I am sitting alone in my bedroom,
reading a book called Around the World in
80 Days. I wish I could travel the world, but I am stuck here in Holden,
Louisiana. I maybe just eleven, but I have many desires. I draw a hot-air
balloon on the inside of the cover of the book. I sigh, “If only I could fly in
one of those. Then I could go wherever I want.”
Someone’s
knocking on my bedroom door.
I shout, “Come on in!”
It’s my mama. She says, “Betty Lynn, I
will be going to run some errands and will not be back for at least two hours.
Grandma is in charge until I get back.”
“But Mama, Grandma has the energy of a
sloth! How on Earth is she going to protect us in case something terrible
happens?”
“Watch your mouth, young lady! Do
whatever she tells you to do and behave yourself.”
We both leave my room and I watch her
get ready to go. She grabs her purse, her keys, and heads out the door. I flop
onto our plastic-wrapped couch feeling disappointed with my life. A little sunlight casts through the dusty, depressing
room. Of course, Grandma is sleeping in her chair. My eight-year-old brother,
Darrell, walks into the room and asks, “Do you want to play Go Fish with me?”
“Nah, Go Fish ain’t that fun. Watch
television or something, Darrell. I’ma go call a friend.”
He pouts and huffs, “Whatever.”
I get up, grab the phone, and begin to
dial Darcy’s house. Darcy has been my friend for years, but we are complete
opposites. She actually likes living in this rinky-dink town. She don’t look at
the big picture and what the world has to offer. Well, maybe we can play
outside. It’s not really an adventure, but it’s better than sittin’ inside all
day. Darcy answers, “Hey, Betty Lynn. Whatcha’ up to?”
“Nothin’ much. Listen, how ‘bout you
come over to my house. My mama ain’t home, but my grandma probably won’t mind.”
“Sure thing, I’ll be right there.”
…
“Finally you’re here!”
Darcy was lookin’ like her usually
pretty self. She has long, blonde hair and eyes as blue as sapphires. She also wore
jeans and a pink blouse. Too bad so much beauty would be wasted here. She could
be a model, but she told me she wanted to be an environmentalist and save the
trees in our town, or somethin’.
“Yep,” she responds, “You sounded
desperate for attention on the phone.”
“Haha,” I say sarcastically, “Very
funny.”
“Anyway, what did you want to do?”
“How’s ‘bout we play adventure in the
backwoods? It ain’t like real exploring, but it’s the best thing we got.”
“Okay, but what about your brother.
With all due respect, your grandmother ain’t that attentive.”
“Right, we’ll have to bring him along,”
I sigh. I shout, “Darrell, come on and play with us outside!”
Darrell races out of his bedroom and
says, “Yay! I get to play with y’all.”
We tiptoe pass Grandma so that we would
not wake her and head to the backyard. I deeply inhale the fresh air and say,
“Let’s play Knights and Dragons.”
“Cool!” Darrell exclaimed, “Can we all
be knights?”
“Sure, let’s find sticks for our
swords.”
The three of us look for our “swords”.
I find a nice, fair-sized stick still attached to a tree. This stick is hard to
pull off. Darcy screams, “No, Betty Lynn! Don’t you dare yank that branch off
that tree. You’ll hurt it.”
I just look at her strangely. She’s
defending the tree as if it were a real person. I say, “But Darcy, there are
barely any good twigs around.”
“Trees are living things, too. We
shouldn’t yank off twigs just to play some game.”
“Well, the only other option would be
to go deeper into the woods to find a detached twig.”
Darrell said, “Betty Lynn, you know Mama
doesn’t want us to play too far in the woods.”
“Come on, Darrell. We won’t go too far.”
With so many trees around, one would think we
would find a good stick, but we didn’t. The twigs are either too short or too
brittle. Darcy giggled, “Hey Betty Lynn, this is sort of like an adventure. We
are searching for something.”
“Oh brother!”
It seems like we’ve been searching for
good sticks forever. I’m tired and my feet hurt. Well, if I want to be an
adventurer, I will need to toughen up and at least conquer these woods. I see a
log and say, “Hey lets rest for a minute on that log.”
“Betty Lynn,” Darrell whimpers, “How
far are we from home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should go back.”
I place my hand on his shoulder and
say, “Real adventurers don’t quit. We’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize.”
Darcy snaps, “‘Real adventurers’ don’t
risk getting their tails whooped over sticks! Let’s go back to your house,
Betty Lynn.”
“Fine, what game do you suggest we
play?”
“We can climb the trees closer to your
house. Just don’t break their branches.”
“Okay, we’ll do that.”
We head back to the backyard and stay
there. Darcy wraps my jump rope, slings it around a tree, and scales up it
until she rests on a considerably low branch. She drops the jump rope and
shouts, “Come on up, Betty Lynn.”
I scale up the tree. As soon as I am on
the branch, I toss Darrell the rope so that he could sit with us. I stare out
at the horizon and see the entire town. Darcy sighs, “Isn’t our town
beautiful?”
“I think so,” Darrell answers. “I can
see your house, Darcy. I can also see the school, my friends’ houses, and Lake
Noble.”
For some strange reason, the way Lake Noble
glimmers in the sunlight actually looks pretty. Darcy continues, “I like our
town. It’s tucked away in a forest from the rest of the world. Everyone knows
everyone here. Our community is close and filled with loving, neighborly
people.”
She’s got a point. Sure, not all close
communities are like a one, big happy family like many T.V. shows depict, but
ours is something like that. I continue to look around. Darcy says, “All of the
luxurious things in the world are right here. The trees are my skyscrapers. The
grass is my velvet carpet. The shops on Main Street are my mall. The sunlight
is my spotlight.”
Maybe I was looking at Holden all
wrong. Holden may not be New York City or Rome, but maybe it does have some
potential. I don’t want to be “tuck
away” from the world forever, but I can explore the world by first staring
here. Darcy looked at her watch and said, “I should be gettin’ home now. It’s 6
o’clock.” We all climb down the “skyscraper” and depart with Darcy. As soon as
Darrell and I get inside, Mama was cooking dinner. She asks, “Hey, what you two
been doin’ while I was gone?”
I answer, “Just hanging out with Darcy
and looking at our little part of the world.”
