Chaos at Fifty Feet

I’m not bragging or anything, but I’m pretty fast on my feet, which comes with the territory of being chased around by so many bullies over the years. All eight of us went after that tower like it was made of chocolate cake, and I was the first one to get there.

That meant I was the first to start climbing one of the rope ladders at the bottom.

And that meant I was the first to face-plant right back into the dirt when my ladder flipped over. Those things were harder to climb than they looked. In fact, a few seconds later it was raining cockroaches.

“You’ve got to work together, people!” Sergeant Pittman yelled at us. “You can’t just run at this willy-nilly!”

My stomach felt emptier than a Diarrhea Fan Club meeting, and my dinner was sitting in a box about a hundred feet up. We had to keep moving, because there was no way I was lasting the night without some chow.

Arnie was the first to figure out that one person should hold each ladder steady while someone else climbed.

“You! Snake girl!” he said to Carmen. “Go!”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Carmen said.

“I’ll go,” Thea said, and pushed right by her.

“And don’t push me!” Carmen said.

“Do you want to argue, or do you want to eat tonight?” Sergeant Pittman said.

It took a while, but with Arnie holding the ladder, everyone finally made it up to the first platform. (Then Arnie climbed up with his astounding jock muscles.) But we still had two more levels to go, and then all three to come back down again.

“FOUR MINUTES LEFT!” Fish yelled.

The next climb was made out of tires, like one big wall of doughnuts (I wish!). I didn’t know how we were supposed to do it. I just jumped on and kept going.

Which is why I got a sneaker to the head from Diego a second later.

“Watch it!” I said.

“YOU watch it!” he said.

“Just MOVE!” Burp yelled—right before he got a sneaker to the head from me. (I guess that’s what the helmets were for.)

When I reached the top of those tires, Diego put out his hand.

“Here!” he said, and pulled me onto the next platform. Then I turned around and pulled Veronica up. I think she said thanks, but I couldn’t hear her.

“There you go!” Pittman said. “Now you’re thinking like a team!”

“THREE MINUTES!” Fish yelled. “MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOOOOOVE!”

The next part was the most complicated. There were two big climbing ropes that went up through this whole spiderweb of nets and more ropes, and then a little opening you had to pass to reach the top platform. It might have all seemed pretty awesome if we hadn’t had so much on the line.

But we did. So it didn’t.

Carmen and Arnie got up to the platform first while everyone else struggled with the climb.

“Here’s the box!” Carmen yelled. “Let’s go!”

“Nobody comes down until EVERYONE gets to the top!” Pittman yelled. “You’re not done yet!”

D.J. and I were the last ones still on those ropes, and he’d already left me in the dust. That meant I was bringing up the rear, which was bad enough. But then I looked down…

… down…

… all the way to the ground.

That’s when everything went kerflooey.

I don’t know what happened exactly. It was like a vacuum cleaner sucked the air right out of my lungs. My face got really hot, and all I could hear was this rushing sound like the inside of a seashell. It was like my stupid bad dream all over again.

“HURRY UP!” D.J. yelled.

“I AM HURRYING!” I yelled, even though I wasn’t. Not anymore.

My terrible dream was all I could think about. My arms and legs were just cooked spaghetti by now, and all I could think was Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.…

By the time I finally got up to that platform, I felt like I’d run a marathon. Backward. On one foot. And we weren’t done yet.

“ONE MINUTE!” Fish yelled.

“We’re never going to make it!” Arnie said.

“Yes we are! Let’s go!” Thea said, and they practically threw that food box down to the middle platform as everyone started to climb down.

I didn’t even care about eating anymore. All I wanted was a nice big piece of solid ground. And I guess that’s what kept me going. The whole thing was a blur.

In fact, I barely even heard Sergeant Fish counting down the last seconds. People were yelling, and bodies were flying, and I was sweating my way through those tires again, looking longingly at the safe and solid ground, when he shouted out—

“THREE… TWO… ONE… GAME OVER, COCKROACHES! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!”

That seemed about right. It wasn’t like our luck could get much worse, anyway.

Especially mine. Because this one was all on me. And everyone else knew it.