It was a long walk home and a hot one too as the early summer sun boiled down on me and my grandma and my seven cousins. Me wearing my flippers and face mask didn’t make it any easier. My cousins were wearing theirs too and taking turns helping our grandma. Bless her heart, she was doing her best to carry the cooler she packed early that morning with pimento cheese sandwiches and Kool-aid.

We were going to the beach, for a day of fun in the sun, when she made those sandwiches, just her and us kids. The sandwiches were gone. We ate them while waiting on Speedy’s Tow Truck. He never made it and neither did we, not to the beach. There was no way we could ever get that far on four flat tires.

It was my fault the four flat tires and that was why I had to carry the beach chairs and and walk behind everyone else.

Well what happened was, one tire was a little slack and made the car pull to the left. Grandma noticed it before we ever got out of town. With me being the oldest and taking driver’s education, I told her I knew just what to do. I promised I could make the car steer straight and ride smooth and convinced to stop the car so I could work my magic.

Soon we were on the way again, all nine of us sailing along the highway windows down singing along with the radio.

“Its doing it again,” she said and asked me if I thought I could work some more magic, which I did and kept doing every few miles until all four of my grandma’s tires were flat.

“Must be a leak,” a young guy on a motorcycle speculated when he stopped to see if we were in trouble.

It was was a leak, front left tire. I figured that out when the steering wheel pulled us left.

Then I explained my magic to the guy on the motorcycle how I adjusted things by letting a little air out the other tires too. To keep things fair and balanced so to speak.

Not a bad idea he agreed until I told him I did it twelves times.

“Just trying to help the other tires catch up with one leaking,” I said red faced in attempt to justify my magic.

“So you chased a leak with a leak?” he asked before putting on his helmet and apologizing for not being more help.

I had never thought of that away. Neither had my grandma nor my cousins. I suppose that’s why they kept letting me climb out of the car. I also suppose that’s why I almost didn’t get any Kool-Aid when we stopped under a shade tree and my grandma  plopped down on the cooler to rest.

 

This is a work of fiction.

Edward Reed 2020