Alright, then. Here we go.
Melissa was going to ride her bike across the waterfall.
It wasn’t the kind of waterfall that drops off a high ledge or a cliff. It wasn’t the kind of waterfall that people would come to marvel at or take pictures of. It was the kind of waterfall that some people wouldn’t call a waterfall. They’d call it river rapids. Or maybe, in this case, a fast-moving, downhill stream.
But to Melissa it was clearly a waterfall. The water was falling, quickly, from up the rocky slope, foaming and crashing and spraying as it hit rocks and flowed down into calmness again at the bottom.
Not that Melissa even worried about what anyone else would call it or why she thought it was a waterfall. It just was a waterfall—the waterfall, actually. In all her riding through these woods over the past month—ever since she had moved with her mom to their new home—she hadn’t seen anything like this. Everywhere else in the woods, the stream moved slowly, crawling through the forest like a slug. Here, though, the stream got excited. Here, the stream yelled and danced and did whatever it wanted to do.
And Melissa was going to join it.
With her eyes, she followed the path she wanted to take—down the steep dirt path in front of her, hemmed in on both sides by leafy trees and weeds and vines, crushed all against each other and hanging over the path. Then her face would hit the cloud of gnats hovering at the water’s edge, but so what—she’d just close her eyes and mouth for a second. The hill would give her enough speed to power her halfway across the shallow part of the waterfall straight ahead. And then she would pound the pedals and shoot right across, wet but victorious. And in this heat, she would dry soon anyway.
Melissa got ready. She flipped her long, stringy, sweaty hair back. She gripped the squishy rubber handlebars and twisted them as if she were revving the engine of a motorcycle. She lifted the tip of her right foot onto the pedal.
She pushed herself forward.
Down she went—faster than she had expected. Her chest felt tight with fear. She bit down on her lip. Her front tire wobbled as she struggled to get her left foot flat on the pedal. Her back tire wobbled as it rolled over the bumps in the trail. A thin tree branch smacked her forehead.
She had reached the edge of the water in no time at all. She focused her mind on keeping her balance, on not letting the slippery rocks and charging water toss her to the side. She gripped the handlebars even tighter. In the meantime, though, she completely forgot to close her mouth and eyes.
Melissa got a mouthful of gnats. And a couple of eyefuls, too.
Halfway blind and completely nauseated, she began to spit and blink furiously. Then her front tire hit the water. Immediately, she started to slip to the side, but with a deft turn of the handlebars righted herself and fixed her bike on the straight path across to safety. Melissa looked down and, through the tears and floating black dots in her eyes, saw the water flowing over the bottom of her tire, churning and frothing through the spokes. She had joined the waterfall. Or, better yet, conquered it.
Almost. She spat loudly into the water and looked up. And standing there, where she had expected to see only the clear path to the other side, was a small boy holding two full plastic shopping bags out to his sides, his eyes wide with terror.
Melissa collided with him.
2 comments:
A promising start.
Yay! Glad you are starting a new series that Lyndsey will think is your book.
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