A lot of funny and exciting things happen when my family gets together for reunion or a holiday. Every time something is about to go wrong in our family, you can feel it coming. It's almost a tradition.

One Thanksgiving in particular sticks out in my mind. When I got to my aunt's house, everyone was in the back yard waiting for their turkey dinner. I was ten, so I liked to hang around my older cousins because I knew I would never get into trouble. Anyway, I went where they were all hanging out around a big oak tree. There was a lot of yelling, so I knew something was going to be fun.

To my surprise, everybody was taking target practice at a bale of hay with a picture of a squirrel on it. I pushed my way to the front. I couldn't wait to shoot an arrow at the funny-looking squirrel because the week before I had been at a camp where they taught archery. All my cousins laughed at me as I cocked the bow back. They constantly reminded me I was too young to know how to shoot an arrow. My first shot was a bull's-eye right into the squirrel's heart!

My whole family was in awe that a little boy could do what my uncles could not. As they stared at me with approval, they urged me to take another shot and get another bull's-eye. I cocked the bow once again with the same technique. This time without all the harassing, I was ten times more confident. I took aim but right as I was about to fire, I heard someone say. "Hold On!" Thanks to archery practice, I was used to knowing when to shoot and when not to shoot. My younger cousin had stepped into the deadly area. My shot had already gone off, but with all my ten-year-old strength I tried to aim high over him. My whole family watched desperately as the arrow went sailing - over his head. They were relieved to see no one was injured.

Before anyone could yell at me, I heard another cousin say, "Bull's-eye." It seems that my shot had hit a real squirrel prancing on a fence. The whole family couldn't believe what had happened, and until this day they haven't let me touch another bow and arrow. c