The Swimming Chipmunk

    In my back yard, there were twelve cement steps leading up to a swimming pool.  The deep end wes ten feet deep and shallow end was three.  There were yellow chairs a white table and a striped umbrella for escaping the sun.  Of couse, swimming was the easiest part of having a pool; keeping clean was the hard part; my brother and I each had a chore to help with this.  Clay, my brother, had to vaccuum the leaves and dirt from the bottom, and I had to empty the filter basket.
I couldn't ever be sure what was going to be in there each time.  Sometimes my chore seemed more like finding treasure that anything else.  I would usually find leaves, pool toys, or strange bugs, but if I was lucky, there would be a frog swimming around, just waiting for me to open the lid and help it out.  So,actually, my chore wasn't that bad.

    One hot, summer day my family,myself and some neighbors were swimming when suddenly I heard soneone yell,"Get it! Quick!" I spun around to see that something was swimming near the edge of the pool.  To our astonishment,a chipmunk had fallen into the water and was swimming!  Who knew chipmunks could swim?  Clay grabbed a net, used for cleaning the pool, and scooped out the shivering creature.  It was wet, of course, but also, it was chestnut brown with two black stripes going down it's back.  I wanted to  keep it; my mother didn't think that was such a great idea.  She said "It's family will miss it."  I didn't seem to have the same school of thought. After much begging and pleading, I was allowed to keep it.  So, into a shoe box it went.

        We thought it looked like a boy beacuse it was brown, so we named him Chippy.  We gave Chippy dry cereal, lettuce and water.  He didn't eat for two days, so we decided to let him go.  We set him free in our small vegetable garden where he scampered away never to be seen again. 
 
    After such an exciting event I couln't wait to tell my friends of my other discoveries.  Someone would usually volunteer to help me clean out the filter basket just to see what would be waiting for us.  Sometimes we would find surprising and interesting things, but nothing was ever as exciting as the swimming chipmunk.