Free Shot Down by Jonathan Mary-Todd

CHAPTER ONE
    A
    fter something shot through the Captain’s hot air balloon and we started sagging toward the ground below, I tried to remember the
Gene Matterhorn Wilderness Survival Guidebook
Path of Action in a Crisis. It came to me right before I hit the water. Or maybe right after. In a crisis, these things are hard to keep track of.
    Step One: Scope Out the Scene.
    I spat back the foamy water that had started to fill my mouth and looked around in every direction. High hills formed walls around us. Tree branches split off above me and reached out like veins across the sky. The river’s current slid me forward ’til I grabbed a fallen log.
Rocks ahead
, I thought.
Hold on
.
    Step Two: Take a Personal Health Check.
    â€œCaptain!” I shouted, the taste of river water fresh on my tongue.
    My mind spun, and I rubbed a free hand along my shaved head. No cuts, no blood. I shouted for the Captain again.
It’s crucial to determine your own well-being before attempting to help others
, the guide says. No noticeable wounds would have to be good enough.
    I looked again and saw the Captain ten or twelve arm’s lengths back. He was floating facedown in the water, half-hidden by his blue overcoat. I took my arms off the log and swam back his way, pushing against the current.
    My arms burned by the time I dragged the Captain’s huge frame onto shore. A small whine drifted out of his mouth—breath. I started pushing down on his chest, trying to remember as I went how many times the guide said to do it. The Captain didn’t move.
    I spat out more river water and lowered my mouth down onto his damp orange beard. Two breaths into his mouth—nothing. It wasn’t ’til I started pumping his chest again that the Captain opened his eyes. He coughed up water, bubbling like a pot at boil, and then heaved forward, panting for air.
    â€œAck!” he said. “I just about bought the farm there, didn’t I?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFigure of speech—ah, never mind. I forget sometimes you grew up in the middle a’ nowhere.” He shook his head, his beard flinging water in all directions, and leaned back against a clump of grass. “Thanks for the, eh, life-savin’, by the way.”
    Step Three: Inventory Your Remaining Resources
    Together we walked up and down a stretch of riverbank, gathering what we could from the balloon crash. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a compass—cracked, the little arrow in the center bent. Useless.
    A dozen steps away from where I’d lugged the Captain out of the river, I spotted a red-and-brown lump. My backpack. It had hit the ground when the balloon crashed, or maybe dropped out while the craft plummeted, but there was nothing inside that would’ve broke. Mostly clothes, a couple blankets, my worn copy of the Matterhorn guide.
    The Captain shouted up ahead, “I found the food bags! The sack with the jerky got tore open, but you can look forward to dried leeks tonight, as per the usual.” He started humming to himself and stuffing the stray snaps of jerky into his wet pants pockets.
    The humming stopped as the Captain reached a clearing away from the riverbank. “Ah jeez,” he murmured and dropped to his knees. “It’s toast.”
    Inside a circle of ash trees, strung across twigs and dirt patches, were the ruins of his hot air balloon. The basket we had flown in—smashed. The reinforcements on the bottom were bent or in pieces. I stepped over a dented length of aluminum for a closer look.
    The Captain looked up at me, pink-eyed. “I’m not sure there’s any fixin’ this,” he said. “I can’t even find my tools...”
    A hiss grew louder and louder as I looped around the wreckage. Not like a snake’s—steadier. I pushed back some shrubs with my foot and found the round white canister that had let us fly.
    â€œCaptain! The propane burner’s over