THIRTY-SIX
“Where are we going?” Abby asked Aaron.
They had stepped over the brook and continued deeper into the woods.
“A special place,” Aaron replied, easily making his way across the sticks and twigs and stones despite his bare feet.
Abby was glad she’d worn her sneakers, even if she did keep stumbling on the untied laces.
Up ahead a dark shape loomed among the trees. Abby had never been this far in the woods before.
“I’m scared,” she said.
Aaron turned around and took her hand. “Come on, Abby. You’ll like this place.”
The dark shape in the trees, as they drew closer, revealed itself to be an old, dilapidated barn. Aaron held Abby’s hand tightly as they passed through the big open door. The roof of the structure had collapsed in several places, allowing moonlight to fill much of the interior. Aaron led Abby over several piles of wood and rusted old piping. With Aaron leading the way, the little girl felt less frightened.
“This is a very special place,” Aaron told her.
The barn smelled of old hay and mold. Abby sneezed. At one end, an old tractor rusted in the dark. Empty horse stalls lined another wall. Above, in a section where the roof still held firm, a series of beams ran the width of the barn.
“Let’s go up there,” Aaron suggested.
Abby looked up. The beams were very high, but not so high that they scared her. After all, she’d lived her first five years in New York City, and she’d often been in buildings much higher than those beams.
“Okay,” she said to Aaron.
“We’ll climb this ladder here,” he told her, pointing to a ladder that rose up from the floor to the first of the beams, “and then walk across the beam and jump into that pile of hay over there.” Abby followed the direction of the little boy’s finger. At the far end of the barn, under the broken roof, was a mound of hay that looked soft and inviting from here. Aaron’s idea sounded like fun.
But the ladder seemed weak and rickety when Abby touched it. She instinctively pulled back.
“I’ll go first,” Aaron told her, “so you’ll see that it’s safe.”
Abby stood back and let him climb.
Aaron quickly scrambled up the ladder. It barely bent under his weight. Hopping easily from the top rung onto the beam, the boy moved like a cat across its length. He didn’t even look down. He just walked along the beam in his bare feet as if he’d done it many times before. Maybe he had, Abby thought.
At the end of the beam, he stood over the haystack.
“Watch me, Abby!” he called.
Aaron leapt into the air. He tumbled down gracefully, turning a somersault in the air. He landed on his butt into the hay, which acted like a soft cushion, breaking his fall. His laughter echoed through the old barn.
“Now you do it, Abby!” he sang out.
Abby thought it looked like a lot of fun. So she grabbed hold of the ladder with both hands and put her right foot onto the first rung. The ladder trembled in her hands and made a long, low creaking sound. She took another step up the ladder and it shook some more. She paused, worried that the ladder might break.
“Come on, Abby!” Aaron called.
Abby took a deep breath, and then another step.