Jace

Honors English 8

September 29, 2003

Too Hot to Handle

It was one of the hottest days of the year. It was too hot to ride bikes, but not too hot, we thought, to ride go-carts. I didn't have much homework, so I decided to call Joey. He had ridden the bus to his grandmother's house. We agreed to meet on the go-cart trail in about five minutes. We had a great time riding for about 45 minutes. We found ourselves going opposite directions on the trail, so I said, "Hey, Joey, I'll turn around and meet you at the end of the trail." I should never have done that!

Just as Joey got out of sight, I began to turn around. While I was turning around, my go-cart went dead. My go-cart had gone dead twice already, but I was always able to crank it. Unfortunately, my go-cart has to be started by hand. I got out and started pulling the cord to crank it.

I pulled it once -- nothing; twice and I realized that the cord was frayed. Then I pulled it a third time and guess what? It broke! I said to myself aloud, "This isn't happening to me!" I tried to calm down. Keep in mind that the road and Joey are out of sight because I'm deep in the woods nearly a mile from the road.

Unable to push the go-cart myself, I walked back to the road and found Joey. As I pulled the cord from my pocket, I said, "You won't believe what happened." Joey laughed and said, "Hop on the side of my go-cart and I'll take you half-way there." We couldn't make it all the way back on Joey's go-cart because it wasn't strong enough to pull both our weight. Joey parked his go-cart and said, "Let's walk the rest of the way."

When we got to my go-cart we realized there was nothing we could do to fix it. I got in and drove while Joey pushed to a short cut. He pushed me downhill and left to go get his go-cart. We don't normally use the short cut because it cuts across someone else's property, but in this case, we made an exception. The short cut trail is about one football field to the road. My go-cart coasted to a stop and I had to get out and push the rest of the way.

By the time Joey caught up with me I had already pushed it all the way to the road. The most horrible part of the trip was yet to come. Joey and I pushed the go-cart the rest of the way home, all uphill. Going up our driveway isn't that bad unless you are pushing a huge go-cart that is in gear. About two thirds of the way up, I hit my shin on the back of the go-cart. "YEOW!" I screamed.

At the top of my driveway, stood my worst enemy, my sister. She was eating a piece of fruit, and she said, "Jace, what's wrong? Why are you pushing the go-cart?" She came down the hill and started trying to push the go-cart with one hand which really wasn't much help. Being in such a great mood, I said, "Get AWAY!!!" three of four times. I shoved her away. She ran to my mom screaming, "MOM! Jace hit me!" By then she had managed to work up some tears. I was about two seconds away from having a heat stroke when my mom came outside and started yelling at me. Joey and I put the go-cart away and he left.

My mom was mad at me. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, Joey called me on the telephone to tell me the end of the go-cart story. "Jace," he said, "You're not going to believe what happened to me after I left." Joey said, "On the way home, I hit some barbed wire and my tire went down. I didn't think too much of it until I heard my tire go 'POP' and it went flat. Then I was riding home on the rim and the chain was dragging the ground. Just as I topped the biggest hill, the chain link broke and the chain flew off 10 feet into the woods. I had to get on the go-cart with one foot and ride it like a skateboard all the way home." I laughed when I remembered that Joey had just gotten new tires yesterday. It was just one of those days when nothing seemed to go right.