Sals Journal
by Sal (Avery McClure)
Road Trip
Cruising through south Dakota, with my grandparents, on a LONG road trip.
Everything about that scares me! The only reason I went was to see my mother again, and so my grandparents wouldn’t get into trouble. It seems as if every time they drive they get almost get arrested and lost. There was one time they actually were arrested! We saw an open space of the Mississippi river, and decided to take a dip. Since it was already so hot in the car gram and gramps had already striped down to their undergarments! They were in the water before I could get out of the car! They called me in but I had a bad feeling about it. I looked to the left, to the right, behind me, above me, in front of me, and below me. Not a soul in sight. But I still had the feeling someone was watching. We sat cooling off, it was so calming and relaxing. My hair swirled in the river, I started thinking about how my mother left. One week before she had cut her long black hair off. I promised my dad I wouldn’t do the same. I saved her hair, wrapped it in a Ziploc bag, and hid it under my floor. It was still back at my old room, along with all of the postcards.
Then a boy appeared from nowhere. I hid behind gramps. The boy was a teen with long dark hair. My gramps, not nervous at all unlike me, said "howdy". The boy replied "This is my private property". This was why I had the bad feeling. After a little more arguing, gram let out a squeal. She reached into the water and pulled out a water moccasin. It had bit her leg. We needed to get her to the hospital and fast. The country boy was helping too, he pointed us to the nearest hospital, and sucked the venom out of grams calf. Gram ended up spending the night in the hospital. The country bot was sitting in the waiting room. I handed him a fifty dollar bill. I told him it was from gramps, and that he would deliver it himself, but he couldn’t leave gram. As he was finding a spot to sleep he said he liked my hair and not to cut it. He was about to go to sleep and said, "it wasn't really private property". Knew it.