I know this story book is supposed to be about happy times but if I was asked to nominate the “worst day in my life” I would probably come up with the story Pip has told about under the title “Pip I have something to tell you”. In fact, some 30 years latter, the events of that Sunday afternoon still send shivers up my spine and I still count it as one of the days I was lucky to survive. As Pip tells it, the day was one that promised so much as the Le Burz (I think this is the correct spelling) boys – Danny and Billy – came over to our house one Sunday afternoon. We decided to head off to the creek after lunch for a bit of fun and maybe a swim. We crossed the creek for the first time, across a fallen tree that was straddled the creek. As I scurried off up the creek bank on the opposite side Billy called out to me “Your dog has fallen in the water and did not come up”. I did not believe Billy because the creek was not overly swollen and I knew Tuffy was a good swimmer. As I approach Billy to get a bit more information on his claim, he yelled at me that the dog had fallen in on the upstream side of the log and had not come out the other side. By this time, Sam, who had been leading the charge somewhere upstream, returned to enquire what all the delay was about. I told him that Billy reckoned Tuffy had fallen in to the creek and did not come up. I then did a really stupid thing and submerged myself in the creek from the upstream side of the log. I was hanging on to the log and let my whole body submerge under the log to see if I could feel anything underwater. I could not and somehow managed to drag myself back to safety on the log. Meanwhile, Sam, who was a bit older and smarter than me, started to feel around on the other side of the log and realized there were a number of branches still attached to the log that were forming an invisible barrier under the water. As he felt around in the water his hand went into Tuffy’s mouth and we all panicked, our dog had now been underwater for some 5 minutes or so. Sam worked feverously to free Tuffy but by the time we got him out he was gone. There we were, a shivering band of adolescents, huddled around our dead dog on the creek bank wondering what had all gone wrong. Sam took the lead and decided to go home and get mum and dad while Billy, Danny and I stayed behind on the creek bank. I just sat there and cried my heart out until mum and dad arrived back with Sam. We all got a bit of a short lecture from Dad about the dangers of the creek and we proceeded to bury Tuffy under a pile of stones on the creek bank, fun day at the creek over. That night as a lay in bed, my thought turned to how lucky I was to survive. I could easily have slipped and fallen beneath the submerged log to meet the same fate as Tuffy. I think I had nightmares for the next week. To this day it still makes me shudder, thanks Pip for reminding me of it, I had almost forgotten.
See also related story by [Sam] [Pip]
