The Raft

Everyone loves summer vacation, right? Well, Nicky is not excited about this one, he receives news that he will be staying at his grandmothers house for the rest of the summer vacation. Nicky and his father both come to an agreement that this grandma isn’t their regular old fashioned grandma, she calls herself a river rat. What does that mean? Who knows. One thing we know for sure is that she isn’t those types of grandmas who would bake you delicious cookies and spoil you. You’re probably wondering why Nicky can’t stay with his own father. Well, his dad has to work at the plant the whole summer vacation. The good news is: There are gonna be no kids there. In my opinion, I think that’s a great things for starters. Socializing just isn’t my thing, all I need to survive is my handy dandy thick book. 

Anyway, as the time finally came, Nicky was dropped off at grandmothers house. When they were gonna eat supper, Nicky was offered corn bread and instantly turned it down. When he passed through the living room, or in his description what would have been the living room in anyone else’s house, he saw paintings and sketches and a half-finished carving of a bear. When the grandma spots that he has been staring at the bear carving, she simply says,”Been carving that old fellow for years (…) The real one hangs out at the dump”. I think it’s pretty cool that she has the ability to carve wood to make it look like a real animal but that’s only my opinion.

During the summer vacation, Nicky quickly realized that his father was right, Grandma found plenty of stuff for Nicky to do like in the morning, she made him stack firewood, help her clean out the rain gutters and more. When Nicky went fishing, he wasn’t able to catch a fish and that frustrated him. His grandmother told him to try again and he decided to listen to her. He eventually fell asleep and when he woke up, he was surprised by a raft. It also had a picture of a rabbit. If I saw a raft in real life, I would’ve ran away screaming with my arms in the air but not Nicky. Nicky is brave!

Nicky finally cleaned the raft and he got an idea. He ran to the cottage and asked his grandmother if she had any rope and she said yes. He grabbed the rope and pushed the raft into the reeds along the rivers edge and tied the raft to the dock so it wouldn’t drift away. Why didn’t he tell her? Who knows?  Now, what is he going to do with the raft? Will he use it or will he just stare at it until he becomes bored of it? You can find out what happens next in the library.