Alligator Emma

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This was the other story I wrote for kids of a friend, as a way to say thanks for playing with me one fine day when the grownups were sipping mint juleps and the horses were running in Kentucky.

Emma was practicing catching her Frisbee the day when it happened. I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell. Cross your heart and hope to die that you'll never tell or I'll turn you into a........... a frog! Or even worse. If you tell what I have to tell you about Emma I'll turn you into a squirmy, nasty, slimy, SNAKE!

There. I think I can trust you not to tell what happened to Emma.

Like I said, Emma was practicing with her Frisbee, tossing it up and catching it, just the way Mr. Koehler had shown her. Mr. Koehler was a friend of her Dad's, and he acted pretty silly, like a clown. But he showed her how to catch a Frisbee, and she had never been able to do that before. It was fun!

You open your hands like they are the top and bottom of an alligator mouth and you CHOMP down on the Frisbee when it flies to you, pretending you are an alligator. And it worked! Emma did it over and over, telling herself she WAS an alligator. All day long she practiced and told herself she was an alligator. All day long she ate the Frisbee. Not really, just pretend eat. CHOMP!

She liked pretending to be an alligator and started running around the yard chomping and biting stuff with her alligator hands and pretending that she was a real live alligator. She closed her eyes and said, "I AM an alligator."

She knew something was wrong when she got down on her belly and started crawling in the grass. She HATED crawling in the grass cause it felt GROSS. But now she was doing it. She was crawling really fast, and she was headed right for the WATER. She saw her brother Harry on the swing and she yelled to him, "Harry, something's wrong with me! HELP!"

Harry looked down at his sister and screamed. He started running for the house, yelling, "Mom, Dad, Emma, there's an ALLIGATOR in the yard. Come quick!"

And Emma, crawling along the grass on her belly, thought to herself, "An alligator! I should get up off the ground and RUN!" But she couldn't get up no matter how hard she tried. And now she was crawling down to the dock and the weeds near the river.

"Stop!," she screamed to herself. But she didn't stop. Do you know what she did? Can you GUESS what she did? Can you even IMAGINE what she did? She crawled right into the river and started swimming. Emma didn't know how to swim very well yet, but now she was swimming REALLY fast. Really, really, really fast. As fast as a submarine, as fast as a fish. Maybe even as fast as an alligator.

By this time Harry had dragged his Mom and Dad down to the dock to try and find the alligator, and to find Emma, who was nowhere to be found. The alligator was not in the yard, so it must be in the river. Harry's Dad had a big net with him, just in case the alligator could be caught.
"Harry, are you SURE you saw an alligator," said Harry's Dad, as they walked down the dock, "they don't even live around here."

"Of COURSE I'm sure," said Harry, "we learned about them in school. It was a real live alligator. And it was BIG. Maybe not as big as me, but about as big as Emma. I'm not kidding about this, Dad. It was an alligator. For REAL!"

By this time, they were at the end of the dock, and Emma, swimming out in the river, could see and hear them. She turned towards them and started swimming as fast as she could to the dock, to show her family how fast she could swim.

"There it is!!," cried Harry from the dock, "I TOLD you I saw an alligator.

"Oh my God," said Harry's Mom, "its coming right for us and its HUGE. Do something, honey!", she said, pushing Harry's Dad to the end of the dock, where he held the net and wondered why an alligator was in their river and now swimming RIGHT AT HIM. What exactly was he supposed to do? Jump on top of the alligator and ride it like a water horse?

Emma was swimming as fast as she could, using her tail as a rudder, waving it back and forth behind her and going even faster. "Hey, wait a minute," she said to herself, "I don't have a tail, do I? Wow, I have a TAIL!"

She saw her Mom and yelled, "Mom, look how fast I can swim! Look at my new tail. Look!"
"I think the alligator's trying to talk to us, and it keeps waving its tail at us," said Harry's Mom, "and it sounds a little like Emma. Oh no, you don't think the alligator ate Emma, do you?!! Douglas, you have to CATCH THAT GATOR AT ONCE!"

And so he did. Harry's dad put the big net into the water and the alligator swam right into it, like it WANTED to be caught. But then the alligator got caught in the net and swam around and around in the water, beneath the dock and out of sight. Harry's Dad pulled with all his might and slowly pulled the alligator from the water.

And there, in the bottom of the net, was Emma. She was wet and had river grass in her hair. But she was smiling and very happy, as her Dad pulled her from the net and put her back on the ground again. "Mom, Dad, Harry, did you SEE how fast I swam?," said Emma, " And look, I have a tail." she turned to show them, but the tail was gone. But they all hugged her and laughed about her tail that wasn't there.

As they all went inside for hot chocolate, Emma said, "I heard you guys talking about an alligator. Where did it go?"

And her Mom hugged her tight and said, "The alligator went home, sweety. The alligator went home to have some hot chocolate with its family."

The End.