“Wake up sleepy head!” Vickie screamed in my ear.

“I have been up all night thanks to you!” I said with a sarcastic tone.

“Can I show you the puppies now?” Vickie asked with an urgent tone in her voice. I quickly jumped up and out of the top bunk and fell when I landed. Only I didn’t know that wasn’t the only injury going to happen today.

It was an average day at my cousin’s house. It was a perfect 4th of July; there was a slight breeze and the sun was out. Wait; let me tell you the story of why I was there. Okay, so my mom and dad shipped my brother and I off to my grandmas and I was SO bored so I called up my cousin, Victoria but I call her Vickie. She said I could come over and spend the night. We stayed up all night talking cause it has been a while since I last seen her, and I didn’t know that in a few hours I wouldn’t see her again for a while. The next morning was when it all started.

As we walked outside we looked up the long winding dirt road. I thought to myself, how are we going to walk up that? And apparently Vickie was thinking that same question.

“How about we use the 4 wheeler? (aka: a quad or ATV)”

“Okay!” I loved the 4 wheeler and couldn’t wait to go on it! “You just got to keep it down. Your mom is still sleeping. It is still early in the morning,” I told her.

“I know, I know,” Vickie said.

We took the 4 wheeler up to their hunting cabin (aka: the hut) and I think we woke up everyone in a mile radius because the engine is so loud. We jumped down and ran to the puppies. Ohhhhh they were so adorable! The puppies golden, silky, warm fur against my skin made me forget how cold it was outside, with the breeze and all. They were so tiny! I picked them up with one hand and snuggled with three of them at a time. We looked around and they had no food or water and we were pretty hungry ourselves. So we drove down the twisting trail. When we got back we had a surprise waiting for us.

Four super enraged and fuming adults.

“Where were you guys?!?!”Vickie’s Mom demanded when we got back, “We were looking all over for you.”

“Well not everywhere. Now if you excuse me, we have important business to attend to,” Vickie retorted to her mom.

And that was what we did all day, playing with the puppies. Getting everything they need from dawn till dusk is what we were planning to do anyway, but there was a change of plans.

It was about 5:00 and we were just about to have a race with my other cousin, Austin, she was going down the opposite trail and Vickie and I were going to go down the front trail. We gave Austin a head start and were just about to start the ATV when Vickie asked, “Al, are you holding on?”

And of course I answered yes but I wasn’t, so she started the quad and we were going slow because our trail was much shorter than the one Austin took.

And all of a sudden I saw my life flash before my eyes…….

When I woke up and I was on the rocky part of the dirt road and blood was everywhere. My cousin was freaking out and apparently it had been 30 seconds. I didn’t do anything; we went into the hut got paper towels and went back to the house. I had a huge cut on my forehead and on my knee.

When my Aunt saw me she went spastic!

“Oh my god! Oh My GOD! Of all times you get injured it’s the time your mother isn’t here! Why?!?” my Aunt Jane said annoyingly, “Vickie how could you let this happen!”

“It wasn’t her fault!” I screamed in pain. I had tears rolling down my face.

We drove to the Emergency Room in silence. Luckily for me it was right down the road from my grandma’s house. I was so sad I could hear the fireworks in the distance but the nurse wouldn’t let me outside to watch for the two hours I was waiting. Then finally Swoosh! The doors went and they rolled me back to the room.

“Okay Allison, we are going to give you stitches,” the nice doctor said. Later I found out he was my mom’s family doctor when she was little. Wait, what, how old is this man? Anyway he did a great job especially with his annoyingly dumb nurse. She would mess up everything, but when she got what she was doing she was fine.

I walked out of the hospital with 8 stitches in my head and 2 on my knee. The pain was agonizing, and I immediately fell asleep when I got back to my grandma’s house. My mom finally got there around 8 but I was asleep. When I got up we had to go home so I could rest, and I didn’t get to say goodbye to Austin and Vickie.

As I look back on that day (which is almost every day) I realized that I really didn’t get to see fireworks. It was actually a very boring 4th of July. Who wants to spend all night in the hospital? Not me, again.

I am not allowed to ride a 4 wheeler anymore (but I do anyway SHHHH).