Free The Lanyard by Jake Carter-Thomas Page B

countless trees appeared like the strands of a carpet flushing out in front of them, below.
    "I always wanted to run down through these woods," she said.
    She held out her hand and waited for him to take it. He walked past her to the edge and looked down at all the trees, trying to picture the two of them, twisting through those many places where there'd be so little space for them to pass. Maybe that was the point. He thought of the bees on the ground, helpless, pathetic... Had they died fighting, or... something else. He blurted a reply. It was more of a question to himself than to her, but still it came -- a sign of weakness. "We could try..."
    "Ah come on, what happened to just holding a girl's hand and taking her places?"
    "I don't know."
    "You're younger than me, aren't you?"
    "No," he said, though he sensed he was.
    "Then?"
    "I'll do it."
    He reached out for her but she shook her head, moved around to the other side and held her right hand to him, the same one she had offered before. He touched her fingers. A tingle ran all the way up his arm the moment he made the connection. Her hands were quite small with long fingers, and nails part-polished and shaped into claws, deep white cuticles, the sort his father used to encourage him to cultivate, pushing at the skin around the nails after he bathed. She looked at him. He looked ahead and tried to control his breathing, plotting a route that he could carry, noting the stumps that came out of the carpet of fallen leaves below them, noting the narrow parts.
    He pushed off and began to jog down the slope. She took a place just off the side. She laughed at first and then stopped as he gathered speed. The forest bounced as he went, turning down to the left when he saw a small hollow, around and then between two of the trees so they could burst into the clearing as the ground flattened, forcing her to fall in behind him, stressing the grip she had on him as his hand slipped back.
    "Go faster," she said. "Faster!"
    He began to run at full speed. He felt his arm go taut and then slack as he accelerated. A pain in his leg he ignored. His backpack began to bounce on his back, picturing all his possessions tumbling in turmoil, thrown in a twin tub. She let out a cry of delight. It punctured the air.
    There was a stream at the bottom of the next dip, half-hidden in its channel by depth and overhanging grass, widening as they approached like some demonic fault in the ground. He knew that she wanted to leap across with him, even though it was fast becoming too wide to make in one step. He knew he did too. He didn't let up, eyeballing some rocks in the water that he might use as they approached. There was little time now. And, instead, he decided he would just plunge into the black water and push off. How deep could it be? She would tell him to stop if she didn't want him to, wouldn't she?
    She didn't say a word.
    He lost contact with the bank just behind a large tuft of grass that had flopped down over the edge like a long-necked animal desperate to drink. His foot plunged into the stream; he felt the resistance right away, the soddening suck as the air was pushed out of his socks and the fabric clung tight around him, heavy like lead. He didn't let it slow him, found the gravelled bottom, and used his momentum to push the other foot forward and up the side, keeping his other leg dry, though the splash tried to claw at him. She followed. His arm went slack for an instant and then pull returned, followed by a burst of joy; her weight seemed to be restraining him, and he felt he might stumble, vision fading at the sides and he regained an obsessive focus on getting out of the water. It only lasted a split second, the length of an unbroken stride, driving into the ground ahead. He never heard a second splash, as if the girl managed to clear the stream in one go. And he wondered was she that much taller, or more athletic.
    The way ahead was free of trees, the ground firm although muddy, just