Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)(80)

“Next,” the ref said. Apparently Georgie exchanged the safety rope up in the air.

Sean got hooked up. The harness was tight on his legs, making his sizable manhood pronounced. He caught Krista looking at it, gave her a wink, and headed to the tree. Just like Georgie, he scaled it easily. Unlike Georgie, his arm and leg muscles bulged, lending his body a grace of movement as he shifted weight between one peg and another. He was fluid grace up that tree. He might as well have been a squirrel. Land or water, it apparently didn’t matter—he was at home in any terrain.

It was really irritating.

“Next,” the ref said too soon.

“Don’t want to,” Krista said quietly.

The ref attached the rope to Krista’s harness with a metal clip. After, he looked up at her expectantly, waiting. She slowly turned around and headed to the giant tree.

It was even bigger from beneath it. The trunk was massive—three people could have stood side-to-side with room to spare in front of the trunk. The platform was about half-way up the beast, and the pegs were spread out much too far for comfort.

“Okay Krista,” Dean said as he walked with her. “Just focus on the pegs. Don’t look down, and don’t look too far up. Just look for the next peg. Focus on getting one hand to the peg, one foot, one hand, and on, and on. Eventually you’ll be at the top.”

“You can do it, Krista. Easier than surfing,” Sean called out from the heavens.

She did as Dean said; she put her foot on the first peg, and reached up to grab another one. It was like climbing a ladder, except that it was up a tree and all you had to support you were awkwardly spaced little pegs. So basically it was a scary, terrible, and capable-of-falling-over-at-any-minute ladder.

Half way up, Krista’s foot slipped off a smaller than normal peg.

“OH GOD!” She screamed, clutching onto the pegs in her hands and the tree bark with her face. Then, stupidly, she looked down.

The ground was a world away, the people standing on it were small, shifting dots with smiles. Her stomach started to churn and her legs tried to let go. She shut her eyes really tight and clutched the pegs with all her strength.

“What happened?” Sean yelled.

“She slipped, I think,” Dean called up. “She’s still hanging on. C’mon Krista, keep going. One peg at a time.”

“Don’t want to,” Krista said to the air.

“You can just let go and fall back down to earth…” Georgie was-not-helping!

“One at a time, Krista,” Dean said helpfully. “Get your foot back on the peg and pull yourself up. You are strong enough, you can do it. One at a time.”

“What is this, an AA meeting?” Krista whined with her eyes shut. She took a couple of deep breaths and opened her eyes. She saw bark next to her eye. “Don’t want to.”

Her eyes were bleary and her hands were sweaty. She reached for the next peg, found it and heaved herself up. She clutched on for a moment, then found the next peg, then the next. She didn’t look down again, nor did she look all that far up, like Dean said. She figured out which peg would be next, went for it, then looked to the next.

After she had ten more gray hairs and a few more wrinkles, she made it to a platform. It was a slight scramble to get up onto it, but once there, she hugged the tree with all her might, thankful to have something solid under her feet.

“Gotta keep going, Geegee,” Sean said from her right. He was at least on the same level.

“Don’t want to.”

“Then how are you going to get down?”

“Don’t want to.”

“C’mon, Krista,” Georgie called from the ground. “It isn’t so bad. You aren’t going to die.”

“No, but what if I crap my pants?”

There was laughter as Krista clutched the rope leading around the tree. She stayed as close to the tree as she could, her face skating across the rough surface, until she got to the tight rope area.

There were two ropes between the trees. One was low, and level to the platform Krista was standing on, the other was at about the level of her head. She was supposed to walk across the low rope holding the high rope for balance. The rest of the area was air.

Her legs were shaking and her stomach was swimming just looking at the obstacle.

“No Sean, I can’t,” she squeaked, trying to back up more against the tree.

“Krista, can you see me? Look straight,” Sean said.

Regretfully, Krista raised her eyes from the void between the two trees. Sean was at the next tree, a rope from a cable around the trunk attached to his harness. He couldn’t fall far. Krista could.

“I can’t do this, Sean. I can’t…”

“Listen to me, Krista. Focus on my voice. You can do it. Don’t look down. Feel the rope with your feet as if it were your surf board. Or a balance beam. You can do this.”

Krista, still shaking, took a deep breath. “I hate you for this, Sean. I don’t even want a new handbag. I just said that to get everyone on board.”

“I know, baby, but you do want to win. So keep coming.”

“It is too airy up here, Sean,” she whined as she inched out, one foot at a time. She grabbed the rope suspended above, one-hundred feet of air, and then gingerly placed her right foot on the rope.