A Mine-Boggling Discovery

(Based on a true story!) Written for "Beyond The Water's Edge - CLOSED"  contest. Prompt: Your story must include all of the following words: cerulean, blister, wander, level, double. (1,177 words)

“Moooomy, we’rrrrrre booooored!” we complained. We were camping in the middle of nowhere. Our dad owned a dump truck, so he carried snow and salt in the winter, gravel and asphalt in the summer. In the winter, he worked locally, but in the summer, he sometimes was assigned on contracts to build roads in remote locations – very remote; wild places in the Canadian woods, with no houses around for miles.

It was my mother’s idea to go camping wherever he worked that summer so that we could be with him more. It seemed like a good idea at first, but after a week of wandering around on our bicycles and reading all the books we had brought, we ran out of ideas. The only other people around were Uncle Frank and his family, but Gil and Martin were much older than us and did their own things, hardly noticing we were there. Teenagers can be pretty stuck up sometimes. What am I saying? I am a teenager, but I was only ten back then.

“Is there a lake around here?” Vicky asked for the fiftieth time, in her whiny voice.

“I wish we had a TV,” Michael mumbled.

“Come on, guys, let’s go for a bike ride – again!” I said, unzipping the tent’s opening.

We followed the dirt path towards the main road. As we reached the intersection, our two cousins sped by with their ATVs, leaving us in a dust cloud.

I grunted, Vicky coughed, and Michael smiled, as he gazed at the two red dots getting smaller.

“I wish we were old enough to have an ATV,” he said dreamily. “That would be so much fun!”

“What do you mean?” Vicky said, puzzled. “We have a TV!”

“No, an A – T – V, an all-terrain vehicle, like they have,” Michael explained, pointing at nothing. They had already disappeared out of view.

“We are old enough,” I retorted. “We just don’t spend our money on expensive, noisy toys like ATVs.” I tried to sound mature, but deep down inside, I would have liked to have an ATV just about then. It seemed like fun! Gil and Martin were certainly not bored like we were.

We took a left turn into a closed side road. A fence with a bright orange reversed triangle blocked the way. Michael and I went around it with our bikes and kept pedaling.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Vicky said, stopping to read the “Danger – Do Not Enter” sign. “Hey, wait for me!” she cried, her little white sandals pushing furiously on the pedals of her sparkly cerulean bicycle. I slowed down to let her catch up. Michael passed me full speed with his mountain bike.

When Vicky and I caught up with him, he was standing beside his bicycle, looking way up and shading the sun with his hand.

“What in the world is that?” Vicky asked, squinting.

“That’s a gold mine shaft,” Michael said. “Come on, let’s explore it!”

My heart thumped with excitement. I took Vicky’s hand and we followed Michael.

“An abandoned gold mine,” Vicky whispered. “Do you think we can find gold? If we do, we could buy one ATV each!”

I laughed. “You can’t just find gold. You would have to dig rock underground with a drill. Besides, if the mine was abandoned, that means there’s no more gold.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed.

I picked up a rock the size and shape of a dynamite stick without the fuse. “What do you think this is – a rock sample used to find out where there was gold?”

“Cool!” Michael said, picking up a similar rock near by. “I think these rocks were removed by drilling, to put dynamite and make a new tunnel.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, pointing at two red dots getting bigger, “here comes double trouble!” If they find us here, I thought, they may tell our parents, and then what will we do?

“Let’s hide and pretend Gil and Martin are our enemies!” Michael suggested.

We hid along the mine shaft. Our cousins zoomed by, far from suspecting they were part of a game where they were the villains!

“They’re gone!” Michael said in a low tone. “Let’s continue our top secret mission.” He put his baseball cap back on, and started walking like a detective looking for clues.

I joined in. “We must not leave any traces or they may find us. Let’s erase our footprints.”

We swept our footprints with fern. Vicky giggled. She sure didn’t look like an FBI agent, with her pink short pants and curly pony tail tied with a ribbon. “Stop laughing,” I said. “Spies don’t giggle.” That made her chuckle even more.

“Whoa!” Michael said, holding a ladder that went way up along the shaft. “Now that’s the tallest ladder I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“I dare you to climb it,” I said, looking at him defiantly.

“Not unless you climb first,” he replied, holding my gaze with his deep green eyes. “You’re the oldest.”

I looked up. I couldn’t even see where it stopped – among the clouds, seemed like. I retied my shoelaces, climbed the first few steps, and looked down. “Come on, scaredy cat, what are you waiting for?”

Michael smoothed his stripy red and blue t-shirt (or was he drying his moist hands?) and started climbing too.

“What about me?” Vicky whined.

“You stay right here on the ground level and keep guard,” Michael said importantly. “If our enemies come back, give us a signal.”

I was high now, and scared out of my wits, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I kept climbing. I was relieved when I heard Vicky’s squeaky voice yell, “Michaeeeeel! Biancaaaa! They’re comiiing!” Her voices seemed to come from far down. I felt dizzy thinking about how high I was.

We both cautiously climbed back down – ignoring Vicky’s pleas for us to hurry – and hid from our enemies just in time. I was shaking all over. It suddenly occurred to me how dangerous this had been. What if our cousins saw us and told our parents? We would probably never hear the end of it. I rubbed my hands together, as if to erase emerging blisters. Michael wiped his forehead with his dusty t-shirt.

Vicky just grinned, showing her missing tooth. “Good job, mateys!” she said, giving me a high five.

“We’re not pirates, we’re spies!” Michael said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, yeah! What do spies say? Mission accomplished!”

We spent the next few days hiding from our cousins, pretending the cylinder rocks were dangerous material from outer space, and having fun exploring around the mine shaft.

Just as we started wishing summer would never end, our mother announced it was time to go home.

“Do we have to?” Vicky whined.

“Can’t we stay just a few more days?” Michael pleaded.

I just sighed, already knowing the answer to Michael’s questions. Parents are good at deciding things without even consulting with their kids.