The warm sun burned our skin as we lay out on the boat. The cool water begged us to get in as my friend, Jillian and I covered ourselves in tanning oil. Summer was over, and after one week of school we were already back at the lake tanning on Labor Day weekend. We were at the sand bar and her family was splashing around in the water around us. “Can we get in already?” I begged.













“Let’s just tan a little longer.” Jillian replied, as she spread on more tanning oil. Jillian had obviously not wanted to get in the water, nor even be at the sand bar. She passed it to me as I put it on for what seemed like the millionth time, and we jumped into the water. The tanning oil took over the water as it trickled off our bodies into the water. We wanted to get away from the boat and her family so we swam a little farther out on the sand bar. After we were far enough away from her family we floated towards other boats and soon enough it was just us and the sand bar. I look around, “we should probably go back to your family and where other people are its kind of creepy over here,” I said, timidly. “I don’t want to go back over there, its fine,” Jillian said frustrated. I sighed as we sat in the sand and started talking. Moments later, something behind Jillian caught my eye. At first I thought it had been something else, but after blinking a few times I knew what the brown like a tree, tongue like an apple was. My eyes were as big as oranges. At first, I just froze and couldn’t think what to do. My mouth was all of a sudden dry and I couldn’t find my voice. Just when I opened my mouth to scream, Jillian had also discovered what had been in the water; a snake. Her face turned from happy and tan, to cherry red. Her scream was a loud siren as it rang in my ears. Without even thinking I turned and started to run across the sandbar back to the boat. Jillian had decided to swim; no such luck. As I was getting closer to the boat I stopped and realized I could no longer hear Jillian’s screams. I turned around to see that she hadn’t been following me, but she was way behind me! I waited a minute and decided whether to turn back or not. I found myself running back to her as she screamed and kicked the water with her legs, obviously she was getting nowhere. When I reached her I grabbed her arm and started to pull her through the water. Her face submerged from the water, now an even deeper red. I noticed her leg, kicking furiously and splashing the water like a fish on a hook. She continued to scream and when I looked closer I couldn’t believe it, the snake had wrapped around her leg! I couldn’t understand how the snake had gotten on her leg but all I could do was get Jillian back to the boat. I pulled her through the water trying to calm her down as she still, continued, to scream. Once we were closer to the boat, and away from the sandbar, Jillian stood up and ran to the boat, still crying and screaming. Strangely enough, her family had not seen any of what had happened. Everyone scurried onto the boat, wide-eyed and frightened. Jillian hurried to a seat and grabbed a towel. She wrapped it around herself as she was still shaking. I sat down next to her, “maybe next time you’ll listen to me?” I said. She glared at me then smiled as we all began to laugh.