It's their secret and they won't tell anybody else. Until they leave on Thursday. That's when they'll tell my brother the secret and then he'll tell me. 4 houses down lives Mark, Lauren and Ryan Richardson. Mark's a lot older than me and the other two are younger. Them and my neighbors from next door Joseph, Julia and Jeff Geving have a secret place. It's hidden somewhere in our neighborhood. No one knows where it is except them. Now that Mark, Lauren and Ryan are moving the Gevings are going to need someone else to go to the secret place with. They'll tell my brother because he's their second best friend.

We went to the secret place for the first time. The Gevings call it the watering hole. That's because there is this mini lake like the ones animals in the jungle use for water. In plain sight the watering hole is disguised as trees and beautiful scenery for people to look at when they are jogging and walking their dogs on the bike path. If you go closer, down into the tangled vines and weeds there is an arch. This arch is like a doorway into a different universe. A place where imagination can run wild. Once you cross through the arch there is a narrow pathway. A dirt trail clear with no plants. Trees grow up against the path like a tunnel.

Walk a little further down the pathway and there will be a huge tree as big as a grandfather clock. It grows right in the middle of the pathway. Spray painted in cherry red on the tree are the words, “up here come.” Then on the side of the tree are nails as big as my foot. The Gevings told us they are there so that we can climb up the tree. I was afraid to climb it,but the others weren't.

There's a big piece of wood up there that you can sit on, they said.

There was also random writing about fish written on the wooden board with pen. We must not be the only ones who know about this place. Past the tree is a ditch filled with blocks of wood of all different sizes. They call it the junk yard. Past the junk yard is a bridge someone must have hand made one time out of wood from the junk yard. The bridge leads us across a small narrow river filled with mini tadpoles and fish. It can't hold more than two people at a time so we had to take turns crossing.

We explored on to see more until it happened. Cheep. Squawk. And a noise like scraping metal. That's when we saw the houses that lay at the end of the trail. Through the window we saw him. A shadowed figure. Spying. Looking. Spying. Looking. And at who? As our faces turned white like a ghosts we decided not to stay and find out. We screamed, running all the way. Through the arch. Jumping onto our bikes like a rodeo rider does to his bull. Zoom. Hurry. Zoom. Hurry. Finally we make it home and sigh with relief. That's the last time we would ever go to the watering hole.