The Sister Chronicles - Ahoy! Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

I stood there on the dock, hands on hips, and watched my sister drift slowly away from the pier. Had she been in the rowboat this wouldn't have been as much of an issue, since she could have paddled her way back to the dock or the shore. But she was in the motor boat, the boat she insisted on being in, and she didn't have the keys. Not that she knew how to drive the thing anyway.

At first she didn't seem that upset. But once she reliazed that she was too far away from the dock to jump back to it, and that she was indeed floating down the river alone, she started to wail. I stood there and let her scream.

I heard voices and footfalls behind me, and I turned to see my dad come running down the back lawn and out from under the shade of the trees. "What's going on? Tracy, why are you out there?"

My sister shouted back in a tearful voice "Sheri untied me!".

My dad looked at me and said "Why did you do that?"

I said "She was being mean."

My dad gave me the look of death and called to Tracy "Hold on, I'll come get you!".

By this time most of the family was on the back lawn and heading toward the dock. My father called to uncle Fred to grab the keys, which he found and tossed out to my father. My sister was really crying now so my dad just jumped in the water and waded out to the motorboat instead of bothering with the rowboat. He may have had to swim the last few feet or so, but it really wasn't that far. He climbed in the boat, started it up, and puttered back to the dock.

Once my sister was safely on the dock and the boat tied up again my dad barked at me "Get in the house!" Once in the house I got a long lecture about how it was dangerous to set my sister free down the river (Why?, I asked, she knew how to swim!) and also that it was not very nice of me (Well she started it by being a Miss Bossypants!). Eventually I was banished to the upstairs bedroom for the rest of the day, which was fine since I found some old books to look at. Eventually one of my cousins came to get me for dinner, and all was forgotten.

Needless to say, we weren't allowed to play alone on the dock anymore.