It was a normal Tuesday in mid-October. Winter was in the air and leaves were starting to change color on the trees. I had just gone to second class period, which was English. It was about 9:15.
The intercom buzzer sounded, and the teacher answered it. “Yes. Yes, sir.
Right away!”
“Ariel, you’re wanted in the principal’s office, immediately.”
“Me?” I said.
The whole class started making taunting noises and saying, “Wha’d you do, Ariel?” I was confused. I hadn’t done anything! I picked up my books and purse and headed slowly for the door. Everyone was teasing me. I walked down the hall and into the office. I wish Michael was here.
Just as I entered the office, someone came running in behind me, past me and up to the counter. It was a Sheriff’s deputy, all in uniform. “Is Ariel here yet?” he asked the secretary.
“Right behind you,” she said.
He turned and looked at me, “Search and Rescue climber?”
I relaxed. I wasn’t in trouble after all. “That’s me.”
“We’ve got a little boy in a tree, and we can’t get him from the ground or the air.”
I threw my books on the counter. “I’ll need to stop by my house and get my boots and gloves. Someone has ropes and climbing gear?”
We ran out to the Sheriff’s car and I got in the front seat beside the deputy.
He asked me my phone number and had the dispatcher call my house. When we got there, Mom was in the street with my stuff. “Thanks, Mom!”
“Be
careful!”
He turned on his flashing lights and we flew through town as I got my boots on. Soon we were out on the west side of town, in an area where not many people lived. Down a dirt road, and there was a medic truck there, a fire truck, another Sheriff’s car, and the Search and Rescue leader’s car. We hopped out and Jack ran up to me.
“Ariel, there’s a little four-year-old boy in a tree about halfway down the slope. He’s out on slender branches, and can’t or won’t back down. It’s too far for the ladders, the ground under the tree is steep and rocky, there’s too much above him to get in by chopper, and that would probably just blow him off anyway. Will you take a look at it?”
The sky was dark and it looked like rain or snow. I could see a lady crying over by the Sheriff’s car. It dawned on me how strange it was for a 12-year-old girl to be asked to take a look at a situation that firemen and Sheriff’s deputies couldn’t handle. “What kind of tree?”
“Big maple. He’s up about 75 feet, I think.”
“The frost has hardly even melted,” I said.
“Yeah. We’ve got a line running down the hill to the base of the tree.”
I zipped up my jacket and followed him to the edge. It was steep. We made our way down the rope to the tree. There were several firemen there.
“Light him up for a moment, please!” Jack said.
A fireman turned on a spotlight.
The little boy squinted and cried.
God, he really was out on the edge, and his branches were bending down so that every time he moved, they got thinner. I looked down at the rocks under him. If he falls, no more little kid. The maple trunk was thick and steep, and they already had some ropes in the tree.
“I hope you can do something, Ariel. You’re a hundred pounds lighter than the rest of us.”
“But he’s out on twigs! Shine the light a little to the left, above him. If I can get up there, I can get him on the way down.”
“That branch is pretty thin,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Here’s your gear all ready to go.”
I stepped into the harness and looked at the heavy coil of rope, then up at the tree I had to climb. “I’ll never make it with that. Give me two hundred feet of paracord.” I clipped a couple of carabiners and a friction descendeur to my harness.
“Yes, but . . . Okay, I can see why. Just don’t count on that stuff to arrest a fall.” He dug out a coil of rope about as thick as clothesline, and I clipped it to my waist.
“Good luck, young lady!” one of the firemen said.
The wind was blowing and the sky getting darker. I pulled myself up the first rope that got me past the main trunk. I could see some of the garden hoses that the boy, and probably lots of his friends, had used to climb the tree.
Along the big branch a few feet, then up another rope the firemen had put in.
That was the last one, and I was only about half way up.
Rain drops. Shit. Someone was on a megaphone telling the boy to hold on and be calm. My limb was about a foot across and almost straight up. I started shimmying.
It forked. I followed each with my eyes. The one to the right went to the boy. But if I went that way, I would triple the weight on those thin branches.
The one to the left went above him and stayed a little thicker. I had the same feeling I had when I began the mile swim on my first test day more than a year before — it was going to be close.
I started climbing up the left fork. I was about 50 feet up now. The rain was cold and the branch was slick, but it felt strong. I kept climbing. I hope he holds on after all this . . .
I must be 60 feet up. The firemen and Jack look so small down there.
Keep going, Ariel. There’s a little boy up here who needs you, and the rain is falling on him, too. The branch was about six inches thick now, and starting to bend slightly under my weight. Seventy feet. I was almost to his level. “Hi!
What’s your name?” I called to the boy.
“Where’s
my
mommy?”
“Will you let me take you to her?”
“Tell her to come here.”
“She can’t climb trees as good as you can. But I bet she’d like to learn, if you’d teach her.”
“I wanna go home.”
So much for sweet talk. I was starting to shake, but I had to ignore it. Up.
I came level with the boy and kept going.
“Aren’t you going to save me?” he asked, whining.
“You know,” I said, “I think you could save yourself easier, but since you won’t, I guess I’ll have to.” I heard a brief chuckle from someone below as I climbed higher.
The branch was about three inches thick, and swaying all over the place. I didn’t dare go higher. I looked down. I was about 10 feet above the boy. It would be enough, I hoped. I fed the rope down on both sides of the branch, pulled 10 feet back up, and threaded it into my descendeur, locking it.
Then there was a snap. I looked, and the branch the boy was an was starting to break.
“Help me!” he cried.
It had only broken halfway through, but I could hear it threatening to go the rest of the way.
“Tree, I love you. Here goes!” I took a deep breath and jumped out away from the boy. During the second I was in the air, I realized this was exactly what Jack warned me not to do. Oh, well. The rope jerked me after I flew 10
feet and my limb bounced. I swung toward the boy, held the rope with one hand, and let my other hand wrap around him as we hit.
My weight, added to his, made his branch snap. It fell and I held onto him with all my strength.
“Look out!” someone yelled and I heard the branch land on the rocks.
We swung back and slammed into the other branch. Hold on, Ariel! I could feel my rope hand bleeding and my head ringing, but I had to hold onto the rope and the boy! I had to!
We were swinging free. He was crying his eyes out, and I wanted to join him so badly, but I didn’t dare. The branch above bounced us up and down.
“We’re not home yet, kid, it’s 75 feet down. I need both hands, can you hold onto me?”
He just kept crying.
“I need your help or we’re going to die!” I screamed at him and shook him.
He looked at me with big, wet eyes. “Where’s my mommy?”
“She’s waiting for you. You can either help me, and we’ll go down alive, or we’ll both fall and die.”
I think that little boy grew up years as he took in what I said. “Really?”
“Really.”
After a long pause, he said, “What’s your name?”
“Ariel. What’s yours?”
“Ben.”
“Okay, Ben. I have to use both my hands on the rope to get us down. That means you have to hold onto me, okay?”
“Okay,
Ariel.”
“You can just stay right here on my side and put your arms around me.” I felt his arms. “Keep holding, Ben.” I carefully moved my good hand to the descendeur and started us moving downward. We bounced, and up above I heard creaking. “Please, beautiful tree, stay with us. You wouldn’t let a Wood Sprite down, would you?”
“A what?” the boy asked.
“Nothing.” I lowered us on down, as smoothly as I could. We were about a third of the way, I think. The branches were nice and thick here, but I reminded myself that the rope was still over a slender stick way up above us.
My rope hand, inside its glove, was bleeding all over my arm, but I didn’t even look at it. Down, that was the goal. Down. I could hear people talking and see lights shining. Two-thirds, maybe. Hail started to beat on us. I let the rope work through the descendeur.
Even before my feet touched the ground, a fireman grabbed the boy and Jack grabbed me. “Get a medic down here!” he yelled when he saw my arm.
A paramedic came down with a kit, looked at the boy briefly, and then started on my hand. The last I saw of little Ben was him riding on the shoulders of a fireman up the steep slope.
“You have some friends here,” Jack said as the medic wrapped my hand.
A few minutes later, I climbed the slope with Jack. When we got to the top, there was my mom and dad, and Penny and Michael! They surrounded me with hugs.
“Can I give your name to the reporters?” Jack asked.
“No!” I said.