On a cold but sunny day in January, our small group of downhill skiers had just finished putting our ski’s on. They seemed massive, about a foot taller than our tiny six-year-old selves. Our instructor, who seemed gigantic in comparison called.
“Remember! Don’t forget to show me those pizza slices!” We dutifully arranged our skis in a v shape and bent our knees. I glanced over at the hill, if you could call it that. It was more like a tiny slant in the otherwise flat ground.
“Wow this is going to be so easy!” I thought happily. One at a time the kids in our class would bend their knees, and start gliding down the wannabe hill. As Alli took her turn in front of me, I glanced around. It was a beautiful sunny, cloudless day, and all of us had taken off our thick, boiling coats. On the hill next to us, truckloads of skiers were whizzing down the hill and through the trees as fast as there skis would let them.
“Ellen! Time to go!” Our gigantic instructor yelled from the bottom of the hill.
“Okay, Here goes!” I thought. All of the other kids didn’t seem to be having too much trouble, so I was confident that I could make it. I arranged my skis into pizza slices, and my skis slowly started to inch forward.
“Hey, this isn’t so bad!” I happily thought. But wait, I was heading towards a large clump of trees.
“Ummm… how do I steer?” I desperately cried out.
“ Oh No!” I hear him call. He starts to ski as fast as he can towards me. But as I verge off the track my skis start to pick up more and more speed.
“Help! I cry. I am about three feet away from the tree now. Out or the corner of my eye I can see the instructor reaching out his arms to stop me. Two feet. He is so close! I reach out my hands to grab him. One foot. Then, wham! I can see a tree trunk dangling in front of me. Then strong hands were grabbing my gargantuan skis and pulling me out of the ditch. Instead of hitting the tree, I had fallen down a ditch. But instead of colliding with the tree, the instructor had caught me at the last moment. He then dumped me on the thick, powdery snow.
“ And that is why they dig ditches to those trees.” My relieved instructor panted.