Stories of Big Eddy

by Hannah
(Cornelius, OR USA)

Running out of the car to hug my cousins, I began to think it's the beginning. It's the beginning of my first camping trip of the year. What I have always thought of camping was swimming, roasting marshmallows, hiking, crawdad catching and the humor of my family. That was what I have always loved most, was my family going together.

When I first got my campsite, my cousin wanted me to go to the park with her, so we started to walk to the park. Abigail Rose my younger cousin wanted me to push her on the toddler swing, I checked on the swing for the ages and it said age’s six months to three years old. Abigail Rose was three so I helped her up on the swing. Once Abigail Roses brother, Verney saw me pushing her on the swing he wanted me to push him too. I thought it would be okay, he was almost six, so I put him in the swing beside Abigail Rose. I went back and forth pushing them. After awhile our parents called us to eat dinner. I got Abigail Rose out, but when I tried to get Vereny out he was stuck. The only thing I could do was have Patrick David get a parent, so he did. Sooner or later we got him out of the swing, but afterward I felt really bad.

As we started to eat dinner, my older cousin Celia and I sat in a teepee that was already at the campsite. My younger cousins wanted to know where it came from. I told them in a deep voice, "Indians come here every night and I'm one of them." Because they were young I could get them to fall for anything. Celia started playing along. We also told them the Indians are evil people. After they left, Celia and I started to crack up laughing. As for me I had plans for the evening. I was always known to do the extreme, but extreme isn't always a good thing. I told Celia my plan."I'm going to dress up as an Indian tonight, to scare our cousins."

As soon as we had to go to bed, Celia, Lynn and I pretended to go to sleep too. So eventually the younger cousins went to sleep too. We snuck to the bathroom with sheets, make up, we also got feathers for headdresses. We dressed up as Indians. After we looked truly like Indians, with feathers in our hair, we started to dance around our younger cousin’s tent with flashlights. Banging the tent, we woke up our younger cousins, you could hear screaming. Sadly it was funny to me. They came out of the tent, screaming at the top of their lungs. Zip, I heard the adult's tent open. Anne, one of the youngest, went running to her mom. The kids fell for it, but the parents saw right through us. The next day we were in trouble. Our punishment was to make breakfast and wash the dishes after each meal. After our discipline the girls and I went bike riding together.

Shortly after we returned, our family decided to go to the lake. Most of the kids took their bikes, but our parents walked, so they could carry the inner tubes and the crawdad cage. Soon we got to the lake and went into the inner tubes. First it was Celia, Lynn, Anne and I. While we were tubing we saw some grass ahead and it looked like a little Island. Thankfully we had our flip-flops on so we got out and explored. It was hot on that sand, so we only stayed for a little while. Anne looked at the flowers, the rest of us talked.

"We can pretend this is a pirate’s island," I exclaimed.

"Jeanette, we're not little kids," answered Celia.

"I mean to scare the little kids, especially Anne," I exclaimed.

We all laughed and agreed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah," we all screamed.

Anne came running. “Are you guys okay?" Anne asked.

"We saw pirates," I answered.

"Really?" Anne asked.

"I'm scared," said Lynn, trying to scare Anne.

Anne started running to the boat. We did too. We all got back to the bank just in time when our parents were about to leave. We finally got back to camp. Anne ran to the other little kids and told them what we saw. My brother started asking Anne if she was okay. For a long time they were looking for the pirates we said we had seen.

The next day we got in our Fourth of July outfits and went to the parade nearby our campsite. We caught candy and got patriotic earrings. As soon as it was dark we watched the fireworks in a parking lot. It was much better than usual because we got to sit in our car, eat our own snacks and be warm.

The fireworks were done in no time. After the fireworks our parents decided that Celia, Lynn and Anne could come home with us and we could have a sleepover together. We were all excited. Sitting in the car for an hour, it felt like we would never get home. We were finally there! When we walked in we noticed a surprise. My cat had her kittens. As each of us snuggled one in our arms I remembered how much fun I had this week. I have been going to Big Eddy Park ever since I was born, but this year was the best because my family was together.


Images by Chewonki Semester School