One thrilling 5th grade day, I looked through the stained-glass window of our front door to see if any of my neighbors were outside. Had I been teleported to Australia? I yelled up the stairs to Dad, “Dad! Come quick! Hurry!” Wanting to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind, I directed him to look out to the ditch in the front yard. “Is that an ostrich? Why is an ostrich in our yard?” He was puzzled and amused. “No, that’s an emu. It’s like a cousin of an ostrich.” An emu? What the hell. How did it get to my house?

“There’s a man in the neighborhood behind the woods at the end of the street who raises emus for their eggs. It most likely got out of its pin and is from his farm,” Dad explained.

“Oh. That makes sense. But who eats emu eggs? What do they taste like? How big are they?” I asked.

Dad went next door to team up with our neighbor Mike, who was a sheriff’s deputy. I continued watching from the house in amazement as my dad waived his arm and an ear of corn at the emu, and Mike tried to throw a poorly fashioned lasso around its neck.

The emu made its way to Mike’s backyard. Several officers from the sheriff’s department also made their way to Mike’s backyard. They took cover behind the canoe that sat on its side near his house. The emu was toward the back of the yard, chasing Mike’s Jack Russel, Remy, in circles.

A curious mind is hardly satiated. I needed a better look. As I made my way to the crop circle being dug into the grass by Remy and the emu, the emu rounded the corner. The locked vision that had once been focused on Remy was broken as it whipped its head up and found a new target. Our eyes locked.

Emus have the same skeleton as velociraptors. They can run up to 7 mph faster than Usain Bolt. They can’t fly, but I didn’t think I could either.

I took off. My pupils turned to saucers, and Mom’s fear turned to hysterical laughter as she watched from the porch.

I never turned back to see what happened behind me. I never saw the officers hiding with their weapons pulled. I never saw if the emu lost interest in me and refocused on Remy. I never stopped to breathe the entire 5 seconds I sprinted the length of my yard.

The stairs might as well not have been there as I leaped onto the porch, clutched my sides, and gasped for air. Mom cackled, “I’ve never seen you run so fast in your life!”

And that is the story that got me the callsign “Emu” at Space Camp (which the Aussies really loved).