THE TAIL

Alberto Ramirez

4th Grade • Ernst Prussing Elementary

We were rushing down the stairs to play with the sand and make the biggest sandcastle. We collected sea shells to use them as decoration. With our buckets we gathered wet sand to make the structure hold.

“Should we have flags in our castle?” I asked.

“Sure, we should probably put more sand,” my sister replied. We played until we got tired and thirsty. We went back to the house and cleaned our flip-flops from the sand, then at the kitchen, grabbed a good drink of cold lemonade. Since we were tired we sat at the couch and relaxed by playing our favorite board game.

Our house at the beach was small, but there was a hidden waterway behind the house. We explored that area regularly, during rainy days we will see small fish and frogs hanging around. There was a brown small wooden bridge to cross the waterway, it connected our house with a path that led to the forest and our neighbors. The river had little pebbles and zigzag forms, I loved to collect rocks along with my sister. If the rock was big enough we would throw them and see how many times they would bounce on the water. My favorite part of the house was the waterway, but the sand hill that led to the beach was also beautiful because it had green bushes that surrounded it.

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“You are cheating!” my sister yelled.

“No I am not, you are!” Actually I was, but I didn't want to say it because my sister always wins and I don't like when it happens.

“Look, checkmate — I won!” she yelled while dancing and jumped on the sofa.

“What do we do now? I am bored, I wish we had a pet,” I demanded.

“Yes I like dogs. They are cute and fluffy and adorable.” my sister answered.

Our need for a pet became an obsessive dream, despite our house at the beach offering amusement, we were bored often. My mom was a nurse and worked very hard at the hospital so we barely saw her during weekdays. She would call us during the week and come to see us during the weekend. She probably missed us as much as we missed her. My dad was a teacher, but for some reason he couldn't go to the school to teach. Every day he would have virtual meetings and would be busy working and calling and talking with his students and assistant teachers.

My sister and I couldn't go to school nor see our friends. Anyway, we felt pretty lonely and wanted to have company. That night, the rain came pouring and a noise scared us when someone slammed the door. I saw a shadow on the floor with big teeth and claws, but when I looked up there were only raincoats and one umbrella. It was my grandparents!

Grandma and Grandpa made apple pie. When dessert time came everybody tried to eat it, it was soft and sticky. She forgot to cook it!

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All of us were laughing about it. Grandma was pretending to laugh too, but I sensed she was embarrassed. She actually went to the bathroom to cry.

Something suspicious was happening so Grandpa looked for her. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Grandma continued crying and explained she was embarrassed. “It is OK to be embarrassed,” Grandpa told her while wiping her tears. “Listen, I have something to tell you. I heard our grandchildren want a pet. Do you think they would like a dog?”

Not sure if Grandma answered but they came back to finish dinner — but not the apple pie. She looked back on her feet and said, “You know Grandmas sometimes forget to do stuff.” Everyone laughed again.

After we finished dinner, we played cards together. We let Grandma win so she wouldn't be sad anymore. My sister and I went to bed. We were tired. This was probably the moment when my parents and my grandparents discussed they wanted to make a surprise gift to us.

The next morning our parents gave us a LEGO kit for Easter. We were so happy that we decided to build it. We did it in just a couple of hours. It was a 3-in-1 set with 650 pieces, a little house, two figures and a dog as a pet. Then we remembered our obsessive need for a real life pet.

Out of the sudden, we heard a car sound. We ran to the window and saw a car parked in the driveway. My sister and I went to the driveway, then we saw something in the car's window. It had hair, eyes, ears and nose. It was, it was...

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Grandpa and in his lap there was a cute, fluffy puppy for us! We named it Max! We were so happy about the presents that my sister and I cried of joy.

The next morning, we woke up a little later than usual. A noise woke us up, it was our puppy, and noticed something strange.

“Hey sister don't you think our puppy looks different?” I asked.

“I think its tail grew,” she added on.

I got out of bed and put my sandals to find the measurement tape. We measured Max's tail and realized that it had grown 5 inches overnight. “I told you the tail had grown,” my sister replied.

By the following week it grew so much that we started to play jump-rope with Max's tail outside in the sand. It was a lot of fun, but sometimes if we didn't jump correctly, we would step on the tail and Max would cry.

That weekend when our mother came home, she found out how we were playing with Max. She was astonished. “What are you doing to that poor little dog? Hey, wait, it is not possible that its tail is that big, we need to take it to the veterinarian,” my mother told us.

We took Max to the veterinarian and then the laboratory because we cared for it and wanted to see what was wrong. The doctors said the tail had a growth problem and it will never stop growing.

“Seriously, there's nothing you can do about it?” I ask with a disappointed face.

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We felt disappointed but at the same time we knew we had a special dog. We went to the car and put Max's tail around our feet and car seats, then our mother drove back home.

Few days later, the tail had grown so long that they had to roll up the tail through the chairs around the table up to the stairs then to the bathroom and back. This was a problem because we tripped and stepped on it a lot. When Max would move it would pull the chairs and throw the plates off the table, etc. Then, we had an idea. We rolled the dog's tail in a circle, it was so long, we formed a cone of puppy tail. It worked for some time, but then Max would run and all our effort would vanish. To avoid this we had to make different cones and spaces between them so Max could move.

My father was very annoyed,

“I'm done with this catastrophic, enormous, horrible, incredible chaos! I'm going to send this dog to vets or scientists, and tell them to cut that dog's tail once and for all,” My father said.

“Nooooo, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaase!” my sister and I yelled. “Dad, don't do that please. Look at him, he is already suffering and you want him to suffer even more???” we continued.

“Just imagine you were him and we would have taken you to cut off your tail dad, huh, would you like that? Answer dad!” I shouted at him.

“Okay, okay, okay you convinced me. I won't cut his tail because you are right, he will suffer more and we don't do that to a family member.”

Couple of days passed after we convinced our parents not to

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cut our dog's tail. But, Max's tail was still very long and didn't fit inside of the house any longer.

“Why don't we just make a swinging door gate at the bottom of the door so his tail can stay out? This way we don't have to worry about the tail inside the house,” my sister said.

Our problems didn't end here. The dog's tail would get very dirty, especially when it rained a lot. Sometimes it will get buried in sand, water or other stuff, it takes a lot of time and energy to my sister and I, to clean up and wash the tail so the sand doesn't get stuck in the tail's fur and itch him. It was too much work to deal with it.

If it was a sunny day, Max would take his tongue out because it was hot. Then we would take the tail to the sea water to get it refreshed. Our dog would feel refreshed once the tail reached the cold water.

One night after a very long hot day, there was a big storm and we had to run inside the house. The waves got bigger and bigger with the storm, then the tail got pulled by the big waves deep into the sea. With the tide at night, the tail traveled away from the shore. Since the tail was so large, it went very deep and very far away in the ocean. It got all covered with algae, barnacles, plankton, krill, very sticky stuff, and especially trash. I still wonder why Max didn’t wake up. I guess he was used to having a long tail or maybe was in a deep sleep dreaming about munching a big bone.

The next morning, we finally woke up to eat breakfast. After we finished our fruit and cereal, we rushed to brush our teeth and play with Max. Then we realized Max couldn’t move.

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“What is happening to him?” my sister asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he is tired,” I replied.

“Don’t think he’s tired. He looks in trouble,” my sister replied with a strange look.

We put our shoes on and went outside to the beach. We saw nothing but sand covering everything and the tail was not there. “All the sand is covering the tail,” I told her.

We followed the tail and started digging it out. It was a lot of work because some of the sand kept falling in again. The tail was too stuck and too heavy. So we asked for help from our parents.

“Yeah, we finally uncovered the tail!” my sister yelled with an excited tone.

Unfortunately, we realized that it wasn’t the end of the tail. We discovered that the tail went into the sea, and we started to pull. No use. It was heavy and the waves kept pushing it back. Our mom went to get help from the neighbors, but all of them couldn’t believe her about the size of the tail and thought it was just a prank. My mom had to convince them. When they arrived, they couldn’t believe what they saw.

Our neighbors put on a shocked face with their eyes and mouths wide open while they pulled the tail with us. “On the count of three...one, two, PULL!” my neighbor shouted. This didn’t help. Then my grandparents came. They helped too. After a while, our neighbors called other neighbors and soon all the neighborhood was there helping.

In the meantime, Max kept barking. His tail hurt because it was crinkled.

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The neighborhood was pulling the tail as if it were a big tugof-war. As our neighbors pulled, we felt we were close to the end of it. As the tail came out, our neighbors started to pick up, clean the trash from the tail, and then rolled it up. Suddenly, we saw a sort of fountain coming from the sea. We thought it could be something cool. “Is that a whale?” asked one of the neighbors.

Everybody turned around and wowed. There was something floating in the water, like a house with fins. It was an 80-yearold whale who followed the algae, barnacles, plankton, and krill that got stuck on Max’s tail. When the whale started to splash the water, we finally saw the end of the tail coming out of the water. Then we saw a second whale, but the size was different. It was a baby whale that was following her mother. Everybody gathered and looked.

After watching the whales, we all picked up Max’s tail and put it in a safe place so it didn’t go back into the ocean. Max was jumping and doing his best to wiggle his heavy and long tail. He looked joyful.

My neighbors were surprised that my dog’s tail could be so long. Suddenly, the tail started to shrink. Maybe it was because Max was finally happy or the tail was tired of being so long. Whatever the reason, all the neighbors and us enjoyed that moment. After this experience, my neighbors believe in tales, including my dog’s tail. Now they think everything could be possible. We hugged each other and thought that sometimes things just are the way they are.

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