Dad asked all of his kids to write some stories about our childhood. He assigned us all topics/memories to write about. Here is my first story:
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We always had fun as children but the days that we enjoyed
the most were when we were outside and privy to the wild whims of our own
imagination. The summer months, when we were out of school, housed the best
moments for adventure and for childish
mischief. These days began with
breakfast and chores and then as soon as we were released we were out the door,
on our bikes and racing toward our next quest.
This particular day was started with a warning from our all
knowing and wise mother, "Don't play in the gutter's at the Business
Park. I don't want you guys getting wet
today." The past few days had been
raining and so there were ample opportunities to get wet and the business park,
only blocks from our home, was the most recent host to our summertime adventures.
We tried to follow and remember this command until we
arrived at the Business Park gutters.
The water was cool and flowing in such a tempting way. We started by playing next to the gutters but
as our sticks fell closer and eventually into the water we were forced to
fetch. The water was almost to our
knees and flowing with a slow tide. We
began following the tide down the gutters, barely noticing the gradual increase
of flow in the cool water.
Eventually we arrived at the end of the gutters, where the
water dipped into a large pipe and out of site.
This was intriguing to us; where did it go? What lived down there? How
deep was it? Being the big and responsible sister I inched closer to
investigate this childish inquiry. As I
got to the opening of the pipe the water deepened and the tide picked up. Before I knew it I was being sucked into the
big engulfing pipe and swooshed to the unknown.
I grabbed onto the edges of the pipe, creating jagged cuts
in my small fingers, and screamed for my brother to help me. He pulled handfuls of long grass, stick or anything he could think
of to lower to me and pull me to safety.
Nothing worked and soon my fingers weakened and released. I remember screaming as I watched my brothers
small worried face and my escape disappear at the end of the hole.
As I continued through the drainage pipe images of what lied
ahead zoomed through my mind. The most
horrifying and probable situation in my mind was that there was a giant fan at
the bottom that would chop anything big that went through it before releasing
it into the sewers. This fan's sole
purpose was to stop big logs, rats and small children from get into the
sewer. I tried frantically to stop
myself from reaching that fan. I grabbed
onto the corrugated metal of the pipe, wedged my fingers in any cracks and
around any screws and even tried crawling back against the flow of water.
After what felt like hours of struggling and continuing to
be pushed through this pipe I saw a light ahead. The light grew bigger until I saw that it was
an exit to the pipe, and not a child eating fan. I released my grip and let the water push me
towards my exit. As I approached I tried
to look out and see where I was but noticed that I could not see anything but a
sharp drop. Again I panicked at the
unknown ahead of me but before I could stop I was hurled out of the pipe and
dropped five feet into a large drainage canal.
The canal water was
much deeper than the pipe and was moving quickly. I struggled to stay up and tried to get to
the banks when I saw my rescuer approaching.
My little brother had ran across
a busy road to follow the drainage pipe to the other side and upon seeing me
fall out had grabbed the biggest branch he could carry and dipped it into the
water for me to grab onto.
Once safely on shore we collapsed in a pile of tears,
exhaustion and a small rush of excitement at our adventure. One might think that after such a life
altering ordeal we would go home and recover from this near death experience but
we did not. Already wet, we took our
bikes to the nearby river and swam for a while. On an errand to find us our big
brother soon arrived and escorted us home with a smug grin that said, "You
guys are in so much trouble!"
Upon arriving home, soaking wet and covered in mud and
slime, we braced ourselves for our mother's rath. Instead of yelling or grounding us she told
us that we had to sit in the backyard until we were dry and that if we were not
dry by dinner, we did not get to eat.
Joyfully we agreed to her terms and began playing in the backyard
gloating in our minds that we were being punished with our favorite pass
time. After a while, we began to get
hungry and were mostly dry so we approached the back door to beg our dear
mother to honor her side of the agreement.
When she saw us she said that we were too dirty to go into the house and
promptly picked up the hose and sprayed us off. Returning to the house she
turned and again repeated the punishment, "You cannot come into the house
until you are dry."
We stayed outside drying off till nearly seven that night
and well past dinner time. We had
disobeyed our mother by getting wet and been punished. Our own consolation was
that she knew nothing of the sewage drain or we would have been sleeping outside
with the dogs.
