Kristi’s wrist burned, though whether from the cold or the rope, she couldn’t tell.
“Watch out!” Chelsa screamed right before her droid-horse lost footing on solid ground and crashed back into the ditch, pulling Mist and Kristi towards the edge.
Mist sat down on her hindquarters to stop both herself and the rider from plummeting down. They skidded to a stop less than two inches away from the brim of the trench. Kristi’s heart thudded wildly in her chest.
Mist stood up and tried to back away from the snowy trap, but Chelsa’s droid-horse, panicking and wild-eyed, reared up; this caught Mist by surprise and she reared up onto her hind legs as well. Kristi was launched off Mist’s back and sailed through the air before dropping into the ditch, mere inches away from the failing hooves of Chelsa’s droid-horse.
“Are you okay?” Chelsa wrinkled her eyebrows with concern and yanked down the reins of her horse, forcing the droid to drop back to all four legs. Then she rushed besides Kristi. “Kristi, can you hear me?”
Kristi groaned. Her entire body throbbed, her nerves shrieking at her for allowing them to experience such suffering. She waited for the worst of the agony to subside before speaking. “I think I sprained my wrist.”
She tried to push herself up into a sitting position and nearly passed out from the angry waves of pain radiating from her wrist and ribs. Chelsa grasped Kristi beneath her arms and, with their combined effort, managed to stand Kristi on her feet.
Mist nickered at Kristi from above. Jaiden came over to the edge of the pit, alarm written all over his face. “I’m going to try to pull just one of you out at a time.”
“Get Kristi out first,” Chelsa said. “I think she injured herself pretty bad.”
Chelsa removed the rope around her droid and tied it around Kristi’s waist. Jaiden and his droid-horse were able to tug her out in a matter of seconds. Then he hoisted Kristi a safe distance away from the trough before re-attempting to free Chelsa’s droid-horse.
It took several tries, but Chelsa’s horse finally crawled out of the ditch. Chelsa clambered out with the help of the ropes. In the meantime, the storm had weakened a bit. Together, they shambled their way to the clump of willow trees.
The trees blocked out some of the wind, which allowed Jaiden and Chelsa to set up the tent while Kristi tended the droid-horses by rubbing antifreeze on their metal joints. Task completed, Kristi shoved the sleeping bags inside of the tent. The cozy, dry sleeping bags lured her to fall asleep and escape the biting cold.
“Change out of your clothes,” Chelsa said. “You don’t want to catch hypothermia in this weather.”
“You should change first since you’re the wettest,” said Jaiden.
“I think we’re all equally soaked.” Nevertheless, Chelsa entered the tent, leaving the task of starting a fire to Jaiden and Kristi.
They tried to start a fire to no avail. The wind blew it out every time they drew a single spark to alight on the tinder. In the end, they turned on the solar lamp, which provided some light but not much heat. Chelsa exited the tent and let Kristi enter.
Kristi stripped away her sopping clothes as fast as possible. Then she examined her ribs, which still throbbed painfully. The discomfort had receded some, but breathing still hurt. A mean, purple-green bruise was starting to form. Her wrist was definitely sprained, if not broken; it was becoming a swollen, tender lump.
Kristi grabbed the first aid kit and hustled out, not wanting Jaiden to catch hyperthermia.
“Chelsa, can you bind my wrist?” she asked.
“I think your wrist is broken,” Chelsa said, “which is lucky. A broken wrist will heal faster than a sprained one if we can obtain bone-growth supplement tablets.”
She unraveled some self-adhesive gauze and prodded at the puffy joint. Kristi winced at Chelsa’s gentle touch.
“Was I too rough?” Chelsa asked.
“No. Go ahead and bind it.”
Kristi forced herself to not twitch a muscle while Chelsa wound the wrapping several times about her wrist. Chelsa gave the bindings a soft tug, causing Kristi to bite down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Chelsa pressed down on the self-adhesive gauze, making sure they were secure.
“That’s all I can do for now,” Chelsa said. “There’s nothing much you can do to speed up your healing until we get some bone-growth supplements.”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
Jaiden popped his head outside of the tent flap to let them know they could go in. Kristi inched into her sleeping bag, taking care not to put pressure on her injured wrist and ribs. At long last, she waited for sleep to take her away from the cold and misery.
chapter twenty
Someone’s following me. Troop knew it without a doubt. He just didn’t know who. Or what. What if it’s my father tailing me? Nah, that’s not possible. There’s no way he could’ve survived a sixty-story fall out the window.
Students set free from school packed the streets. Troop had a private lesson with Vikens this afternoon. If he didn’t lose his stalker soon, he would be late for it, which was not good. A perfect Perfect was never late for anything.
The bakery awaited Troop three blocks away. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid. Maybe I’m imagining that someone’s following me. However, Troop couldn’t convince himself otherwise.
A piece of red fabric flashed by from across the street. Troop blinked. The person in the red shirt was gone—however, Troop was positive red-shirt-person was the person tracking him. Troop racked his brain, trying to think of a brilliant scheme to lose the guy.
He scuffled down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for anyone wearing red. Although a few pedestrians had on red clothing, none were his suspected stalker.
Troop pushed open the door to the bakery and caught another glimpse of red. He shot back outside. Too slow. Red-shirt-person had disappeared once more.
Layla looked up from the fudge pops she was decorating and said, “What would you like?”
“Strawberry muffins.” He remembered the password this time.
“Vikens is already waiting for you.”
He thanked Layla and went downstairs. Something red danced at the edge of his vision right before Troop started downstairs. He spun around, almost losing his balance at the brink of the cellar stairs.
No one. That’s it. I’m hallucinating. Troop drifted downstairs and entered the study room.
A look of displeasure creased over Mr. Vikens face; he tapped his smart-watch. Troop swallowed hard.
“You’re two minutes late, Troop.”
“Sorry, sir. I met some unforeseen troubles on the way here.”
“You should’ve given yourself extra time to come here. Better early than late.”
And better late than never, thought Troop.
As if reading Troop’s thoughts, Mr. Vikens said, “And it’s better to be on time than early or late.” Vikens walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a hardcover book with the tips of his fingers. “We’ll be reading then analyzing a few stories from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
The man peeled open the tome, flipping through the pages until he reached the page with the words “Little Red-Cap” on it. Then he flattened the book against the smart-desk and slid it over to Troop.
“Let me know when you’re done reading this story. Be sure to note figurative language, themes and the author’s message to readers.”
“Alright.”
Troop turned the book around so that the words weren’t upside down. Vikens buried his nose in Hamlet, leaving Troop to start his assignment.