Hey, Readerland. Back for Day 3 of the Ogre/Chuck Challenge. In case you've forgotten what today's assignment is, here you go:
For Day 3, the exercise is:
19: Invent a memory from your childhood, then write it.
So, here goes nothing.
When we were little, my best friend Mike and I were doing something stupid that kids, specifically boys, always did. We were walking on the frozen creek down the hill from my mom's house. 'Don't walk on the creek,' she'd say. 'You'll fall in and get hypothermia and drown!' But did we listen? Nope.
So, Mike and I are walking along on the creek, talking about baseball, since we were both on the same little league team. We stopped talking when we heard cracking of the ice. We stopped moving. It wasn't coming from under us, though. It was a little ways away, where the creek turned south, by the oak tree that was hit by lightning.
Carefully (which could be one of the few times those words applied to us), we make our way over to the cracking sound. Mike got down on his knees and brushed the snow off of the ice. It was hard to see through, but we could definitely see something big under the ice. I got a couple of rocks and we started hitting the ice, trying to break it. Yeah, we were geniuses. So, we managed to break a hole in the ice about the size of a car tire, but whatever we saw was gone.
The cracking sound came from a little further downstream, so we followed it, sliding across the ice instead of walking. We stopped again at the cracking noise and started pounding the ice again.
I'm not sure what happened, but we didn't hit the ice that hard and it started to break under us. I was quicker and scrambled backwards, but Mike wasn't so lucky.
He fell in as the ice gave way and flailed in the icy water. I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him out, but I couldn't move him.
"I think something's got a hold of me!" he yelled. "Pull harder!"
I pulled and got him a couple of inches out of the ice before something pulled him back. I had nothing to brace my feet against, so I stayed on my knees, pulling as hard as I could. After several excruciating minutes, he finally came free. We both lay on the ice, Mike wet and shivering and missing one of his shoes. He wasn't bleeding, so I figured he was going to be okay.
I got him on his feet and walked him back to my mom's house, so he could get a warm shower and we could call Mike's mom to let her know what happened. Both of our moms were furious that we had been walking on the creek. 'See? What did I tell you?'
Nobody ever believed us that I had that much trouble pulling him out and they didn't listen to Mike's claims that something under water had grabbed his foot. 'It was probably a branch' or 'Your shoe just got stuck in the mud' was what they said.
Except that the creek was about fifteen deep in that spot, so unless Mike grew underwater, he couldn't have gotten his shoe stuck at the bottom. It might have been a branch, I suppose, but why didn't we see one or why didn't it come up when I finally pulled him free?
As we went to school, the following Monday, we decided not to tell anybody about what we thought happened: that there was something in the creek that tried to pull him away. People had already heard the story, so it was no big deal to play it off as 'Mike lost his shoe in the creek.'
Even though we didn't entirely believe in a 'creek monster' or anything, Mike always had a fear about that spot from that point on. I can't say I blame him. I was always hesitant to go back there. I was always afraid that we'd find his shoe sitting there on the shore with claw marks or something on it.
Okay, there you have it. Day 3, in the books. Now, I have to admit that this particular memory is based on something that actually did happen, but did not involve struggles with sea monsters.
So, Day 3 is done. But what about Day 4? Thanks for asking! My lovely assistant has drawn tomorrow's number and it is:
14. Capture the moment of redemption for a truly terrible villain. Why and how does it come?
Well. I'm not sure how I'll do that in 15 minutes, but I'm sure something will work it's way onto the screen. My friend Mary has joined me on this quest and she's posted both of her entries so far on her Facebook page:
Day 1
Day 2
If you're enjoying what I'm doing with this and you want to join in, feel free. You can post your content in a comment, post it on your own blog/Facebook page/whatever and send me the link either as a comment here or email it to me at SkredlitheOgre@gmail.com.
I have my writer's group meeting tomorrow, so hopefully things will go well with that. I'm sure I'll have something to report for it.
So, I will see you tomorrow for Day 4 of the Ogre/Chuck Challenge! Thanks for sticking with me! Only 28 more days to go! Until next time, take care, and be awesome to each other.
#WWWYKI
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