Normal Childhood - Military Training (part 2)

By the time morning hit, we could hardly wait to see if we’d caught anything (or anyone) in our traps. We ignored the stealth policy as we bolted through the woods to the location of our creations. One by one, we closely inspected them, noticing nothing but a few random piles of animal scat and a small handful of porcupine quills.

Disappointed with having caught nothing we regrouped for a new strategy. After thoroughly discussing the mater in detail, we thought that the best plan was to lure someone into one of the traps. Yes…I was the one with 3 sisters and it was decided that little sisters make great prey.

Upon returning from my neighbor’s house we approached my middle sister, taunting her with a large bag of Twizlers and candy corn, we told her to count to 100 and then if she could find us at our fort that she could have our bag of sweetness. She began counting and we bolted into the forest snickering at our own genius.

A few minutes later, as we had taken up position in eyesight of each of our traps, we began to hear the crunching and twig snapping of a non-trained civilian tromping through the woods. Excited beyond belief, we all sat completely still, awaiting our catch.

A few seconds later, she appeared on the path…only 20 feet or so from our spring snare. Prancing up the path with thoughts of mouthfuls of candy, she neared the hidden danger. All of the sudden, we heard it. She had kicked the trip wire and *swoosh* the slip knot had tightened around her feet and she was hoisted into the air. Screaming and struggling, head bobbing a few feet off the ground we all emerged from the bushes, laughing and impressed with ourselves.

We stood in a circle around he, patting each other on the back, completely ignoring her cries for help. After a few brief comments and a bit more laughing, we decided that it would be best to leave her there for a while. Backing away and heading out on the path towards our house, we peaked over our shoulders just to see her squirming, and tears streaming from her eyes and landing in the cushion of pine needles that lined the forest floor.

We got back to my house and in an attempt not to tip off my mother, we busied ourselves with our bikes and the construction of a jump at the end of the driveway. About an hour later, after one of my friends launched off the jump and crashed into a tree at the edge of the woods, we all looked at one another with a touch of fear in our eyes and we took off into the woods. We had forgotten about my sister who had been hanging upside down in the middle of the porcupine and fox infested woods for close to an hour.

When we arrived, we saw my sister, still crying, but too tired to struggle. It seemed that she had just enough energy to tilt her head enough to see us approaching. Her sobs were faint, but at least she was still alive. We quickly released the knot at the base of a nearby tree and my sister fell with a thud to the ground. As she got up and began to stumble down the path she yelled to us that MOM was going to kill us and that we were going to be in big trouble. Chasing after her, with the bag of candy held out in front of us, we bribed her with the contents of the bag along with mild threats of further violence if she did tell.

As far as I know, our secret lived on and from that point on we re-adjusted out traps to only catch animals…which we did.