I ask Master Mind to hold my hand. I am really afraid. I’m the only one who is.
Joy, Master Mind and I, are standing on top of Justin’s Shroom. The tunnels that lead back inside are on two sides of the stem and Joy is hugging the stem between the tunnels.
Joy has to be sitting down while hugging the Shroom since the Fairy Flies have taken Justin’s stem to be their home. Over the last few months they have gathered and come to rest on the stem at the height of Joy’s head. Possibly this is their nest, but who knows. They don’t talk.
Two meters below us and ahead is Charlie, standing on his own Shroom, hugging his own Shroom’s stem.
“Ready, Joy?”
“Ready!”
“Are you holding tight?”
“I’m holding tight!”
“Okay. I’m ready!”
“Any time now!”
They are waiting, you see, for one of the Shrooms to fall. In each 24-hour period everybody’s stem falls a bit, or ‘grows’ a bit, or ‘stretches’ a bit. Whatever it is that it does, it does it suddenly by extending the stem by about 4 meters or so.
The kids, being kids, are trying to ride that. They don’t know when it will happen, but they’re waiting for it. Waiting to ride out a Shroom’s fall.
Master Mind gives me his hand to hold.
We wait.
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt