A/N to my readers: This is a story that I'm entering for a contest. Feel free to read!
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I sit in our truck nervously. Lane called me last week and we set up a Saturday for me to come over to her house. At least someone cares about me. I moved schools in January and she was the only friend I made. If she didn't call and ask for me to hang out, I don't know who would've. My summer vacation would've been pretty boring. However, I'm still nervous about what impression I'll make.
We pull into the driveway of her house. It's a nice house, really. The typical brick house. It looks cozy. I climb out of the truck nervously and say goodbye to my dad. He said he'd pick me up at 2:00. It's 9:00 right now.
Lane appears at the door before I even set foot on her carport.
"Welcome," she says warmly and embracing me.
I smile a little and look behind her to see a small boy standing on the steps leading up to their door. I guess you could say he's a bit mousy—practically a short bean pole with short, dark brown hair and oval glasses.
Lane notices me staring (a bad habit that I have) and gestures to the boy. "This is my little brother, David," Lane says. "You probably haven't seen him since he's still in elementary school. He's a grade below you." Lane is a grade above me, so this all lines up age-wise. David waves a shy hello and disappears inside.
Lane leads me up the steps and inside the house. I'm right: it is cozy. I walk in to see a wooden kitchen table with a counter behind it and the kitchen beyond. If you keep headed forward, there's a hallway that leads off to bedrooms with another part branching off to the right in what I assume leads to the living room.
I greet Lane's parents as I walk past the living room and down the hall. Lane shows me around her room and we sit on her bed for a little bit, obviously robbed of ideas of what to do.
"What do you do during the summer?" Lane asks me.
"Well," I say. "We go on vacation to see relatives usually in July and I have church camp at the end of the same month but up until then, pretty much nothing."
Lane turns back and stares at the wall, apparently in deep thought. Finally, she turns to me. "I know you like the woods. We have some woods behind our field. We can ask if we can take the mule (ranger) back there and go blackberry picking."
There's nothing else to do, so I agree. Lane goes to ask her parents and they said we could go as long as we brought David along. Lane goes to her cupboard and grabs three mini-sleeves of Saltines and three bottles of water. She strides over to David's bedroom door—first door on the right—and bangs on it.
"Small Child!" she exclaims. "We're taking the mule in the woods, come with!"
David's door opens and he walks out. "Ok," he says.
We don't have any buckets for berry picking, so we settled for a gallon plastic bag. Lane grabs her phone and we head out the door, walking to their shop that held the mule.
The woods are pine, planted by a paper company. Lane is driving—I can't believe I'm actually trusting her not to cause an accident! I'm in the passenger seat and David is sitting in the back. This mule is awesome! It can hold about five people! Theres even a bed in the back so you could fit more.
After a few minutes of turning down multiple paths in the woods, I finally speak up.
"How can I be sure that you guys aren't taking me off to kill me?" I ask. Lane glances at me with a grin on her face.
"We probably would've killed you by now," she's says,"so you can trust us."
"Ok...," I say uncertainly. We keep driving and Lane points out various trails and explains what they lead to. We turn down one that opens up to a clearing leading to a pond. We get off and head toward some blackberry bushes at the edge of the trail bordering the pond.
I get over to the bushes and take a step back. The bushes are growing on about a twenty foot slope. The bottom of the slope is covered in more bushes.
"Be careful," Lane says. "We wouldn't want you rolling down the side of a 'mountain.'"
I chuckle and we all split up to pick berries. I walk over to the bush that David is at.
"Snake!" he yells. "Blue racer!"
"How can you identify snakes that fast?" Lane asks doubtfully.
"Because it was black," David says.
"Any old snake can be black and not be a blue racer," I say. "Anyways, I'm not scared of it."
I stride up to a bush and start picking blackberries. David holds his bag out as I drop the berries in with a plop.
After a few minutes of picking, I look up to see the perfect blackberry. I stretch out on one foot to reach it. I grab the berry, but as I do, I start to slide down the slope.
"I'm slipping!" I shriek. I hear David laughing and Lane looks up on concern and rushes over. I try to get a grip on the slick grass with my worn Nikes, but it doesn't work. I fling my arms out for balance. Luckily, a bramble snags my hair just enough to keep a good grip on me. I relax and regain balance, pulling the bramble out of my hair. A cluster of dirty blonde hair comes out of my bun and falls to the side of my face.
"Are you okay!?" Lane exclaims.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm fine." I put the blackberry in the bag and continue picking, this time within my reach.
After a few minutes, we drive to a different patch along a gravel road that has no slope to it whatsoever (luck for me). Lane said that the road is for trucks to go to the gas wells in the woods.
Anyway, this blackberry patch has the mother load of blackberries. David even got a metal pole and hacked a path through the patch to reach the good ones in the middle. We pick for about an hour and end up with a quarter bag full of blackberries. The sun is beating down on us as we pick and our arms and hands are stinging from the bramble thorns. Our clothes keep getting snagged along with our hair. My hands are stained purple and Lane said that we'd probably have more blackberries if I wasn't eating on the job.
Despite the early June heat, the stinging, and the snags (not to mention almost falling down the side of a "mountain"), we drive back to Lane's house happy. We even see two deer in the road on the way back.
"I had fun," I say to Lane when we're parking the mule in the shop.
Lane smiles. "That's good. You should come over again."
"Do you always do this during the summer?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says. "We don't have much else to do, but we still have fun."
I nod. "Yeah, we should totally do this again." We walk out of the shop to see my dad's truck parked in Lane's driveway. All three of us whine like little kids when my dad says that I have to go home.
Lane escorts me to my truck. "Till next time," she says.
I nod. "Till next time." I climb in the truck and my dad and I go home. This summer experience is definitely one to remember.
