6

The tree we had traipsed through the woods to reach had broken about ten feet up its trunk. The top half of it had fallen over creating a triangle with the ground. The sloped side was a good grade for climbing, just steep enough to be a challenge. 

“CHARGE!” Jireh yelled, as soon as the kids came in sight of it. He was halfway up it before Keeli reached the base. It was at this moment that Sid's thoughts turned to Wolo.

“You should stay down here, bud!” Sid warned.

“I could try it?” Wolo said, not sounding very confident.

“What's the holdup?” Jireh called, he had quickly reached the apex and had stopped to check on Sid and Wolo's progress before making his leap. Keeli was about halfway up. She turned to see what was taking Jireh's attention away from the awesome traction her boots provided.

“Wolo shouldn't do this, Jireh!” Sid tried to explain.

“Don't coddle him, Sid!” Was the larger males response.

“He's got hooves, Jireh! He can't climb very well! You know that!”

Hooves were not ordinary among creats. In fact, they were a genetic anomaly that the “awakened” species of the planet believed they had done away with millennia ago when they had chosen the ONE form to fit predator and prey, alike. “I guess our ancestors didn't do as good of a job as they thought.” The creats would say, whenever such an anomaly would present itself. Genetic engineering was illegal now, of course - and was not known to the people of my time who had forgotten the ways of science. Our ancestors had traded them sometime after this time for religious fervor - so these things had to be accepted when they appeared.

Some anomalies were far more acceptable to creats than others. Horns, for instance, like the thin, black ones that spiraled out of Keeli's forehead, were perfectly acceptable. Even though, like hooves and tails, they weren't supposed to happen anymore. They had become so acceptable, in fact, that some creats had fake ones surgically implanted as an aesthetic. They weren't as good as the real thing, though, and would occasionally fall out or break off. Keeli's were the real thing. Sid thought they were cute, but Keeli hated them because it made it very difficult to wear hats. There were special hats made for creats with horns, but finding one that fit your head, as well as the distance between your horns could be a nightmare. 

“Get a move on, you two!” Jireh yelled, snapping Sid’s thoughts away from Keeli’s cute horns.

“Hold on to me.” He told Wolo, leading him to the base of the tree. Maybe Jireh is right? Maybe he would be fine? He told himself. A part of Sid had confidence in Jireh’s judgment, but another part - a darker part - secretly wanted to see Jireh fail at something, anything, no matter the cost. “Just take it slow, one hoof at a time.” Sid coached, as he and Wolo made their way up the mossy slope. 

“Into the breach, Keeli!” Jireh yelled, as he launched himself from the fallen tree.

“Cry havoc and let slip the frogs of war!” Keeli yelled, purposely misquoting the line just to make Sid laugh. Any other time it would have worked, but Sid was too busy fearing for Wolo’s safety, and so wasn’t exactly in a laughing mood. 

Keeli followed Jireh's arc to the ground, executing a perfect Parachute Landing Fall in the soft grass. Sid had found a video online that had demonstrated the technique and Jireh had made them all practice it until they could do it with their eyes closed.

“Hurry up, you two! We're wasting daylight!” Keeli said, mimicking Jireh’s admonishment from earlier in the day. 

“What's he thinking?” Sid wondered, second guessing Jireh out loud so Wolo could hear. Part of him was already preparing his own plea of innocence should something go awry. “You're going to break a leg!” He declared, too busy voicing his negativity to see that it wasn't helping Wolo's confidence. “Alright buddy, controlled collapse. Just like we practiced.” He almost said, “Feet, knees, face” out of habit, which was a joke among paratroopers, as those were the parts of the body that contacted the ground if you screwed up the PLF. If done properly, the PLF allowed you to make contact with the ground in a rolling way that sloughed off your momentum. The balls of the feet, the side of the calf on whichever leg was on the rolling side, continuing up the outer thigh, then over onto the buttock and finally the upper back. They had practiced it from as high as ten feet, just like real paratroopers, until it should have been natural for them. Wolo, however, was having difficulty picturing the maneuver in his head. Partly because of Sid’s imparted nervousness.

Telling someone to do something that would normally come naturally to them will oftentimes have the unwanted effect of making them think too hard about what they're doing, as Sid’s advice did for Wolo. His impatience didn’t help, either. “One, two, three!” He said suddenly, as the two of them arrived at the apex. He thought it would be better to just get this over with, without a lot of meditation about the height and so on. That thought took control of his body.

As it often did when it settled on expediency, Sid’s brain had skipped over everything else that might have been important. Wolo observed that they hadn't discussed counting, at all, or agreed on when they should jump. They were just jumping with no preparation or synchronization. He also realized that something weird happens when two creats try to do something in sync, whether they've discussed counting, or not. The counter will move on the designated mark, while the creat who isn't counting will delay an extra moment as the realization sets in that the mark has been reached. The physical effect of this delay saw Wolo being yanked, unceremoniously, from his bark-covered perch. Processing all of these extraneous observations took up valuable cycles in his brain, which he could have used to plan his landing. A landing which was destined to fail long before it actually happened.

From his viewpoint on the ground, Jireh had also made some observations. He had observed every mistake that Sid had made, which had cumulatively resulted in Wolo being tugged off of the log. He was also an eyewitness to Sid's next mistake. 

Let go of his hand! The thought didn't have time to find a path across Jireh's lips before Sid hit the ground. His momentum carried him forward, along with Wolo's hand, arm, and torso. Any preparation Wolo might have made for landing was rendered useless by this sudden change in direction. He did his best to compensate, in the time available, which ran out far too quickly. 

The sound tricked Keeli, at first. She thought that Wolo had landed on a twig and snapped it in two when, in fact, all of Wolo's weight had come down on one, spindly leg. The mud, the heavy load and the lack of balance all came together and focused their energy on a point just above Wolo’s ankle, which was not sturdy enough to take the weight of them. Realizing her error, Keeli bolted for, the now prone, Wolo. Jireh was already halfway to Sid, who had managed to remain on his feet - contrary to the end result of a properly performed PLF - and was at that moment pulling himself to his full height, not realizing that his little buddy was injured. Jireh's open palms caught him just under the pectoral muscles. The force of the blow was sufficient to lift Sid back off his feet, and deposit him in the mud, no less than a meter away. 

No scolding attended the violence as Jireh's attention was already turned to Keeli, who was trying to help Wolo to his feet. 

“Owww Weee!”

Their injured comrade emitted one of those plaintive cries that no creature wishes to hear from another, unless they are a sadist.

“You're alright, buddy!” Keeli's voice seemed to calm Wolo a bit.

“My leg!” He cried.

“I know, I know!” She soothed, not knowing what else to do.

“Let me take him, Keeli!” Jireh insisted, already aware of what needed to be done. She was having trouble getting him up, since Wolo was nearly as heavy as she was. Trusting Jireh, she let him take over without any argument. 

“Get over here and help!” The sudden snap from Jireh lifted Sid out of the mud as easily as the push had landed him in it. He was still trying to work out what he had done to deserve so much hostility, as he made his way to Wolo's side. “We each get an arm and a leg!” Jireh directed, already nestling his shoulder into the smaller boys armpit. Sid understood, immediately. They had practiced this kind of carry many times because, as Jireh said, “War is Heel.”

It took twenty minutes to get Wolo back to the road. As Sid and Jireh carried him, Keeli walked behind stroking his shoulders and cooing comfortingly.

“I told you not to make him jump, Jireh!” Sid's voice wavered with apprehension under the weight of the accusation.

Jireh's voice was calm and steady, as usual. “I didn't tell him to jump, Sid. Why'd you pull him off the log?”

The argument had started soon after the trek to the road began, and had gone back and forth, around in circles, with neither boy giving an inch.

“You guys are hurting him!” Keeli warned. She seemed to be the only one who noticed Wolo's discomfort. As the argument swung from Sid to Jireh, so did Wolo. Wolo noticed it too, of course. He grimaced with every swing.

“But you knew he'd follow you anywhere! You always make him do too much, Jireh!” Sid wasn't letting up.

“I didn't make him jump, Sid.” Jireh emphasized, again.

“You didn't stop him!” That made Jireh stop in his tracks. He eyeballed Sid.

“You didn't stop him, either.” Jireh's voice was cold, now. There was a warning underpinning his words, but Sid stood his ground. 

“KNOCK IT OFF!” Keeli's interruption, and the insertion of her hands in between them, brought Jireh around to what was important. She was afraid the whole thing would end up in a fight, and then she'd have more than one hurt friend to deal with. She was right, Jireh realized. She started to chastise them, again, but it was Wolo who put an end to the whole argument. 

“I DID IT!” His admission of guilt surprised them all. None of them knew his voice had a volume setting that high. “I jumped!” He said, for emphasis, wincing at the pain in his throat caused by the chitinous spear that was lodged there. His leg was hurting, and now his throat was, too. They could see it in his face, but there was something else there. Wolo wanted to protect them. “Go! I'll do it, myself!” he said, trying to wrestle free of Sid and Jireh.

Jireh, being a natural leader, leapt several moves ahead in his thinking. There would be trouble when Wolo's parents found out about all of this. That's what Wolo was trying to protect them from. As leader, Jireh knew it was his duty to minimize the damage, whether he felt responsible or not.

“Give him to me, Sid.” He said, softly, but with a certain degree of force that made even Keeli step back. Sid's blank expression belied the activity in his brain. He had also realized that there would be consequences.

And why should I get in trouble? He asked himself, Jireh made him jump! He realized what Jireh was about to do and couldn't find a suitable reason not to let him do it. Without a word, he stood aside as Jireh hefted all of Wolo's weight. Wolo started to protest, but Jireh cut him off.

"Shut up, Wolo.” Then he turned to Keeli and Sid. “You guys go home. There's no reason for all of us to get in trouble.” 

You got that right! Sid thought, not daring to say it out loud. He watched as Jireh carried Wolo down the street, then turned to Keeli but her back was to him. She was already headed home, herself.

Well fig you, too! He thought, not knowing why he was mad at her, or why she might be mad at him. 

Trying to figure out if Keeli was, indeed, mad at him would keep him from enjoying his new book that evening.

“And it's a perfect rainy evening.” He thought. The rain had started before he made it home. So there he sat in the comfy chair, with The Traveler laying unread across his lap, twisting the day's events around in his head. It was definitely Jireh's fault. He had decided that, hours ago. But was Keeli mad, or just worried? That was the part he couldn't figure out. He didn't want Keeli to be mad. Hers was the only opinion he really cared about. Sid was a trove of useless information, and she was the only one who cared about his trivia. It came from the books and movies that he filled every Jireh-free moment with, and it ate at his brain if no one was around for him to share it with. 

“I don't know.” He declared. It was late. He'd given up on The Traveler and resigned himself to sleep. His legs and arms ached from all of the physical exertion, and his throat was sore from one too many pew-pews. “I guess I'll know tomorrow at school.” It was his last thought of the night.