An Adventure With Poppa (A Story for Liam)

AN ADVENTURE WITH POPPA

By: Kay Olds

Oh Man! I ate too much! I know it’s not possible to actually explode from eating too much, but that’s the way my tummy feels right about now. Poppa cooked his very best ever round steak and gravy. I was only going to eat a small amount but it was really one of his best ones yet, so I had another helping. Well, three actually. It was THAT good!
I was just sitting on the swing on the back porch at the camp, looking at the bayou and the trees on the other side. It is so peaceful and beautiful out here it makes you feel like you could stay here forever. That’s when the phone rang; someone calling for Poppa to go on a job in Houma.
Poppa asked me if I would like to go along for the ride. I didn’t mean to, but I let out a groan. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I was so full.
I grabbed my dog and my video game and was out the door with my Poppa, who is a marine surveyor. Two tug boats were coming around the bend in the river and one barge broke away and hit the other barge and knocked a big hole in it. When something like that happens my Poppa gets a call. My Dad is his partner, but he was at a meeting today. I knew I couldn’t be of any help to Poppa but the pooch and I could keep him company.
Poppa is great at telling jokes and stories of himself as a kid and of my Dad and my Parrain Shawn when they were kids. I was really looking forward to the hour or so drive so I could hear whatever he was going to talk about today.
The phone rang and it was another job for us to do. Poppa knew right where to go for that job so he didn’t have to write anything down, but he asked me to reach into the storage box and get a pad of paper out and write down the address, when Poppa suddenly swerved the truck and said, “Whoa! Did you see that?!”
I said I didn’t see anything and asked what it was. He said he wasn’t sure, but it may have been a bear and he almost hit it. I could tell that Poppa was quite shaken by this because as tanned as Poppa is, his face looked very pale.
He pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and said for me to stay in the truck. I looked over at Jack and he looked at me quizzically. We didn’t see anything. I rolled my window down and Poppa’s mouth fell open and his eyes were as wide open as I had ever seen them! It was obvious that something had scared him. I didn’t see anything, but maybe Jack did. He stood at attention, his eyes fixed on whatever was out there. His hair sort of stood on end and he uttered a very low, very intense growl. That sound and his stance told me danger was very near.
I’ve seen Jack like this before, and I’ve seen Poppa sad, like when someone died, and I’ve seen him worried, like when Mimi was so ill. I’ve seen him angry a few times, and I’ve seen him tired. But I have never seen him scared. It made chills run down my spine.
I was confused. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be afraid of because I didn’t see anything. And I didn’t know if Jack had seen something or if he just sensed Poppa’s fear. I leaned out of the window and very quietly asked Poppa if he was alright.
I suppose that in the stillness of that instant, the sound of my voice startled him. He snapped out of his trance and quickly looked around and then got back in the truck. He looked over at me and put his hand on Jack’s head and asked if we were alright. I said that we were fine. He looked like he had seen a ghost, but I don’t think he actually saw anything.
“Are you alright, Poppa?” I asked. He took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, Mac, I’m alright. I just nearly hit a bear. A BIG bear! And if I had hit it….” His voice trailed off. I put my hand on his arm and said, “You did a good job Poppa. Good driving on your part, cause you avoided hitting it.”
“Good job. JOB?!!! What time is it? OH MAN! We have to go!” And with that Poppa drove off like nothing had happened. He seemed to be okay, but I don’t think he wanted to talk about it so I didn’t.
We drove in silence for awhile then the phone rang. Mimi was calling to see if we were at the job site yet because he had another job to do. Poppa explained to her what had just taken place and they laughed about it. After that, Poppa seemed to be more like his old self again. He played the radio for a bit and all seemed fine with the world, but then the man on the radio interrupted with a breaking story.
Poppa turned up the volume as the man talked about a strange event that seemed to be happening right where we were headed.
I don’t know why, but I turned off my video game and listened to that news broadcast. The man was saying that reports were being called in by the dozens. At first they thought it was a joke but after the eighth call, they decided to send a news crew down to the area to see if there was anything newsworthy going on.
Some reports said that several deer just ran out in front of them as though they feared for their lives. Others said it was rabbits running like mad. One man said that so many birds flew in a frensy, he nearly wrecked his truck trying to avoid them.
What was going on??!!
I could see that Poppa was getting tense. His eyes seemed to be looking everywhere at once as though expecting something to run out in front of us from any direction.
“Poppa,” I asked quietly, “Which way did that bear come from?”
He said, “I don’t know Mac. All of a sudden there it was and I swerved to keep from hitting it.”
Poppa decided that we should take the old highway instead of staying on the interstate, so at the next exit, we veered off. The guy on the radio was trying to get a message our, but his voice kept breaking up. We heard, “whatever you do, DON’T…_get….on…._______Stay on the interstate!”
We thought Poppa made the right decision. We had driven about three miles when we learned the error of our ways. The man on the radio was instructing everyone to STAY on the interstate! If we had, we would have driven right over what we were driving right in to!
In the distance we could hear a very strange whirring sound. Trees were falling as though a giant were playing a game of pick-up sticks. Animals and birds were running and flying wildly with such panic in their eyes. It was awful!
Traffic was at a standstill now. Some people were standing beside their vehicles. Others dared not get out.
A man walked over to our truck and told Poppa that he had just gotten a call form his office in Houma and there were reports of something going crazy in the woods. Some fierce looking creature was on the loose, tearing up everything in its path. Animals and birds were terrified of whatever it was. I whispered to Jack that maybe it was a Tasmanian devil.
Poppa told the man that he had almost hit a bear, and the man said that a deer jumped out in front of him but he avoided it.
What in the world was going on?!
Poppa told me not to worry, but I was not only worried, I was scared to death! I was about to ask Poppa if we could just turn around and go back the way we came when the creature broke free of the woods and came out into the clearing.
It was a strange sight! Its body was very long and slender, and shiny, like a new nickel. It was sort of spinning above the ground at times, almost floating. It seemed to be very angry, because it was making an awful sound and it was tearing up everything in its path.
The radio report was saying that no one knew what it was or where it came from and most of all, didn’t know what it wanted.
As it got closer, I could see that it seemed to be sort of upside down. It had a strange looking green and yellow head, but that part didn’t seem to do anything. It was the bottom part of it that was so weird. It was sort of a silver/white disc-like opening on a long green and yellow neck. Its mouth, I suppose. A long skinny, clear looking tongue was spinning out of that mouth at an outrageous speed, and it must have been super sharp because it was knocking down trees like they were nothing. It was a sight to behold.
Some people ran screaming away from it. I saw it grab one man’s ankle and it flipped him up in the air, tearing into his ankle and leg. We heard the man scream as blood squirted from the deep cut.
A lady was running in high heeled shoes and one shoe fell off. The creature’s long tongue picked it up and tried to bite into it, but the leather just made the tongue slip off. That seemed to infuriate that creature because it threw the shoe as far away as it could.
There was talk that the creature was an alien. We had never seen anything like it alive on Earth before so it certainly was alien to us.
A group of people were running in the direction it had come from, going to see if there was a space ship!
Jack started barking his most ferocious bark and got between the creature and me, warning me to stay back. I heard Poppa yell, “Run Mack!” He scooped up Jack and we took off as fast as we could away from the creature.
That seemed to make the creature angrier than it was to begin with. We knew we couldn’t climb a tree because it would only cut it down, so we raced for the interstate ramp. Others began to follow, and pretty soon there were at least 50 people between us and it.
The creature turned towards us and seemed to scream in anger, making that awful whirring sound again, but so shrill this time that it made our ears hurt.
Up ahead, on top of the interstate was a tall sign with a light above it. Poppa yelled to the man who had stopped to talk to us and asked for his help. Poppa told the man to stand on his shoulders and he would pass me, and then Jack, up to him and I could hold Jack while I straddled that sign, hoping that the creature’s sharp tongue could not cut into the metal.
We also hoped that it wouldn’t be able to see us but that long silver, green and yellow creature let out the scream of all screams and raced towards us! The sound was deafening!
There was a small flat piece on the top of the light over the sign and I struggled to get Jack up there so he could sit there and be safe. Once my hands were free I could climb a little higher and throw my legs over the cross bars over the sign.
I had just gotten Jack up there when I felt something hot and sharp cut into my ankle! I heard Poppa and the man screaming “NO!” and they tried to grab the creature to pull it away from me. I tried to climb higher but the tongue wrapped white hot around the calf of my leg and the pain was making me sick to my stomach, and that sound was hurting my ears and made my head pound.
It was pulling so hard I was beginning to lose my grip! I yelled for Jack to sit still, hoping the creature could not see him. Somehow, I think Jack knew, because for a change, he didn’t make a sound!
Just then my knife flashed into my mind. I had a knife in my pocket! I brought it everywhere. So I reached into my pocket and took it out and took a swipe at the creature’s awful long tongue. A piece of it fell away and the creature let out such a loud howl! It squealed in such pain and anger! It tried to release more of its horrid tongue and it started spitting and sputtering. Maybe it was choking on a piece of its own tongue!
I reached out again and hacked off another piece of its tongue. This time the creature fell down as it squealed in pain. With an ear-splitting scream, it spat out an extra long piece of its tongue and grabbed my leg just above the knee. I was pulling as hard as I could to get my leg free.
Poppa was again letting the man stand on his shoulders and the man had a grip on the creature’s cold sleek body, and he was pulling with all his might.
There was such a tug of war going on between the man, the creature and me! Just as we thought the creature would win, something happened. The creature’s long tongue began to lose its grip on me. The horrible screaming sound seemed to be losing some of its shrillness.
“I think it’s losing its grip!” said the man. We were both pulling so hard, and it worked, because it let go of my leg and fell to the ground! The man jumped down from Poppa’s shoulders and he and Poppa carefully approached the creature. It did not budge!
Poppa walked over and looked at it and said “Okay, Mac. You and Jack can come down now.” At last the runaway weed eater had run out of gas!
I was scared to come down, but it seemed like all was okay. I was reaching for Jack when I heard Poppa’s voice from a long way off.
“Hey, Mac. Wake up. Wanna go on a job with me?”
I sat up and looked around and there I was, lying safely on the swing on the back porch of the camp! It was all a dream! Whew!!!!