I survived the canoe trip OK, but I barely survived Mom.
Dear Dad,
We need to talk.
I survived the canoe trip OK, but I barely survived Mom.
We put the canoe and the rest of our gear into the back of Donnie’s truck and headed up to the park. We unloaded by 10 and figured we be to the pick-up spot by about 3. Donnie’s mom made sure we had Donnie’s cell phone in a Ziploc bag. Donnie even opened the bag to make sure it was charged and on. Last but not least, she made us promise to keep our lifejackets on.
We got into the water and started floating down the river. It was awesome. Even at 10 it was already pretty warm. I took my life jacket off and sat on it. I was just wearing sandals, cargo shorts and a t-shirt.
The river was high, but most of the time it was pretty mellow. We planned on taking it easy, anyway. We talked with Donnie’s dad the night before and promised that if we came to anything too rough, we’d carry the canoe around it. Donnie’s dad called this a “portage,” which sounded cool in a Lewis-and-Clark sort of way.
So that’s how it went for a long time. We shot a few small rapids and portaged a few big ones. After a couple hours, we stopped at a sandbar and ate lunch—sandwiches, water, brownies and Fritos. No Bugles. Then we skipped rocks for a while, until Donnie said we should get going, because he knew that if we were very late his mom would freak.
It was really warm by then, until the river went into this kind of canyon where the sun couldn’t get. The canyon kept getting narrower. Cliff walls went about 30 feet up on both sides. Lots of shadows. No banks.
Up ahead, I could hear rapids, but I couldn’t tell how big they were or how far away. We paddled stupidly toward them.
We came around a bend and the rapids sucked us right in. They weren’t too bad at first, but we could see curling whitewater ahead. Donnie let a few curse words fly and we both started paddling for the smoothest section of water. Then the river grabbed us and started slamming us around. Right in front of us, a huge boulder seemed to pop out of nowhere. The river spun us sideways right toward it. We slammed into the boulder so hard that Donnie and I instantly flipped out of the boat. The river sucked Donnie downstream. I grabbed the bottom of the upside down canoe and held on through the rapids, banging my shins on rocks as I went.
I caught up to Donnie a few minutes later. We dogpaddled the canoe over to the bank and lied on the muddy shore, catching our breath. After a few minutes we turned the canoe over and saw the hole in the side. It was about as big as a softball and below the waterline.
We’d lost most of our stuff, including Donnie’s cell phone and cooler, my life jacket and both paddles. We were soaked and cold and about ten miles from our pick-up point at the Highway 18 Bridge.
We tried stuffing a wadded-up t-shirt into the hole in the canoe, but the water still pored through. We ended up stashing the canoe in some bushes on the river’s edge, then started walking. Most of the way, it wasn’t too bad, because there were train tracks that followed the river. But it felt like it took forever.
When we reached the pick-up spot no one was there. There was no place to call and we had no phone, so we started walking toward Donnie’s house, another couple miles away. We finally got there about dark—eight o’clock—and there were a bunch of cop cars out front. Mom’s car was there, too.
I guess they all thought we were dead. At six, Donnie’s mom called the cops and the cops sent out Search and Rescue. The Search and Rescue guys found the canoe and my life jacket and were scouring the bank for our bodies.
The police lectured us, lectured Mom and Donnie’s parents, then left. Then me and Mom left and she started lecturing me. She was really upset. She started crying while she was driving. I asked her why, since I was OK. She said she thought she’d lost another of her children.
I knew what she was talking about. Meredith. The sister I never met who died as a baby. Mom
Dad, does this have something to do with your shame?
Your son,
Trevor
We’re gonna drop our canoe in there.
Dear Dad,
I don’t know what I might do about the cookie contest, but Brian Haase pulled one of the flyers off the wall and showed it to me.
“Do you know what this is?” he said. “This–this is opportunity.”
“Opportunity to do what?”
“To do–something! We need to talk.”
We haven’t talked yet, but I kind of liked Brian’s spirit. His eyes were all wide and little spots on his cheeks got all red. It reminded me how he used to look when we got in fights in 5th grade. Besides, doing something seems a lot like what you’re always talking about. Doing versus not doing.
Tomorrow is Saturday. Tonight I’m going to spend the night at Donnie’s house and then in the morning his mom is going to bring us up to Flaming Geyser State Park. We’re gonna drop our canoe in there and paddle down the Green River to the Highway 18 Bridge. Donnie’s bringing a cellphone in a Ziploc bag so that we can call her when we get there so she can pick us up. It should be pretty fun. It’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow and Donnie says his mom bought us a whole bunch of junk food to eat along the way. I hope she bought Bugles. Donnie always has Bugles in his lunch. They’re kind of delicious.
Remember Mrs. Fletcher, my math teacher? She’s still as evil as ever and today, to prove it, she gave us a test on algebra, which we’ve never studied. When I reminded her of this, she said, “I’m fully aware of what we have and have not studied, Mr. Griffiths. However, those of you who do well enough on this test will be admitted directly into algebra next year, instead of waiting until 9th grade. The rest of you will take the ordinary track to pre-algebra.”
It seems pretty stupid. How are we supposed to do well on a test when we’ve never studied the stuff? Anyway, I took the test. I knew more of it than I thought. We’ll find out next week, I guess.
Wish me luck on my canoe trip,
Your son,
Trevor