I sprinted down the hay-strewn path behind my mother’s house, half-jumping and half-running. I wanted to run with wider and wider strides to see if that made me faster from a longerstride, or slower with fewer steps. The distance was too short to make any real decision, and I quickly forgot about the experiment as I dodged divots and potential chicken nests in the packed grass, slippery mounds of leaves and dried straw, and fallen or torn branches and twigs. Heat radiated off the splintered grass and made me run faster. Without falling, I reached the tunnel- it was structured by some kind of fence wire and then completely overgrown with blackberries. It was only ten feet long, maybe a little more, but I slowed to a crawl and warily looked around each time I passed through it. There were practical reasons- my flip flops were already bad running shoes, and worse at defending against fallen thorns and blackberry branches. But there
was also a darkness that the tunnel provided, compared to the radiating heat outside, that felt like a shock. It was quieter, colder, and if someone had been hiding in these thin arches of blackberries, they would’ve been able to grab me and my screams would have been far harder to hear one foot within the tunnel than one foot outside. I imagined that the blackberries were just a trial to get to the dappled, perfect sunlight behind them, or a sum of everything I didn’t like at the house I came from.

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Past the blackberries was a rickety tree house with a rope ladder and swing, but the real treat was the creek just a few feet further. This creek was cool and shallow enough for a little girl to be able to play in- never more than six inches deep in the pools right by the bank. There were plenty of colorful rocks to look at that had been smoothed, and they changed color when the sun dried them out. I’d toss the dry ones in just to see what they looked like. They couldn’t be placed

in the water- that would’ve defeated the whole purpose. I wanted to watch them hit the water and sink and be lost after I inevitably glanced away.

~

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There was a mouse infestation in our chicken feed once. The feed sat in sacks that were about as tall as I was, and my mother never closed them. They were stored in an outdoor shed with many crevices and splits, and they provided feasts for the likes of mice. We opened the shed one day and thousands spilled onto the brick path. They ran away from the shed, back into the shed, over the stones that made up the garden, into the grass. A little one ran right over my bare
foot and I screamed and screamed. My mother dragged the infested sack into the field behind the house, right in the middle of the path to the creek. She dumped it over and I watched as even more mice fled, scattering as individuals from the mound of feed. There were babies left behind, tiny pinkish babies that were the size of my littler fingers. They squirmed back and forth and they didn’t follow their parents or aunties or cousins because they could not see yet. The
teenagers and children mice were gone, too. I begged my mother to let me save them. They were raw-looking and so exposed without the feed or their mamas covering them. Their tiny paws kept reaching for something that wasn’t
there, and I thought of the dew and cold temperatures wetting and then freezing their bodies. My mother let me bring three home, just three. I kept them in a Tupperware with holes poked at the top on a bed of paper towels- some shredded, some not. I carried them between both parents’ houses and fed them warmed milk from the fridge on Q-Tips so that they could nurse. They had the smallest tongues. One of the little mice died, and we buried that one. The other two turned brown and fuzzy, and their eyes opened. Their feet weren’t flailing paws anymore but had toes that could
hold things and move very quickly. We released them in the grass where my mother had released the rest of their family.

 

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I made fairy-houses often, mostly at school where I could build foundations of stones and twigs, and then layer mud and hay to build a roof. I didn’t build many houses by the creek, but I launched hundred of boats. My boats were two inches or smaller and were made of the freshest leaves because those didn’t have holes and weren’t weak or drooping- they had the highest chance of surviving the waterfall. The waterfall was created by several jumping-sized stones that
forced the water to fit through a tiny gap and burst out the other side. There were rivulets of water that didn’t make the gap, and overconfident sailors could easily think that the water was tranquil. It was after gliding over the rocks and landing below the waterfall that chaos ensued. The water was like a whirlpool there- the burst of water from the first pool sucked everything down with it, and little leaf boats hardly stood a chance. They’d almost make it, and then swirl and disappear, and stay underwater until they were further down the creek. They’d resurface most of the time, but fairies were able to drown like anybody else. I built a dock of broken sticks one summer, jutting out from the mud of the calmer pool past the waterfall. I figured maybe the fairies could launch from there instead.

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I led several expeditions on the creek, most of them achieved through the rock jumping because I was better at it than most. I learned to jump from rock to rock while never stepping in the water, and I could tell just from looking which rocks had enough grip to jump to, which were too wet, and which would shift when you landed and spill you into the pool. I could run way ahead, leaping from stone to stone as fast I could run on dirt, and I would have to stop for my
friend to catch up. Sometimes we would just sit in the six inches of water in our bathing suits, too, with creek water matting our ponytails. The summers baked everything on the ground, and after water conservation season started, it was hard to remember what it felt like to have water sit on your skin.

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There was a deeper pool a little ways down from where I played, and one year the water swelled and it was like a real pool, where we could swim and not touch the ground (or at least I couldn’t, my friend was much taller). My friend and I almost drowned swimming that time, because there was a current, or it was colder than we expected, or there was nothing to grab and hold on to. There was one spot that was dark where tree roots hung over the water, and it was
hard to keep our heads up. Us getting into trouble like this wasn’t uncommon, and I don’t really remember more than going back home and towel-drying off, and telling my mother how we kept opening our mouths really wide for air. Maybe how we shouted to each other from four feet away in hopes that our voices had some kind of buoyancy. My mother was shocked and I was excited that she thought to have fear, but she didn’t come to the creek more anyway.

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I sometimes took the dog to the creek, and she was my favorite guest. Mona didn’t need to be leashed to go back there, so we’d just run together and I’d have to call her now and then to get her focus off some squirrel or moving grass. She’d look back pleadingly and then give up and lope after me. She had a beautiful warm brown face, and she’d smile a lot and ask for belly rubs. Once you brought her to water, you could barely convince her to get out. She’d splash around
and chase sticks halfway before giving up and coming back for a new one (though she was much more curious as to where rocks thrown into the creek went). She didn’t need treats to come when called or to sit, it was more that you had to convince her that it was worthwhile to do either. Mona was a hound mix and would stink whenever she went in the water, but I didn’t care even when I minded with other dogs. She had thick black nails and she’d churn up the gritty dirt on
the bank, and then fling dog-hair-water mixed with bits of sand, and I didn’t mind that either. I would sit with her and rub her ears because they were soft and warm, and I’d hear her breathing hard after playing while still looking around for the next moving thing. I could lean against her because she was so solid and strong. Mona was smarter than they gave her credit for, and she was my dog even though she couldn’t be.