Spy School: At the Great Lakes

Chapter 7: Tangled

Even though I should have been used to this sensation, it still caught me by surprise.

The falling part was...let's just say not fun. I was falling, very quickly, but time just seemed to stretch out. Even though I knew it had been less than a minute, it felt like eternity. I estimated that it had been about 45 seconds and as we were taught in school and tugged on the cord.

My parachute opened and I wasn't plummeting to the ground anymore. I took a deep breath and relaxed. The rest of the fall was peaceful until I found myself face to face with a huge tree.
I tried to maneuver myself away, but it was too late. I braced myself as I came closer and closer to the tree. CRASH! I dropped down into the tree, breaking several branches. I came to a sudden stop. What? I thought. I looked up to see that one of the branches had caught the parachute. I cursed under my breath. I started to try and untangle myself by unclipping the parachute, but with no success, I started on the harness. Unfortunately, it had gotten tangled together in the crash.

"Got yourself into another mess, haven't you?" A voice said. I immediately recognized it.

"Erica!" I said with a blush. Why did she have to see me in this embarrassing situation? "Can you, y'know, uh, help me?" I said meekly.

Erica rolled her eyes but then scrambled up the tree. She pulled out a Swiss army knife and started sawing away at the harness. A minute later, I was free. Except...I had been too distracted by her beautiful looks that I didn't notice that I was free. So, I forgot to hold onto something. And so, I found myself falling again. I flailed around trying to grab a branch. Finally, I snagged a branch, but this one was very thin and on the verge of breaking.

Suddenly, a line shot out of nowhere. "HOLD ON!" Erica said and tossed me a what seemed like a bent piece of metal. I quickly grasped what she was trying to tell me to do, and I held on to the sides as the middle went on the line.

I quickly zipped down, and it was quite enjoyable until I almost found myself face to face with another tree. Thank goodness I knew what to do here. When we were in Mexico, I also had to go down a zipline, and it ended at a wall on a building. I put my feet forward a prepared myself to push backwards.

The impact was bigger than I expected. It caused me to let go and I landed on the ground, sprawled on my back. I sat up rubbing my feet when Erica landed beside me. To my surprise, she was GIGGLING.

"Ben, that was one of the most hilarious wipeouts I've ever seen!" She chuckled.

I made a fake 'Hmph' face, but I couldn't control my laughter either. After Erica got herself back to normal, she said "Come on, I saw the others land somewhere around here."

So, we set off to find them.