The Game

THE GAME

“This sucks.” I plopped down on the ground, and crossed my arms across my chest.

“I know.” My cousin Cathy laid back on the grass. “I hate it here. It’s so boring.”

“I know, right?.”  

I considered the three weeks that I was spending at my Grandparents’ farm a prison sentence. A really, really boring prison sentence.  

Summer was supposed to be fun — hanging out with friends, sleeping in. Not sitting around watching the corn grow.

I looked over at Cathy. She was eleven, a bit younger than me. I was twelve — well, almost twelve. She had it worse than me. She was here for an entire month. For some reason our parents thought that it would be good for us to spend every summer at the farm.  Something about fresh air, and a simpler life. My grandparents didn’t even have unlimited internet, so we had to watch how much we used it. How was I supposed to survive? I had to use my cell phone data if I wanted to play any games or watch any videos. And that sucked, a lot.

I really do love my grandparents. They are basically cool. But they live on a farm. And because it’s a farm, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Literally. The nearest neighbour is like a thousand miles away. And there are zero kids. Booooorrrring.

So, Cathy and I were the only people under the age of a hundred around. We were expected to help around the farm, and we did. But it was summer, and we didn’t need to do much — the corn literally grew itself. So, we helped with the chickens and goats. We also looked after the summer garden. But there were only so many green beans to pick. Grandma and Grandpa were getting a llama, so that was cool, but that wasn’t until next week.  

“I’m so bored.” I said laying down beside Cathy and looking up at the sky.  

“Me too.” She was looking up at the sky as well. There were a lot of clouds up there and some of them looked like storm clouds.  Maybe it would rain, finally.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “Trent doesn’t have to spend his summer up here. He’s got a ‘job’” I made air quotes around the word job. Trent was my brother, and two years older than me. “Cutting grass isn’t a real job. I could cut grass.”

“At least if I’m here, I don’t have to look after Dora.”

Dora was Cathy’s younger sister. Cathy told me that because her mom was working from home, she had to watch Dora when her mom was on Zoom calls. She hated that.

I sat up.  

“Wanna do something?”

“What?”

“I dunno. Go bike riding?”

“Where?”

“I dunno. Down the road?”

“Nah. Too dusty.”

That was true. It hadn’t rained in forever, and my grandparents lived on a dusty dirt road. When we rode our bikes, we ended up covered in dust — on our clothes, in our eyes, in our ears, in our mouths. It was gross.

I sat up and looked at the farmhouse.

“Wanna see if Gram’ll let us bake something?”

“Nah. It’s too hot.”

She was right. Another thing my grandparents didn’t have was air conditioning. It was like a million degrees in the house. Yuck.

Cathy sat up.  

“Wanna go to the pond?”

“Nah.” I said. "It’s gross. There’s hardly any water in it, and it stinks.”

The pond levels were so low that the plants along the edge and some of fish had died, and now the pond was super stinky and scummy.

We sat there in the shade of the big oak tree in front of the farmhouse, doing nothing.

Cathy thought. “Maybe Gramps will take us out on the tractor.”

“He went to town. He’ not supposed to be home til dinnertime.”

“Right. I forgot.” Cathy sighed.

“Wanna play a game?” I asked.

“Sure. What game?”

“I dunno. Tag?” I suggested.

“No! You’re too fast, and I’m always it.”

That was true. I was faster than Cathy. I was pretty fast for an almost twelve-year-old. At school, I was on the track team, and the cross country team. I loved running.

“How about catch?”

Cathy just looked at me.

“Sorry.” 

Cathy wore glasses, and couldn’t really see the ball too well when I threw it to her. The last time we played catch, she missed the ball and it smacked her in the face, and broke her glasses, right in the middle. Now she looked like a nerd, with tape holding the two pieces together.

“Maybe we could play with the cats in the barn?”

“Sure.”

We got up, and walked over to the barn. There were six barn cats. The only reason that there were any cats at all was because strangers thought it was okay to drop their unwanted kittens at the end of the driveway, figuring that farms wanted cats. Gram said that because she didn’t want six cats to turn into sixty cats, she had to spend a lot of money to have the cats spayed and neutered (so they couldn’t have kittens, she said). The cats weren’t super friendly, though. Gram said they were something called feral, which means that they are kinda wild. That was okay, Cathy and I figured out that we could still play with them, just not pick them up and hold them. They didn’t like that. Plus, they had fleas, so eww.

We walked into the barn and Mabel, the big orange cat, was crouching right by the door, eating something. I looked a little closer.

“Gross! She’s eating a chipmunk!” I stepped back.

Mabel looked at us, but kept munching on the chippy.  

“Ew!” said Cathy, “I think I’m gonna barf!”

We both ran out of the barn. 

“Poor chipmunk,” said Cathy.

“Poor us! That was gross!’ I looked at Cathy. She looked like she was about to start to cry.

“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we play hide-n-seek?”

I don’t really like hide and go seek, especially when there are only two of us, but I didn’t want Cathy crying about the chipmunk.

She looked at me and shrugged. “Sure. Usual rules?”  

“Yup,” I said looking around. “No going into the corn, no going into the house or the barn, or the chicken coop. Everywhere else is fair territory.”

“How high to do we have to count?”

“To a hundred by twos."  I love counting by twos — I’m really fast at it.

“Out loud?” she asked.

“Yeah. Loud enough to hear.” I replied. Sometimes when I was playing with other kids, they’d count quietly, and say that they were at a hundred, when they weren’t really, and they cheated, and started looking before it was time. 

“Where’s home?” she asked.

“The usual,” I replied, pointing to the tree we had been sitting under before the whole Mabel-eats-a-chippy thing.

“Okay. And if whoever’s it doesn’t find the other person, they’re it again,” said Cathy. “And you have to come out when I call Olly Olly Oxen Free,’ okay?”  

Last weekend, when my parents dropped me off, Trent had come along, and the three of us had played hide-and-go-seek. When Cathy was it she couldn’t find Trent, so she called Olly Olly Oxen Free, but he wouldn’t come out. For like an hour! He thought he was so funny, but he ruined the game.

“Deal.” We pinky swore.

“Rock, paper, scissors to see who’s it?” I asked.

We held our fists in front of each other.

“Rock! Paper! Scissors!” we said together, moving our fists up and down with each word.

I was rock, and Cathy was paper.

“Ha! Ha! I win! You’re it!” she said, smiling.

I walked over to the tree, put my arm across my eyes, and leaned into the tree, hiding my eyes.

“Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty …”

I counted as quickly as I could.

“… Ninety-four, ninety-six, ninety-eight, one hundred! Ready or not, here I come!”

I looked around. One of the rules was that you had to stay in your hiding spot, and you couldn’t keep moving once the person who was it finished counting.  

Where was Cathy?   

I knew she wouldn’t go towards the barn — there was a dead chipmunk there. Yuck. But she could have hidden around the side of the house. I started to go that way. But I didn’t want her to run back and beat me to the tree, because she’d be home free because I would be it again. I ran towards the house. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cathy start running to home. I turned around and ran back. Cathy was right — I was faster — and I beat her to the tree.

“I’m safe!” I yelled. “You’re it!’

We played for a while. I hid under the tractor, she found me. She hid behind the bushes at the front of the house, I found her. Then I was it twice in a row because the first time she found me behind the chicken coop, and I was too far away from home and she got there first. And the second time, I hadn’t found a hiding spot before she finished counting, so she caught me right away.

Cathy was it, I was really going to hide on her. She would never find me.

“Two, four, six, eight, ten …”

I ran around the back of the farmhouse, by the chicken coop. My grandparents had an old water well, one that you used a bucket on, so it was big enough to hide in. Trent had showed it to me last summer, when he stayed at the farm with me and Cathy.  Usually there was water in it, but it was dry right now because of the drought.  Gramps had covered it with plywood, but I knew that I could lift it up, and stand on the ladder rungs attached to the well wall. Then I could pull the plywood back on top of the well, and Cathy would never find me.

I pulled the wood back, and found the ladder, and went down two rungs.

“Sixty-eight, seventy, seventy-two, seventy-four …”

I pulled the plywood over the opening. It was really dark.

“Eighty-six, eighty-eight, ninety …”

Something crawled across my hand in the dark.

Ew! Gross!

I shook my hand, but I couldn’t shake if off. I took my other hand off the rung, to swipe at whatever it was, and I lost my balance. I fell backwards, bouncing off the wall before I hit the bottom, and hit my head. Everything went black.  

When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. I was lying in a couple of inches of water. I was soaking wet and freezing. My teeth were chattering.  I tried to move.

Ow!

My right arm hurt so much, I couldn’t move it. And my leg was underneath me. I was stuck. And my head was really sore. I used my left hand to touch the back of my head. My fingers came away sticky. It was dark, and I couldn’t see. I really hoped that it was mud, not blood.

I realized that I was crying. Where was I? I tried to remember.

Cathy … Cathy and I. We were playing … What were we playing? I tried to think. We were playing … rock, paper, scissors? Why? I closed my eyes. At least I think I did, because it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I hurt all over. And I was super scared.

I tried to think again. No, we were playing hide-and-go-seek. That’s right.

But where was I now? I tried to think, but my head hurt so much. I think I blacked out, because the next thing I remembered was that it was raining — I could hear it hitting the roof above me — was it a roof? No, it wasn’t a roof. It was the plywood covering the well. I had fallen down the well!

That’s when I really started to panic — I was stuck at the bottom of the well, and the water was getting deeper.

Ohnoohnoohno!  

I didn’t want to drown. I pushed down with my left hand and tried to sit up. There wasn’t enough room. I tried to get my leg from under me. I’d been laying on it so long that it was numb, and when I tried to move it, its was all pins and needles.  

Owowowowow!

Moving really, really slowly, I got my leg out from under me. My ankle really hurt, but I could still move it. Once my leg was free, I pushed again with my left hand to try and sit up. I managed, sorta, but because it was such a small area, my knees were pushed against my chest, which pushed against my arm, which really hurt.

“HELP!” I yelled, with my loudest voice. “HELP! I’M STUCK IN THE WELL!”

Nothing. All I could hear was the rain pitter-pattering on the plywood. 

“HEEEELLLLLLPPPPP!”

There was no reply. I started to cry.

“HELP ME! I’M STUCK IN THE WELL!” I screamed.  “GRANDMA!  GRANDPA!  CATHY!  HELP!”

I was crying so hard that I couldn’t yell any more. I dropped my head down onto my knees, and sobbed. Something crawled across my back. Something big. It had claws and climbed up into my hair.

I started to scream. I couldn’t stop. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, trying to get whatever was in my hair, out.

When I couldn’t scream any more, and started to cry.

I was going to die down in the stupid well, and no one would ever find me! I cried harder.

Then I heard it. A bark. Then another bark. It was getting closer.

“I’M IN HERE! I’M IN THE WELL! HELP ME!”

The barking became non-stop. I heard people talking and yelling.  I was going to be saved!

“I’M HERE, I’M HERE, I’M HERE! I’M IN THE WELL!”

And then it was daylight, as someone pulled the plywood off of the top of the well.  

“I’M DOWN HERE!” I yelled. “HELP ME!”

A man stuck his face down. Beside him, the dog I had heard barking. The man had a flashlight, and he shone it down on me.

“Kimmy! Is that you?”

“YES! IT’S ME!” I couldn’t believe it! I was going to be saved.

“Hang on honey, we're gonna get you out!”

And they did. There was a fireman, and he had a rope around his waist, and other firemen lowered him down. There wasn’t enough room for him to stand on the bottom, so they hung him upside down, and he helped me put the harness on. First, though, he put a splint on my arm, which hurt a lot! But that was okay, cuz it meant that I was getting out of the stupid well.

It was harder than they thought to get me out because I was really jammed in there. Finally, after a bit of pulling and tugging, I was free. The firefighters started to pull me up in the harness. I looked up. I didn’t care if it was raining. I was just so happy to be able to see the sky. 

When I got to the top there were a bunch of people standing around, clapping and cheering. Grandma and Grandpa were there, and Cathy, and a whole bunch of people I didn’t know. There were about a million firefighters. My Gram gave me a hug, and Gramps looked like he was crying. They put me on a stretcher, and wheeled me into an ambulance. Just before they drove away I saw my mom and dad pull up in the van. 

Uh oh.  I thought. I'm in trouble now. My parents had to drive all the way from the city because I had fallen into the well. They wouldn't be happy.

But my parents weren't mad. They were just happy I was okay. I only had to stay in the hospital overnight. The doctors said I had a broken arm, sprained ankle, and a wicked cut on the back of my head from the fall. They had to shave some of my hair because I had to have stitches. It looked gross. I also had a concussion, which meant no sports for the rest of the summer, at least.

When I was released from the hospital my parents drove me to my grandparents’ farmhouse. That surprised me because I thought they were going to take me home right away. But they had a surprise for me when we pulled into the farm property.

All the people who had searched for me were in the front yard — all the first responders, all the people who had volunteered for the search party, and of course Gram, Gramps, and Cathy who came running up to me, throwing her arms around me.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t find you!” she cried.

I started crying too. “I shouldn’t have hidden in the well. It was stupid!” 

A man who I recognized as the man who had found me in the well, came walking towards me, his dog at his heel.  

I broke away from from Cathy’s embrace, and turned towards the pair.

“I’m so glad you found me!” I said, still crying.

“I am too,” he said, smiling. He held out his hand ( I had to shake with my left because of the cast) “I’m Timmy Martin.”

“Hi Timmy.” I said, “I’m Kimmy.”  I laughed. "Our names rhyme!"

His dog came towards me, tail wagging. A big collie. I scuffled the dog’s ears.

“How did you know where Kimmy was?” asked Cathy.

Timmy smiled. “It wasn’t me. It was my dog, Lassie. Lassie was the one knew that Kimmy was stuck in the well.  Lassie always knows when someone’s stuck in a well.”