Johan sat in an uncomfortable, tiptoe crouch contemplating how to fail less dramatically this time. The muscles on the back back of his thighs smashed against the meager meat of his calves. He perched not too unlike a bird, on a particularly small branch of the great Song willow tree. Only ten paces out it narrowed even more to only about the width of his foot.
That’s where it got soft and a little scary but it was the only place he could get that much tension. It should easily give him enough boost to make the jump across the space between the trees. At least it looked like that. Elin had already made the jump. She made the jump every time. The problem was, Johan had tried this jump before. He missed every time.
He had already almost lost sight of Elin. She didn’t wait for him. Johan could handle himself. Even if he missed the jump, he didn’t need her to baby him. Still, he knew that she was secretly listening and watching for him just in case. She didn’t want him to know and he didn’t really want to know. What he really wanted to know was that he could do this by himself. No matter what, this time he would.
He timed everything perfectly. He started on his left foot. He’d practiced matching Elin’s step length. It nearly matched his own anyway but that extra tiny space might make all the difference. She was just a little taller than him, so today he ran just exactly like her.
He counted off the paces. The right foot landed exactly were he planned and the branch gave just a little underneath of him. Instinct wanted him to push with both legs. It only made sense that two legs would give more strength than that of just one but he needed the momentum. He couldn’t stop right now. The left leg swung through and as he pushed off the right. Everything was perfect, just like Elin. The jump went exactly as it should but Johan missed just exactly as he did every other time.
The wind rushed up at his face as he picked up speed and downward momentum. Somewhere in the panic of the missed landing, Johan found his calm. He couldn’t do this when he jumped, only when he fell could he calculate the options. When he was reaching for the sky, he couldn’t afford to focus on how to save a deadly fall. Now he had nothing to lose.
He wouldn’t die from the fall. At least, he hadn’t any other time. As his fingertips slipped past the branch that he was supposed to grab a hold of, Johan felt his stomach rise up into his throat and strangle it. It didn’t quite feel the same as the fear he felt the first time, the second time or even the last few times before this. The logical part of his brain took over and raced through every possible alternative. He’d done this enough times.
If he just let himself go, he would land on his stomach the next branch down. He cringed at the thought and yet, that would hurt less than the next option he had tried. For this he could roll himself forward in a flip as he fell. With a little more effort he could reach the next branch down and over. By the time he had fallen that far, the speed would hurt his landing. He would land on his feet but he would hit much harder.
He might not be able to run for a few days. The last alternative was not even an option. If he missed both branches below he would fall until he landed on the forest floor. Snow didn’t make it through to the forest floor so there would be nothing to cushion his fall. Johan tightened himself for the least worst fall, a body slam on the next branch down.
His weight hit solid wood that wouldn’t give. Johan’s stomach churned as his body sank down. Then his abdomen nearly squished all of his insides up to his neck. He started to slide off but had enough sense to grab ahold and hang tight. He gripped the branch that hurt him so bad but kept him from falling to more injury. He slowly pulled himself up and rolled over onto his back.
Johan had a dirty shade of light brown hair that almost blended with the bark of the trees. He kept it mostly trimmed just above his pointy ears. He said it made his sense of hearing more keen. Most of the other boys wore their hair much longer past their ears. Johan never was one for keeping up with style.
His eyes were an off shade of brown that just didn’t quite match his hair. They accented his face which had just a little baby fat left, though he had slimmed down a little this past year. His long legs and long arms matched the tall, slender body that most of his kind had. He had long fingers that were usually perfect for grabbing ahold of branches as he flew through the air past them.
Elin always made the jump. She always made every jump she tried. She wasn’t much taller than Johan. Definitely not any stronger. She might’ve weighed just a little bit less but Johan didn’t think that made a difference. She did have perfect timing. She knew just exactly where to step and how much spring to boost herself into a jump. The two of them had been running and jumping like this for a long time.
Elin couldn’t seem to miss, even though she only just barely made it. Every time he saw her float across the expanse, he felt the fear he knew she must have. She’d come so close to missing. Every time, she failed to fall. Maybe she didn’t even have fear. Johan told himself it was just that she had been doing this longer than him, though he knew she really hadn’t. They’d started this together. She just got better faster.
He tried to recreate every step she took. Ten paces out and then a jump just after the branch forked. She started on her left foot and ended with her right. Her strong foot made the leap. Johan tried it that way. At least he thought he had. He tried it every way. He tried this jump so many times he felt certain he had tried every possible combination of movements. Every time he swore to himself he would never return. Elin always brought him back.
So far as he knew, he and Elin were the only ones that did this kind of thing. There were plenty of others their age in the nearby villages and even in their own. They all stayed fit working for food and shelter. Most everyone of their kind had the build suited for tree hopping. No one else seemed to show an interest in even trying, let alone enjoying the sport that Elin must have invented.
She called it “Tree Hopping,” just for lack of a better name. Most everyone could and would jump from branch to branch just to get around their treetop village. Only Elin and Johan would do it for fun and to the extreme. No one else they knew would even try to jump to an entirely different tree. They had tree bridges for that. Anything else was just too risky.
The branch he lie on was just a narrow one. Only about twice the width of his own body. Most of the trees had branches as wide as the height of two fully grown adults end to end. They built houses and shops on those branches. This was just a young tree. That’s what made it so perfect for tree hopping. It wasn’t big enough to be fully inhabited yet. Every branch was open for them to sprint and leap across.
Elin dropped down and knelt beside Johan. She checked to make sure he was still breathing and then sat down on the branch next to him. She let out a sigh and stared off in the distance.
“I thought you’d make it this time. I’m pretty proud of you for trying,” she said.
“I feel pretty stupid for trying again,” Johan managed to say before he started coughing. Even coughing hurt. He looked over at Elin. She smiled back as if to say that she didn’t know what to say.
Elin was tall for a girl of their kind. She must have been a little older than Johan, no one kept track of age very well but that would explain the height difference. Johan had started to doubt whether he would ever catch up. Every time he grew, she grew a little more.
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Elin had a slender body, though every one of their kind did. Somehow, those tiny muscles had some extreme power. Her long fingers could grab even a branch as thick as her head. She seemed to just stick her hand to the tree in mid air and swing herself enough to flip around to the other side. As Johan constantly reminded himself, she could jump from one leg better than he could from both.
Elin had long hair, much lighter in color. It floated on the wind when she jumped just like the rest of her seemed to. Her eyes matched her traditional green foliage colors that everyone was were expected to wear outside of the village for camouflage. The fabric came from the leaves of the same amazing tree that seem to provide them with everything they needed.
Elin wore a pair of ankle length, snug fitting, green pants with a loose fitting top of a lighter shade that tucked into her pants. Johan wore a nearly identical outfit only with looser fitting pants. Even in the cold weather, it would keep them warm. It was always cold.
“We should probably go see Grandmother,” Elin said.
“I’m not going anywhere just yet,” Johan groaned. He probably could have right now but he didn’t really want to. He’d been to see Elin’s grandmother three times already in the past few days. She tended to his wounds but he wondered how long she would keep quiet about their obvious adventures.
“Don’t worry, she won’t tell anyone,” Elin said. “She thinks it’s fun. She might be the only one in the village that actually knows what fun is.” Elin smiled hoping to get a laugh out of Johan. He tried but then started coughing. The coughing made him grab his abdomen and groan. Elin shook her head and stood up. Even in the cold, she went barefoot.
“You really should wear shoes,” Johan referred to his own light fabric foot coverings. “You’re going to hurt your feet.”
“I like to feel where I am jumping and where I land.” She held out her hand and Johan took it pulling himself to his feet. She made sure he could stand on his own before she let go. “Do you think you can run?”
“No!” he barely let her finish her question. The pain hurt too much to walk right now but he did.
“I suppose you want me to slow down and walk with you?” Elin asked pretending you be annoyed. Johan knew she really wanted to take care of him right now. She felt a little guilty since he was only trying to keep up with her. She usually turned quite motherly after he hurt himself.
“I would rather you carry me but if that’s not an option, then I guess you could at least walk with me. Only if you want to.”
“Well, only because I think you need me. You probably couldn’t even find your way back by yourself,” she joked as they started on the long trek back to their village. It only took a few minutes to get out here running and jumping from trees but walking and climbing would take much longer.
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Thank you for reading. This is the first chapter of my novel. I hope you liked it.. This is part of a completed work but I will be publishing it weekly. I'd love to hear what you think. Start a conversation or send me a message. I'm on facebook and twitter,
J. E. Frank
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