“Yay! Let's go to the pool!” I shouted. Today was the first day of summer, and my dad had finally agreed to take my sister and me to the pool. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” I shouted. I loved to swim and was super excited that my dad  had actually agreed on taking us. This happened when I was eight years old, so I am sure you can imagine my excitement. About fifteen minutes later, we finally left to go to the pool. As soon as we walked in, I immediately took off the towel that I was wearing, took off my flip flops, put on my goggles, and jumped into the pool. For me, jumping in is easier because the water gets warmer faster. My dad and sister were far behind me, so when they finally reached the pool,  I was already in.  When they got in, I asked my dad to swim with me, but he had already agreed to swim my sister first.

I was very disappointed because I was looking forward to swimming with my dad. But, I didn’t want to waste my time moping around. My dad had agreed to take me to the pool! I didn’t want this ‘once in a blue moon’ chance to go to waste. After a while, I decided to do some tricks in the water, such as handstands, somersaults and backward somersaults. As I was walking in the pool to find the right spot to do a handstand, I spotted something at the bottom. I didn’t have my goggles on at that moment, so I couldn’t look underwater to clearly see what it was. I went to ask my dad if we could check out what it was, but he said that it was probably just a leaf or some debris, and to not worry about it. But I was curious. I had to find out what it was. I walked towards it. I slowly realized that I was now in the deeper part of the pool.  But, my curiousity got the best of me and I continued to walk towards the object.  On my fourth step, as my heel touched the object on the pool floor, I slipped! Since I was in the deeper end of the pool, I couldn’t stand up properly. I tried to find something to grasp, to pull, to push, to get myself up, but I couldn’t. I knew that I was beginning to drown.

My arms began to flail. I knew that the only way to get myself out of the water was to yell for help. As my head popped in and out of the water, I began to scream for help. I yelled as loud as I could but only this came out. “Hel… me! Da… I ca...sw..m!” I could feel the water in my ears, my nose and I was gulping down a lot of water. I struggled to breathe. This can’t be it.  “Is this the end?”, I thought.  “But I have so much more to do in my life!” I kept thinking.  “This can’t be the end! Can it?” I panicked.  Suddenly, I felt hands locking under my body, and pulling me up. I was spitting out lots of water. I could barely open my eyes because they were burning, due to the chlorine in the water. I started coughing and couldn’t stop.

As I slowly opened my eyes, I could see my dad looking down at me. He sat me up, patted my back to make sure that I had coughed out all the water. He asked me if I was ok and once I confirmed that I was alright, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and went to get his towel.  I sat up, found my goggles and put them on, and stuck just my head under the water to see what had caused me to almost drown.  There it was; just lying there at the bottom of the pool. I slowly stood up, put my towel around my waist and as we began to leave the pool area, I glared down at that nasty, rotten banana peel that had almost caused my certain death.