The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Back from the Dead ... Sorta

Frigid late evening sea water washed over Aimi's right arm as she lay in the sand. Aimi didn't move. Another wave came in. Still Aimi remained motionless. Another bigger wave came. Nothing. Then another and another. Aimi lay motionless.

Crickets chirped. Leaves rustled. Small waves washed in, then out. There was nobody there to hear these songs of creation.

"AAAGGHH!!!!" Aimi screeched. She followed her wail with arms flailing violently, particularly the arm that was out of the water. Both legs flew up together as if Aimi were doing a scissors exercise she had learned in Kung Fu class when younger. Legs back down, Aimi's upper torso sat up straight. Her left arm spun like a whirlygig. Had she still been in the water she may have been able to motor herself on the surface by the wind she was generating from spinning her arm so rapidly. She resembled a human airboat. Her wet right arm flew across her chest toward the spinning left arm and she started swatting and scratching herself so hard it seemed as if the left arm might just come off. Or that, for sure, Aimi wanted it off.

"Get away! Get off me! Eeww!! Aaahh!! Splt! Blff blff!" Aimi danced, contorted herself in positions even she didn't know she could pull off.

"Is it gone? Are they gone?" She asked nobody in particular knowing full well she was there all alone.

"Maybe drowning would have been better than dealing with th.., th.., that!..."

She stopped mid-sentence realizing how stupid it would be to finish her thought. Even more idiotic if she really believed what she almost said. Being alive is always certainly better than the alternative, the alternative she had faced earlier.

What she couldn't figure out was why she hadn't drowned.

"I was sinking. Looking up. And try as I might I couldn't ... So, how did I? What's going on? How did I get here? What was that on my arm? EEeewww!!"

There were tracks in the sand heading along the beach. The tracks were out of the reach of the waves created from the incoming tide. Each track looked like it might have been made by a tiny mountain bike. But the tracks were too skinny to be made by an actual mountain bike.

"Lucky me! I was rescued by little people on tiny mountain bikes." She laughed to herself at the image that came to mind.

The thickness of each track was about the width of one her dad's big fat thumbs. "Where is he when I really need him?"

There were maybe 50 tracks alongside one another. Perhaps a 100 of them! Aimi wasn't good at counting even when she hadn't just almost drowned. The tracks ran neatly parallel to one another as if they were created by a well-trained army marching in formation.

"I wonder what made those tracks?"

When she stood up she realized that she was drier, though not completely, than she thought she should be, except for her right arm.

"That's weird. Why am I so dry? Where am I? And how did I get here? How did I get out of the water? Why am I not ... um ... dead?

"These tracks. I have seen something similar. I just can't remember where ... or when.

"I am talking to myself. Yeesh!

"Okay. Now I am talking to myself about talking to myself! I am loosing it!

"My dad would say, 'It could be worse.' At least I am alive. He's right.

"I wonder what he would say about me being saved by Lilliputians on motorcycles?"

"No doubt he'd say something like 'That's good! At least you'll have a really good story to tell to your friends.' in his goofy upbeat way." Aimi did her best to mimic her dad's voice and imitate his quirky movements.

She chuckled at the image in her mind of her dad and the little people on motorcycles.

"Vroom! Vaaaroom! Putt putt putt" She said while raising her arms in front of her with palms down motioning as if she herself were turning the grips on the handlebars of her own bike.

She looked left and right to make sure nobody was watching her.

"Whew!! Thank goodness nobody is watching.

"Okay. That's a dumb thing to think. I really do wish someone were watching. How else am I going to find out where I am or how to get back to camp? Or who or what made these tracks?

"Talking to myself again. Almost drowning can be very disorienting. I'll blame my incoherence on having almost died. Or maybe I am ... and this is all a dream.

"I hope these tracks don't get washed away before I found out who made them. I wonder if Lilliputians can swim." She smiled in spite of not being much better off than she was before she almost drowned. She didnt know where she was but she was more or less convinced she wasn't dead.

"Yeeeooowwwikes!!" Aimi leapt higher than even she thought possible and let out a screech that resembled fire trucks.

"Nooooo!!!! Nooo!! Not them!!!! Please God! Please, not them!!"