Spy School Oneshot Collection

Kayaking

Alexander Hale was not a fan of boats.

Still, he kept finding himself on them.

At this point, it might be nice to say that as boat rides go, this one wasn't so bad. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be true. In fact, Alexander was finding this boat ride to be among the worst.

He had been forced into a kayak by the fact that he would have been killed had he stayed on land where the enemy could get to him and was now hurtling downstream so fast the landscape around him was all just a big blur.

Alexander could only imagine how fast he would be going if he actually paddled.

Up ahead, the river seemed to end as it actually turned a sharp corner, but there were several large rocks along the edge of the river here, and Alexander's kayak hit one. Using the rock as an unexpected ski jump, Alexander found himself launched in the air, somehow still in the rogue kayak. Normally this would have elicited all kinds of screams from him, but at this point Alexander was too terrified to even do that.

The kayak slammed down through a mess of trees, snapping off branches and frightening squirrels, one of which jumped in the kayak while another one fell on Alexander's head.

Alexander flailed his arms around wildly, trying to ditch his new hat, but the terrified squirrel hung on tight.

The kayak finally thudded to the ground, and Alexander fell out of it, sending the squirrels scrambling away.

Despite all this, Alexander was surprisingly fine. Scared and stranded, yes, but fine. And if he made his unintentional flight sound intentional, it might actually make for a rather nice escape story to brag about.

He figured he would leave out the part with the squirrels, though.