Revere Literary Anthology 2020: ‘The Wrath of the Bird Scooter’

By ATEN HASSAN | Contributing Writer

The Palisadian-Post has partnered with Paul Revere Charter Middle School to highlight a series of pieces from its 2020 Literary Anthology. The following piece originally appeared in the anthology, released in spring, and has been reprinted here with permission.

It was a hot summer afternoon in Los Angeles, California. I was 12 years old and I was at the park hanging out with my friends Jack, Jackson, Ryan and Nathaniel. We saw a bunch of Bird Scooters, which are public electric scooters paid for by phone.

“Yo, we should try these out,” Nathaniel said. “I heard they were really fun.”

I asked myself if my parents hadn’t told me not to ride these because they are dangerous. But I didn’t care, since it seemed way too fun to pass up on the opportunity. So my friends and I paid for the scooters and started riding them. We were having such a great time laughing, yelling and just feeling the wind while we zoomed by bikers. Then this lady stopped us and said, “You guys shouldn’t be riding these. They are very dangerous and you could hurt yourself.” But of course we didn’t care and we started riding them again.

We were having the time of our lives and then suddenly my scooter malfunctioned and stopped while I was going 20 MPH. I put my arm out to protect myself while I was falling and it felt like the floor beat up my arm. An enormous amount of pain started attacking my arm because I snapped my arm completely in half. I got up and my friends started screaming and freaking out, and I look at my arm and I said, “That’s not good.” Then I fainted.

Nathaniel threw up on the side of the road, while Jack and Jackson called 911. Ryan called my parents to tell them to meet us at the emergency room. When I woke up in the ambulance the only things I heard were the sirens and the doctors hard at work. “We’re almost at the hospital,” the male nurse told me with a very soothing voice. When I got to the hospital, it was very white and smelled like lavender. They sedated me and immediately put me into surgery. I got three pins in my arm and had a cast on for 10 weeks.

Surprisingly, I was very reposed during all of this. I learned that I should always listen to my parents because they know best. And also don’t ride bird scooters.