Hiding in the Thicket, Away from the Apes

The highway was about 20 feet from my backyard and the wheat fields were just on the other side. It was either ’73 or ’74 because it is so foggy in my memory and we had moved from this home in early winter after my baby brother was born.

I don’t know how I got across the highway at that early age and I really can’t remember everyone who I was with but I remember a mud puddle, a rubber boot and an ape.

There were a few of us. We would find the most out of the way places, running through the corn fields, jumping higher than the wheat or taking cover in the thicket of trees across from the neighborhood gas station. In our imagination, we were on the planet of the apes.

We were the only people left on earth and the apes were after us. Ducking between the tall yellow stalks and then crawling on our knees so that we wouldn’t be seen was our only defense. I do remember my older brother, Billy, beside me telling me to run faster. We dodged the shallow mud puddles. He was faster than me. And he knew where they were, so I followed him. In a matter of a few moments, I had run right into one of the shallow mud puddles that we were trying so frantically to avoid.

The sludge had completely engulfed my pink rain boot. Trying to pull it out, it created a loud suction noise and it wouldn’t let me have it back. My brother was trying to be patient although I could see the eagerness in his eyes to get moving. My cousin Roy came up behind us and told us to hurry, they were coming. Billy said that the only way that we could get away was to leave my boot behind.

The boys grabbed my arms. 1-2-3, up, up and out. I couldn’t see the boot anymore. The mud had completely encompasses it. Off we ran, straight toward the thicket to take cover. Roy and Billy hid behind the tree and called me over quietly. They whispered to me so not to bring attention to our hiding place. We sat at the base of the stump for what seemed like hours. My foot was cold and soggy but the boys weren’t thinking about that. They were planning our escape.

The sky began to grow darker. I was getting hungry and then we heard it. It was muffled at first. Had we been closer to the source it would have been deafening but we were far enough away. We hid deeper into the thicket to get away from the sound but it got closer and louder.

There was nothing we could do. It was getting closer with each second we waited. My breath was heavy and I was scared.

Billy and Roy looked at each other, let out a laugh and then jumped up at the same moment that my dad poked his head around the tree. “Supper is ready, where have you guys been?” said dad. He looked at me tucked snuggly in the stump. And then he said “Where’s your other boot?”

Out of the thicket, through the corn and wheat fields, across the highway and then up the back steps, I enthusiastically explained our wonderful adventure with the apes that had claimed my little pink rubber boot as its prize.