GETTING
OVER MY FEARS
Written
by the bestselling author himself, Max Bryan
It
was a warm February day at Walt Disney world. My family and I were sitting at
the outdoor café.
“Hey,
look at that mountain!” My dad said. It was a massive roller coaster that
looked like a mountain. “I wonder what it’s called,'' my dad said. “I googled
it and it says Expedition Everest” my mom answered.
“Let’s
ride it!” I said with enthusiasm. So far today I had not seen many big roller
coasters but this one looked AWESOME.
But
when we got closer I noticed several things I hadn’t before. All of the sudden
one of the drops looked a lot steeper, and the roller coaster looked even more
massive than it had from farther away.
I
thought “Actually, I don’t know if we should ride this.” By now I was very
nervous. I started feeling drops of sweat on my head.
Then
I remembered something that my friend Ben had said all to me when I was in
kindergarten. “Expedition Everest is definitely the scariest ride at Disney
world.” he had said.
Generally
roller coasters were not too scary, but this was the scariest roller coaster I
had ever seen. Even scarier than twisted timbers at kings' dominion.
I
noticed my dad was gone and I asked my mom “where did dad go?”. She said “Dad
went to get tickets for that roller coaster because you said you wanted to ride
it.”
“Oh
no! I thought. When my dad got back I told him how nervous I was.
“Well
I already bought the tickets so you will have to come.” he said.
Then
we joined the already long line for the ride. Finally it was our turn. “Next!”
The lady operating the ride called. We got onto the roller coaster in a seat
near the front. We got buckled in our seats and waited for the ride to start.
My feet shifted around nervously below my seat.
“You
can’t get off now!” my dad says, stating the obvious.
A
few seconds later I heard a loud thud and then the ride started moving up the
rickety rails slowly until it was so high up that I dared not look down.
I
decided to look down and see how high up we were. I instantly regretted looking
down. We were at least 350 feet in the air and I have learned from experience
that whenever a roller coaster goes up it always goes down, which meant we’d be
plummeting at least 200 feet. Also, I didn’t like imagining what would happen
to me if the track broke and I fell. I looked up at the gradually approaching
mountain.
We
were approaching the top of the mountain and I could feel the butterflies in my
stomach. We got to the top and then I was shocked to see that the track had
been broken.
“Oh
no this isn't happening!” I said with a hint of terror in my voice. Then I
noticed that the track looked like it had been bent as a part of the ride.
“Phew!” I thought. No sooner had I thought this than the ride shot backward
down the side of the mountain at the steepest incline I had ever seen on a
roller coaster. To top it off, we were riding backwards with our little roller
coaster carts facing the other way, so we couldn’t even see where we were
going, which is why I found myself screaming uncontrollably.
Gravity
was yanking my body down into the seat and wind whipped against my face as the
roller coaster sped down toward the ground. Then, at the last second it shot
back upward and into the mountain.
Then,
the ride stopped and I heard a growling noise. “There is a freaking wolf on the
roller coaster!” I thought. Then I saw this massive shape. It looked a lot like
a yeti. Then I realized “ Yetis aren’t real so that must be a part of the
ride!”. As soon as I realized that the ride jolted forward right in between the
yetis legs and down the other side of the ride.
Then
it curved and I could see the whole animal kingdom below me. “I don’t want to
get off!” I said, replying to what my dad said earlier. The view was amazing. I
could even see people that were almost as small as ants. This was one of the
best rides I had ever been on!
Just
as I was getting used to the roller coaster and having fun it turned sharply
and then shot downward. Then, it turned sharply and jerked to a halt at the end
of the ride. As I stepped out I thought “That wasn’t so bad!” with relief. It
was actually pretty fun. In fact, the worst part was actually the anticipation
and not the ride.
My
dad must have seen me smile because he said “I told you it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Um, no you didn’t” I replied. But he had a point. Once I stopped worrying I
actually started enjoying myself. If there was one thing I learned that day it
was sometimes you just have to get it over with.
THE
END
