novel writing assignment #3

Assignment #3
January 20, 2011


Across the road from my house was an empty lot which backed onto thousands of acres of forest that lured me with its siren song on many a summer day, and are the subject of some of my fondest memories. Hidden amongst the willows and grasses and wild flowers that were slowly reclaiming the once-cleared area was a trail. Thin, winding and sometimes barely recognizable, it led the way into deeper woods populated with hundred year old pine and spruce that towered toward the heavens and blocked out the sky. More than just a trail, it was a portal, a magical gateway that transported us from everyday life to a world of mystery and infinite possibilities.

The day was warm and it was overcast but bright; it had that quality of light that can only occur on an August morning, deep into the dog days of a child’s tenth summer. We walked through the lot, picking our way around the shrubs and flowers, and found the trail head, barely visible in the grass. We were talking as we walked, discussing whatever irrelevant things that two ten year old boys would converse over. As we stepped into the woods though, a natural silence settled. The light dimmed as we crossed the threshold, and with those few small steps, we entered the portal. The natural background noises of the neighborhood - the lawnmower in the distance, the laughter of the girls that lived up the street, the occasional drone of a car passing by on the highway - all faded away. The air was heavy. It had a feel that I recognized later in life when I visited a three hundred year old cathedral in Central America. A grouse pounded its drumbeat, and a squirrel answered back, shrill and angry. I picked up a walking stick and just like that we were explorers, far from home in a strange and wonderful land.

We took our time as we made our way through the forest, climbing over fallen logs and sticking our heads into burrows dug around the knurled roots of ancient trees. Eventually we came to the tree line, and our destination came into view. An old cut block carved a wide and very long swath through the forest, and in the center laid the purpose of our expedition, the main attraction of the area. A long narrow depression collected runoff and created a pond that was a few feet deep this time of year and was home to countless frogs, tadpoles and salamanders. This was Shangri-La, the greatest possible place that I could have been on a day like this. We broke into smiles at the sight, and hurried across the uneven ground to the waters edge.

Armed with gum boots and ice cream pails, we began our hunt, stalking around the pond in opposite directions. We were looking mainly for jolly jumpers at first, those long skinny frogs with pointy noses and big legs. They liked to hide in the grass on the shore, waiting in ambush for their prey. I crept silently along the bank, carefully checking each clump of grass and pouncing mercilessly on the few unfortunate frogs that found themselves in my sights. We spent most of the morning like this, creeping along the bank or splashing through the mud looking for salamanders, not a care in the world or a thought for the time.

In the meantime, the clouds had thickened and lowered, opening up into a warm late summer downpour. As the drizzle turned into a shower, and finally a full blown rainstorm, we looked around for some shelter. The thought of going home never even occurred to us. There was an old canoe, sun faded and cracked in the middle, on the edge of the pond (the object of several other stories from other days), and we made our way to it. Propping it up on a log, we hunkered down under its protective bulk, laughing and talking as we waited out the storm.

Sometime later the rain stopped, and we gathered our buckets of amphibian gold and slowly made our way back through the trees. As we approached the empty lot, we began to hear our names being called. We had stayed at the pond so long that we had missed lunch, and it was now mid-afternoon. Brian’s mother and my adopted mother had been out for several hours, walking up and down the road in the rain searching for us. As we appeared out of the bush they turned to us with a look of collective fury that put a knot in my stomach. Brian’s mother turned to mine and said something that I will never forget as long as I live.

“Well, I can always claim that mine was an accident, but you asked for yours!”