Erin still wasn’t entirely sure that she was ready for it. Even for a small roller coaster, it still looked pretty big from the vantage point of the ground next to it. As she looked at the line in front of her, though, she noticed there were some kids younger than her who were eagerly waiting to ride it. If they can handle it, I guess I can.
“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine,” said Erin, trying to convince herself more than her family.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” joked Hailey. “I’ll be sitting right next to you, so if it crashes or something, we’ll both die together.” She smiled.
Erin raised her eyebrows. “Oh, that’s real comforting,” she said. “Um… they don’t actually crash all that often, right?”
“Honestly,” said Martin, “riding this is probably safer than riding in the car. You’re on a track, there’s not much to run into, and this one probably doesn’t even go any faster than we drove on the highway.”
The ride they were in line for certainly wasn’t the most popular roller coaster in the park, so even on a crowded Saturday, the line took about half an hour to navigate. The girls got a seat near the middle of the train, with Hailey’s father in the seat behind them, and once the restraints were checked by the platform attendants, the train curved down around a mild slope to approach the lift hill.
Hailey would never admit it, but even as much as she liked roller coasters, the lift hills still scared her a bit. She would always imagine the chain snapping, causing the train to roll backwards and crash into the next train at the station, and usually her visualization involved more blood and dismembered body parts flying everywhere than it was probably healthy for someone her age to think about. Her father had explained to her a few years ago that the ratcheting noise that the train made as it climbed was a mechanism to prevent the train from going backwards even if the chain did break, and now that she was older she could understand how it worked, but the knowledge of her safety still wasn’t enough to overcome her brief fear. Still, it would be over soon, and they’d be riding the good part of the roller coaster. She glanced over to see how Erin was doing.
Erin was literally white-knuckling the restraint. As big as the coaster looked from the ground, it seemed even larger from the hill itself. Erin felt like they’d been climbing forever, and yet the hill still stretched off into the distance in front of her. The horribly loud noise the train made as it climbed wasn’t helping to soothe her nerves.
“Are you okay?” asked Hailey.
“I’m fine,” squeaked Erin. She wanted to get off the ride now, but it was much too late for that.
The train finally reached the top of the hill, and started gaining speed as the first few rows began to drop out of sight in front of Erin. They quickly came back into view, and Erin could now see the downward main slope below her. She began to drop and her stomach felt like it was trying to pull itself up to her neck, taking her lungs along with it for good measure. Her brain was screaming that her body shouldn’t be doing what it was currently doing.
And she was having more fun than she’d had in years.
She was too shocked to scream, so she just silently clung to the bar as the train rattled up and down more hills and around some curves. By the time it returned to its station, she was wishing that the ride was longer.
Hailey looked over, and saw Erin with a surprised look on her face and a huge smile. “How was it?”
“Holy cow, that was great!” exclaimed Erin.
“So you’re ready to try some of the bigger ones?” asked Martin, as they climbed out of their cars.
“Yeah, I’ll go on whatever you guys want!”
