The Shells Of Chanticleer (13 page)

I had never seen Bing lose his patience and I didn’t know what to say. We kept trudging forward. From the corner of my eye, I saw Paolo wipe a tear from his eye. I held out my hand and took his. “You’ll be okay, Paolo.”

I was beginning to wonder if Paolo had a fear of long walks when Bing exclaimed, “We’re almost there!” I looked ahead and saw a forest. Not the birch tree forest that I had trudged through barefoot to get to Chanticleer, but a dense, dark thicket of fir trees, packed together, cool and dark.

“Ah, I love the Fir Forest,” Bing sighed. We entered the forest on a clearly marked path that seemed to have been well trod.

I asked, “Have you been here a lot of times before Bing?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “This is a fear many people are forced to deal with.”

We stopped at the base of a tree.

“Here we are; we’re going up!”

It was a huge tree with a ladder built in. Looking up, I couldn’t see where the ladder ended. I turned to look at Paolo. He was frozen with fear. His voice quivered, “I have to go up there?”

“Yes you do!” Bing responded. “We’re all going up there together. Let’s go. The sooner you start, the sooner you get it over with. Macy, go first, then Paolo. I will be right behind you.”

I put my leg onto the first rung and hoisted myself up. The rungs were not too far apart and climbing up was easy. I wondered why I was there as I wasn’t afraid of climbing trees. I was, however, afraid of tree branches and their splinters, and wondered if Paolo was too. Paolo followed me slowly, hesitantly pulling up his weight, stopping every now and then to close his eyes as if wishing it all away. I’m not good at estimating feet, so I don’t know how high up we got, but soon the last rung was in sight. When I scaled it, I landed on a wide wooden platform high up in the treetops. I looked down and a voice inside me suggested that I might go berserk and throw myself over the edge. No, I convinced myself, I didn’t want that. I backed away from the edge, to the center, terrified and then I understood why I was there.

Paolo gingerly made his way onto the platform too and I grabbed his hands to support him. Bing followed, climbing easily up onto the platform.

He said, “Good! Now, carefully, both of you, make your way to the far edge of the platform.”

Holding Paolo’s hand tightly, we inched our way close to the edge. Before us was a long wooden bridge made of slats joined together with a thick brown rope. The slats didn’t meet; there was open air between them. The bridge was long, and sagged in the middle. At the other end was another square wooden platform that was a duplicate of the one we were on.

Bing pointed. “We’re going to go over there! Just cross the bridge. Come on, it will be fun.”

I did a 360-degree turn. We were higher than the tops of some of the trees. Below us lay a little creek, rivulets of clear water rushing between large craggy boulders. None of it looked like a comfortable place to land.

Paolo started weeping again. “I knew this was coming. I just don’t think I can do this. I am going to fall and I am going to die. I will be the first person to die in Chanticleer.”

“Paolo,” Bing argued, “No one dies in Chanticleer. How stupid would that be?”

“Just because they say no one dies here doesn’t mean I believe it. I don’t believe you would tell us the truth if anyone died. How do I know that what you call tipping home isn’t just a way to cover up all the accidental deaths?”

Bing just sat there and let Paolo fret and fuss. It went on and on until Paolo began to bother me. I looked at Bing and mouthed the words “Help,” and he winked at me.

“Paolo. I’ve done this. This was one of my very first fears here. All I can tell you is do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to fall. Go out on that bridge and use what you know. You may feel that you are going to die but we can all feel lots of things that simply are not true. So don’t respond to what you are feeling, respond to what you want. Want to cross the bridge; want to get to the other side; decide that it will be fun. You’ve faced your fears before. You know you have to be ready to face the big ones. This is your big one and you are here, so you are ready.”

Paolo dried his eyes. He stared at the edge of the platform for a long time. Then he stood up. “I know. I was just thinking of the things I have gone through here. How I was afraid of frogs and I failed Biology because of that. And how I couldn’t talk to new people; I would just freeze up or say really stupid things and those fears are gone. I’m glad they are. If I do this, I know I will not be afraid of being up high or that after this I will not be afraid to fall.”

“That’s right, Paolo,” said Bing. “We don’t expect you not to be afraid, but to recognize that fear is just a thought in your head and you don’t have to pay attention to it. Then go forward from there.”

With all of Paolo’s huffing and puffing I hadn’t really thought about the task that lay ahead of me. I didn’t cry like Paolo, but as I walked to the edge of the platform I could swear my heart stopped beating and my chest caved in.
I will not throw myself over the edge,
I repeated to myself.
I will not do it. I will not do it. But maybe I would.
My elbows began to shake on their own accord and I struggled to clear my mind of the mental picture of my body lying twisted and cracked on the rocks below. I knew I needed to stop imagining that scene. I wanted to stop being afraid. Bing assured us that he would follow right behind us but that we had to start out first.

“Step out Paolo,” Bing said. “Everything’s ahead of you.”

Paolo did as he was told. As he tenderly placed his foot onto the first slat, the whole bridge dipped and swayed. He took two fast steps forward and stopped to hold on. The bridge swung back and forth and then steadied itself.

“Step out, Macy,” Bing ordered. Paolo turned his head back to watch me and I slowly stepped out onto the slats too, grabbing the jute railings and hanging on so tight that the rope burned into my palms. I held on as my weight made the bridge dip and sway. Paolo turned and offered his hand.

“Let’s hold onto each other,” he suggested. I was balancing precariously, each foot on a separate slat. I slowly took one hand off of the rope and grabbed onto Paolo. We held hands as he took another step forward, and so did I. We paused. The bridge swung up and down, back and forth, as we lifted our weight. When we got to a new slat we would hold still until the bridge stopped shaking. I was holding my breath. The forest was completely quiet. We were figuring it out.

Paolo turned his head ever so slightly to look back at me. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m good,” I assured him. I whispered, “Are you still thinking you are going to die?”

“Yes,” he said. “But what can I do?”

I thought of the shells frozen in the museum. I didn’t want to see my face in there or my name on the plaque. There was only one thing to do next. “Keep going?” I suggested. So we went slowly, Paolo putting one foot ahead, then I, then Paolo taking another step forward, then I the same, both of us holding still while the bridge swayed and settled itself between our steps.

“Control your minds,” Bing shouted at us. “Think about something else besides falling.”

We were halfway across when suddenly the sun came out from behind the clouds. The air was crisp and as I looked around I could see into the highest tips of the trees. There were nests hidden up there, lucky birds sleeping in the tranquil treetops, and I envied them.

“This is what it must be like to be a bird!” I said to Paolo.

“You are right!” he said. “I think this is the prettiest place I’ve ever been in Chanticleer.”

“We are two sparrows headed to our nest. And when we get there we are going to have a big meal of juicy worms!”

Paolo laughed. We took another set of steps. The bridge swayed and righted itself.

“Get me some new twigs for my nest, Paolo!” I harped at him.

“I will get right on it!” Paolo replied, adding, “How are those little eggs ever going to hatch if you don’t sit on them more than you do?”

“Why am I always the bird that gets blamed for everything?” I whined, and Paolo laughed along with me.

We took another step and suddenly the whole bridge was swaying and dipping down as if it was alive. Only it wasn’t really that. Behind us Bing had started to cross too, and his weight caused the bridge to curve and dip unpredictably. The shaking became uncontrollable and we screamed and tried to hold on, but we lost our rhythm, then our equilibrium, and finally our footing. Paolo’s foot slipped first and I was jerked down with him. We fell off.

I remembered I screamed with shock as his weight yanked me down and I let go of his hand by reflex. I could feel my foot slide off the hard slat of the bridge and bang hard against the back of my ankle. I could see Paolo ahead of me, his arms flailing as we headed downward. I fell so fast that all I felt was the wind whizzing in my ear and all I saw was the dark brown earth and the edge of the creek hurtling toward me. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact but it never happened. Instead, the earth gave way like rubber, bouncing me back upwards, the equivalent of a super-sized tumble on a trampoline.

I gasped as I righted myself on the ground. Paolo was sitting upright too, a few feet away from me, a look of wonderment on his face. We looked at each other in astonishment before an ear-splitting scream distracted us.

“Look out below!” Bing cried, as he hurled himself off the bridge above us and came torpedoing downward. Landing nearby, his impact splattered us with earth and leaves. He too bounced up, then he righted himself expertly.

“Ah,” he said, as he wiped the dirt from his eyes. “Best day ever!”

I berated him, “Bing, you made us fall! We were almost to the other side!”

Paolo said, “If you hadn’t stepped out onto the bridge when you did we would have made it. Thanks a lot.”

Bing just laughed as he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He threw two spare handkerchiefs at our faces, deliberately. “Bull’s-eye!” he said as the wadded cloths hit us each square in the face.

“Here, clean yourselves off.” He laughed again. “Oh my gosh. The look on your faces when you fell off. If I had a camera! Next time I will take pictures. Yes, why didn’t I record this?”

I didn’t think that was fair.

“Bing we thought we were going to die! Why did you do that? Are we going to have to do it again?” I did not want to go back up there and fall again. Nor did I want Miss Clarice to think I hadn’t tried. I couldn’t fail; I couldn’t become a shell. Bing had told me he wouldn’t let it happen to me yet he purposely made us fall. This wasn’t my fault. I had done it. I had forgotten about my fear for an instant. I remember the moment. There had to be someone to whom I could report Bing. I thought about how Zooey had warned me about him. Maybe we weren’t alike after all, I thought, as I swatted bits of leaves and stems off my blazer in anger.

Bing reprimanded me, “Macy, enough with your nasty looks and your fear of dying! You’re done. You did it! You only had to keep going for as long as you let your fear dominate you. Once you and Paolo were laughing and talking about the bird’s nest and your juicy worm meals you had turned the corner. That wasn’t fear coming out of your mouths. It was joy and adventure. It is beautiful up there and you were able to appreciate the wonder of it. I waited to step out until you both had reached that point. There’s no way I could follow without making you fall. I do it every time.”

Paolo asked, “What the heck kind of earth is this that we didn’t die?”

“I have no idea,” Bing replied. “All I can tell you is what they tell me when weird stuff like that happens. ‘Welcome to Chanticleer!’” Bing pushed himself to his feet. “Well now, that’s over,” he said. “See, Paolo, you both lived to tell! Let’s get back to town. The festival’s tonight. Time to Cel-a-brate!” He said it just like that in three separate syllables.

I went over to Paolo and pulled him up. We hugged, brushed the dirt off of each other’s backs and then I heard Paolo say wistfully, “It’s over.”

I felt the same relief. I was thrilled to have finished that course. I had been scared of heights and the insane fear that I couldn’t control my impulses, but the view from up high had been breathtaking. I was lucky to have had the experience. Heights could definitely be a cool thing. I wondered if I could come back to the bridge and cross it again another time, just for fun.

“Anytime,” Bing assured me. “Just say the word. But enough gabbing. I want to get to the festival.”

We walked home quickly as it was late in the afternoon. My stomach was growling and I was looking forward to a slow, hot shower to wash the gunk out of my hair, but Bing insisted that there wouldn’t be any time. He dropped us off in the center of town and instructed us to hurry. The festival had already started.

When I got back to my room, I found a note on my door:

Macy where are you? (We hope you are coming back.) If you are, we went ahead to the festival. Your dress is inside. We can’t wait to see it! See you there! :) Zooey and Violet.

As I entered my room, I gasped. Hanging in front of the mirror was the kind of gown I’d only seen in movies or on fancy dolls. The gown was constructed of turquoise taffeta with a fitted bodice, a scoop neck, and a stiff ruffled collar that stood upright but only went around the back of my neck. It was the oddest thing. There was also a tiny tiara.

I had to bathe quickly, and getting into the dress alone was not easy. It was hard to pull the zipper all the way up my back but I figured my long hair would cover any unzipped part until I got Violet or Zooey to help me with it. Once the dress was on, the fabric wasn’t as stiff as it looked but the dress was heavy. Why the bother? I wondered if all the playing at dress-up was that Crispin Sinclair’s idea. It seemed like his thing. I hoped everyone else was dressed the same and that it wasn’t a big joke on me.

I grabbed my map to the Cornish Manor, got my bearings, and headed off. I wished I hadn’t been out in the forest all day; it would have been fun to get ready with Violet and Zooey. Plus, I didn’t like going places alone.