One day on a warm cloudy day in the middle of the month of March, my cousin Izaiah, my fourteen-year-old brother Xavier, and I decided we wanted to dig holes in Grandma and Grandpa’s bright green field because we were bored and had nothing to do. We decided to go into the shed and grab three rusty shovels that Grandpa hardly ever used. Once we grabbed the bronze rusty shovels, we were on our way to the field to dig our holes we had been talking about. We each had a shovel. I threw my shovel over my shoulder and marched to our destination. Without hesitation, we began to dig the holes. After about an hour, Xavier claimed, “Okay, I am taking a break.”

During his break, he decided to sit down on the thick lime green grass. Ten minutes later and still on his “break,” Sargent Xavier decided to be the commander of us and tell us we couldn’t have water or take breaks until he said so. Personally, I was starting to get very irritated with him and his attitude. I wanted to take a little break from digging. I only wanted about five minutes. Since he was the older brother, I was afraid of him. My brother finished his break after twenty minutes of talking and slacking around. It had been about an hour and thirty minutes of digging and about two feet was dug up.

Xavier was messing around again, and he was behind us throwing little pebbles at us. When I turned around, he had this big cheesy smile on his face. While I was in the swinging motion of throwing the dirt behind me, I heard this huge boom sound. Turning around not knowing what happened, I saw Xavier on the ground. Hearing his loud screech and cries sounded like a monkey howling from behind me which made myself nervous. I did not know what to do. I saw a puddle of bright red blood on the ground and on his face, which made my entire body shake. The top right of his head was swollen like a bowling ball.  He put his hands on his face, touched the wound, and screamed. He screamed and cried for the whole world to hear. I stuttered, “I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe it. Go get my mom, Izaiah!”

Izaiah sprinted across the field to our grandma’s house and to get help. My mom ran out to the field. “What happened?” she yelled. Quite a bit of blood covered Xavier’s face and hands.  My mom and Izaiah finally arrived to the field, and she yelled and wiped the blood from his face and asked what happened. I had to explain, “ I accidently hit Xavier with the shovel when he was behind me.”

Mom took him to the emergency room, and he had to get ten stitches in his right eyebrow, leaving him with a scar. We never finished digging our holes since what happened with my brother. I’ve learned a lesson to make sure no one is behind me while I dig and to be careful with my motion when I swing back to throw the dirt. Sometimes when he gets on my nerves, I say, “Yeah, keep talking. I’m going to hit you in the head with the shovel again.”