i thought that i did well considering the memory for the memoir had to be from a childhood home in the 2nd grade or younger. My English teacher gave me one of the lowest grades out of 5 classes. So i wanted to see what you guys thought.
The Dare
My family owned a lot of land in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas. On our land we had a huge barn. The barn contained nothing except my dad’s power tools and the dog food. My brother told me scary stories so I would fear going into the big, ugly brown barn. Since I already knew what I was in the barn, I wasn’t that scared at all. Like most brothers, mine always tried to trick me into doing stupid things just to get me into trouble. That day I would have expected my brother to tell me some other lame ghost story rather than dare me to eat dog food.
Most Saturdays and Sundays my brother, Matt, and I would feed the dogs to give my parents a break. That weekend was no different than usual. We got up in the late morning; we also got dressed so that we could eat breakfast and go out to feed the dogs. My family owned three dogs: Charlie, Cinnamon, and Spike. Charlie belongs to my seven year old brother; Spike was my baby, and Cinnamon belongs to my parents. Once outside I filled up the big water bowl and grabbed the three food bowls. I picked them up one at a time stacking them one on top of the other. My brother and I walked out to the barn side by side without saying a word; we knew what we had to do. Matt tried to open the door but did not succeed. On his second try his knuckles turned white, which told me that he was using every ounce of muscle he had in him. The third time’s a charm. The smell of aged wood attacked us when the door finally opened. He walked in and went to the right of the barn to find the light switch in the dark. He flipped the switch and all the lights came on kind of startling me for some reason. I laid the bowls on the ground to help Matt dig around for the scoop. Once we had found the scoop he opened the big trash can where we kept the dog food to keep it dry since the barn had a slight leak when it rained.
Matt put the lid of to the side so he had both hands free to help me. He leaned into the trash can a little to pick up a piece of the dog food. It looked like a biscuit wrapped in burned bacon to me. He smelled it while rubbing his tummy in a circular motion like he was trying to tell me it was good. He said it would taste good simply because it smelled good. I thought it smelled nasty. He started to flip it around in his fingers.
“I dare you to eat this without spitting it out,” he said.
“I won’t do it unless you do too,” I said.
He hesitated for a while; I guess deciding whether or not he would be out smarted by a girl. He tossed it back in the can. He started to scoop out the food so I turned around and grabbed the bowls. When the bowls were full I laid them out on the steps for the dogs. Our only weekend chore was done. He again dared me to eat the dog food. I said I would after he did. To my surprise he picked out a piece and popped it in his mouth like a piece of dry cereal. My mind already came up with a plan that I didn’t know about.
I turned and ran for the door. I out ran him luckily. I’m a Daddy’s Girl so of course I went straight to my dad to tell him what Matt just did. My dad never once asked any questions and just automatically sided with my story. He got mad at Matt for trying to get his little sister in trouble. Matt wasn’t in much trouble to my displeasure. My dad just yelled at Matt and told him not to do it again. He didn’t get grounded or anything. He was just sent to his room to think about what he did.
Ever since then Matt has never dared me to do anything again. I guess when someone does learn the hard way they don’t forget it. To this day I’m not sure if I had outsmarted him one to many times or if he just gave up so he didn’t get in trouble. I do know that his plan for me to eat dog food and look dumb backfired on him.
