The Time I Broke a World Record

The Time I Broke a World Record

By Jai Treestar

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I dedicate this book to everyone at my school, and Jordan Romero.

Maple Leaf Book Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright 2016

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One day I was looking out the car window with wanderlust. I was thinking about moving and was scared about other kids opinions of me. The date was September 11, 2007. I was hoping we had a gym with a rock wall and a treadmill, because I love to travel. I heard my mom say “Amanda we’re almost there”

“OK, cool” I said In a slump ish kind of voice.

My mom said “ I know you’re scared but I think the kids are going to like you.”

Even know my dad was driving he looked back and patted me on my head and said “you’ll do fine kido.”

I knew she was just trying to cheer me up, but I just kept it to myself. I responded with a simple “thank you.”

Daydream: I remember when I was about 4 years old in the year 1998. There was a mountain called Mt. Winchester. It was 3,300 ft. I was really tired by the time I reached the top, but I was really excited. I remember it was really windy. And my legs had a burning pain in them. It took us 2 and a ½ hours to climb it. Then we had lunch and went down. I fell asleep on the way home in the car. That’s how I knew I was going to like hiking and rock climbing.

We finally got to the house. I said “it looks pretty.”

We looked at it and it was a little house. They said “there was 2 acres of land.”

It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom with a walk in shower with a toilet and sink, a tiny kitchen followed by a dining room, last a tiny little living room. I said “ its ok.”

I thought it needed a few fixes in the house, but over all it was ok.

Then my mom said “ Yes. We already put a down payment on the house.”

I started school 2 weeks after we moved. There were lots of kids. But there was one slight problem I had to walk to school and it was 2 miles from home.

4 weeks later

I had been going to school for about 4 weeks. One day I was walking back home from school and I was listening to music. I didn’t realize there was a car speeding towards me. Then there was a big bang ! I was screaming and crying. I felt like I was getting a 10 thousand pounds dropped on me and I was drowning at the same time. I couldn't feel my legs it hurt so bad. Then 10 of the neighbors came out to help. They asked my name and phone number. They called my parents and the ambulance. Some brought water bottles, ice packs, and first aid kits. An ambulance came with my mom right behind them. Then the guy got out of his car and said “I’m really sorry for what happened I will pay the price.”

"Then you have to pay for her surgery and you owe us 25,000.” said mom

Then the detective came and was asking me questions. He asked “How did you get hit.”

I said “I was walking home and then this guy came and hit me.

The ambulance guys put me on a stretcher and examined me in the ambulance. Then by the time they were done we were at the hospital. Finally the doctor examined me and ran some test and said “ I'm really sorry to say this but you can’t function your legs anymore so they're useless. I'm really sorry.”

I started to cry. I felt like I was cursed for the rest of my life. Then the doctor recommended me getting my legs amputated. And I agreed with my parents to have them amputated.

It was very different adjusting to my new life, but I was going to get a lot of practice. I had to watch videos on how to turn and drive around in a wheelchair. I started out by having my mom guide me to help me get use to it. It wasn’t that fun either.

At school there was a way different effect. Kids looked at me strangely and some even pointed and laughed. So I went and told the principal and he said “I will talk to the other kids who were making fun of you.”

“Thank you.”

It took a long time to get use to at school. Then it started to stop and school was more fun than before.

Then a month later I started doing push ups and trying to climb trees with ropes. It was very tough, but I kept trying till I could make it to the 20 feet tall mark. Then about 3 months later I made it to the top . Then I told my mom and dad. They said “Practice makes progress.”

Then I said “Yeah it's really paid off.” That night I was so happy.

Then my classmates brought me a letter after school that day.It said, “We hope you get strong soon.”

The letter inspired me to start practicing. I practiced every chance I had. I kept falling, but that just inspired me more, and more to keep trying and pushing myself to go on.

I said “I will be fine I can still climb and do what I love. Thanks for the letter.”

That night I was talking to my friend Julia and she said “You should try to climb your local mountain soon. I’m not trying to put pressure on you though.”

Then I responded “I’ve been thinking about it. I think I will Next month on Wednesday because it’s supposed to be the nicest Wednesday for a month.”

Then my friend said “Sorry I have to go eat dinner. Bye talk to you later.”

I said “bye Julia. Talk to you later.”

And we hung up. Also I went down and had pizza for dinner. My parents asked me what I want I was doing that day. I said “ I studied my homework students brought me. I practiced climbing and exercising, last I went for a stroll.”

Then mom and dad said “Wow sounds like a fun day.”

I responded “Oh yeah! I also watched a little TV.”

“Cool!” said Mom and Dad.

That night I went to bed excited for the next week. Not only was I going to attempt my hike, but that’s when we were going to start our new writing project. The assignment was to write an autobiography. I was planning on writing about my life until I was 8. If I wrote a story that had a time period of 14 years that would be too long to write about.

The next week I was working on typing my paper. I was up to when I was two and I went to my grandparents house because my mom broke her arm trying to snowboard and she needed x-rays.

Then I finished the book in about six weeks. It was 30 pages long. They were full pages too. I turned it in on the way to lunch. That day was the best because I met my new friends Mya and Marissa. We hung out almost everyday after school and texted all the time. They got me into a project called Science Wars. Science Wars was a thing for kids who are really good a science.

I was inventing a hoverchair. I called it a hoverboarchair because you’re hovering. It took a long time to design it because you had to make it be able to have an axle all the way through it, but able to make each foot pedal turn forward and back. I finally started to work on makinging the prototype. It took me 4 hours just to make the axle and put two motors on it. It had a chair on it so people could sit on it if they were handicapped.

The next day I went to school did every thing I normally would do.

I spent another four hours that night working on building the circuit board and putting all the wires in. My dad helped me with some of the work. Then when it was done I tested it out. It worked and I was happy.

That night I had a dream. Dream: I was talking to my dad about going to six flags, because I wanted to hike Monument mountain. He was saying That would be cool. We could go to six flags for a celebration when you finish hiking it.

Reality: Finally I woke up. I was getting ready for school. I got a ride from my dad. I was telling him my idea on the way to school. He said “Yea it is do able. You just have to practice for one whole year. It’s so you don’t get hurt and you have a bunch of practice.”

I said “ Cool! I will practice every day for a year.”

My dad responded “I will have to take this up with your mother too.”

I said “Yea. I know I think it will be ok but I would still ask.”

Finally at school I started to tell my best friends Mya and Marissa about my trip I wanted to go on.

That day after school I asked my mom “Can I climb Monument mountain. Dad said he was ok with it but to ask you.”

“I am ok with it as long as you have all the safety gear you need.”

I said “ok. I will start getting all the gear today.”

1 Year later

It was the summer of when I was 15 I felt so happy because I was ready to climb Monument Mountain. I told my friends I was going in one week and that I will miss them. I packed all of my clothes for a week of hiking. I packed: a toothbrush, 4 bottles of water the kind that have a top that turns into a cup, toilet paper, and a few things to occupy me on my hike. Then my parents had a little portable gas stove, and a pot with some tea bags in it, and last 2 gallons of water. My dad packed rope and gloves for any trouble we ran into. He also packed a first aid kit for just in case. I packed 1 last thing it was my camera for when we got to the top. I was so excited I said “I wish it was next week.” I brought my hover chair so i could float up some of the way. Some I still had to climb.

One week later we hopped in the car and started driving. It was a 1.5 hour drive to get there.

I put my bags in the car and put my computer in the back seat with me. My mom and dad were in the front my dad was driving and my mom was navigating. Finally when we got there it was about 10:30am. We had a little snack and started hiking at 11:45 we took a map and started our journey. We started out with me saying “oh boy this will be the best trip ever.”

We hiked about ⅕ of the way and then we stopped for lunch. It was 2:00. We had the lunches that was split into three sections. One was turkey, one was cheese, and the last was bread with little mustard packs. Then we had turkey and cheese it tasted so good. It was unbelievably shocking. It tasted like when you are really hot in summer and you have a nice smoothie to cool and hydrate you.

Then we started back on our hike. It was so glamourous. We kept going until we got ⅗ of the way up, because it was about to get really hard to keep going after such a hard day. It was 6:00 and we were all tired, so we stopped at the closest campground. It was a pretty fun first day. We set up our tents and made some nice porridge. It was one of my favorite foods to eat. Then after dinner was one of the most beautiful things I saw all day. It was the stars, we layed down and started looking at them. I called out look Delphinus, and Hercules. Then my parents said “Wow school really had paid off.”

I responded “I just try to learn a lot so I can get good grades and go to a good college.”

“You are a smart child Amanda.”

“Hey don’t look at me I got it from you.”

Finally we went to bed. I like going to bed because it makes you feel like the night goes by so fast but it’s actually hours. I woke up early the next morning and went exploring around our tent. I found a few cool rocks, and acorn caps. The funny thing is what I used the acorn caps for. I used them to wake up my mom and dad because it was 8:00 and I was starting to get hungry and I wanted to reach the top by 2:30. So we ate and got ready for hiking.

We started to hike at 9:00. Then we started hiking. About 1 hour into hiking we came to the hardest part. My dad climbed up the rocks and tied a rope to the top of the 10 foot cliff. I had to get tied to the other end. I put my hover chair near the rocks and started to pull all my weight plus the chair up the mountain. I knew all my push ups were gonna pay off. Finally after 10 minutes I got to the top of the mini cliff. Then we had a short snack. We didn’t have any more major challenges but then and when we got to the top. When we got to the top it was 2:15. right on time. We had lunch and then talked about how we liked it. My mom and dad both said “you were very brave climbing up the cliff Amanda.”

I said “Yes I made a world record.”

Then I overcame my fear of not being able to climb mountains now. I told my parents and said “thank you so much for letting me have such an amazing experience.

Then on the descend down we had to think about how to get me down. Finally we remembered that we saw a video of a person go down a rockwall backwards. So we thought why can’t I. I started going down the cliff backwards and it worked. When we got to the ⅗ place for the second time and it was 6 o’clock again. We got ready for dinner and set up our tents. We looked at the stars again and it was even more beautiful than the night before. The next day we took our time to wake up and eat. Then we started to hike the rest of the way down. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain it was lunch time. My mom and dad said “we can go to one of your favorite restaurants then go to a hotel or go to the mall and get food and shop.”

I thought for a moment and though which one was cheaper because I don't like to take a lot of money from my parents. So then I said “Can I go to the mall?”

My mom responded “yea sure.”

Next when we got to the mall we all went and got Subway because we loved subs. Then I went shopping and had a limit of 100 dollars. Most girls my age would spend it on clothes but I spent it on science supplies and saved 50 dollars for charity.

“Are you sure that's what you want to do?” asked my parents.

“Yes I like to help charity when I have the chance.” I replied.

Then they said “I think you made the right choice honey.”

Finally we went home and had a real home cooked meal. That’s what I was most grateful for. We ate barbecue chicken, black eyed peas, corn, and last rice. t was one of my most favorite meals and I loved it.Then as a family we started to watch TV for a little bit. Finally I went to bed early because I needed to catch up on my sleep also I had school the next day.

When I got back to school all the kids and teachers asked “Did you make it to the top?”

I responded “Yes. I’m so proud that I did it too.”

After that I felt like everyone looked at me differently. I know why they did though. It’s because I climbed Monument Mountain. I think I’m gonna be looked at as a hero.

The End