On an ordinary spring day I sit in the grass at the park. A ladybug lands on my leg. I pick it up and notice how many spots it has and its reddish-orange color. As it crawls over my hands, I try to keep the bug on my fingers, but it flies away. It buzzes around and eventually disappears reminding me of a sunny day like this one eight years ago.

My sister, Emily, and I are sitting in the yard of our house inside of a bright, artificial-red, ladybug tent. The sun shines through the material, and shadows are cast across our faces where the black spots on the outside of the insect tent are. We play that we are inside of a live ladybug: she is our ship. We are caught in a storm and our insect is sinking. We need to prepare our life boats and abandon ship, but there is no way to save our host friend. We unzip the door and I am shoved out of our sinking ship onto the grass.

My sister stumbles out behind me and we begin to swim through the air. We reach the end of the yard, safely reaching the empty beach. Emily tenses and falls onto the gravel shaking uncontrollably, I have seen this before. The game is over and I know that my sister is having a seizure. I start crying, then realize what I need to do. I run inside, grab the phone, and call 911 as I run back outside. When I return to what I believed to be my dying sister, she is rolling around on the ground laughing. Then I know I have been tricked. The operator suddenly starts her famous line “911, what is your...” but she never finishes because I have hung up the phone.

I run over to my laughing sister who has calmed down a bit. She takes one look at my tear-streaked face and starts laughing again, saying, “I got you so good!” I start to yell at her, saying that what she did was not funny, and that she was really mean. She stops laughing and apologizes. I forgive her and we go inside, tired from our games. The phone starts to ring again and I answer. It is the 911 lady calling us to make sure everything is okay.

The woman tells me that they need to send an officer over to our house to make sure that we are safe. I don’t understand why, I give the phone to my oldest sister, Mary, who did not hear my crying and running through the house searching for the phone. She talks to the operator and then tells us that there will be an officer coming to our house to check on us. Mary then yells at us, saying that we are going to be in a lot of trouble when our parents get home.

I start crying again and so does Emily, then the police officer shows up. He notices that we are shaken up and asks us if we are okay. Mary responds, repeating to him the same story that we had told her, when she had asked. The police officer asks why we are crying and we truthfully tell him it is because we think we are going to be in trouble by our parents. He starts laughing and tells us that everything will be okay and that we don’t have to tell our parents. I argue with him, saying that I have to tell my mom. The officer talks to Mary for a bit and when he leaves I call my mother. I tell her the story and she starts laughing. She thought it was a good lesson on the seriousness of the types of tricks people play. She concludes by telling me that I had a much more interesting day then she did.

I smile at the memory. That little ladybug’s landing on me, brought back such a traumatic memory of my sister playing a joke on me, such a long time ago. Although it is now very funny, ladybugs will always remind me of Emily.