As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins Page B

do that? He felt again the extremity of his situation and murmured, “Hurry, Del.” And, “Hurry faster.” Glancing back down into the yard and its surroundings, he scouted for a place to go, once he landed.
    He felt a movement, felt himself drop a half foot, felt his self-control struggle to recover. Del had dismantled the knot. The rope was wrapped twice around the tree, which Del was using as a pulley. His muscles and tendons bulged as he released the rope, hand over hand, a little bit at a time. He must be strong, Ry thought. I couldn’t do that. But he thought he would like to be able to.
    Each release of rope brought Ry that much closer to earth. Each downward jolt brought his bladder that much closer to eruption. He was almost down. His toes touched the ground. And his heels. He readied himself to dash to the spot he had chosen, a nook nestled between a fence, a bush, a storage hut, and a garbage container. He unclipped the harness, and it fell to his ankles. Beth rushed over in concern.
    “Are you all right?” she asked. She put her arm around Ry’s back and with her other hand clasped the arm closest to her, in the way a big sister or a mother or an aunt would. Still, Ry felt his face grow warm.
    “I’m okay,” he said.
    Arvin and Pete had rushed over, too.
    “Excuse me,” Ry said. “I’ll be right back.” It was amazing how your brain could fill up so full of what was happening right now that it could forget all about what had happened thirty seconds ago.

A FARAWAY BUT RELATED STORY: WISCONSIN
    W hen Lloyd opened his eyes again, Peg licked his face. She had crawled down into the hole with him and lay close against his side, waiting for him to awaken. Olie, up on the rim, was watching something with great interest, his ears at full attention, his head shifting abruptly from side to side.
    It took a few minutes for Lloyd to recollect what had happened and where he was, and another few minutes for him to decide that he’d better try to sit up. Crawling up out of the hole was not impossible, but it was awkward and tricky. There was nothing solid to grab onto, and with every other step the ground seemed to collapse into hidden, bottomless pockets.
    Once he made it onto solid ground, he wanted to get clear of the treacherous field. But looking around, hesaw an unbroken perimeter of maple and aspen saplings growing in tall thickets. He could not tell where they had entered. The angle of the sun told him only that time had passed. Which way was which? Then his eyes fell again on the pile of rocks and the partial foundation. He tried to recall where he was standing when he first saw them, and he went and stood in that position, not trusting the ground to stay where it was when he stepped on it. His head throbbed when he moved. The bump on the back of it was tender to the touch. Making an about-face, he tentatively headed into the trees.
    Olie and Peg differed on where to go next. They wandered in opposite directions to the ends of their leashes and looked back at him. This way. No, this way. Lloyd knew the path could not be far off. He just couldn’t see it. He racked his brain for some landmark he might have noticed that morning. All he came up with was twittering birds and squirrels. And then he saw what seemed to him a small miracle. A human head was bobbing along. He shouted.

ANOTHER FARAWAY BUT RELATED STORY, THIS ONE WITH A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET
    R oughly thirty-four hundred miles to the southeast of New Pêche, the sun was setting. Ry’s mother and father dangled their feet from a dock attached to an island and watched it. Once it got close to the horizon, it fell so quickly. The sky was deep blue, lavender, peach, yellow, tangerine. Just ahead of them, the shore curved around and offered up picturesque palm trees in silhouette. Gray violet cloud wisps drifted along in the distance.
    “What an absolutely beautiful sunset,” said Wanda.
    “We should have done this years ago,” said Skip.
    “You’re