William R. Donahoo

He held on to me as tight as he could. So scared he could hardly move, yet nothing had happened yet. Then it broke.

It was my grandparent’s 50th anniversary. My family and I had gone to California to be with them for the weekend. Since it happened to be Disneyland’s 50th also we decided to hang out there for a day. My six-year-old brother “Ross” had been there previously that year, yet he did not like the ride, “Pirates of the Caribbean” because of the big dips in it. I eventually convinced him to ride it with the rest of us but he would only do it if I sat with him. I agreed and he got on. As we waited for it to start he would not say a word, he just sat there holding on to me as tight as he could fearing the worst. We waited for an unusually long time. I didn’t know what was going on until they came to tell us that the ride broke and that it would take them a minute to fix it. We all got off while they fiddled with it yet Ross would still not calm down. I tried to make him relax by talking to him but he just looked scared and didn’t talk. Then we got back on.

The ride began and Ross squeezed me even tighter. I tried to distract him with the animatronic old guy drinking moonshine on his porch but all he could look at was the big dark hole where the first big dip was. When we got to it the skull pirate head thing started talking about how dead men tell no tales and Ross just went rigid…then we went down.

On the way down he squeezed me harder than I thought possible but he was all right. We floated for a little going on then we came to the second smaller hill. He was super scared but he handled it fine. The rest of the ride he was kind of shaken so I tried to distract him with the scenery but he wouldn’t pay that much attention. But he had endured one of the most frightful things in his young life. And for that I commend him

As you can tell my little brother, William “Ross” Donahoo, is a very brave child. He endured what was the most frightening thing he could think of at the moment. He is my hero. The end.