The incident occurred when I was ten and my sister Kimberly was fourteen. We were both bored and went outside, I unaware that she had car keys in her hand. When I saw her approaching our station wagon, I knew something was up. She got into the car and called to me, telling me to do the same, so I did. We drove up and down the driveway about six times before parking again in the same spot. My body stopped shaking when I realized that since the car was where it was supposed to be, we hadn't gotten caught. Opening the door to get out I saw her glance at the clock and a second later she said, "I've never driven down a hill before. It's only 7: 50, AGrowing Pains' doesn't start for another ten minutes. You go down the hill and pretend you're waiting for a cab, and I will be the cabdriver." Again I agreed and waited at the bottom of the hill. Approaching me, she put down the window and hollered, "You need a cab?" I replied I did and got in. Next she shifted into reverse but we didn't move, or rather we couldn't move: the car was stuck.

We both got out and saw my father's beautiful lawn in a thousand different pieces. Two inches of mud replaced the grass, which was all over the car and on our clothes. Trying to stay calm she got back into the car to try again but the mud had completely encircled the tires. Kimberly had tears flowing down her face as I ran inside to get my other sister Nicole. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw what we had done in one minute. She didn't even ask for the answers; they were in front of her. Since Kimberly was in hysterics, Nicole told her to get back into the car and start the engine while Nicole and I pushed, but that only made the mud deeper. Kim then ran up the hill to the street and started screaming at the top of her lungs. Neither Nicole nor I could understand what she was saying. When our neighbor appeared, she grabbed him and led him to the scene in the backyard. His name was Peter and all he could do was stare. In his twenty-six years of life he had never witnessed anything like this before.

After trying some of his ideas to move the car, we piled into his car to get a tow truck. Kim had begun to calm down but I could see that each time she spoke she was shaking. It was about 9: 30 when they got the car back up the hill. My parents were still at the baseball game, and although it was pitch black outside, we started to clean up the mess. Kim paid the men $30 dollars and got a rake out of the garage while Nicole and I hosed down the car. Doing all we could for the night we went to bed, leaving Peter the job of explaining to my parents what had happened.

The next day we each got a talk while being told that we had broken the sprinkler system and ruined the entire backyard. Two years later Kim has her license, and I even drive with her. To my amazement, she's good, but back then as I watched her come down the hill in my parent's car I knew that this would be a driving experience that would never leave either of us. n