Personal Narative Ess@y

Currier 1

Sarah Currier

Prof. Paige Reihl

English 1121, Section 30

5 September 2017

Terrible Expectations

Quiet gasps of air struggled through my tight throat as I sprinted across the grass. Barefoot, my feet kicking up loose shards, the weeds scratching at my ankles, I ran to the only near hiding spot. My narrow nose refused to silently breathe, so my hand clamped over my mouth to cover my wheezing. My heart beat slammed against my head, overpowering my smothered breathing and the rustle of the reeds.

“Ready or not, here I come!” my adversary bellowed, taunting me.

My body flattened against the ground in the bed of pond plants. Spots of light scattered around me, the sun filtered by the trees above. A loud growl made me nearly jolt in my spot, until I quickly realized that it was my stomach. My thoughts wandered to lunch, which would be served in about half an hour. To take my focus off my grumbling stomach, I looked at a piece of a reed stalk. It was thick, green with slight browning along the sides and tall enough to cover a lying down nine-year-old girl when there are multiple plants in a group. This one piece was no different than the others, yet I was intrigued by it. I reached out and gripped the stalk, for no reason other than to touch its smooth stem. A large foot slammed itself down right next to my closed fist. Then, a squishy rock smacked me in the face.

“Ew, what the heck!” I squealed.

“What do you mean? I found you,” she mocked, as if I were too stupid to figure that out.

I craned my neck to look up at her face, since I was still lying on the ground. She looked back at me, sneering. The spots of sun glittered on the top of her smooth, brown hair. Two pigtail braids ran down the sides of her head. In a pretty sundress, she looked as innocent as any little girl, but I knew of the demon hiding inside. I squinted at her, like a scientist trying to explain the behavior of a new specimen.

In comparison, we were very different: my frizzy, blond mess of hair versus her styled braids. My shorts and T-shirt to her dress. Our physical differences were just the beginning. Perhaps that’s why we were friends, as well as enemies.

We both glared at each other for what could have been a full minute. It would have been longer if something didn’t move in the corner of my eye. I realized that it was a toad that jumped and hit me in the face. My conclusion came from the fact that there was a toad trying to slowly hop away from me. I grabbed the toad’s soft underbelly. Finally, I got up from my hiding spot, leaving a large indent in the reeds, and slowly walked toward my friend, holding the toad like a fragile piece of glass.

Makayla, my enemy and friend, was not as interested in the creature as I was. She looked at it and shrugged, turning back toward her house.

“Put the frog back. It’ll give you warts and it’s not fun to play with anyway,” she said.

“What do you mean there’s nothing to do with it? We could race it with another frog or something like that,” I tried to reason with her. I couldn’t find a good idea to do with the toad, but I didn’t want to let him loose. His fat body squirmed in my hands, his little toes tickling my fingers. The skin on his back was dry, rough, and filled with bumps, yet his belly was soft, moist, and smooth. The color resembled the pond he was near, a muddy green. He was an interesting new toy.

“Fine, then put him in a bucket. I have an idea,” she stated simply.

She was acting secretive and refused to tell me what she had planned. We ran through her backyard to the sand box, purposefully dodging the scattered trees, to feel the burst of wind from changing direction. In that moment, my friend switched into my enemy once again, and we were racing. Two competitive people running alongside one another never stays that simple. Gently gripping the toad, not paying attention to the harm my swinging arms were causing it, I tried extending my legs to match the steps of my tall foe. Despite my efforts, I reached our destination a few seconds after her.

The effects of my asthma were apparent once again, as I felt my throat constrict with each gasp. Makayla sat in the sandbox, waiting for me to regulate my breathing. I sat down on the edge of the sandbox, waiting for the gasping to stop. I looked back to the edge of the pond we just ran from. It was two houses away, making me feel ashamed that I struggle to run that far. Sighing, I scanned the backyards. There was no fence separating the houses, so Makayla and I considered everyone’s backyard our playground. Each yard was filled with scattered oaks, each providing a fun climbing adventure. There was one fence along the back of everyone’s yard, separating them from the denser forest.

“Are you done, yet?” Makayla asked, interrupting my observations.

I inhaled dramatically one last time. “All good to go!” I chirped.

Rolling her eyes, Makayla handed me a small, yellow pail. I grabbed the bucket and dropped the toad inside. His body made a “thud” against the plastic, but it hadn’t fully registered to me that this was a living thing that can get hurt. He stretched his body on the sides of the bucket, looking for a way to escape. His hands made tiny thumps against the plastic.

“Here, let’s use this,” Makayla said, while handing me a short, plastic bat.

“What for? We lost the baseball, remember?” I reminded her.

She handed me a small glob of putty. The green goo was slimy, nearly liquid.

“I want to see this splat against my fence. Roll it in a ball and hit it toward my fence,” she said, enunciating her directions.

I put my hands together and rolled the goo into a small ball. As soon as I stopped rolling the putty, it immediately began losing its shape. I knew I had to hurry or it wouldn’t be a ball anymore. I took the tiny toy bat and aimed myself toward her tall fence. The fence wasn’t very pretty ; it was tall, the paint was a faded gray and was peeling off, tiny holes where it’s been worn down by weather covered most it. I took my deformed ball of putty, threw it into the air, and swung. I waited for it to splat against the fence, the green goo oozing into the holes of the wood. When I didn’t see the splat, I realized that the goo just wrapped itself around my bat.

“Darn, I really want something to splat against the fence,” I complained. The image of cartoonish green goo splatting onto the fence with a wet thud replayed through my mind.

“I have another idea!” Makayla exclaimed. She ran to the yellow bucket and handed me the toad. “I’m sure it will make a cool splat.”

I took the toad from her and felt his back. He was hard, and there was no conceivable reason to think he would squash the way I wanted, but the image of his insides continued to play through my head. The image was still a cartoonish goo, proving that I was only thinking of the toad as a toy. I took his hard body and threw him in the air. Time was nonexistent at this point. His small body tucked into itself in defense. I held my breath waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The image of a gooey splatter slowly dissolved as he made connection with my bat. A “plink” of the bat and a “thud” from the toad brought me back to reality.

Realization to what I had done brought me to tears. Makayla was whooping and cheering. I slowly stepped toward the toad, now hidden in the grass. Ashamed, I examined his body. He did not splat like my expectations told me he would. It was not fun, nor exhilarating. My “toy” was an innocent creature that now looked like a circus performer. His leg was bent around his body, shattered. When I picked him up, his back no longer had distinct bones prodding my hands. He didn’t squirm. I turned him over to examine his soft belly. It was covered in brown goo oozing out of a tear in his skin. It was disgusting; my actions, his body, and the fact that my friend found this dead toad much more interesting than when he was alive.

“What’s the matter? That was awesome!” My friend cheered. She grinned at me like there was no problem about what I had just done. Animals were merely playthings for her. For me, I couldn’t understand why I did that. I liked the toad. His soft belly was fun to touch, but moments after enjoying that part of him, I imagined it bursting against the old fence. Tears welled up in my eyes, like raindrops pooling into a leaf, they began streaming out.

“Dang, if you’re that upset about a stupid frog then let’s have a burial,” Makayla said, looking disgusted by the fact that I was crying.

“He was a toad! Of course, I am sad. I killed him!” I yelled at her, though it was incoherent since I was sobbing.

She shrugged, “Fine, let’s perform the ceremony.” She announced it like it was another game.

I glared at her indifference, but I, too, wanted to give him burial. We placed him in the yellow bucket that confined him. We filled it with dirt to bury him. It was impossible to tell that this was supposed to be a respectful ceremony because it was literally two kids filling a bucket with dirt, but that’s not how I saw it. I wanted to make sure that people knew that it was a burial, so Makayla and I gathered leaves for a tombstone. We chose a green maple leaf. The dirt barely supported the leaf, so the grave was pathetic. When we were finished, we both took a step back and examined our handy work. Dark dirt was crumbling off the top of the contrasting yellow bucket. The maple leaf had already fallen over and was hanging off the edge of the bucket.

“Whatever, let’s just go perform the ceremony now,” Makayla said. She was getting impatient and didn’t care how it looked.

At this point, I didn’t care about the look either. I just wanted to forget it even happened. “Okay, let’s go to the pond,” I replied.

We both crouched down by the pond and placed the bucket into the water. We each put one hand on the bucket and pushed. Immediately, it tipped over, leaving the tiny maple leaf floating on the water, and the bucket lost to the pond. Another idea that didn’t reach our expectations. Makayla and I sat there watching the leaf float over to the other side of the pond. Neither of us said a word. Even Makayla now seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. The pond shimmered from the sun. The breeze caused the water to slap at our feet. It was a beautiful day, unaffected by what was done.

“Makayla! It’s time for lunch!” Makayla’s mom hollered from her deck.

“Coming!” she yelled back. She turned to me, “Are you eating lunch with us?”

I shook my head, “No, thank you. I’m going to go home.”

I got up from the pond and made my way across the street without turning to say goodbye. I cried that night as I tried to sleep, the event replaying constantly in my mind.

Every so often, I think about what happened to the toad. The expectations for what we had planned were brutal and unrealistic. The desire for something to do overpowered our sense of morality and innocence. Idle minds are dangerous because they are desperate for something to occupy them.