Project Victory!  by Alice Harrington

First Place, 6-9 Grade Creative Non-Fiction

It was October, and the air had pleasant coolness to it. I was on the ferry to Peak’s Island to help Miss Jeannie with her horses. I traded helping her to be able to ride and be around the horses. When I got off the ferry, I made my usual 25-minute walk by the ice cream shop and Hannigan’s, the island grocery, and up the dirt road past quiet houses to her farm. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

As I arrived at the farm, a boy popped out of the bushes. It was Connor, Miss Jeannie’s nephew, who said hi to me. He got on his cousin’s blue bike to leave. Confused, I asked him where Miss Jeannie was and where he was going. Connor then told me that she was at church and was expecting him. Slightly panicked, I asked him what I was to do while they were gone. Nonchalantly, Connor said it would be helpful if I brought Dawn, the draft horse, out of the paddock, groomed her, and tacked her up to prepare for trail rides. He added that if I couldn’t do that, I could just wait until they were back from church. He claimed that they’d be back in 15 minutes, which I knew was not going to happen. It’s alright, I told myself, church only takes about an hour, so I’ll be just fine. Connor rode off, and I was left on my own with the horses.

A little while after Connor disappeared, the sky clouded over and became an unsettling gray color. I glanced over into the dark wooded area at the entrance to her farm as sticks cracked in the bushes and a crow flew overhead. The air was still and there was no perceptible sound. It was strange that I couldn’t hear the sounds of a lively farm. I usually felt very safe on the island, but today I felt uneasy. I sat huddled on the cement mounting block with my cold hot chocolate in my hands, sipping it warily.

Pulling myself together, I brought Dawn out to groom her. With Dawn dragging me with her on her mission to get to a fresh patch of grass, there was nothing I could do to stop the determined donkey in the same pen from escaping. Inevitably, the donkey, Jerome, finagled his way out of the pen, which was held together by discarded, colorful halters and lead lines. Thankfully the main pasture was closed so he couldn’t run off, but he wasn't supposed to be outside the enclosure. I decided to tie Dawn up to a tree with a rope that I found on the ground. I couldn’t find a halter that fit her massive head in Miss Jeannie’s unorganized mess that lay in heaps inside the rickety, old tack shack that used to be used the ferry shelter on the wharf.

I groomed her while intermittently trying to get Jerome back in his pen. The more time I spent enticing, tugging, pulling, and pushing the donkey to get him away from his patch of grass that was his sole objective for escaping, the more Dawn became impatient with me because she wanted attention and hay. The more Dawn pulled, the more the rope holding her threatened to come clean off the tree.

Realizing that my physical efforts were in vain, I decided to play the waiting game with Jerome, who would get thirsty, and go back into his pen for water. The water was far enough into his pen that if I snuck up on him and closed the gate quickly, Jerome wouldn’t have time to react. I watched him saunter into his muddy pen, and I raced over to frantically try to tie the correct halters together to latch the gate. When Jerome realized what I was doing, he ran full force at the gate before it was fully secured. As I ducked out of the way, he jumped over my shoulder. Free again, he left me to sit in my despair that Miss Jeannie would return to find the farm in chaos. I ate some of my lunch and watched and waited for another moment to seize my opportunity.

Later, I saw Jerome creep over to his water pail with one eye and one ear on me. I made a small move, and he stopped dead in his tracks as we stared each other down from 20 yards away. I held perfectly still mid-rise from the mounting block. He continued to the water trough after giving me a hard look. Before dipping his head to drink, he waited to see if I’d make a move. I laughed to myself as I stayed completely still. Smart donkey, but not smart enough! As soon as his ears relaxed, I commenced Project Victory!

I hid behind molding hay bales and overturned watering troughs to not arouse suspicion as I crept closer to the unaware donkey. With a crouched scamper, I arrived at the gate undetected. It all happened in a flash: Jerome’s ears stood up as I leapt up, swung the gate closed, and latched it, just as Jerome slammed against the now-locked gate in a last attempt at freedom. Jerome fell backwards from the shock of crashing against the gate as I laughed in his face, giddy with my victory.

I strolled up to Dawn as the sun came out. Miss Jeannie’s rusted out Suburban with a purple number 9 sticker on the back pulled up three hours after Connor had left me. He hopped out of the back seat, and Miss Jeannie’s boots hit the gravel with a crunch. She was wearing her usual uniform of a blue tank top, cuffed jeans, and rubber boots. Her strong, tanned arms hugged me, then she reprimanded me for the rope that was barely keeping Dawn tied to the tree and walked off with no apology for leaving me alone. As I watched her receding form, I shook my head sighing. She’d never know about Project Victory.