I wondered if anyone else was reluctant to do what we where about to. But it didn't seem so, they took my hand and pulled me in. The pads of my feet touched the biting water. Immediately I retracted them. After taking in a breath of air I tried again. I closed my eyes as my feet and ankles where enveloped with wintry water. It was at first a burning sensation that slowly turned to numbness. Gingerly I walked through. My feet bending to the shape of the rocks on which I stood. Soon I was up to my knees in the flowing water of belt creek. “We jump in on 3” Ordered my friend Shayla to me and Ethan. Ethan laughed nervously And I shivered. “1..2...3!” Shouted Shayla. They both went under. So I followed. My throat seemed to close up. I felt the strange need to puke. All I saw was my hair floating calmly around me. Everything was a blur, a slow blur. I felt my legs get caught in the current. “This is it” I thought. “This is how I die.” I knew of course it wasn't. But I couldn't help but panic. The pure water filled my nose, and chilled every inch of my body. My head resurfaced, Shayla, Ethan and I gasped for air. “It's so cold!” I gasped. The others might have nodded but their whole bodies where shaking I couldn't tell. We floated swiftly through the sparkling water. Towards the chain of people who where meant to catch us. My head went under again, and back up. Around me where crowds of people. Some above us on the bridge. Some surrounded us on the shore. But I couldn't hear anything. Just the rush of the water, and the thrashing of our feet below the surface. We smiled, our eyelashes and hair dripping with water. Our skin blue. We spun effortlessly in the water. It was a long float down, though the distance was short. Ethan got his footing before we hit the wall of people. But Shayla and I swung against them, causing some of them to lose their balance. We laughed, but where slipping through their grips. We broke through but a few of them reached out and grabbed our slippery hands. We where on our feet finally but it didn't last long. A few times we fell and had to be lifted again. At last we reached the shore of tiny pebbles. That where splashed with the water that dripped without end off our clothes. We laughed. And fell against the pine trees.

“Again?” Shayla asked. We looked at each other, smiled, and ran up over the hill.