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“Here we are!” Miguel said, waving his hand over the wooden platform in front of us.
I still didn’t understand the logistics of ziplining, but it seemed we’d arrived. We followed him up the steps to the top of the platform, and as he started talking, I looked out over the sprawling drop below.
The jungle stretched as far as the eye could see, greens and other colors creating a beautiful canvas. Tall trees arched over the four long lines that stretched through the clearing and well past my line of sight. A monkey flew across the twenty-foot divide, swinging from his tree, then clear over the lines and grabbing another branch across the gap with ease.
“More monkeys, Doris.” Marge bumped me with an elbow, whispering so we didn’t disrupt the start of Miguel’s speech. “Hope they don’t fling poop on you while you zip by.”
“Will they do that? For real?” I whispered back.
“She’s teasing.” Sylvie scolded Marge with a glare. “Just ignore her. Now, we need to listen to Miguel to know what we’re doing when it’s our turn.”
Miguel told a story about this area of the jungle, and he talked about the monkeys and how we would see lots of them on our way down. They enjoyed swinging along with the zipliners, seeming to race them through the trees.
“Race us? Will we be going fast? I still don’t understand how this is going to work,” I whispered to Sylvie.
“He’ll explain in a second,” she whispered back. “You’ll enjoy it. I promise.”
With a shrug, I kept on listening. When Miguel got to the part about our safety harnesses and how to slow down our speed, I furrowed my brow.
“Did he just say we’re going to be attached to that line?” I pointed to the never-ending line I’d been wondering about.
“Yeah.” Marge nodded. “We get hooked up to one of those lines, and then we zip down along the treetops to the next platform. Then we do it again.”
My stomach dropped as if I’d jumped straight off the mountain.
“Wait. We’re going to what?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“No. No, no, no, no,no!”I argued, pushing back against Marge as she shoved me forward toward the edge of the platform.
“You’ll be fine.” She tapped the helmet I’d just strapped on. “Like Sylvie said, and Miguel said six hundred times since you keep asking him, this is very safe.”
I shook my head so hard I got a pain in my neck. “I don’t want to do this. I’m too scared.”
“You said you wanted to feel like a bird.” Sylvie gestured to the sling she was now laying in, preparing to get catapulted out over the jungle. “This is how we’re going to accomplish your wish. While soaring down the zipline, you’ll truly know what it feels like to fly. It’s going to be amazing, Doris. You’ll see. And we’re going to be right along with you since we’re going side-by-side. One of us on each line. You won’t be alone.”
