First Time Jitters

By Mariah Smith

It was dark and cold. We were moving so fast through the darkness. My head was tucked level with the car. All my friends had told me that if my head wasn’t out of the way, a man hidden in the dark would slice my neck like butter. I knew it was just a silly roller coaster rumor, but still I kept my head hidden until we were out of the dark tunnel.

This was my first time on a roller coaster. My hands were dripping with sticky sweat. It had taken me 9 1/2 years of staring at the Belmont Park roller coaster to finally work up the courage to face my fears, and go on it.

Alienah, Dorina, Julia, and I had all gotten wristbands for Belmont Park. We didn’t go on the roller coaster at first. We walked around and went on the bumper cars, and the ride that looks like shells——but once it starts, you spin around so fast it feels like you are going to barf.

We were on our way to go on the bumper cars again when we ran into Sal, Dorina’s brother’s good friend. They all decided to go on the roller coaster together. But I went on the merry go round alone, instead.

I sat on my pink pony and watched them take the first turn. It made me think, "What am I scared of enough to not go on the roller coaster? Was it speed? No, I absolutely love speed. Could it be that the roller coaster was so old? No." So I thought to myself, "If they could do it, so could I.

I was walking off the merry-go-round. Then without thinking, I ran into the line to go on the roller coaster.

The roller coaster pulled up with Dorina, Sal, Alienah, and Julia. I could tell they were surprised to see me waiting for my turn. They ran off the ride and over to me in line.

We finally got to the front of the line. I sat in front with Julia. My whole body was tingling with fear. Once we started moving Julia started to tell me about the man hidden in the dark tunnel, and to crumple myself into a ball so he couldn’t chop my head of like butter. And as I did this I was happy and surprised to see Dorina, Julia and Alienah doing the same. I think it took Sal some time to get it, but eventually he too vanished into his car.

Even though we were moving fast through the dark and I could only see the inside of the car. It wasn’t a very pleasant sight. There was gum and dirt all over it.

Once I could see light shining in the car, I uncrumpled myself. I sat up just as we started going up what seemed to be like a wooden mountain. We were moving very slowly up the mountain. This gave me time to realize that there was no way I could chicken out now, like the many times before. I just had to hold on tight and have fun. As this was running through my mind, we flew down the steepest turn ever. We were almost upside down.

Surprisingly, the tingle of fear was almost gone and I started to relax. Julia kept telling me when to hold on especially tight, which didn’t seem possible because even though the fear was gone my grip hadn’t loosened one bit.

We made our last turn. And then as and as suddenly as we started, we slowed down.

Julia stuck her hand out and smacked one of the red reflectors that lunged from the second pillar. Once we came to a complete stop Julia, Sal, Dorina, Alienah, and I ran out of the ride and back into the line. Never had I ever had so much fun on a ride before. I felt so proud that I had ridden and non-the-less survived the Belmont Park roller coaster, and loved it.