Scariest Moment. You are six years old. You are following your mother through Wal-Mart

by sally_barrett (student)

You are six years old. You are following your mother through Wal-Mart. You see clothes on circle racks and some hanging on the walls. Your mind starts racing with all the “adventures” you could have in this place, like pretending you are superman and flying around “buildings” made of a soda displays or pretending you are a famous British singer and walking around with your shoulders back and talking in a British accent. But you don’t choose to go on an adventure; you choose to scare your mom.

Hiding in the middle of a circle rack filled with t-shits, you wait for your mom to notice you are gone. You never hear her voice raised with panic nor do you see her running around like a crazy person looking for you. You do hear the lady from church, with black hair, that sits two rows down from you. The lady is talking about her son coming home for Christmas to, what looks like, her friend from church. The lady’s voice is full of pride for her son. She doesn’t have a voiced filled with worry about you being missing. The lady from church has no need to worry about you; she doesn’t even know you are at Wal-Mart.

After a while you push aside two blue t-shirts that have that “never been washed before” smell. You peek between them and see Wal-Mart full of people. Some of the people you see are old couples with gray hair and wrinkles, walking around holding hands. Some people are young mothers and fathers with surprised eyes, chasing there kids, trying to get them to behave. Some people are teenagers with fresh faces not marked with life and stress, that are just laughing and having fun with their friends. You don’t see your mom though. Panic starts to set in. A thousand different things run through your mind, like “what if she forgot me?”, “what if she never comes back?” Your eyes fill with big tears that stream down your face, leaving your eyes red and puffy. You taste the salt on your lips from your tears as you push the t-shirts out of your way and look around for your mom. Everyone you see looks at you with pity filled eyes but no one asks you why you are crying. You have to find your mom on your own.

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You don’t know where to start looking so you just stand in place and don’t move. Your eyes wander around looking for your mom but all you see are the racks of colored t-shirts and faded jeans. You hope your mom will walk by and you will see her but she doesn’t. What you don’t know is that your mom has been watching you this whole time. She has been standing off to the side behind a display of Mickey Mouse clothing items. She saw you hide in the rack of colored t-shirts and saw you come out of them crying. Now she is waiting for you to notice her. She steps out to her left, making herself clear as day, if you would just turn around and look. Before you have the chance to turn around, she makes herself look busy by looking through the Mickey Mouse clothing items, so you have no idea she has been watching you this whole time. You are still looking around the racks of clothing that are surrounding you. You look to your left and see a family of four with smiles on their faces and no worries. You start to feel as if you will never see your mom again.

Turning around, you finally see your mom. She is busy looking through clothes and you wonder if she has realized if you are missing yet. You don’t wait to ponder this thought as your little legs run to her. You have tear stained cheeks and you finally notice that you are shaking. Your mom looks down at you, “what’s wrong, sweetie?” she says in a sweet voice that gives nothing away to the fact that she knew you were missing. Your eyes shed more tears as you hug her leg so tight, “I hid from you in the clothes rack, I thought you would come looking for me but you never did,” you say through sobs. Your mom gets a smile on her face and this confuses you. “I knew where you were. I’ve been standing here watching you this whole time,” her voice sounds amused. This makes you question her. “Why didn’t you come get me? I got so scared I thought I would never see you again!” You no longer have tears running down your face, but you start to get hiccups from all the crying you had been doing. “I didn’t come get you because I wanted you to learn a lesson. I bet you will never hide from me again now.” You don’t say anything back. You just shake your head “no” and start to walk with her when she is ready to move on to a different section. You look up at your mom confused to the fact that she doesn’t seem to be mad at you. She seems pleased with herself that you came running to her and said you wouldn’t leave her again. As you and your mom walk to the grocery isle you hold the shopping cart so tight with her little had that your knuckles turn white. You don’t plan on leaving your mom this time. You look around at all the people who still look at you with pity filled eyes when they see how bloodshot yours are. They don’t know why you have been crying. They don’t know that you thought hiding from your mom was a good idea or that you were terrified five minutes ago that your mom had forgotten you. All they see are red, puffy eyes that tell them something is wrong with you. You know nothing is wrong anymore and that your mom would never leave you. You smile at the people looking at you with pity and wave at the ones you know. You didn’t have the best day in the world and ask your mom not to tell your dad because you don’t want him to know you thought it was funny to hide from your mom, he would be very disappointed in you. He doesn’t like when disobey your mom or when you are irresponsible. He is a serious man that doesn’t like when jokes don’t have a pun at the end. He would ground you against your mothers wishes and you would not be able to run to your mom for protection. Your mom agrees and you smile at her. She may not know it and you may not know it either, but after finding out that your mom had been watching the whole time you find a new respect for her. You had never hid from your mom before. You had never walked away from her or tried to scare her. This was a first for the both of you. She didn’t have to let you cry, she could have come to you yelling and she could have spanked you for hiding, but she didn’t. Your mom has never been one to be mean and to take things to extreme or make a scene in public. She likes to let you learn from your own mistakes. Like when you raced through the woods on your bike that rainy day and your bike hit a slippery spot on the road and you crashed into an oncoming car. She was calm and took the situation into her hands and made sure you were okay before she asked you if you would ever be doing that again, to which you answered no. Your mom has never been one to believe punishment was the answer when scaring you made you think twice next time the thought crossed your mind to do it again. Your mom has always been one to show that she cares through though learning. Like how she let you learn a lesson on your own in Wal-Mart. She let you find out the hard way, that way next time when the thought crossed your mind to hide from her, you would remember the feeling of being scared and wouldn’t leave. Just like how when you got back on your bike, after your dad fixed the front tire from when you crashed and you went back into the woods to race but only when it wasn’t raining and the roads were not wet and slippery because you remembered how it felt to be afraid of getting hurt really bad or to die because you did something irresponsible and stupid.