SKATING WITH
TIPPER
Directions: Revise this
“essay” so that it no longer has run-ons or fragments. Subdivide it so that it has correct
paragraphing. Fix any other errors you
see.
Have
you ever been humilated and wondered how things got so out of control? Well, that’s what happened to me recently
when a kid considerably younger than I am got the best of me it was the low
point of my life. Last week I decided to
go ice skating on a pond behind our house it’s only about a half of a block
away so the first thing I did was sort through a messy basement closet to find
my skates. What a joke, what a
mess! That little chore took me twenty
minnutes because my mother hid my skates under a pile of old rummage sale stuff
that never sold and they were inside a box that was labeled “Christmas” so it
seemed like Mom deliberately was playing Hide-and-Seek with me. When Mom puts my stuff away. She does it with a vengeance. (Actually, there’s more to that story, she
had told me to put the skates away about ten times and I ignored her. Then she told me, “You’ll be sorry!” Rule 1: Never underestimate your
mother!) After I found my skates, hockey
stick, and puck, I put on lots of warm clothes and headed towards the
pond. My little nephew Tipper followed
me there, I don’t know how he new what I was up to, he lives two houses down
from us and I think my mother once again was behind his miraculous appearance. How is it possible for a kid to just show up
with his skates unless someone tipped him off?
Anyway, we both sat down on a log near the pond and put our skates
on. He had brought a hockey stick too,
so I figured we could shoot around awhile.
Once we got onto the ice, I noticed it was pretty rough I mean it was
very, very bumpy. Some snow had frozen
into it, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Tipper and I started sailing around the pond
we tried to avoid the occasional weeds that stuck up through the ice. This little twerp wasn’t too bad of a skater
in fact I hate to admit it, but he was better than I was at dodging weeds of
course I could still whack the puck alot harder than he could. I’m seventeen,Tipper is only ten but I
shouldn’t have let that fool me. The
first thing that started to bug the heck out of me was that Tipper started
stealing the puck away from me. Not
funny at all. The first time he did it
he giggled hilariously while I could feel my blood pressure rising and my face
getting red it wasnt from the cold air either.
I told him to knock it off, he just smiled and grinned, then he said, “Well,
why are you so slow?” Did I mention that
this kid is a smart aleck? The second
time he stole the puck from me. I yanked
his blond hair as hard as I could and he went flying across the ice. I expected him to cry or wine at me and maybe
even GO HOME immediately but no, he just giggled some more and started skating
around me like I was a dying fish in a shark tank and that really made me mad,
mad enough to lose my cool. I told him,
“Why don’t you go to the other end of the pond, and I’ll skate towards you with
the puck, and you see if you can take it away again.” My plan was to skate really fast and slam him
with my hockey stick the moment he tried to lunge for my puck, maybe that
wasn’t the brightest idea in the world but I wanted vengeance. Because he
seemed to be enjoying himself at my expense.
Tipper took the challenge, he skated to the other end of the pond and we
stood in face-off positions. The moment
I took off and headed towards him. He
did the same. We were both skating as
fast as we could go towards each other.
Then the moment of my humilation came, Tipper reached out to steal my
puck. And I stretched out my stick to
whack the heck out of him.
Unfortunately, there was a small, innocent-looking pond weed sticking up
through the ice that was apparently on my nephew’s side. And I didn’t notice that
little evil weed. Until it was too late.
My skate blade twisted and I was the one who went hurling across the ice
with my face scraping the snow like a plow on a side road. I looked up in defeat. As my darling nephew Tipper zipped past me
with MY puck gliding along under his control.
He yelled, “Hey, Pokey, you want me to teach you how to skate?” I didn’t say a word, there was too much snow
in my mouth. My leg ached, and my face stung. And it wasn’t just from
embarassment. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is this kid really that good,
or did Mom set me up on this one?” Like
I said. Never underestimate your mother.
And never underestimate little kids either.
A- Contract
work: Write a good sentence that is
30 or more words long, but make sure it is NOT a run-on.
Example: Wishing
he'd brought his umbrella and dreaming of his nice warm bed, John waited for
the city bus for twenty minutes in the rain last Tuesday because his Ford
Escort was in the repair shop.
