It was a stormy day in October 2016. One of the worst hurricanes since Katrina was raging New York city, and for me, the Upper East Side. Flood barriers were being broken, homes destroyed, people getting stuck. The thought of being outside was scary in itself. Yet, my dad, notorious for daring me, dared me to go outside! My dad is at an average height of 5’9, which I am close to surpassing. His hair is cropped black hair and always glimmering in the day. He is known for being upbeat and always daring me to do all sorts of things. He dared me to bike ride on the GW bridge when I was eight, and he dared me to jump off a cliff into the ocean (it was legal and not that high), but even this seemed a bit too much for him. Putting on my shoes, I felt a sudden wave of fear overcome me. I was scared as I touched the elevator’s soft button. As each floor rolled away, I became increasingly excited, but at the same time, a bit anxious. I was worried about what might happen, but also what it would look like. The soft carpet seemed to be all around me. It was on the floor and walls, surrounding me. The elevator dinged, and I stepped out into the lobby. When I turned to the right, I saw something amazing, so incredible. Our windows are huge—they’re about nine feet tall, and I can easily see through them. The winds were whipping about, my legs trembled at the sight. I heard the wind as it went through the trees and went around the cars. I walked down the first step, ever so slightly. I was feet away to my eight-year-old self’s doom. I walked hesitantly the last few steps and turned the cold handle with my sweaty hand, stepping into the small cubicle that separated the outdoors from the actual building. I heard the wind howling outside. I finally, reluctantly, turned the handle into the night. I was scared for the winds and the sound of rain, pitter pat, pitter pat, pitter pat. Our attendant, Julio, was outside. Surprisingly some people were on their terraces also watching. Suddenly I started to understand what was happening when I saw what was about me. There was no garbage, no cars were on the street, and every store was closed. Usually New York is a bit dirty, and always bustling. It was a strange sight. I was trembling, and my face was pale. “Can we go inside so I can read, dad?” I asked my dad. He responded, “Of course, man.” He opened the door and, with his hand around my small eight-year-old shoulders, led me through. I was shocked, usually he would have said something like “Oh, it’s not that bad dude,” but this time I really think he didn’t want me to feel scared or frightened. I thought back to my other times with my dad. I realize now that he would never have brought me out if the storm was that bad. Maybe he was different than I thought at the time. I was so shocked actually that I didn’t look where I was going and banged into the door. As I went up the elevator again, I was relieved it was over. I had been frightened when I went outside. Images still passed through me, like when I saw that car driving and skidding to a halt at a red light. Finally it dinged 5, and I stepped out into the hotness of my floor. I felt safe again, feeling as though I was back home, with my family. The lights illuminated the area in a mysterious way, a way that always spooked me out. I stepped in, and I grabbed The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and read in my bed. I flipped the page and listened to the crinkle of the book, and the winds. As I was reading, I began to think. Did I actually believe my dad would, on purpose, let me get hurt? I didn’t think so. After all, he was my dad, and dads don’t let their children get hurt, especially my dad. I was actually regretting that I hadn’t stayed outside with my dad and experienced the hurricane more. Then, I thought maybe this realization wouldn’t have happened. I think that seeing my dad do that, my thought of me knowing everything about him, changed. I learned he does know my limit and respects it also. Justin Le Veness, 11New York, NY
Sense-of-Place
Allison
The airport was almost empty, with only a few solitary people wandering about the terminal. The silence echoed throughout the building, surrounding us in a hushed stillness. Mom and I stood by the baggage claim and waited for her friend to come. “Mom,” I whispered. “I do not want to do this.” “Shush, Lena,” she replied. “I’ve been promising Liza we’d visit for years now, ever since you were a baby.” “I didn’t want to come. I don’t want to spend the summer in the middle of nowhere.” “I’ve known Liza since grade school, you know. We’re old friends. We always planned to live next door to one another, but then she moved with her husband when the war started . . .” I stopped listening. Mom didn’t notice; she was completely wrapped up in memory. I was angry at her, anyhow, for dragging me to the middle of nowhere, to visit her friend and her friend’s children in Kentucky for the summer of 1981. A whole summer lost! I always spent summers at home in our upper-class Manhattan neighborhood, with my friends. “Susan!” I looked up in surprise. A large, red-faced woman was rushing toward my mother with her arms outstretched and a huge smile on her face. “Liza!” Mom squealed, returning the hug. The woman who was my mother’s best friend peered down at me. The Kentucky countryside was beautiful, with rolling green hills and grassy farmland “I do declare, Susie!” she said. “This sure can’t be the baby who you told me about, can it? Why, this girl is all but a young lady already!” Liza smiled at me. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. “Sure’s gonna be hot out today,” Liza said as we walked to her car, an ancient tan pickup truck. “Y’all is gonna be a mite hot in them skirts an’ tights you’re wearing. My kids’re all in shorts by mid- April, yep.” I looked down at my plaid skirt and white tights, noticing that I was already beginning to perspire. We drove along the road. It was already blistering hot outside, but the Kentucky countryside was beautiful, with rolling green hills and grassy farmland. We passed several crystal-clear streams and swimming holes. Liza’s farm was on a hillside. She grew tomatoes and corn and pumpkins, but she didn’t actually do the work herself. “I got me a few hired workers,” she told Mom and me. The house was wooden, but painted yellow on the outside. Inside, it was slightly messy but comfortable. Liza looked around as we entered. “My kids are all over the place these days,” she told Mom. “I’ve got four of them. My oldest, John, is at college. The others are Sam, Allison, and the littlest, Beth. Sam’s sixteen, Beth’s seven, and Allison is just about Lena’s age.” She didn’t mention her husband. Just then a girl ran through the back door, dressed in cut-off shorts and a yellow T-shirt. She was barefoot, and her golden hair streamed out behind her back. She was out of breath from running, her cheeks pink, hazel eyes sparkling. Liza smiled at her. “There you are, Allison. I was just telling Susan and Lena about you, I was.” She turned to me. “Lena, this is my daughter Allison.” Allison sized me up, then smiled. “I’ll show you your room,” she said, leading me up the stairs. “You’re in with me and Beth, and I guess your mom is on the couch.” She opened the door to a room, with twin beds and a cot on the floor. The room wasn’t painted, but there was a window looking out across the fields. “You can have the bed, I don’t mind the cot,” Allison told me. I put my suitcase on one of the beds. “Do you want to look around the farm?” she asked. I shrugged. “OK,” I agreed. Allison showed me the barn. “We’ve got horses, two of them. One’s brown, named Chocolate, and the other’s dappled. A real show horse, but we keep her for a pet really. Her name’s Moon Light. Beth named her that.” Allison led me around the property, over the grassy hills and to the woods. The land was beautiful, fertile, not at all like the city. I fell in love with it at once. Allison pointed out her favorite trees, and the patterns of a spider web, raccoon tracks and hawks. The sun cast a golden glow, shining its light on the wildflowers and the land. I felt freer than I had ever felt in my life. Allison smiled and laughed and sang little tunes. “I love this place,” she told me. “I already do, too,” I said. And I meant it. Allison smiled. * * * The days passed quickly in Kentucky. Allison showed me the swimming hole and her secret paths through the woods. She taught me how to ride Moon Light, the dappled horse. Soon I had traded my stiff skirts for a pair of cutoffs and T-shirts. Allison showed me the land, showed me how to whittle fishhooks and to build a fire. And she showed me sunrises. I had seen sunrises before, of course, at home in New York. I watched them idly, usually half-asleep, listening to Mom and Dad talking in the kitchen. Dad hadn’t come on the trip. He didn’t like travel. Allison never mentioned her father, but she asked me an awful lot about mine. We would be walking along a path, and out of the blue she would say, “Does your father like flowers? Or is that just mothers?” And I was never sure if she was talking in general or about my parents in particular. One of the first mornings there, I awoke in the soft bed, with the red-and-blue quilt pulled over me. Someone was shuffling around the room, opening the bureau drawers and putting on clothes. It wasn’t even light out yet, the sky a pale gray that let
A Beautiful Memory
This Saturday morning I slept in. I knew I didn’t have to get up for anything except a tennis lesson at one o’clock. When I finally rolled out of bed at eleven, I stumbled downstairs to get breakfast. Today it was hard-boiled eggs and toast. I ate thankfully, for I was hungry, as I often am in the morning. After I had my fill, I wandered upstairs and remembered I had homework. I had to read, do a geography worksheet, and write a flashback piece. I sat and thought about what I would write, and eventually went back to my delicious breakfast. Then I remembered a certain day not too long ago, when I did a certain thing that I’ll never forget . . . and ate a certain breakfast of hard-boiled eggs. It was a chilly morning, as the mornings in the Adirondack Mountains so often are, and the moon was full and bright. Beep, beep, beep, beep . . . “Oy! Stupid alarm clock.” I snuggled farther down into my covers. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. “All right, all right!” I turned it off. I relished that last moment under my covers, and made a brave dash out of my bed, and fairly leapt into my jeans, two shirts, two sweatshirts, and heavy socks. I shivered. Yes, it was a cold morning. It was also four-thirty AM! I did about ten jumping jacks to get my body heat up and blood moving. I streaked for the bathroom where I quickly brushed my teeth, and pulled my hair up into a messy ponytail. I jumped out in a minute and laced up my hiking boots. I climbed the stairs two at a time and found three other people in the kitchen, all looking slightly fatigued. The first was my mother, who was dumping hot water and tea bags into the thermos. The second was my grandmother, who was hurriedly packing our breakfast into a couple of backpacks. The third was my grandfather, who was puttering around trying to make himself useful, and generally getting in the way. It was quite a hustle and bustle with a lot of shushing to Grandpa because he was “surely going to wake Bill,” my dad—the lazybones!—who couldn’t pry himself out of bed at that hour. Soon I pushed everyone out the door, whether they were ready or not. It was five already, and we wanted to get to our special destination in time. We piled into the car and drove off. Then I remembered a certain day not too long ago . . . We had all been staying in my grandparents’ house, their summer house. We love that house. It is so big that sometimes all eight of my cousins and my aunts and uncles stay there for a little while. The house is on a lake called Piseco Lake in the small town of Piseco, New York. At one end of the lake is “The Club.” That’s what all the old-timers and those who have been going there all their lives call it. Its fancy name is “The Irondequoit Inn.” It has a tennis court, a big field full of grasshoppers, four cabins that are rented, lots of rooms, and a beach where we swim and fool around. About a half mile out on the water is an island, which—very originally—we call “The Island.” It is a very nice island with a twisty narrow path through it and one small beach with a sharp drop-off. Mountains, some small, some big, and one called Panther, surround the lake. A road rings it too, and on that road our car was speeding along about five-fifteen that morning. There is a small dirt parking lot on the side of the road. We pulled into it. After unloading the car of all our gear, we started the ascent. We had flashlights to light our way, for it was still dark. We climbed and climbed. On the way, I found out that we were doing something that Mom did when she was my age, but not since, and something that Grandma had done when she was eleven, and again when Mom was my current age. We concentrated on the path, for it was easy to wander into the forest if you weren’t paying attention. I led the group, acting as “McDuff” or so my dad often says. It started to get a little lighter out, and we nervously looked over toward the eastern horizon and walked more quickly. Up near the top, I had to turn off the flashlight from time to time and stick it in my pocket so I could clamber up the rocks. Though not at this time of day, I had climbed this mountain many times, and I knew the tricks of the trail, where not to step because it is often muddy, and which trees are sturdy enough to hang onto. Suddenly, we came out onto a big flat rock on the top of the mountain. We sat down, exhausted. We opened up the thermos, and poured tea to warm ourselves. Grandma opened the bread bag and out came cinnamon-sugar-and-butter sandwiches. She opened the last bag, and eight hard-boiled eggs emerged. We ate, pouring bits of salt from the little packets on our eggs and catching pieces of crumbly yolk in our laps. Around six-ten, the sun started to rise. A brisk wind blew up, and we huddled together to keep warm. Then a sliver of brilliant peach-colored light poked out from behind the horizon. The light grew. Gray rocks and dark green pines began to take on color. The breeze softened as the darkness disappeared. We watched the mist swirl, uncurl, and disintegrate, as if by magic. As the mist went, the lake below and its forested surroundings revealed themselves. Around seven, it was all over, and we moseyed on down Panther Mountain with a wonderful memory of a sunrise and hard-boiled eggs in our minds. Emma Loizeaux, 11Hyattsville, Maryland
