I clutch the safety bar with my sweaty fingers, rubbing them nervously into the soft outer padding. I look over at my father sitting next to me. He appears apprehensive and in deep thought.

"Why would anyone want to go on this roller coaster?" he asks, as if we could get off at this point now that the bars have been locked down.

"Oh, don't worry, we'll be fine. You'll love it," says my Aunt Julie reassuringly. She is sitting next to my mother, right behind us. Julie is the one who, by her power of persuasion, convinced us to go on the ride in the first place.

I look down the track from our stationary starting position and see the massive loop that we will soon go through upside down. Knowing that we will also have to come through the loop backwards after stopping at the end of the track high above the park makes me all the more frightened. I begin to get paranoid and wonder what would happen if we went flying off the track in the middle of the loop. Would I be nothing more than a heap of broken, bloodstained bones piled up on the ground?

My thoughts are interrupted by the roller coaster attendant.

"We're all ready," he says to another attendant.

"Here we go," says my mother, an exaggerated shrill tone in her voice.

I take a deep breath. My head is snapped forward as the roller coaster takes off like a bullet. The people waiting in line on my left are quickly left behind in a blur. I start to scream with excitement as it speeds toward the loop, shaking and bumping around on the track. The front of the coaster tips up. I see the park for a split second and don't know which way is up or down as the coaster goes through the loop. Wind blows through my hair and I grip the bar tightly as we come out of the loop and zoom on. I glance over at my horror-stricken father. The faint smile on his face reassures me that he has loosened up and is beginning to enjoy the ride.

The coaster heads toward the end of the track high above the park. We come to a quick stop and are now looking straight up at the sky but before I can think we are going backwards even faster now. I feel the roller coaster quickly descend the track and the sky gets further away.

"All right," I yell with a burst of energy.

"This is great," yells my father, now with his arms outstretched, waving above him.

All of us on the roller coaster have now gotten over our fear and share the electricity of the ride. I raise up my arms, like my father, with excitement. I then feel the energetic coaster speed on backwards, rapidly approaching the loop again. n