It was a beautiful winter day. The sun was shining, reflecting off the snow like a mirror reflects a face. My sister and I decided that this would be the perfect day to go sledding down the largest hill on our property. This hill is a mountain with a ditch at the bottom, which runs into the driveway, then continues down into a dry streambed. We hiked this mountain of a hill in our fleece-lined boots, snow pants, and heavy coats. We felt so warm.

A slight breeze began to whip at our faces. Regardless of the consequences, we decided not to turn back. We stood at the top and looked down. It was much steeper than we had thought; the middle of the hill seemed to disappear and all we could see was the bottom.

“I will only go down if you go first,” my sister said.

It didn’t make any difference to me; I was going at all costs. I climbed on my sled and off I went. I flew down the hill at lightning speed and hung a right around a bush with precision. I was going so fast that my eyes blurred, snow was nailing me in the face, and my cheeks turned to ice.

Before I knew it, I hit the ditch at top speed. The jolt whipped my neck and cracked my back. I blasted through the ditch and was launched over the driveway in a cloud of snow and ice, flying over in a mess like a bird that had just been shot. The problem is that I don’t know how to fly, which made the landing a disaster. Half of my body landed on the sled and the other half smashed into the frozen ground with brutal force.

I rolled off the sled in excruciating pain. It felt like my hip bone had been shoved up into my head. My back felt four inches shorter. I continued sliding down on my butt and ended up in the dry streambed. I lay in the snow for a long time without moving.

After seeing what had happened to me, my sister decided to walk down the hill rather than sled down. She finally got to where I was lying.

“Are you dead?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “but pretty darn close.”

After I had regained my feeling and strength, I gingerly walked back to our house and had a cup of hot chocolate. To this day my sister will not go down that hill, but I faced my fear three days later and conquered the hill that had once beaten me.