Heart-to-heart letter to my parents

By: Rob K.

In the attic I found a letter which I wrote to my parents years ago.

11/07/1982

Dear Mum and Dad,

Our youth-worker assigned us to write you a letter to reassure you in case you saw the flood in the news. We are alright. Only one tent has been washed away and only two sleeping bags as well. Fortunately, nobody was drowned. When the flood happened, we were just looking for Bartje on the mountain.

Oh, that reminds me, would you please call Bartje's Mum to tell her he's alright? You see, he cannot manage to write a letter with his two broken arms. I was allowed to ride in the rescue workers' jeep, that was neat! If it was not for the heavy lightning, we would never have found Bartje. The youth-worker was a little mad at Bartje, because he had gone into the mountains by himself without telling so. He did tell it anyway, but the youth-worker was busy putting out the fire, maybe he did not hear Bartje by that?

Did you know that, when you throw a gas cylinder into the fire, it will explode then? The wood of the trees was too wet to burn, but one of the tents did, and some of our clothes too. David will look rather weird for some time until his hair has grown again. If the youth-worker will manage to fix the minibus, we'll be home again next Saturday. It was not his fault that we crashed. When we left, the brakes were still quite okay. The youth-worker says that it is normal that such an old car breaks down every now and then. That is probably the reason why he cannot get an insurance. We think it's a decent car alright. The youth-worker does not mind our making it dirty. There are ten chairs in the car, but twenty of us really fit in it. We are allowed to drive on the mountain roads by turns then, there are a lot of bends there, so it's quite exciting. Only a pity that the police just stopped us when I was driving. He would drop by once to have a chat with you, he said.

Don't you worry, we are in good hands. The youth-worker is really a great bloke. This morning everyone went for a swim in the lake. I was not allowed to come, because I cannot swim and Bartje could not swim either with his broken arms. But we were allowed to sail with the canoes, the two of us together. All the way to the other side. If you look into the water, you can see the trees which are standing under the water as a result of the flood.

Our youth-worker does not make things as hard for us as the other one did last year. He did not even get angry when we forgot the life jackets. He is too busy fixing his car, so we leave him in peace as often as possible.

Oh, and you know what? We have had a first aid course. When Danny took a dive into the water and hurt his arm, we even taught him how make a tie. That's a knot to tie off very big wounds. I could not help throwing up then and some others neither, but according to the youth-worker it was the result of our having eaten this nasty chicken. He says it had the same taste as the food in prison.

I am really glad that the youth-worker was released and that he is now going to camp with us to mend his ways. He says that from now on he will do everything in a much better way. What, by the way, is a pedal-phile? Well, I will stop writing now. Soon we will go to town to post our letters and to buy vaseline. We need it to play some little games, the youth-worker says. I am so curious! Don't you worry. We are alright.

Greetings from your little

source: Story 'Heart-to-Heart Letter to My Parents' by Rob K.; OK Magazine, no. 90; November 2004