Only trying to help, I made things worse for all of us. We looked outside our room while teachers glared at us. I will never forget the stares they gave me.

I was going on a school trip to Washington D.C. While we were on the bus, some of us were sleeping while the rest of us were watching “Forest Gump”. I was solving my Rubik’s cube while some people sat and watched me perform “magic”. Nobody knew who they were rooming with since my principal, Mr.Carter wouldn’t announce the arrangements until we arrived at the hotel. Since nobody knew who we were going to room with, we imagined the worst. When we had arrived at the hotel, we had gotten our rooming assignments and fortunately, I was in a group with my friends.

We received our hotel key cards while the rules were being explained by Mr.Carter. The punishments for most of the rules required us to pay money depending on how serious the rule was. Most of the rules were common sense, but one rule stood out from all the other rules. The rule was that you weren’t allowed to go outside of your room after curfew. This rule stood out the most was because, if one person left the room, everybody would be fined $20. I couldn't imagine $20 going away from us. It was more than just $20. If one of us got caught, none of our teachers would look at us in the same way ever again. There was duct tape added onto the doors during our curfew to make it identifiable if the students left the room. If the tape was not attached to the wall bordering the door, everybody in that room would be fined $20.

At night we were all watching the T.V. show called “Mystery diners”. The show was about restaurant workers getting exposed for stealing from the owner for their own benefit. We would all talk about what would we thought would happen next in the show. We would argue on and on until we fell asleep.

In the morning, I needed to check if the keycard worked since I had accidentally left it next to my phone like an idiot. Not knowing there was duct tape next to the door, I slowly opened the door while the duct tape tore down the wall. I then realized I had made the biggest mistake in my life. Everybody in my room heard what happened. The door was wide open. Not thinking anything could get worse, my friend, Mahdi set off the fire alarm waking everybody up in different rooms. It felt as if I was trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, and an alarm rang letting every zombie know where I was. Apparently, Madhi was ironing his shirt and set off the fire alarm almost activating the sprinkler system. He turned off the iron and set it down as soon as he heard the alarm. The noise woke up teachers in other rooms and I could hear all of the them wake up and run to our room to see what happened. Many teachers looked at me with disappointment. It could have been worse. If the water sprayed on us, there would be no way to dry our clothes. I immediately closed the door making sure nobody knew it was our room that set off the fire alarm. After that was settled, I knew my friends would be mad at me since they knew that 20$ was going to be taken away from them.

I tried to contact our counselor, each time thinking about the $20 I could have kept. It was if I was going to be exposed to the teachers like how people were exposed in “Mystery Diners”. My counselor finally came to the door looking like a zombie from the walking dead. Since it was early in the morning, she wasn’t very happy to see someone interrupt her sleep. Since I was a good student, she left me with a warning and left angrily. This might seem crazy, but I almost lost someone that night. That someone was my $20.