March Swimming
One
hot March day my cousin Sam and I decided to go tanning. It was the kind of hot
someone feels when they go into a sauna. It wasn’t humid, more of a dry heat
like you would find in the desert. Sam and I got the nasty sticky bottle of
tanning spray out of the cupboard. We walked outside and put it on because my
Aunt Wendie said, “I don’t want that nasty shit on my floors”. Clear enough. We
got the spray and went outside. I had a black bikini on with white shorts and
Sam had a pink bikini on with jean cut off’s. It was March in Vermont and it felt exciting to begin to
remember what spring and summer might feel like again.
I sprayed Sam down and rubbed it in on those spots where it’s hard to reach. The spray was cold on our hot sweaty bodies and every time the spray got on us, we flinched. Now we were ready for adventure. We started by heading over to the trampoline. Then Sam’s little sister Kenady asked us to go for a bike ride. So we went and got the bikes out of the old musty shed that has been there forever. One of the bikes had a flat tire, but that didn’t set us back. We filled the tire up with some air over in the garage. After that it was time to reapply; more tanning lotion and we were off on our bikes.
We decided to go down to the river for crayfish hunting. We raced and did bike tricks all the way down to the river. I started to notice this odd feeling. It was March in Vermont and we were running around in our swimsuits. The space around us looked dead; nothing looked alive but instead was brown and grey. The trees didn’t even have buds on them. But there we were in our summer outfits having our summer fun. Something was off. By the time we got to the river, hot sweat was rolling off us. Sam looked at me then looked at the river. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was going to push me in. But I beat her to it. I ran and got behind her and shoved her in. She grabbed my arm as she was falling in and I followed right behind her.
The water was so cold it made you feel like ice was forming all over you. My heart was beating very slowly, it felt like it was going to stop. It took all my strength to pull my freezing body out of the water. My body felt numb and I felt as if I could barely move. Kenady yelled to us as we made our way out of the water, her voice was muffled through our frozen ears. First we thought she was hurt. “It’s a crayfish!” she yelled “Meg, Sam a crayfish!”. Sam and I caught it with our bare hands. Then we found another one and another one, they were everywhere. It was like a crayfish invasion.
Before we headed home, we counted the crayfish; twenty-eight in total. I wanted to keep these crayfish and an idea started to hatch. Back home, we put the crayfish in clean water in the cooler. My Mom called and said that it was time for me to come home. Sam and I loaded up the crayfish in to the truck and started on our way back to my house. I searched for the an old fish tank in my garage and set it up in my room. I strategically placed a bunch of hiding spots in the tank for the crayfish. They like small dark places to crawl under, places where they can be hidden and not seen. I carefully placed the crayfish into the tank. The next morning when I got up, one of the crayfish had laid eggs! Now I’m going to have hundreds of tiny crayfish.
No comments:
Post a Comment