The Boys and the Pond

The Boys

The Boys and the Pond

There were two Boys who were neighbors. They were both five years old, and each had a love of Boyish things like adventures, animals, and quests for greatness. One was taller, older, and ready to prove his mettle. The other was slightly smaller, with large round eyes and a love of learning. These two Boys were the best of friends, and were more like brothers than the cousins they were. Indeed, they preferred the pleasure of fighting with one another over the possibility of each having to play alone in his own house.  Occasionally the sound of their play would take on an argumentative tone, and one or the other of their mothers or fathers would call, “Are you Boys fighting?” and they would chorus an innocent “No!” and immediately hush their argument in order to be able to continue the luxury of fighting with each other in peace.

One of the Boys’ favorite things to do together was to go outside to play. Their ancestral home was full of trees, hills, streams, and a large fishing pond, and they had ever so many places to play and to hide. They had only three Rules to follow to be able to play outside alone: don’t cross the fence, stay in sight of the house, and don’t touch the pond.   The Boys had spent summers splashing and swimming in the pond with their families, or rowing a boat or canoe upon it, and spent the winters looking longingly at the frozen glass top that prevented their play. It was now winter. As the Boys grew older, the frozen ice resembled more and more the strange surface of the moon that entices the astronaut.

Each Boy loved his mother and respected his father, so each Boy remembered the Rule about not touching the icy pond. Each Boy thirsted for the admiration of the other, to be the bravest, the most daring. Each Boy’s Curiosity nagged him to find out just how long it would take to walk across the pond, if they could see frozen fish beneath the surface, and find out if the ice really could hold a person’s weight.

The sun was shining after the snowstorm from two days previous had finally ended, leaving ten inches of sparkling snow on the ground. The Boys decided that a sojourn into the winter wild was the order of the day, and suited up accordingly. The dripping sound of melting snow from the eaves of the house did not warn them. They laughed and teased each other over who looked most like a marshmallow man in their quilted snow attire as they slipped and slid in the slushy snow down the hill on the way to the deck by the pond. But the slush did not warn them either. They reached the fishing deck, out of breath from their downward jog to the pond, and, smiling at each other, looked out over the ice.

They caught their breath in the still moment, then one Boy said to the other, sensing an opportunity to be the most wise, “Did you know that ice can hold your weight?”

The other laughed and said, “Yeah, I know. The Grownups walked on it before. I even saw them.”

The first Boy said, “It could hold me,” and each Boy looked away, neither willing to remind the other of the injunction against touching the surface of the pond without Grownups present- that would break the code of boyhood.

“I’ll just test it,” the first Boy continued, “and you can help me if I fall in.”

“Okay,” said the second Boy.

The first Boy walked confidently to the edge of the pond, and gingerly laid the toe of his snow boot on the ice. He looked back and smiled and the other Boy, who tittered excitedly. The first Boy then slowly put all his weight onto his foot, and exulted with a “Ha ha ha!” when the ice held him up. He proceeded to lay his second foot down in another step onto the ice with success, and beckoned to the second Boy to follow.  Soon both Boys were walking to the center of the pond, tip-toeing in their snow boots and shushing each other so the Grownups wouldn't hear them giggling.

The bright, white, winter morning light reflecting on the snowy, icy surface surrounded the Boys in a bedazzlement of glitter. They breathed in the fresh, invigorating air and couldn’t help but allow themselves a hearty laugh. Soon they were skipping about on the ice, alternating between hopping and sliding their boots along the rough, alien surface. They were soon laughing so uproariously at their triumph over the fabled ice danger that neither Boy heard the low groan of the ice creaking under their weight. The first Boy had been dancing and twirling and began to be dizzy, feeling the world turn up at the edges. The second boy was laughing so hard that his eyes were nearly squeezed shut, doubling over in the fun of it.

There was a sudden loud CRACK! and the first Boy was suddenly hit with a thousand needles piercing his body, his dizziness having preventing him from righting himself before he could grasp hold of the sides of the slippery hole in the surface, and his head went beneath the water. The second Boy watched the first disappear under the icy blanket before he could even finish his laugh. They were both frozen in the silent seconds that followed- one in terror, and one in reality; their transfixion coming to an abrupt end when the first Boy’s head bobbed up again and he raggedly gasped for breath, his small arms flailing wildly for salvation from the blackness below.

The second boy broke for the hole to grab the hand of his beloved playmate, his eyes wide with fear and his heart pumping with dread. He stretched out on the ice next to the dark abyss, and reached for the whitish-blue hand that was searching for safety. He tried to reach him, but the first Boy’s head went under again. The second Boy hesitated only a millisecond, then took a breath, and slid his body down head first into the water too.

The Boys were good swimmers on warm, sultry summer days, and even dared to swim as late as November. But icy paralysis attacked their limbs like fire, making deliberate movement from the small Boys all but impossible.

By miracle, their hands slammed together under the water as they both frantically flapped for the surface. They clasped their fingers around the other’s hand, but their energy began to fade as they lost altitude and sank slowly toward the murk. As they reached the bottom, their boots gently touched the rocky fish nests they had frequently played atop, and though they were panicked for want of air, they realized that they were at the shallowest part of the middle of the pond; “the island” as they called it, and they were merely five feet from the surface. Together they tightened their grip, and each sank until their knees were fully bent, and then after a “One, two, three!” in mental unison, they pushed off from the hard bottom, hands still clasped, and shot for the bright circle of sunlight shining above.

The Boys’ heavy winter clothes resisted their ascent; each boy's head barely broke the surface as he gasped for air. A wide, triangular peninsula of surface ice jutted into the hole opening, making in the water the shape of a black pie with a piece cut out, contrasting against the white ice. The Boys swung their joined hands over the point of the projection before they could sink again, one boy on each side, using the weight of the other boy on the other side to each pull an elbow up onto the ice. They slid their elbows toward the outside edge of the hole, bracing their outside free hand on the surface and slowly, slowly hoisted themselves out of the water, and rolled to their backs in desperate relief.

In the five minutes that had passed since the Boys had first stepped on the ice, their four parents had begun looking for them. They had seen the black hole against the ice from the house window, and were running toward it when they saw the Boys roll onto the ice. The fathers each hastily carried his Son to the house, the Boys still clasping each other’s hand from within their father's arms all the while. Once all were inside,  each Boy's mother cut her son's icy clothing off; the boys' wet hands had frozen together, preventing the clothing from coming off over their head.  The mothers soaked the joined hands in a bowl of cold water, gradually warming it until the small hands could be separated and brought back to life.

Later, while the Boys were warming together in a large makeshift bed by a roaring fire, with warm compresses placed beneath the heated blankets, their mothers spoke to them. Not a word of reproach was said of their narrow survival, nor a word of their dangerous disobedience. The Boys knew. And the mothers knew they knew. The mothers obtained the whole story, and stroked each Boy’s head while they heard it. The Fathers said a prayer of Thanksgiving, and they watched the Boys throughout the night. Sometime before morning, the Boys found each other’s hand again, their Boyhood Code of allowing the other to walk into danger now replaced with the Manly Code of Protection, and dawn’s first light shone on their life-saving commitment to friendship, to family, and to love.