1st 5 Pages January Workshop - Gallant

Name: Kristin Gallant

Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi

Title: Running Waters

Late June

Razor like scratches, in my throat, cut up as I inhaled and down with the exhale, each time deepening as I raced along.

If I wasted time filling the water bottle before I left, I risked waking Mom. Then there would have been no chance of slipping away without a hundred questions. Though, as I continued on, all nearby wildlife fled, my heaving sounded more like a cat gagging up a hairball. Maybe I should have chanced it.

In the last mile I sped up, my hips jetting out side-to-side in a clumsy fast walk, then increased to a snail paced jog. All while concentrating on filling my lungs with morning dew air rather than taking in painful shallow breaths. A technique Coach Davis added to his torture list of skills for me to practice over the summer, since it would be my first time competing in the fall.

My feet crushed against the gravel, every stride landing heavier than the last. Potholes, scattered throughout the muddy road, made it almost impossible for me to run straight, and I figured I must have added an additional half mile onto my course just by weaving around them. These maneuvers gave the metal screws inside my kneecap an extra workout, enabling them to scrape along the bone.

Up ahead a group of holes stretched across the length of the road. Hopping over the small crater I grit my teeth as I landed. Suck it up Becca. I could do this, but if I didn’t stop soon the metal holding my knee together would most likely start tearing through flesh, or wear down the bone I still had left. I decided to slow before my knee buckled.

Beads of sweat dripped down my cheek, and I brushed them away with the bottom of my sweat soaked shirt. I hugged along the side of the road, under the shade that the tall pine trees provided in the early morning. Even though it wasn't hard to find cover so deep in the woods of New Hampshire, the heat already started to seep in.

School finished for summer vacation, and I had yet to break my internal body clock of its early-morning wake up habit. That, plus the fact that I had another nightmare, I decided to crawl out of bed, trudging outside to work on my cross country timing.

If it wasn’t for the smirk on that junior’s face, leering at me, while her friends all giggled, I wouldn’t have been put in this position. Who would have thought me a runner? Not me, for one. Mom’s panicked calls to the surgeons and doctors clearing me, didn’t help my confidence either.

My watch flashed three miles.

The heaviness of steam rising from the ground and the taste of pine filled my lungs. Unable to close my gaping mouth, needing to take in as much air as it could handle, I continued at my slower pace. At least I no longer sounded like a dying animal, and my swelled knee subsided just enough so that the pulsating no longer threatened to rip a hole through my skin.

My path options were limited, being on the only road that led to my grandfather's house on Juniper Lake. As a matter of fact, it was the only road that led to that corner of the lake. At one time, walking alone, with no one in sight, I had looked over my shoulder at every little noise, allowing thoughts of bears and cougars to take over. But today the songbirds sang to me, echoing throughout the trees.

I reached the part of the road that curved, right before it opened up to views of the lake and Grandpa’s house. For most people it wasn't easy to find the lake. To say that it was hidden was an understatement. It sat in solitude surrounded mostly by undeveloped private land with only a few homes on it and a small campground at one end. I wouldn't have even consider some of them homes but instead summer cabins. Grandpa’s house, tucked away in a corner of the lake, at an inlet, could only be seen by driving your boat down and around, near his end of the lake. Though not too many people would do that as the weeds grew thicker in that corner. It made his home more private than any of the others in the area.

Unlike other lakes, Juniper Lake never became crowded even though the highways, shops, and other lakes would fill up soon enough with vacationers as July approached.

 It had been years since I had been to my grandfather’s, and had missed spending summer days swimming, boating, and being greeted with warm mugs of hot chocolate and marshmallows after a cold day of skating during the winter, but even still I had mixed feelings about visiting. When Mom announced we would be spending our summer at Grandpa's the insides of my stomach dropped and twisted. I knew I should want to be there to help Mom after Grandpa died, but the thought of seeing his house made me want to curl up. He wouldn’t be there today or any day after. No father, and now no grandfather.

It would have been easier not to think about losing him and to just stay home to practice my sprinting, or get started on my driver’s ed, which I was more than ready for.

Mom, and Cooper, my younger brother, and I arrived the night before, without the need to give Grandpa a heads up, as we usually had. We were clearly invading his privacy with the plan to sort through all of this things. Mom stalled as long as she could, announcing that over vacation break would be “The best time to visit”. How we could enjoy the lake over the summer, and so on.

I saw through her quivering smile. She just started sleeping through the night weeks ago, her pacing downstairs, clicking on the TV, its voices echoed through the vents in my room. At first the bags under my eyes were as purple as hers, but as the weeks went on the droning of the infomercials became a soothing hum I missed once they had stopped.

When I took the corner I saw Grandpa’s home, for a moment I expected to see him outside working in the yard or near his boat, ready to greet me. In that instant my stomach turned from butterflies to bricks. Without slowing I came to a stop, but my sneaker slid on the loose gravel beneath it, causing my knee to buckle while my foot continued to move. My arms flailed until I grabbed hold of a pine tree’s low hanging, sap dripping branch. Pulling in close I leaned against the tree, squeezed my eyes shut as a tear threatened to push through. A small breeze caressed my face, and instinctively I took a deep breath. The air burned against my dry lungs, and with the exhale a moan slipped out.

I wiped at my eyes and looked up. Ahead, hanging from chains that had become rusted and decayed, swung the old wooden sign that Grandpa had made so many years ago. His last name carved into it; Saltz. I moved towards the sign, tapped it, the chains creaked as it rubbed against its hooks. No surprise that the most recent storm didn't tear it down, it had hung there ever since I could remember.