How Could I?
Summer was always the best. All there was to do was hang out with friends, jump into pools, and sit around all day until something random popped up for you to do. It was great only until something out of the ordinary occurred. My little sister, Brianna, sat around all day with nothing to do. I was babysitting, and she was bored. Therefore, we decided to call up my best friend, Tina, to come to the town park with Brianna and me.
Brianna strapped on her helmet and got out her bike. I, on the other hand, slipped into my flip flops and waited for Tina to join us. To tell my parents where I was and who we were with, I left a note on the kitchen table. At the bottom of the note, I wrote Tina’s cell phone number down and a side note to call her if necessary. Brianna and I also went next door to tell my neighbor where we’d be, just in case of an emergency.
We left the house and headed straight towards the park. Brianna rode her bike, and Tina and I walked. Every two minutes Brianna turned around to make sure I knew where she was. That got annoying, so I told her to go ahead a little. She went ahead, and I was talking to Tina. I had just finished a deep conversation with Tina about boy issues, clothes, and money- the usual.

The sun was calm and beginning to die into dusk. The air filled wildly with humidity, and the baby-blue sky had turned into a pink-grapefruit twist. The geese were obnoxiously honking throughout the park, and everyone kept stepping in the smelly gifts the geese had left all over the pathway.

Aside from the noisy birds, the park was basically quiet. I started to think. I could not seem to remember what was wrong, but something surely was. I had been so completely involved in Tina’s boy trouble that I forgot about my responsibility. Brianna was not close by anymore.
My heart started to rip as my eyes became glassy with tears. My head became hot and heavy, and a stomach ache crawled upon me. “Tina,” I said with a shaky voice, “Where is Brianna?”
“Uh, I’m not so sure,” she mumbled and became silent. “Let’s split up.”
“Yeah, I’ll take this half of the park, you take the other,” I said hopeful. We both took sides of the park. I went right, and Tina went left. My face became red and my body became nervous and anxious. How could I forget to watch her? How could I let her go farther ahead? I thought to myself. I felt as if I was going to throw up.
I got to the hill by my house in the park. I still had not found my baby sister. This is when I truly started to go crazy. I screamed across the park to Tina, asking if she had found her yet. The answer was “no”. I stopped to look around once more just to make sure. No sign of her anywhere.
“Do you need a phone, young lady?” a generous man asked me. My phone was on the verge of dying and the police would have been cut off.
“Yes, yes please,” I said with tears pouring down my red hot face, seeping down into the skin on my neck. A scream jumped out of my lungs, and my breaths became short as my heart started skipping beats. What kind of sister does something this terrible? I kept making myself feel worse and worse. I mean, what else could I have done? All I could think about was that someone could have taken Brianna, and she could be hurt right now.
I dialed 9-1-1 on the man’s cell phone. A woman answered, “What’s your emergency?”
“I-I-I can’t find my little sister in the park.”
“What’s your name?” she asked. Answering with panic in my voice, I wished she would hurry up and send help. I answered questions about my location, my name, my sister’s name, a description of Brianna, and what she was doing. I never knew how hard it really was to have an emergency and keep calm until then. It certainly was not easy to answer questions at the same time that I was basically having a heart attack.
Eventually, the woman on the phone said, “A police car should be coming your way.” It was. Relief was slowly beginning to take over the panic, but Brianna was still missing and my mom still had no idea.
All of a sudden, Tina screamed to me, “I FOUND HER!” Brianna and Tina walked out from behind the bridge at the end of the park where Brianna was sitting, waiting for me to catch up with her. I started hysterically crying from relief as I approached the police car on the other side of the park.
I explained everything to the police man, and he told me to get into the car. I sat down uncomfortably and he drove to the opposite side of the park where I live. My mom ran down the hill to the sidewalk. Tina and Brianna walked towards us. I hugged my mom, and her blouse became dark and wet with my tears, and then I hugged Brianna. The pure fear I felt that day was worse than any physical pain I’ve ever had to deal with. It really made me realize that no one can ever replace my sister.