The next morning, I was woken rather early by Bethany, who threw a pillow at me. I groaned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. She was hovering above me with an evil look on her face. I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to go back to sleep.

Evil Bethany threw another pillow at me.

"Stop it!" I exclaimed, sitting up in bed. "I'm trying to sleep, in case you hadn't noticed!"

Bethany just grinned. "I know." Her tone was smug. "The competition is today, remember? The invitational!" Her voice was full of excitement. "You do want to win, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" I cried. "How could you think I don't?"

"Did I say that?" Bethany asked. Her tone became even more smug. "Let's go! We'll catch some waves before service."

I nodded. "Okay." I jumped up and changed into my bikini. I put my sarong overtop of it, and we all headed out to the car. Bethany and I put our boards on the ski rack.

The car pulled up to the beach service, and Bethany and I headed down to the ocean. We lunged into the water, heading out into the fray.

"The waves out there suck!" I declared, paddling towards a forming wave. We raced to get it. Bethany, being the pro surfer she was, caught it first. She teasingly sprayed me as I watched her ride the wave.

"You were saying?" Bethany asked.

"There are some great waves out here!" I exclaimed. She laughed and rolled her eyes.

I caught the next wave. It was around an eight-footer. Bethany laughed as I flipped backwards off my board. I remained underwater for longer than I needed to. I was playing a prank on Bethany.

I heard her shout my name worriedly. I remained underwater. She paddled over to where I was, and searched for me. I wasn't anywhere to be seen by her eyes.

"Joy!" she cried. "Joy?"

She felt around under the water for my head. I reached above the surface and gave her a thumbs-up. I swam to the surface and broke through, gasping for breath.

"You!" Bethany exclaimed. "I thought you'd drowned!"

"Hey, it's me." I shrugged.

Soon we were catching waves left and right. Bethany and I caught some rather amazing ones, if I do say so myself. It seemed like minutes only before we heard Noah's call.

"Bethany! Joy! Let's go, you're lagging!" he shouted.

Bethany and I looked at each other in horror and swam for the shore. "Sorry!" Bethany called. "Sorry, Noah, we lost track of time!"

We found our sandals on shore and slipped them on. We took our boards up to the rock where we kept our stuff and slid on our sarongs. We raced for the service. They were singing a song called Blessed Be Your Name. Pastor Sarah Hill was one of the singers.

"Move over, Timmy!" Bethany hissed at her older brother.

"Sorry, these seats are taken," Timmy lied.

"Come on!" Bethany shoved her brother into the seat beside ours.

Cheri handed us towels as we got comfortable. "How were the waves?" Tom asked.

"Really fun," we both said.

"Ready for the contest? Practice your snap off the lip?" We both nodded in response to his question.

"No, but she's perfect on the wipeouts," Noah teased us.

"And fake-drownings," Bethany added, glaring at me. I chuckled.

"Shh, guys, we're in church!" Cheri hissed. "She's gonna do her mermaid thing and crush it like she always does." I assumed she was talking about Bethany there. "And I'm interested to see how Joy surfs. I hear she's good."

"Got fourth in the competition we met at" Bethany interjected. I nodded at her.

I knew the conversation was over then. Everyone was singing the song now, and I sang along with them. But all I could think about was the waves.

When we got home, Bethany and I headed to her room. She showed me her ukulele-playing skills. She was good! And I mean, really good. As she played, she looked out the window. I looked to see what she was seeing. Two surfers were in the water. It was Tom and Cheri.

They were going to have a surfing contest with us (me, Bethany, Noah, and Timmy) as the judges. Bethany set her ukulele down and grabbed notepads and pens for us.

"Almost got it," I heard Noah's voice say. "Darn it."

We headed into the kitchen. Timmy was eating a Spam sandwich, and Noah was attempting to fix a camera. "Interesting technique, Noah," Timmy commented. "Is that how the professionals do it?" Bethany whacked him on the back of the head. He glanced at the notebooks and pens in our hand. "Where are you going?"

"To watch the competition," said Bethany, in a slightly uh-duh voice.

Timmy and Noah glanced at each other and smirked. They raced to grab notebooks and pens of their own. We paraded down to the beach.

Cheri and Tom took turns catching waves. On one of them, Tom dropped in on Cheri's wave. He gave us a three-fingered wave. Cheri wiped out.

On Cheri's next wave, she did okay. I gave her a 7. Bethany's rating was 5, Timmy's was 6.5, and Noah's was 5, as well.

I heard indistinct comments exchanged between Cheri and Tom. Tom's wave was awesome! But I gave his rating a 6.

"Somebody's on my side!" Cheri exclaimed gleefully.

They talked to each other for a moment, and started paddling towards the shore. They abandoned their boards and started throwing sand at us. Cheri was throwing sand at the others, but was avoiding me. Tom, however, threw handfuls at me.

I defended myself with the notepad. I glanced at Timmy. His Spam sandwich was ruined.

I smiled. I had a feeling I was in for a wild ride with the Hamiltons.