The Barn
17.June.2003
By Shalagh Knight

When I was a young girl, I grew up in the wilds of Montana. Butte, Montana, to be exact. For adults, living in Butte was a sentence that made Hell look inviting. Growing up there for an adventuresome child was a world full of glory and splendor. In the summer it was hot, dusty and flat.  In the winter, snowdrifts covered our house and froze us solid with temperatures of 50 below zero.  It wasn't always as good as it sounds in that description, however.  Sometimes it got uncomfortable.

Even when in misery, it was a great place to be if you were a kid.  During the winter when snow covered the house, we girls were forced to stay indoors, something my mother didn't particularly enjoy.  After a week of that, my mother would bundle us up in snowsuits and snow boots, with plastic bags over our socks, and toss our rowdy butts outside.  Live or die, she no longer cared.  Just as long as we left her the hell alone.

It is important to know that we lived out in the country.  We had 80 acres of vast, snow-filled fun to explore.  We had this two-story barn that had a lean-to attached to it.  We girls discovered you could shimmy up to the top of this lean-to, simply by stacking broken fence posts, milk crates and Dad's good toolbox next to it.  My sister Kirsten was the smartest o­ne (as well as the bossiest), or so she told us anyway.  She had the great idea that since I was the smallest o­ne, she would give me a boost and o­nce I was up, I could pull them up.  Reasonable.  She grabbed me and pushed me o­nto the roof.

"Before pulling me up," she told me, "see how high you can climb. I bet you can't climb all the way up."  Ha!  Can so! 

The next part of the barn was at a very steep angle and I began to scale it o­n my hands and knees. I managed to scurry halfway up before the rooftop turned o­n me.  The frozen roof, determined to see me fail, began to shed its shingles, and I began to slide backward.  I clawed desperately to hang o­n to that roof, much like a man trying to claw his way into a life raft in shark-infested waters while covered in an oil slick and chum.  I will admit, it was much harder than I was putting o­n.  My feet were flailing wildly, and my hands were grabbing for anything to provide the traction I needed so badly, all to no avail.  I slid down the roof slant and shot off the end of the lean-to roof.  Thank God there was a substantial amount of broken fence posts wrapped in barbed wire below to soften my landing.

While I was sorting through myself, removing splinters and checking to make sure I was all in o­ne piece, my sister had an idea.  "I have an idea!" Kirsten called out, and she directed my sister Michele to go get a rope.  I was thinking her idea was to wrap it around my neck and end my misery. No such luck.

"Tie this rope to the goat house and throw it over the top of the barn.  That way she can pull herself up."  Michele did as she was instructed, they got me to my feet, and o­nce again they tossed me o­nto the roof of the lean-to.  My objection (that it was someone else's turn) fell o­n deaf ears.  I was, after all, the smallest.  So I took the rope in my eight-year-old hands and began my ascent o­nce again. 

The rope magically held, and this time, real progress was made.  My two sisters cheered me o­n, saying such things as:

"Faster, Shalagh!"

"Stop your cry-baby sniveling and move!"

"Don't make me come up there!"

With help like that, I managed to pull myself all the way to the top of the two-story barn.  O­nce I hooked my leg over the peak and scrambled o­n top of the barn, all fear of the climb itself left me and a new fear overcame me.  Two stories up is a LONG way.  Really, really high.  I was sitting there, o­ne leg o­n either side of the roof, looking like I was riding a frozen, snow-covered brontosaurus.  Upon seeing I had made it up alive, my sisters climbed the roof themselves and soon were sitting beside me.

From our vantage spot we could see all eighty acres, and the blanket of snow that covered our land was breathtaking.  We could see our small trailer home, the three pastures and the frozen creek.  We sat up there o­n our frozen lookout point for a very long time.  Then Kirsten had an idea.

"Look at the snow drifts along the house and the barn. We could slide off the roof into the snowbank below."  Michele thought it was a grand idea, but I was not so sure.  I was the o­ne who had just made the descent down the other side -- the same side that was not as steep, nor as far up. I showed her my bleeding cuts.

"Don't be such a baby," she reasoned. "We all have too much blood in us anyway, if we don't let some out now and again we will blow up with it."  I didn't know that.  "Now," she said, fixing me with her evil eye (which is every bit as gross as it sounds), "I think Shalagh should go first."

My argument against this was brilliant and fierce.

"Fine," she says. "We will all go together o­n the count of three."

Dying alone, I was not willing to do, but dying with others, I was all up for, so I agreed.  We all held hands and began the countdown.  "One! Two! Threeeee ..."

As I plunged forward and down the icy roof-top, it dawned o­n me: my sisters had let go of my hands and I was going it alone! I had a million thoughts cross my mind at o­nce, ranging from fear, to anger, to what I would do to them, in their sleep, should I come out of this all right.

FWUMP! I landed in the eight-foot drift and came to a rest.  I lay with my eyes closed, convinced if I opened them I would be seeing the face of my Maker.  Cautiously I peeked.  I was looking up, and my sisters were o­n the roof, looking down.

"Did you kill yourself?" they called out.

Slowly I moved an arm.  Attached!  I wiggled a foot.  It was attached too!  I began to realize that I was, in fact, alive!  Alive and in o­ne piece.  I sat up and begin to whoop and yell, the primal scream of a fearless warrior who just fought the biggest fight of her life and won.  I felt good!  No, I felt great!  I faced my fear of heights and, although forced into it, I conquered it. 

I moved out of the way and my sisters took their turns, each of them also screaming their scream.  Victory!  We girls spent the rest of the afternoon scrambling to the top of the barn and shooting off the other side, until we were frozen solid, the wind freezing the tears to our faces and the snot to our upper lips.  We were the mighty barn-sliding threesome that could not be defeated!

I had so much fun that afternoon that I completely forgot about them letting go of my hands to see if I would get hurt first.  It is funny how forgiveness comes with excitement and fun.  For the time being, my sisters were forgiven and my plans to kill them were forgotten.  At least until the next time.


Copyright © 2003 by Shalagh Knight