Now presenting "Mud Fun!," my experience as a first grader, written when I was a fifth grader, and published online as a sophomore in college. (Yes, the original font was Comic Sans. I was that kid.)

Mud Fun!

By: Kip Henderson 10/23/07

After lunch I sat on the couch bored. Suddenly my mom’s voice broke the silence. “Kip, Laura’s coming over.” Her voice drifted in from the kitchen along with the “click” of a phone being hung up.

“Yippee!” I yelled as I jumped up and pranced around the room gleefully. Laura was a good friend and was in first grade just like me. I loved it when she came over! Suddenly I came to a halt as a thought struck me. What would we play? Legos? Make believe? On the swing? Or maybe – My thoughts were interrupted as my mom said, “I told Laura’s mom for her to wear ‘unimportant clothes.’”

She paused as a big smile slowly appeared on my face. Of course! “The underground fort!” I yelled in excitement as I tore off to my room to change into “unimportant clothes.” When I came out, I was wearing an old and dirty T-shirt, a messy pair of shorts, and sandals.

After a short wait, there was a “knock, knock” coming from the door and I ran to open it. Behind it was Laura and her mom. Laura was just as excited as I was. As the moms started talking (just as they always do), Laura and I raced out to the underground fort. As we approached the four foot deep rectangular hole, I thought about all there was still to be done to it. We would add a roof and cover it with dirt, and a big trash can that was going to be implanted into the ground would be our entrance. But right now, the bottom four inches was filled with sticky, gooey mud.

When we got there, we both stared down into it. “Well, what are we waiting for?” I said, jumping in, but I soon found that this was not a very good idea.

I looked down at my feet, all covered up in mud. Then I tried walking around but I couldn’t. “I’m stuck!” I said to Laura, who was watching from the edge of the hole. I sat down and tried to pull my feet out, but I couldn’t. They were firmly in place. As I was tugging at my feet, Laura had gotten in barefoot. Luckily she was able to move around. That gave me an idea. I tried to slip my feet out of my sandals, and after a while I succeeded. But as soon as my feet were out, my sandals sunk back under the mud. We both dug around for them but couldn’t find them. Suddenly I saw two muddy bumps sticking out from the mud. “My sandals!” I shouted in excitement. We both grabbed one and pulled, but my sandals didn’t move an inch. After a while, we gave up on pulling. Then I had an idea. “Let’s dig them out!” I said. Immediately we both started pulling away handfuls of mud from around my sandals. Gradually the two sandals revealed more and more of themselves as the mud was removed from around them. Finally they were out of the mud, but they were barely recognizable.

Although we were able to move around in all the mud in the fort, it was difficult. Laura slapped some mud onto the wall playfully and giggled. I copied. We repeated this again and again, then started making hand prints. After a while, Laura noticed something. “Look, the level of the mud has decreased,” she said. I looked down at the mud surrounding my feet. “Wow,” I said, “you’re right!” We excitedly continued throwing handfuls of mud at the wall. Soon there wasn’t much mud left at all.

By that time the mud had started to dry on us, and it looked like the brown, dry scales of a reptile. I said to Laura, “We’re turning into lizards!” Of course we weren’t really, but Laura didn’t know that. She was the kind of first grade girl who would believe anything. She looked, horrified, at her skin, then started screaming with terror. My dad quickly came and got her out, and after she had somewhat calmed down, I explained to her. “Laura, we aren’t really turning into lizards,” I said. “I was just kidding.” When Laura heard that she immediately stopped wailing and returned to normal.

Just then my mom’s head poked out from behind the back door. “Kip, it’s time for Laura to go home.” “NO!” We both screamed at the same time. And just like that an argument broke out. Unfortunately, the parents won and Laura was to go home after we both hosed off. But as her car drove away, I knew that even if the dirt under my finger nails would only last a few days, that fun memory would last forever.