ill-advised moment

“Why are we even going to this?” I asked my parents in boredom.

“Because you have known this kid for more than four years and you are the boy’s friend,” my dad says curtly. My jaw dropped as he said that. I’m the boy’s friend? Please tell me your joking I thought darkly. Clearly they got the wrong impression, as that rambunctious little jerk chased me, attacked me, said mean things to me, and pranked me for more than four years. Yeah, what a great friend, I thought to myself darkly. This kids name was Neil, and he was practically dropped on this planet just to annoy the living daylights out of everyone. Why not Mars I thought dully. Even better, we’re now celebrating this kid’s birthday. His birthday is only an indicator of the amount of years he had annoyed everyone.

“We’re here!” my parents announce with glee. Wow, I didn’t realize we arrived. Clearly being trapped within your own thoughts does kill time.

“I suppose it’s too late to back up now?” I ask stupidly, considering we drove for 20 minutes just to get to this place. Suddenly, I wished I faked being sick. I’m pretty good at pulling those off. Surprisingly, my parents reacted with a smile to my last statement.

“I know you don’t like him, but you’re only kids. One day you’ll forget about all of this. For now, just try to get along with him, ok?” my mother reasons with me.

I stood there shocked. Did my ears deceive me? Wow my parents actually agreed on something with me. There is some human still left in them. Of course, I was eight at that time, so my mind contained such shallow thoughts.

“Thanks, mom,” I said in a rather quiet tone.

“You be good ok and behave” my parents said wishfully. “Definitely and yeah I will,” I replied.

“Ok pick you up at 7” my parents said.

“Alright, bye!” I call to my parents as I run to the swarm of kids heading to the playground. I took a deep breath. It was only a matter of four hours. Without thinking too much, I run along with the swarm of kids. All of them wearing looks of glee on their face, with the scent of nature and grass filling my nose, as we were in a park. Most of them were playing tag, basketball, and hopscotch. The adults sat in a corner near the shed, laughing and together. They were wearing khaki pants and nice polos, dressed neatly. I looked down at my own attire, blue Nike shorts and a grey Adidas shirt. Suddenly, I felt very underdressed. However, right then I decided not to let my insecurities take control of me. I then set off with the rest of the kids and tried my best to have a great time.

Two hours pass by, and so far, not too bad. Things like hopscotch, basketball, and tag really kill time. Surprisingly, Neil wasn’t too annoying, but more focused on impressing the ladies. Oh well, suits me, as long as I don’t get annoyed, I don’t care what he does. I’ll admit it did get a little boring sometimes, because it was one of the bright adults who suggested playing bingo. That’s when I decided to sit on a bench. Two more hours to go I thought glumly. That’s when I notice something shiny on the ground. The object was really shiny, with beams of light bouncing off of it. Shiny objects and eight year olds are a match made in heaven. Slowly, in awe, I pick it up. I observe its magnificence, its beauty. Suddenly, this dull party just automatically transformed to the best day of my life. Right when I thought it couldn’t get any better, my eyes instantly laid eyes on another crystal. There’s another I thought, as my body fleeted with excitement. That’s when I realized there was a path of these crystals. I didn’t even know what these types of crystals these were, but their smooth feel and their appealing appearance instantly made them a hit in my mind. Curiously, I dropped it to see what would happen. The crystal let out a dull clunk sound, but otherwise remained intact. Eagerly I spend 15 minutes collecting the next 20 of those, stuffing them in my pocket. Then another kid comes along.

“Whatcha doing?” he asks inquisitively.

“Nothing” I say shortly. The last thing I need is for him to know what I was doing.

“You’re doing something, I know you are,” he said with a grin on his face. Starting to feel annoyed, I walked the other way, ignoring the nosy kid. Suddenly with a solemn look on his face he said,

“Look, I’m getting bored too, and I saw a couple of those too. I don’t want to annoy you or anything; I just want to see the rest of these crystals too. My name’s Chris by the way” Suddenly, all my doubts about this kid, Chris, just disappeared. He seemed to be in my predicament too. 

“Okay cool, you don’t seem bad, here lets go find the where this trail leads to,” I say cheerfully. With a happy look on both our faces, we set off to find more of these crystals.

I checked my watch. It was 4:30. We should go back, the other kids are probably eating pizza now I thought to myself uncertainly. We’ll be back soon, we’re not going to be in these woods all day I reasoned with myself. Both of us continued along the trail for the next 5 minutes. I found about 5, Chris found about 7. In my opinion, each crystal was getting shinier then the previous one we found. After some time, we hit a dead end. That dead end was a river. We looked at each other uneasily for about a minute. Finally, Chris broke the awkward silence.

“Do you think there are crystals in the river?” he asked tersely.

“I don’t know, but it looks like there is,” I replied. Indeed, that was the case, because it looked like there were numerous small rock-like objects that were shiny. They definitely had a crystal-like feel to them.

“Should we go down and check,” Chris asked, with a hesitant look on his face.

“Well can you swim?” I asked nervously to Chris. “For the most part, yes” Chris replied sharply.

 “Look we mustn’t waste anymore time, lets just go collect the last of these crystals and get back as soon as possible,” adding an afterthought. Since we were both confident, we left for the river without further ado.

 I put my foot in the river, feeling its icy chill, sending a tingle up my spine. Then I slowly progressed to both feet. It was a little frightening at first, but slowly it became easier.

“Everything alright?” Chris called from the other side.

“Yep, all fine,” I called back to Chris. The crystals were about seven feet from us. We kept walking in a careful manner, to avoid falling. We were getting farther and farther, occasionally balancing ourselves with rocks. However, I had to stop for a second to observe the beauty of this river. A large blue stream with sun glinting across the surface was heaven to my eyes. Hold on…what if there are no crystals, and it’s just the sun reflecting the water I thought suddenly. Panicking, I looked down and checked a rock exactly positioned in the way the crystals were positioned. I picked it up, and surely it was an ordinary rock. I did the same thing with another object which I thought was a crystal, and once again it was a rock. We should’ve never been out here in the first place. That’s when I realized we had to get back as soon as possible.

“Chris!” I yelled to him. Chris turned around a little too quick, lost his balance, and then fell into the cold river. I screamed extremely loud. We were more than 15 feet in the river, so it wasn’t an easy trip back. Chris was above the surface again, but yelled profusely hoping to catch someone’s attention. He was flailing his arms like an overgrown walrus. Whatever he said about being able to swim well was a lie. He probably only said that because he wanted to get more crystals I thought glumly. I swam toward his side. Suddenly, the current got a whole lot stronger. It felt like an invisible barrier that I couldn’t pass. I was a pretty good swimmer, but in circumstances like these, I wasn’t proving my skills too well. Chris then continued to flow down the stream at a slow yet alarming rate. One moment, I loved this river next thing I know I’m hating it with a burning passion, and thought of it as wicked and evil. I honestly didn’t know what to do. We were in deep trouble. That’s when I hear shouts and voices coming from the woods. Hope reentered my mind.

Three adults emerged from the woods, their faces filled with worry. One of them automatically jumps in the river and within seconds he grabbed my body and did a fireman’s carry. I remembered his face from somewhere; I know that I had seen it before. I then realized he was a lifeguard at the rec. He turned around and looked at me.

“Where is the other boy you were with!” he asked in an urgent tone. I surveyed the river, from a distance I saw him, struggling to keep afloat.

“Over there!” I said, pointing to the area where he was. He then helps me up to the rock and then continues to freestyle over where Chris was. Relief swept through every part of my body. However, that disappeared right when I saw the cold fury at the other adults faces.

“What were you doing at the lake?” one of them asks with a livid look on his face. I muttered “crystals” quietly under my breath.

“What?” he asks with contempt.

“I was looking for crystals, me and my friend Chris were,” I said strongly.

“Yeah, we had like 20 of them,” Chris says, reemerging on the surface.

“Well could I see them?” the adult said quietly. My hand dove for my pocket, when I realized we lost all of them in the river. Chris must have too, judging by the look on his face.

“We er lost them,” I said, embarrassed, losing my strength in my voice. At this point, I think the adults deemed us insane.  adult then took my hand and walked me all the way back to where the party was. Another adult also did that with Chris’s hand. We arrived back at the party, where all the kids looked at us momentarily, gazing at our soaked clothes. Then they looked up and burst laughing. Even Neil was cracking up. At first we both got red in the face, then joined in with the laughing as well. The adults didn’t seem to amused. One of them called my parents and the other called Chris’s parents. All of a sudden I see Neil running towards me. I braced myself for the taunts, the insults, and the rude comments

“Hey man, I heard your screaming and I alerted the parents as soon as I could. Look, I don’t really want to know what happened in the river, just know I’ve always got your back man,” he said decently. I was shook for a second but grateful at the same time. This kid had annoyed me for years, tattled on me, hurt me, and now he was acting like a true friend.

“Thanks man, oh and happy birthday,” I say in a solemn tone, shaking his hand.

He replies with a grin, “thanks dude, see you later.”

That’s when I see a car pull up. Uh-oh that is definitely my parents I thought with fear. I braced myself for an awkward car ride home.

“Disappointed,” my dad said with contempt. “What were you thinking swimming in that river?” he asked seriously. I stayed silent. Then in about ten seconds, my whole family burst out laughing at today’s events. I then looked down and picked up a dime, feeling its silvery touch. Silver, like today’s crystals I thought as I looked back at the river.

Analysis: I believe that I tried my best to utilize some of the five senses and incorporate them in this piece, because I wanted the reader to be able to understand the book even more, and really have a picture/idea of the object I am describing. I also feel that I tried my best to remember the plot as accurately as I can, to make the story sound as realistic as possible. In order to do that, I put a emphasis on dialogue, and engage the reader more into the story. Another thing I feel like I did well with was different word choices, to make the writing not sound so bland and unoriginal, so I used more interesting word choices. Those are the things I feel like I did well with.