“Finally,” I muttered in excitement as Dad told us that we would be going on a picnic the next day.

Me and my family were going to the beach, after planning it for the past several months. We were all very excited, fully determined to enjoy it to the fullest, however, we didn’t know what was waiting for us that day.

We started on our journey early as the beach was 300 miles away from our house. We had been travelling for two hours and had only covered 100 miles because of the poor condition of the road. We decided to take a break and stopped near a shop. The shop looked more like a house from a horror movie, very rundown and rusted.

As we entered the shop, an old hunchback man emerged from behind the counter. He too depicted the same condition as that of the shop and spoke in a wheezy voice, like the crunching of dead leaves, “What do you want?”

My parents were taken aback by his rudeness, their jaws dropped, “Well, w-we wanted t-to buy s-s-some st-st-stuff,” my dad stuttered.

“Well, then why are you staring at my face? Get buying!” he said, giving my dad a glare.

I turned around and looked at shelves of dusty boxes looming over me. Something caught my attention. A rabbit’s foot!

“This is considered extremely lucky,” I thought, as I had read about them in many stories. I decided to buy it.

After buying some snacks and water, we decided to hit the road again. But as we drove, I realised something strange. All the signs with the name of our destination were pointing in the wrong direction! A car zoomed past us at incredible speed, in the wrong direction.

That was when we realised we had accidentally taken the wrong lane and were driving in the opposite direction to the one we had to take. We were actually going back! We opened the GPS, which showed a U-turn about 50 km ahead of us.

So, having no choice, we decided to drive the car over the footpath separating the roads and get to the other side to head in the right direction. Since it was a highway and cars were moving at a very high speed, we narrowly missed a car that was coming on the road we moved into. We had hardly moved for a few minutes when one of the car’s tires burst. There was a loud noise and the car swung to one side very sharply as my father hit the break.

Shaken, we got down and saw a tire totally tattered. We realised that driving the car over the footpath wasn’t a very wise decision after all. Dad spent more than an hour looking up how to change a punctured tire from the car’s handbook, because he had never ever done it himself as he always took help from a technician. Anyway, when he finished changing it, it was midday and we decided to take a lunch break and then head towards our destination.

So dad looked for the nearest town or settlement in the GPS, and started driving in that direction. But the worse was still to come. After driving for another hour, the car made some strange sounds, slowed down and stopped.

Dad told us that the car’s petrol had finished. There was no settlement or building as far as eyes could see. He then decided to walk to a petrol station and bring it in a can. He believed it wasn’t too far away as the GPS showed that we were near a town. We were reluctant, but we had no choice. There were no vehicles on the road as well, so we had to wait anyway.

Dad was in contact with mum through his mobile phone, so after walking of more than 50 minutes, Dad reached a petrol pump. He filled the can and walked back to us. By then we had decided that we would go back home and not go to the beach. After an hour, we saw him coming, but he seemed very exhausted. We felt sorry for him. He sat down to rest first and mum offered him some water. Then he got up to fill the car tank.

Just as he started to pour petrol in the car, the can slipped from his hands and rolled down the slope by the side of the road. Dad ran after it and finally got hold of it, but more than half the petrol had spilled.

We all panicked, while mum tried to calm us all down. It was then that dad told us that with the petrol that was left, we would be very lucky if we manage to make it to the petrol station, which was miles away. We decided to risk it because we also had no option left.

Dad started driving again and the car air conditioner was turned off to bring the petrol consumption down. We were praying that we could reach the petrol pump before the petrol finished. Now all we wanted was to reach back home safely.

Dad accelerated the car and then shifted the gear to neutral and let go of everything but kept his hands on the steering wheel as we arrived at a section of the road that was going down a slope. This was to conserve the fuel and now we were thundering down the road. Dad seemed a bit nervous, but remained silent.

“Dad, stop the car, dad!” me and my siblings cried out louder than we ever had. We were hysterical because the car was moving very fast. But then, dad let loose a bombshell on us.

“The brakes have failed!” he said, in an expressionless voice.

And that was when we saw a petrol pump in the distance. There were some cars lined up to refill their tanks, a couple of people walking around and a garbage dumping area to our left.

As the car was unstoppable, all we could do was watch in horror and pray that we don’t hit anyone!

“Boooooooooooooom!” there was an earth-shattering sound as we crashed into the garbage dumping area, saving vehicles and people. I could see the dirty garbage slipping from the window on my side, a dirty baby diaper on the other. Thankfully, we all were safe, but the car’s bumper was broken.

People ran towards us, but remained at a distance. Perhaps you know why!

To cut short the story, we took a taxi home, and our car was towed to a workshop. It was not a picnic, but the worst day of our lives. But who knows it could have been worse than it was, after all, I still had the rabbit’s foot.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 8th, 2023