Eagle's Mountain school for girls

The Climb

Grab the rock, just grab it. Lexi extended her arm, reaching as far as she could. Her finger tips brushed the hard plastic. Just a bit further. Lexi hurled herself up, hoping to grab the rock once she were high enough. It wasn't easy being short. Lexi snagged the rock, but realized that in the process, she had lost her footing. Lexi swung her legs, back and forth, trying to find somewhere to place her feet. Her arm muscles were quickly tiring. She needed to find somewhere fast, or she'd go for a plummet.  Finally she found a foot hold for one of her feet. Lexi latched on. However it was so far to the side that she couldn't stay there comfortably for long.  Looking for a foot hold for her opposite foot, she continued to swing her remaining leg. Back and forth, farther and farther each time. Now she found another foot hold, but his one was so far to the side that she technically was doing the splits on a rock climbing wall, with one leg far to the left, one leg far to the right, and both hands reaching up, like she were a six year old, attempting to catch the sky. "Keep going Lexi, you are almost to the top!" Her annoying gym teacher scrambled her thoughts, again. Down below Lexi could here the snickering of her class, probably laughing at her funny position. Lexi commenced to push up, with her legs, her white-knuckled hands relaxing for a moment, before she stressed her arms yet again, with the challenge of grabbing another rock, higher up. Lexi suddenly felt like she were pulling away from the rock wall. She turned her head, to glance back at her class. She saw that someone was pulling on her harness, either trying to scare her, or trying to fail her. Lexi seized the wall, the newly caught rock. If she didn't make it to the top, she would fail her physical fitness test. She needed to succeed. Suddenly regaining her focus, Lexi strived on. Exhausting her limbs with the near impossible task of reaching the next rock, and the next. She was taking a while. Her class was almost certainly growing  disinterested. The puller of her harness was probably trying to amuse herself, thinking that Lexi's climbing were a joke. I'll show her, thought Lexi. It's newfound confidence, Lexi powered through the next set of rocks. Now she could see the bell, the goal, the win. The higher she climbed, Lexi realized, the farther apart the rocks became. Now the rocks were approximately her height apart. Four feet, seven inches. To most people, that would be simple, easy. But not for Lexi. Measuring four feet and ten inches exactly, Lexi knew that the rock climbing wasn't a joke. It was a test. She had one more rock ahead of her, a handhold. Lexi reached up and grabbed the hold with both hands. Slowly she pulled herself up higher. After managing to find another foot hold, in a much more comfortable position this time. Lexi soon decided that finding another foot hold would be a waste of her energy. Lexi crammed both feet onto the one hold, bent her knees, and jumped. Her hands whipped around above her head, searching for the bell. Lexi scarily found that her jump came up short.  Suddenly Lexi found herself crashing to the ground.  She really had been high up, if she were falling for this long. Then the falling stopped. Lexi looked up. She really had only fallen three feet. Leave it to her mind to exaggerate everything. Now Lexi was reliant only on the harness, which held her aloft. Not her hands, nor her feet were placed on something to steady her uneasy swinging. Slowly, Lexi was lowered down. Not ragged starts and stops, like when the students did it, but slowly and consistently, which relaxed Lexi, for that meant that her gym teacher were the one in charge of her descent, and there would be no more falling. At the bottom, Lexi wistfully regarded her teacher, and began to address her. "Miss Smith, I understand that I have failed my P.E. test." "But you didn't girl." Said Miss Smith, in her foreign Chinese accent. "You have scaled the wall, for which the Seniors are to climb. You have well surpassed the part where on your wall you would have rang the bell. Not to mention how you stretched your limbs to reach the rocks. Despite being unusually petite for your age, you managed to climb the wall in parts where the rocks were almost your height apart. And for that, you should be extremely proud."