Painting the Black Read Online Free

probably closer to fifty. Still, from the ground he looked small as he clung to one of the top branches.
    â€œThis is so amazing!” he shouted down. “This is the coolest thing in the whole world!”
    I listened and fumed for ten minutes. Then I started climbing. I scratched myself up pretty good, and it took me a lot longer than it had taken him, but I finally made it as high as he’d gotten.
    When I pulled myself up next to him, he looked pained, pained and angry. I didn’t care. I felt as if big firecrackers were exploding inside me. There was nothing I couldn’t do.
    Then came a gust of wind, and the branches swayed. “I’m going down,” Brett said, and a second later he was gone, moving from branch to branch, down and down and down.
    The breeze didn’t whisper through the branches. That’s what it sounds like when you’re safe on the ground. When you’re up there, way up there, it sounds like groaning. The wind picked up even more and the whole tree started rolling. It was as if it were trying to shake me off its back like a wet dog shakes off drops of water.
    I looked down. Brett was on the trail throwing rocks into the brush. “Let’s go, Ryan,” he hollered up.
    â€œOkay,” I managed to call back.
    But nothing was okay. I hugged the trunk of the tree for all I was worth, hoping to find enough courage to begin. But the courage wasn’t there. “Help me, Brett!”
    Brett stood at the base of the tree, looking up. “What do you want me to do?” His voice was angry.
    â€œGet my dad!” I shouted.
    â€œI’m not going to get your dad. You got up there; you can get down.”
    I clung to the tree for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a minute or maybe two.
    â€œI’m going home,” Brett shouted up disgustedly. “See you later.”
    â€œYou can’t leave me!” I screamed.
    â€œI’m not going to stay here all day.” He started toward the path that led out of the park.
    â€œWait!” I called to him. “Come back.”
    But he kept walking, down the path and out of sight. I never saw him again.
    I don’t know how long I stayed in the tree. Probably no more than five minutes, but it seemed like hours. Finally I started down. The first ten feet were okay. Then came a long bare spot. I dangled my legs down, stretching to reach the branch below me. But I couldn’t reach it. I was trying to pull myself back up when my right hand slipped. I clawed at the bark with my fingertips, clawed like a cat claws. It was no good. My left hand started slipping too. I dug my nails into the bark. I could feel the splinters going into the soft skin of my fingertips. It burned like fire, but I had to hold on. I had to hold on.
    A second later I was falling. Not straight down. I’d be dead if I’d fallen straight down. No, I came down more like a pinball goes through a pinball machine. I must have bounced off twenty branches before I hit solid earth.
    A woman walking her dogs found me. I don’t remember much about her—only that she put her coat over me and then ran off, her dogs barking.
    They drove the Medic Aide car right into the park. This man talked to me, felt my stomach, my arms and legs, and then with another man lifted me onto a stretcher.
    I spent two weeks at Children’s Hospital. Some of the nurses who remembered me as the Helicopter Baby visited. “Couldn’t stay away,” they joked.
    I didn’t get a body cast, though the doctors considered it, but I did end up with casts on both legs and my left arm, and with pins and a metal plate in my right ankle. My stomach was wrapped tight, and for a while I had to wear a neck brace, though I don’t know why. My neck never hurt.
    When I got home it wasn’t much better than being in the hospital. I couldn’t go to school; I couldn’t go downstairs; I couldn’t even make it to the