Essay on Personal Narrative

Lindsay Brambley
09/15/2013
Essay #1 Personal Narrative
Laura Mack

Setting Good Examples

It all happened one day in fourth grade. The playground was filled with boisterous kids that scurried around, ranging from third to fifth grade. Half of the third graders crowded the enormous blue sandboxes, while the other half formed lines by the swings. The fifth graders, including Luke Haffman, who I had the biggest crush on, were either playing basketball or loitering by the forbidden tree-line. That left the fourth graders playing on the rickety wooden jungle gym, and sliding down massive orange spiral tunnel slides one right after the other. That was the day that I decided to be a leader instead of part of the crowd. I chose to set a good example versus a bad one. My friends, Kayla, Jamie, Carly and I were always chasing around the older boys. Luke Haffman was the cutest boy in the whole elementary school. His clothes were always pressed and every kid wanted to be his friend. One day he asked us if we wanted to go in the woods. I thought to myself “No way! I’m not going into that mysterious forest!” I waited for one of the girls to speak up, but to my dismay, they followed Luke like baby ducklings followed their parents. I watched my friends disappear into the thickly settled patch of giant maple trees. The teachers had always strictly enforced, and stressed the importance of staying out of those woods. I figured something horrible would happen if we went in there, not to mention the consequences we would suffer if we were caught. Though I didn’t know it that day on the playground, but the choice I made to stay behind would set the pace for the rest of my life. Now that my girlfriends were gone, what was I to do? Play in the filthy sandboxes with the third graders? Or play on the rickety old jungle gym with the rest of the little hellions in my grade? I definitely wasn’t about to play basketball with the older kids. They would ridicule me into the ground! None of my options intrigued me. I was a little worried about my friends and wanted to wait by the tree-line for them to return, but didn’t want Mrs. Quackenbush to see me standing there. I remembered seeing some trash by the woods and decided to ask a supervisor for a plastic bag to put the garbage into. Mrs. Quackenbush was a malicious old lady, or so I thought at the time. That day I saw her crack the smallest smile I had ever seen for the first time when I asked for that trash bag. I went down and picked up the few remnants of trash and waited as long as I could for my friends. When I looked up toward the school I saw Carly running to get in line to return back to class. When recess was over we had to form three long single file lines, divvied up by grade. I clenched that bag so hard and ran to get in line hoping the recess bell wouldn’t ring before I arrived. I looked around franticly for the other girls, neither to be spotted. I started pushing my way through the other kids to get to Carly, trying to advance toward the front of the line where she was standing, when I heard Mrs. Quackenbush’s howl. “Lindsay Brambley!” I watched her neck wrench from side to side, looking for me. “Please come to the front of the lines!” she yelled. I tried to cower down so that I wasn’t seen. I thought I was going to get into trouble for pushing my way to the front of the line. She spotted me. “Come on up here, I want to share something with the rest of the

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