The Smell Of Spray Paint

Seven.

"I need you to do me a favour." Gilbert told me as he finished my Danish. He didn't word it in a way that made it sound like I really had a choice so I looked at him, putting down the juice we were sharing.

"What is it?"

He pointed up and directed me to the gaping hole in the roof that lead to where all our stuff was kept, "I want you to get me something down from up there."

I looked at the rickety plank that Gilbert used to climb up there and the crumbling edges of the hole that was showing signs of rot and started to protest, "Why can't you do it!?"

He sighed and put his head in his hands to emphasise his condition, "But I am so hung-over and dying... I cannot get up..."

"And whose fault is that?" I scowled, he pouted, and I softened, "Is it really that important?"

He nodded and started fluttering his eyelashes, "Very... Pretty please, Mattie...~?"

"Hmm..." I smiled, "How pretty is that please?" I teased.

"Almost as pretty as me. You will be rewarded."

"Really? In what?"

"Coolness." He grinned, "You can be a little bit cool."

I rolled my eyes, but stood up, "Fine... How do I get up there?"

He grinned, "Great, you will do it! Just get up there how I do."

I took off my glasses, putting them to one side for safety, and squinted up at the heights I'd have to climb.

"I don't think I can get up that way..."

"Sure you can, you have seen me do it." He watched me patiently.

"But you're you!"

He gave a deep, over-exaggerated sigh, "Can you reach the plank? Grab it."

I bit my lip as I looked at the dirty old piece of wood. Where did he even get this? Also, how had it not fallen apart already?

But, I had agreed to get what he wanted. I was meant to be giving Gilbert a nice day and this was probably stressing us both out. Well, maybe not so much him, but it was stressing me out, and I got annoying when I was stressed. So I went up on my tiptoes and stretched up as high as I could, but my fingertips still didn't even touch the wood.

"I can't reach..." I answered him and dropped my arms to my sides.

"Try running and jumping..." I could hear Gilbert getting irritated, so I nodded quickly even though he had stopped looking at me.

I backed my way across the room until I hit the wall and trained my eyes on the bit of the plank that I wanted to grab.

I readied and after a mental countdown and started to race towards it, preparing myself to leap...

I sprung up right from the knees and threw my arm up to grab the plank... When I hit the ground again.

I stumbled forward, almost crashing into Gilbert when I realised that I had totally missed.

"Careful!" He barked as he shielded himself from me falling on him.

"S-Sorry... I'll try again..." I walked back and gave it another shot.

And another.

And another.

I gave a loud huff after the third try and crossed my arms, it wasn't that high... What was I doing wrong?

"You have to jump higher..." Gilbert told me, he had gotten bored at chuckling at my failures and was now curled up in bed, "You are trying to jump forwards too much."