The Climbers

by Keith Gray

  He tapped the back of Zoe’s left fist with his finger. But when she opened her fist, it was empty. Zoe opened her right fist to show the leaf she was clutching and said, “Sully’s first up. As soon as he falls, if he falls, Nottingham can try.”

  The crowd moved back to give me room but still nudged each other for the best view. I put my swimming goggles on, then my baseball cap, then my gloves. My whole body was buzzing. I told myself to stay calm and to focus. There were a few shouts and calls from the crowd, cheering me on. I stepped up to the huge trunk of the last tree. I knew that it took at least three people with arms stretched wide to be able to touch fingertips around the tree. That was how big it was.

  It was a yew tree, scarred and gnarled and hundreds of years old. The bark was a reddish-brown and the trunk had massive grooves running vertically down it, looking as if it was made up of columns, or maybe even a dozen trunks all squashed together. And there was a lot of trunk before you could even reach the branches. The lowest branch was still higher than my head.

  I looked for deep grooves in the bark where I might be able to get a good grip and wondered if Nottingham had brought gloves too. Everything about yew trees was poisonous to humans. Their soft needles, red berries and even the bark. I guessed there was more than one reason this formidable tree had never been climbed. Yews were also known as trees of the dead, after all.

  I spotted a lumpy knot on the trunk about knee-height. I reckoned if I could get my foot on that I might be able to jump up and launch myself to grab a branch.

  The crowd had been moving with me, following me around the trunk, everyone wanting to see. They were silent as I got my foot onto the lumpy knot and stood up straight, my arms wide, hugging the tree’s trunk. I was off the ground. If I put a foot back down, it would be classed as a “fall” and Nottingham would get the chance to climb.

  I was sure the climb would be simpler once I was up among the branches. I could feel the rough bark against my cheek and smell the wood. My chest and belly were flat to the trunk as I hugged it to my body. I tilted my head back to look above me. I could jump and try to grab for the first branch, but I didn’t think I’d make it. So I lifted my left foot, feeling with the toe of my Swift Run for a crack or crevice. No luck. I shifted my balance, tried with my right foot and found a rut in the bark that I could wedge my toe inside.

  I managed to stand up straight again from the rut, locking my knee. When I looked up, that first low branch was closer. Still hugging the massive trunk, I inched my hands higher. But I felt my toe slipping from the rut. I had to jump. My fingertips brushed the branch but missed and I fell to the ground.

  I landed and rolled.

  The crowd “oohed”.

  Nottingham stepped forward. I reluctantly moved aside to let him get close to the tree. He walked around the trunk the same as I had – looking for something like a secret “key” in the bark that would unlock the way up.

  Nottingham shooed the crowd further back. I saw he was going to use the same lumpy knot I’d tried but in a different way. He took big backward steps away from the tree. Then with a run-up he jumped, slapped the sole of his trainer against the knot and leapt high, arms reaching, hands clutching, fingers grabbing. And just like that he was hanging from the first branch. It bent under his weight, but there was no crack or snap.

  The gathered kids gasped. A couple of them started clapping and cheering. I watched nervously as Nottingham moved hand-over-hand along the branch until he could plant both feet flat on the trunk. He walked up it, swung a leg over and climbed astride the branch, making it seem easy.

  He looked down at me. “King Big and Tall,” he whispered.

  He managed to get his feet under him to crouch on the branch. He tilted his head back, looking up through the leaves and speckled patches of sunshine. There was a big grin smeared across his face. My belly was filled with a jittery panic. I thought he was going to make it higher. But he made a mistake as he went to reach above him. The sole of his trainer slipped. And gravity hates an over-confident climber.

  Nottingham fell further and harder than I had. He cried out as he hit the ground. I hoped he hadn’t broken anything. I wanted to beat him, not for him to be forced to back out because of injury.

  I stepped over him as he lay there clutching his arm. My turn again.

  CHAPTER 18

  Almost an hour later, both of us were filthy, sore and tired. The day was getting hotter. The crowd was beginning to get bored. Even Harvey had stopped taking photos. Nottingham and I had four then five, six then seven tries each at the climb, and neither of us could properly get off the ground and into the tree.

  Fall after fall. My shoulder throbbed from bashing it on the ground so much. Nottingham’s scar was bright pink with sweaty exhaustion.

  Then Mish shouted, “Why don’t you do it together? Help each other?”

  I shot her a look like she was a traitor.

  “It’s the only way you’ll ever climb it,” Mish said to me. “What’s more important? Saying you’ve climbed it together, or never climbing it at all?”

  Many of the kids in the crowd agreed with her. A chant of “Together, together, together” began, growing louder.

  I hated the idea.

  Nottingham was nodding. “She’s right,” he said to me. “This is crazy. We aren’t good enough climbers to do it by ourselves.”

  I hated him saying that even more.

  “Look,” Nottingham said. “I’ll boost you up to grab one of the lower branches, then you can pull me up after you. We could definitely make it to the top together.”

  I wanted to ask, Then who’ll be the one who gets to name the tree? But I kept my mouth shut and simply nodded. The crowd cheered, happy there was going to be something interesting happening again. I looked at Mish and she smiled at me. When I didn’t smile back, her smile slipped and she shook her head. She knew me so well. And she’d guessed what I was going to do next.

  “Don’t,” she mouthed silently.

  I ignored her. Mish wanted to go to university. She wanted to leave me behind. Why should I take any notice of her?

  Nottingham leaned his back against the trunk and laced the fingers of both his hands together to make a step.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Ready,” he agreed.

  I ran at Nottingham, sprang forward and planted my foot into his hands. He grunted as he lifted me up with all his strength, almost throwing me into the tree. I flew. I grabbed the lowest thick branch in both hands and swung myself up onto it.

  I got the biggest cheer of the morning from the crowd. But when I looked down, the only two people I saw were Mish and Nottingham. He had his hand raised, waiting for me to pull him up after me. Mish was still shaking her head, far from happy, because she’d guessed what I was going to do next.

  I turned away from both Mish and Nottingham, faced the branches above me and started climbing higher.

  CHAPTER 19

  I didn’t see how Nottingham finally managed to get up into the tree. Maybe it was Marvin or another climber from the crowd who helped him. Or maybe it was his rage at me cheating him that gave him the extra boost he needed. But now the race was on.

  I looked down between fringes of needle-like leaves, but all I could see was the top of Nottingham’s black baseball cap. He was chasing me.

  I wasn’t thinking about the crowd or Mish or my bike or anything. All I cared about was getting higher and being the first to the top. Sullivan’s Skystabber. Branch after branch after branch. Solid grip, steady feet. Keep close to the trunk. Balance. Breathe. Next branch. Higher. Pull myself up. Climb higher.

  Nottingham sounded like a roaring bull below me, huffing and puffing. He was crashing up past the branches, and the tree shook and shuddered around me as he came.

  I tried to focus on my own fast but steady climbing. I was over halfway up. But the thought of Nottingham underneath me made me careless. I tried to use branches that were too thin and snapped easily. Twice, thr
ee times my Swift Runs slipped, and my heart was louder than a heavy-metal drummer as I grabbed the trunk for balance. But I couldn’t slow down. Next branch, next branch. Higher. And Nottingham was even closer.

  He wasn’t a bull, I realised. He was more like a missile aimed at me. Blasting towards me. I wondered how worried I should be about him exploding. And he was getting closer.

  When I dared to look again, Nottingham was so close he could have yanked on my ankle and pulled me down. His swollen face was slick with sweat, red with anger. His scar throbbed. He stared up at me. He hated me. I could see it blazing in his eyes.

  This realisation shocked me. Had anyone truly hated me before? Had I ever given anyone this much reason to hate me before? Did I deserve Nottingham’s hate?

  I stopped climbing like I’d hit an invisible ceiling.

  I didn’t want Nottingham to hate me. I didn’t want anyone to hate me. I wanted people to think I had reach. I wanted them to be impressed by how good at climbing I was. But more than anything, I wanted them to like me. Yet Nottingham glared at me with rotten hate filling up his eyes.

  After talking together at the top of Double Trunker yesterday, and after him mending my bike, I suddenly realised how much I liked him.

  I crouched as low as I could on the branch I was standing on. I went to reach down to him, to take his hand in mine and pull him up.

  Nottingham must have thought I was going to hit him.

  He flinched away from me. He let go of the branch he was holding.

  He slipped.

  He fell.

  CHAPTER 20

  All I could do was watch from my branch near the top. I felt the shudders of the tree all around me. Nottingham fell fast. He smashed against the branches, tumbling and tumbling as he fell. And maybe I imagined the biggest shudder of all when he hit the ground.

  The crowd down there surged around Nottingham, blocking him from view. Their terrified, babbling voices rose up to me. The excitement of the day had vanished. Everyone was scared.

  I started climbing back down.

  My belly was full of rolling snowballs, churning round and round. Every beat of my heart was like a hammer smashing against ice. The cold inside me was so intense that I wanted to puke. I felt like I was climbing down from the tree into a slippery endless black hole. I could only go slowly because every few seconds I needed to wipe frightened tears from my eyes to be able to see.

  The ambulance had already arrived by the time I made it to the ground.

  “What happened?” Mish wanted to know.

  I sat down. Now that I’d stopped climbing, my legs had turned to melting jelly. “It was an accident,” I said. “Nottingham slipped. I tried to … But he slipped.”

  Mish put her arm around me and hugged me, even if I didn’t deserve it.

  We all watched as Nottingham was carried on a stretcher into the ambulance by the paramedics. I wanted to ask if he was still alive. Instead I puked my guts up on the roots of the last of the Big Five.

  PART 6

  Our Tree (arbor nostri)

  Forever – Right Here – Massive

  CHAPTER 21

  Afterwards, the village council put up short metal fences around the trees to stop us from climbing them. It worked … for a few weeks. Plenty of kids started climbing again that summer. But not me.

  Nottingham was messed up bad. He’d broken this, that and everything. The doctors said it would take a lot of hard work and time before he could even walk again.

  Going to visit him in hospital felt like the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Climbing the hospital stairs took ten times more bravery than climbing any of the Big Five. The room they kept him in felt too bright and too unfriendly. I saw Nottingham lying there in the stiff-sheeted bed, with beeping monitors and everything in plaster and tubes coming out his nose, and I wanted to puke all over again. I just stood in the doorway and we stared at each other for what seemed like hours before either of us spoke.

  I said, “At least your spider bites have got better.”

  Nottingham didn’t laugh, he cried. And I cried too.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It wasn’t just you,” he said.

  “If you say so.”

  “Who are the best climbers?” Nottingham asked me.

  “The ones who bounce back,” I replied.

  I started going to see him most days. At first it was guilt making me go, I suppose. But it didn’t take long for me to look forward to visiting Nottingham. The nurses started saying hello to me because I was there so often.

  We talked a lot about trees and we boasted a lot about climbing. Nottingham still liked talking about climbing and some of his stories about the Sherwood Forest trees sounded amazing. But neither of us knew if he’d ever be able to climb again. So I changed the subject a lot and we talked about movies, music and sometimes even school too.

  Mish came with me to visit him sometimes. The first time she came, Nottingham looked honestly surprised when we walked into his hospital room together.

  “Are you two friends again then?” he asked.

  Mish laughed. “Again?” she said. “When did he stop being my friend?” She pointed at me. “Sully’s my support crew now.”

  “She’s the cleverest brainbox in the village,” I said.

  At last Nottingham was allowed to leave hospital, and I still went to see him at his cousin’s house. It would have felt strange not to. His cousin loved bikes more than trees, but he was cool and didn’t mind me hanging around all the time. I helped Nottingham do his exercises to make his legs and his back stronger.

  One day Nottingham asked me, “Are you just trying to fix me like I fixed your bike?”

  “I wish your cousin had more spare parts,” I answered.

  I was beginning to believe that maybe our friendship had reach. And I reckoned that if Nottingham ever told me his real name, it would mean he’d forgiven me.

  CHAPTER 22

  Late one night that summer, Mish and I sneaked into the park through the gap in the hedges we knew about. I had a short plank of wood that I’d sanded and painted and made into a sign. Mish helped me get over the new fence around the last of the Big Five and passed me the hammer and nails. I fixed the sign to the yew tree’s trunk.

  It read: “The Reach”.

  We named it, even though no one ever made it to the top.

  With thanks to the Vienna Quarantine Writers, Uni-Verse, Paul Malone and SWC. As well as Lucy Juckes, Ailsa Bathgate and the Barrington Stoke team. All my love to Jasmine.

  Our books are tested

  for children and young people by

  children and young people.

  Thanks to everyone who consulted on

  a manuscript for their time and effort in

  helping us to make our books better

  for our readers.

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in 2021 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2021

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2021 Keith Gray

  The moral right of Keith Gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library upon request

  eISBN: 978–1–80090–073–8

 

 

 
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