100 Ancestral Figures That Touch Young Students - Pass Love Forward

Author: Teng Gang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Eddie quickly had his grandmother sit down while shielding her with his own bent body. Scalding embers fell onto Eddie's hands and neck. At seventeen, Eddie, who had led his grandmother through the raging fire forest, was bored at home, fiddling with his electric guitar. Because of the rare forest fire in the mountains, Eddie's school had been closed early. Through the window, Eddie could see dense smoke billowing in the distant mountains to the east, but he was not worried. Because Eddie's home was close to the Pacific coast, the sea breeze brought ample moisture, which greatly helped prevent the fire. Now his main concern was how to write his college application essay. This should have been completed several weeks ago, but he felt he had done nothing worth writing about. In his impression, the family all hoped he could go to college, especially his grandmother—Hazel Beckett. When Eddie was very young, his grandmother often told him how she had escaped from Armenia to America. "That was in 1915, when I was just a teenager," she said. "A group of soldiers broke into our village, burned down our houses, and killed my father and brother. I escaped alone with nothing." After coming to America, she found it was a place where hardworking and diligent people could achieve their dreams. "I had two children at the time, found a full-time job, and became the first person in our family to graduate from high school," she would always say with pride. These words had been heard by Eddie so many times that he was no longer moved by them. The fire spread
Grandma Beckett was ninety-three years old but still lived alone in an apartment near Eddie's house. At that moment, she was sitting on a chair, staring intently at the TV. "This is the worst forest fire in the United States in 25 years," said an announcer. "Approximately 7,000 firefighters are involved, but the fire is still out of control." Just then, Hazel smelled the scent of pine trees burning and immediately turned off the TV, walking outside with heavy steps. She saw Mel Winkler, with the help of a friend, spraying water onto his house's roof. Hazel immediately worried about her own children and decided to go check on them immediately.
Eddie's family lived on the south side of Sierks Drive, a mountain road that ran along the ridge. The north and south sides of the ridge were deep valleys. It was about 1:00 PM when a fire truck came down the northern valley, and a man with a megaphone shouted to everyone, "Quiet! If you plan to evacuate, we will assist you!"
Eddie's mother heard the announcement and began packing some bank certificates and insurance documents into a box, calling Eddie to gather things they could take. Eddie still casually pressed the buttons on his TV remote, but the signal had already disappeared. Eddie's heart sank, and he picked up the phone to call his father in Washington, D.C., but the call couldn't go through. "Eddie, quickly go water the roof!" his mother shouted from another room. He rushed outside, found a garden hose, connected it to the faucet, set up a ladder, and climbed onto the roof. In the nearby woods, dark smoke had already risen, and Eddie quickly turned on the hose to spray water onto his wooden house. At that moment, he saw Grandma Beckett hurrying over.
After spraying the water, Eddie came down from the roof, but his mother had not finished packing yet. "Take Grandma first, I'll finish packing and come right over," she said to Eddie. "You must protect Grandma well."
A mile away, the fire was already blazing, with scorching air swirling into a powerful tornado. The wind carried flames, crashing through everything, turning it into a sea of fire. Although planes kept dropping fire retardants from the sky, it was like dropping water into a fire truck—a drop in the bucket, completely ineffective.
Hazel stood on the balcony, terrified, her hands unconsciously tearing at her hair. Eighty years ago, her misfortune flashed before her eyes. She gasped for breath, her hands painfully pressing her chest. Eddie ran over, covering Grandma Beckett's nose with a wet towel. In his opinion, the fastest way to leave here was to go down the northern slope, where they could directly reach the highway by the sea and meet his mother there.
Perilous Journey
Eddie led Grandma Beckett through the backyard and began descending. Suddenly, they heard a howling sound—the sound of fire. The flames rushed toward them like a dragon. Hazel screamed and struggled free from Eddie's grip, losing her balance and falling. Just as she was about to roll down the slope, Eddie grabbed her. Meanwhile, Eddie saw that the hill opposite them, about 200 yards away from the valley floor, was already on fire, and he could feel waves of heat rushing toward them. At that moment, they were only a hundred yards from the valley floor. If he were alone, he could have easily run to the valley floor and then to the highway. But now, with Grandma Beckett, he worried the fire would reach them before they reached the valley floor.
"Grandma, we must go back!" he shouted, pulling her up. "Down, we can only go down!" Grandma Beckett stubbornly tried to pull her arm back. The fire was faster than Eddie had imagined. Soon, it reached the valley floor and then burned toward them. Eddie knew there was no time to argue anymore.
"Quick, Hazel, Beckett!" he urged, using an unusually harsh tone with his grandma. With that, he grabbed her arm and climbed up the slope, the surging flames roaring behind them. The two struggled to climb the slope, sitting on the ground, panting heavily. The fire was still about forty yards away, and on the other side of the highway, it was about one hundred yards away. The exit of Sierks Drive was gone.
"It's over!" Eddie thought. "Everything is over."
"Eddie!" he suddenly heard Winkler's voice. He was with his friend, Wester, and they also knew the road was blocked by fire.
"We must find another way down!" Eddie said.
"Maybe we can go down from behind your house," Winkler suggested.
"That's the wilderness, there's no path," Winkler said. "I don't think that will work."
"Then where?" Grandma Beckett asked in pain.
"We must carve a path through the dense forest on the south side—it's our only option," Eddie said firmly.
At that moment, Eddie's mother, Pat, was driving out of the valley. From her car's rearview mirror, she saw flames blazing on the mountain. She thought Eddie and his grandma must have left with their neighbors. A few minutes later, Pat safely arrived on the highway. She asked around about her family but got no news. Pat was extremely anxious.
On the southern slope of the mountain, Wester was swinging a large machete, struggling to clear a path. Eddie and Winkler, supporting Grandma Beckett, followed closely behind. The path Wester cleared grew narrower, with a steep cliff just a few yards to the right. Eddie walked behind them. The thick smoke drifting from behind him nearly blinded his eyes, and a few times, he almost fell off the cliff. Suddenly, a gust of wind swept in, bringing a shower of embers that rained down on them. Eddie quickly had Grandma sit down while shielding her with his own bent body. Scalding embers fell onto Eddie's hands and neck.
Animals, startled by the fire, were screaming everywhere. A large-eyed deer darted past them quickly, and the birds in the sky were lost, crying mournfully.
Hazel didn't want to burden Eddie. She curled up and kept saying, "Just go, you must save yourself first!"
"Go!" Winkler shouted. "The fire is right behind us!"
"Grandma, we'll survive," Eddie and Winkler said, bending down to lift Grandma Beckett. He knew they couldn't repeat this again—they had to go down. They lifted Grandma Beckett and rushed down.
Eddie was already exhausted, his hands almost spasming. As they desperately ran toward the highway, the fire, accompanied by thick smoke, surged toward them.
Escaping the Fire
Suddenly, Eddie's running shoes hit hard ground, and he heard Winkler shout, "We're saved!" Two firefighters ran toward them. Paramedics arrived as well, putting a respirator on Grandma Beckett. At that moment, Eddie felt dizzy and nauseous.
"Where did you come from, kid?" someone asked him.
"Over there," Eddie weakly pointed to the mountain ablaze with fire. The person looked at him in astonishment and said, "Wow! You've run all the way from hell!"
At 7:00 PM, Pat sat alone on a folding chair at the temporary relief camp. She had still not heard from Eddie or his grandma.
"Where are my family? I've lost my son and my mother-in-law," she thought regretfully.
As night fell, Pat fell asleep crying.
About two hours later, someone entered the tent to wake her up and ask her to answer the phone.
"Mom," she heard Eddie's voice on the other end.
"Eddie!" she smiled happily. "You're alive! What about Grandma?"
"She's fine, just a few scratches from the grass and some smoke in her lungs. She's with me," Pat smiled tearfully.
"You saved her life," Eddie said.
Eddie smiled. Now he could write a great college application essay.
A Quality Called Courage
When disaster strikes from the sky, Eddie, at seventeen, chose courage. Facing the raging inferno, he not only did not give up but also helped his elderly grandma escape death—it was such a rare and precious quality of courage! The fire tested Eddie, and Eddie was tempered by the fire. Eddie's experience tells us: when faced with the mud and bumps of life, we must choose courage!
This article uses subheadings to structure the narrative, giving it a fresh and engaging feel.
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