The Pond

The biggest of the farm’s meadows sloped gently down to its southern boundary, where a stream fed and drained a nearby pond. Ringed by willow trees it was a magical place I often visited with friends, both real and imaginary.
But when the weather was hot the stream dwindled to a sorry trickle, while the pond filled instead with fluid waste from our dairy herd. It didn't smell too bad if left undisturbed, and with the shadows of willow branches braiding across the dark surface it was nevertheless a pretty spot. But scant inches beneath the pond’s surface lay a depth of fetid muck.
My brother Bryan’s rotund friend Gordon was there, and the Avery twins; friends of my own from up the village. Bryan and Gordon were older than the twins and I, which created a natural division in our gang; that and the fact that Gordon was a bit of a creep. One time he’d led us all into my playroom, locked the door and demonstrated his newly discovered ability to masturbate, complete with squinty eyes and unabashed grunting.
At the edge of the pond was a fallen tree in an advanced stage of rotting. My pals heartily assured me that a bright young fellow like me could easily master log rolling skills a-la Canadian lumberjacks, so I blithely hopped on. I got a sudden glimpse of my feet framed by willow branches against the bluest of blue skies, before I fell headfirst into the pond.
I must have looked like a pint-sized ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ when I resurfaced what seemed like a couple of millennia later… and possibly smelled even worse. The guys all but wet themselves as they stumbled around laughing, while I stood neck-deep in the pond gulping lungfulls of really bad air.
I struggled out of the morass and ran back to the house, bawling every step of the way, followed across the endless meadow by Bryan, Gordon and my former friends the Averys, all positively gagging with uncontrollable mirth.
A tail-wind must have wafted the stink of my effluent-soaked gallop ahead of me, though it could have been my mortified screams, the other boys' insane cackling, or possibly some kind of mum-radar that tipped mother off, but by the time I reached the house she was already bucketing hot water into a washtub right there on the back porch.
Within seconds she had me standing naked in the tub and was scrubbing me with the hardest bristle brush this side of the black stump. Shaking with rage and embarrassment I wished the twins, Bryan, and most especially Gordon, would laugh even harder so their stupid hearts might just stop.