Need for Speed

After many intense seconds of informal training, severe enough to seem like actual years of practice, the three competitors triumphantly march their way up the winding slope. After trudging uphill for a quarter of a mile, and a quick squabble, the participants take their places on the sidewalk. Jace, with her new goalie gloves her mother just purchased—now worn through with holes from today’s previous attempts—will be the “braker.” Lolie will be the “observer” from the central seat, holding the string to the steering pole in case anything might go wrong—but that is not possible considering the immaculate training just performed. And finally, A. Clingo will be the “driver,” with her hair pulled back and eyes concentrating on the goal. This colossal hill seems menacing, but even if most scooters or rollerblades can’t handle it, the calculations of these three children prove there won’t be a problem for an immortal, large red wagon with four gigantic wheels.

Since, I was young I always had a need for speed, as did my best friend two houses up from me. And when this need was combined with the imagination of two six-year-olds, there were sometimes catastrophic results. Together we were able to find every rope-swing, zip line, and hill in the neighborhood, which were many in an old neighborhood like ours. Our neighborhood looked more like the shire of the hobbits instead of a regular suburb, with hills ready for our use anytime we desired. However, there was one hill—the largest, most ominous peak in the area. We had tried many different mechanisms to conquer this mountain, but the thrill of broken scooters, burning rollerblades, and car-bashing bicycles was losing its buzz. So, at my house, when my little sister asked us to pull her in her red wagon, an idea popped into our heads, and my sister was left to her Barbies.

Not even the American Bobsled team could outdo us, or so we thought—but nothing could beat the ego of a six-year-old, not even logic. So after much thought and contemplation concerning who would be where—meaning who was louder and taller got first choice—we sat down and prepared ourselves. I held the black pole with my right hand and the ball that connected it to the front wheels with my left. Jace, with her new sunglasses—looking like a true motocross driver—rubbed her hands together, causing the needed friction for quick braking reflexes. And Lolie held on tightly to the sides of the wagon with the pole string and her feet held down for a secondary brake system if anything should go wrong.

“One, Two, Three!” Jace hollered, pushing ecstatically off of the sidewalk.

“I thought we were going to five!” Lolie shouted, but her words were lost in the cold wind behind us.

The blistering air beat on my eyes, making me incapable of seeing, but we were finally achieving our intended purpose—speed. Every second we got faster and faster, like the hill would never end—my hands working with great effort to turn the pole the correct way against the bumps in the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard a strange noise behind me that I couldn’t quite understand.

“What are you doing!” Jace exclaimed.

Losing concentration, I lost control and dropped the steering pole. In a blur of green, shards of grass pounded into our faces, blinding us all, we certainly weren’t on the sidewalk anymore.

“Feet down!” Jace commanded, but neither of us heard, we were focusing on the last moments of our short lives, screaming at the top of our lungs.

The blur of green finally faded into a gray.

CRASH!

The gray had been a brick wall fence.

My head whipped forward and my hands bled from holding them out to stop the crash—not a very bright idea.

“I think I twisted my ankle,” Lolie groaned.

“Don’t be such babies,” Jace mumbled, sprawled on the ground, trying to pull herself up.

We certainly were quite a sight, Lolie and I breathing our last breaths as we thought we were dying and Jace getting up to go back home.

“You dead?” I asked.

“Yup.”

We slowly pulled ourselves up, over several minutes—maybe this was what happened when we died, perhaps we were ghosts.

There was a huge round dent in the bricks, reminding us of the round black ball at the bottom of the steering pole…

“Uh.” Lolie looked at me, in thoughtful meditation.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “Well, um, see ya tomorrow.”

Lolie limped back to her house and I discreetly pulled the slightly smashed wagon back to my house. I felt it best to avoid any wagon hill racing for a while, and so I left the wagon in the garage for the next month, hidden under a tarp—the owner of the wall would be home tomorrow. I don’t think she’d notice three limping children in the neighborhood—maybe.