. Isaac shrugged. Grandma handed them their playing cards and they entered their names. Evelyn’s was “Fart Lover”. I didn’t get the chance to see Isaac, Kayla, Uncle Justice or Dad’s player names, but Mom’s was “Mom the Bomb”. Grandma decided not to play, and went back to the tables and waited.
When we all finished entering our player names, an older teenage boy (who also looked bored) with greasy blond hair and sweaty looking clothes showed us and a couple of strangers into a dark room with a large screen. The carpet had a crazy neon orange and yellow pattern that glowed under the black light from the ceiling. Kayla’s white shoes were glowing a blinding bright white, and everyone came over to look at them as our bored instructor queued up an instruction video on the large screen.
He stood under the screen and said,”Listen up,” in the most dull way possible. “First, you will watch this video and if you have any questions you can ask me after it’s finished.”
When the video finished, someone asked whether we would get to choose our team mates, and the greasy guide said, “I don’t know, but I think it is randomly chosen on the screen.” All the kids groaned, and some of the parents started whispering things like “What? We paid for this?” And “This is ridiculous. What kind of arcade doesn’t let you choose?” The guide projected our teams on the screen. I was with Ethan, Evelyn, Uncle Justice, and a little 5 year old girl and her dad. Liam was with Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Isaac, and Kayla.
The guide said spiritlessly, “This way,” and gestured towards a door to our left. We filed through the door, and entered a slightly brighter room. There were large metal pegs on the wall where our equipment hung. They were all numbered. On a TV screen opposite the door showed our player names with our equipment numbers next to them. Mine said “LOKI 32” highlighted with blue for my team color. We all grabbed our equipment and started putting it on. There were hit sensors on the chest, back, and one on each shoulder. If you were hit, it would make a blaster sound effect. I tightened my equipment with a black adjustment strap. There were different settings on the gun that you could access through a series of buttons and other fancy touch screen elements that I was not all that interested in. The rules were no running, and you had to keep at least 5 feet away from your opponents when shooting. The game was on a timer, and when the timer ended you were required to report back to your base.
We then entered the laser tag arena. Once again, black lights lit the room, but this time you couldn’t see the whole room from the entrance. There were tall and short barriers that you could hide behind, some of which were glowing neon colors due to the black light, while others were just black. The floor was covered in black carpet, and in the middle of the room there was a second floor that you could access by ramp. On the edges of this platform you could snipe opponents that were below. On opposite sides of the room, there were bases. In these bases there was a special archway that showed the team’s points in big, orange letters like you might see on a digital alarm clock. This was also the team’s weak point, because if an opponent shot it they would get a bunch of points. That meant that the arch should be guarded. On the other side of your base, there was a recharge station that you could stand behind to reload your blaster or revive yourself if you got eliminated. Both of these things took time to do, so you had to be sneaky.
Everyone grouped up with their teams and headed to their bases. On a speaker, an announcer repeated the basic rules, and counted down from 5. Then the lights dimmed, and intense techno music started playing. On my team, two team mates stayed and defended the base. I started to charge the opponents thinking it would be easy, but too late I realized that there was a slope. I tripped on the carpet all the way to the middle of the room. Liam found me and started blasting me while he laughed maniacally. “Aw come on!” I thought, and retreated back to the base to reload my health. When I was recharging, I saw the little girl and her dad from our team trying to take out Dad, who was on the top level of the arena. I started to shoot at him too, but he retreated. Then I went over to our opponent’s archway, and started blasting it. Then someone (I couldn’t see them because it was too dark) started blasting me so I retreated back to my base. On the way there I ran into three people who were not on my team, and I was low on health by the time I got to recharge. I started to head back over to the other side but this time I went through the higher level. By the time I got to the top the music shut off and the announcer on the speaker said, “End of round 1.”
Our whole team reported back to our base, then we had one minute to recharge before the next round started. Ethan agreed to attack the enemy base with me, but when the round started he ditched me! So I tried it on my own and just like the first time, someone found me. The only difference was that I got a few more shots off at the archway than I had before. On my way back to my base I tripped again and it was even worse than the first time. I laughed because I could just picture what it would look like to someone else. After I recharged, I decided not to attack the enemy base, so I stayed back and guarded ours for the remainder of round 2.
Once round 3 started, I was the only one guarding our base, so I had to walk back and forth to patrol. When I was on the side of our base that was opposite our archway, I started getting blasted from above. Isaac had sniped me! I started to shoot back. The plan was to take him out so that he could not advance towards the archway, and I did get a few shots off him. However, he disappeared before I could take him out. I started to find my way toward the ramp so that I could chase him, but just before I got there Liam cornered me.
I heard Ethan say “They’re shooting our base!” and then I saw Isaac’s gray beanie peeking over one of the pieces of cover. He must have made his way over to our arch while Liam distracted me. I took Liam out, but it took time and then my gun ran out of juice so that I had to recharge it. I ran over to our arch and started blasting Isaac alongside Ethan, and together we took him out too. After that, I decided to put my equipment into stealth mode. It took a second because I had to figure out which buttons to hold and when to pull the trigger, but once stealth mode was activated all the lights on my gun and sensors turned off. I thought I was so cool and sneaky, “Just like Loki,” I thought. Just as that thought crossed my mind however, I tripped and started getting blasted by Mom. I ran away from Mom in the direction of the enemy’s archway, but just as I turned a corner I tripped again. This time I slammed into something hard. It was Grandpa, and he hadn’t seen me because all of my lights were shut off.
“Sorry!” we both said in unison, and I hurried to get away. It took me a second to get my bearings, but once I found my way I began to blast the enemy archway. Just as I reached 5000 points, Liam and Dad spotted me and started blasting me. Then Isaac started approaching, so I made a run for it. That was when the stealth mode actually worked. I made it all the way up the ramp and shot Dad once to startle him. I saw him swivel his head back and forth and check around the corner where I had just been.
Then I heard him say, “Where the heck did she go?” and I giggled, feeling slightly redeemed as a “Loki” after my big mess-up. On my way over the top part of the room, I startled Kayla and she started blasting me. I tried to put my gun through one of the holes in my cover to shoot her back, but then Dad and Liam located me.
Dad said, “There you are!” and both he and Liam started blasting me. I ran for my base to recharge but just as I was about to recharge my gun, the final round ended and both teams traveled back to the door of the room. Two of the arcade workers led us back through the door and had us remove our equipment. On the screen in the equipment room, we could see our scores. For some reason it only gave everyone’s personal scores, so we couldn’t tell which team had won the rounds. On Liam’s team, Dad got the high score of the first round, Grandpa got it on the second, and Kayla got the high score on the last round. The only problem was that Mom and Kayla’s scores got combined, and if they hadn’t Mom would have earned the high score because she eliminated way more people than Kayla. Plus, Kayla didn’t get any points from an archway. On my team, Uncle Justice got the high score on the first two rounds. The last person to get a high score on my team was me, which I was very enthusiastic about. Once everyone finished looking at the scoreboard, we exited through the first room back into the arcade. I hadn’t noticed how sweaty I was when I was in the arena, so after about a minute of being in the arcade Dad took Liam, Ethan and I outside where it was chilly and drizzling. I was glad for the rain because it cooled me off quickly.
After a few minutes we walked back over to the tables and met up with Grandma. She handed us our things and we walked out to the car, everyone with smiles on their faces.
The Lighthouse 