1
The Search
I found a foothold on the rough bark of a tree trunk and climbed up in search of Ameiphus. The plants were a lot harder to spot now, since the freezing winter temperatures turned the normally round green leaves as brown and crinkled as the bark they grew on. I swung my leg onto a branch where one was rooted right next to the trunk. The most important part--the whitish mold in the center where all the leaves came together--was still visible. I pulled a flat rock out of my pocket to dig the Ameiphus loose.
Sitting on a branch this high up, on the outside of the mountain crater my town lived in, gave me the best view of the Forbidden Flats. They stretched on as far as I could see. Unlike the last time I saw them--when the bandits attacked four months ago--they were no longer covered in snow. Now they were covered in mud, with tiny grasses and weeds shooting up everywhere. Mr. Allen, my history teacher, said that before the green bombs of World War III, most of this area was farmland that helped to feed an entire nation of people. The weeds and grasses kind of looked like crops--I wondered if springtime back then looked much different.
"Hope!" Brock yelled from the tree next to me as he pushed the dark hair off his forehead. "Staring at the scenery isn't part of our plan!"
I shook myself out of my surroundings-induced stupor and held out the Ameiphus to where it wouldn't hit any branches. Then I dropped it into the bag Aaren clutched down below.
"Got it!" Aaren called. "We're at seventeen!" I could see his grin even from my height.
I spied another Ameiphus plant a little higher, so I climbed up to it. White Rock's council had decided we should find more Ameiphus and process it into the medicine that cured Shadel's Sickness, because people outside our town needed it as much as we did. Not only would it make a valuable trade product, but White Rock would be less of a target if everyone wasn't so desperate for it.
The small forest inside White Rock barely provided enough Ameiphus for our town. But the area outside of our ten-mile-wide crater was covered in forests, too. Dr. Grenwood figured that at least half would get the ideal amount of sunlight for Ameiphus to grow. The best time to harvest was in fall, but she found a way to salvage a lot of the Ameiphus that had been frozen over the winter.
Crews had been coming out here for weeks, gathering what they could. Brock, Aaren, and I went to the council to convince them that we were old enough to leave the protection of our valley and help search. Of course they said no when I asked, but luckily for us, adults loved Aaren and he could talk them into anything. Today they let us join the six others who searched the forest floors as we climbed the trees. Our plan was to gather so much Ameiphus that they'd want to send us out here all the time.
Which meant I needed to climb more than gawk. I found a clump of Ameiphus in the crook where almost every branch met the trunk. I dropped it into Aaren's bag and climbed higher. Before long, I was up so high that Aaren looked like a little squirrel, running around to catch the Ameiphus as Brock and I let go of each one.
"I'm going to get more than you!" I shouted to Brock.
"Not a chance," he said, dropping another clump into Aaren's bag.
A bird landed on the branch next to me and cocked his head to the side. I glanced up. I was at least forty feet high already, but the tree went on for a dozen more. I didn't have to worry about climbing high enough that my head would be in the Bomb's Breath, the fifteen-foot-thick band of invisible but deadly air that covered our valley and everywhere else in the world. None of the other people with us were willing to go high enough up the mountain to be anywhere near it, especially since there weren't any warning fences outside our crater. But I wasn't sure if any of the higher branches would hold me.
"I got another." Brock wasn't in sight, but I could hear the smirk in his voice.
Whatever. I could find more than him if I could get down more quickly than I got up. I swung from my branch to get to the one below me.
"Careful!" Aaren's warning reached me right when I realized that my feet couldn't touch the branch below me.
I made the mistake of looking down to see how far I was from the next branch, but I couldn't see it--I only saw my feet, flailing high above the ground. For the first time ever, the height made me dizzy. I held on tightly with one hand and inched the other along the branch toward the trunk. A few of the people who searched close to us must have seen me, because I heard their shouts of concern along with Aaren's and Brock's. I kept reaching out with my foot, trying to catch the trunk, but every time I missed, I swung back and forth and had a harder time holding on. Then everything went quiet. Brock, Aaren, the others--even the birds seemed to hold their breath. I hooked my foot around the trunk, then pulled myself close enough to hug it with my legs. Relief exhaled out of me.
"You okay?" Aaren shouted.
"I think so." I shifted my shaking hands along the branch toward the trunk with more caution than I'd used since we left White Rock two hours earlier. My arms trembled so much, it felt like the entire tree was shaking.
I heard screams from Brock in a tree to my right, along with screams from everyone on the ground. Then I noticed it wasn't actually me that was shaking--it was the tree! The branches swayed as if in a gale-force wind, yet there was no wind at all.
"Hope!" Aaren's terrified voice me made me freeze. I peered down in horror to see what could make my tree move so violently, when I noticed it wasn't only my tree. It was everything.
Before long, Brock joined Aaren on the ground, and they both looked as if they couldn't decide whether to run for their lives or stay to save me. I made myself look away from them and focus on moving my hands along until I got to where I could grab hold of the tree trunk. A terrible rumbling echoed off the mountainside, and all our attention jerked to an area one hundred feet to the west, where the earth ripped open as easily as tearing paper. And the crack was traveling in my direction!
I scrambled down the trunk as quickly as I could manage. I grabbed the branches, not even caring that they were ripping up my hands. Getting to the ground fast was all that mattered. My foot slipped and I slid, my cheek scraping the trunk, until I hit a branch.
"You're halfway here!" Aaren yelled. "You can make it!"
I stretched my foot to another branch farther below. Twenty feet more, and I'd be on the ground. Just twenty feet. A loud crack sounded all around me and my tree gave a sudden lurch, then swayed, and I knew the split in the ground had reached its roots. The roaring was so loud, I could barely hear anything else. I stayed hugging the trunk with one arm and caught hold of a branch above my head with the other as it began to topple.
Trees cracked and branches broke and people screamed and my heart beat in my ears like the booms that sounded through the depths of the mountain as the tree fell closer and closer to the ground. I tightened my grip and squeezed my eyes shut, but my stomach still knew I was dropping fast.
The tree stopped so suddenly in midair that my legs lost their grip on the trunk and my hands were nearly ripped off the branch. I opened my eyes to see that the trunk had landed against another massive tree that still stood, keeping mine from falling all the way to the ground.
Below me, Brock and Aaren yelled, "Hope, jump!"
I couldn't. A voice inside me screamed Hang on! All I could do was clutch the tree with every bit of strength I had.
"Jump! We'll catch you!" I wasn't sure who said it--Brock and Aaren both stood five feet below my legs with their arms outstretched.
Get out of here! a voice inside me pleaded, but I couldn't. Then the Get out of here! voice shouted louder than the Hang on! voice. I let go and fell.
My body slammed into Aaren and Brock, and we all crashed to the ground. My head was so full of the sounds of the tearing, shaking earth and the need to run that I couldn't tell which body parts hurt. Aaren, Brock, and I struggled to our feet. The ground jerked violently, and I could barely stay upright. We ran, tripped, fell, picked ourselves up, and ran some more, stumble after stumble. Away from the trees crashing to the ground. Away from the earth tearing into pieces. Away from the shaking. Just away.
The earth lurched and we all fell. I tumble-rolled over Brock and down a steep slope, and Aaren landed on top of me at the bottom. I got to my feet, but my legs wouldn't hold me for long before the shaking knocked me back to the ground. Aaren and Brock stood up, their arms out and knees bent and wobbling. We grabbed each other's hands, fearing that one of us would fall away if we let go, and we kept running.
I noticed that two of the six people who were searching for Ameiphus with us were staggering down a hill to the side. I had no idea where the other four were. My lungs burned, but we kept running, trying to escape the crashing trees and splitting earth.
As suddenly as it started, the shaking stopped. Aaren, Brock, and I dropped to the ground, gasping for air. I lay on the forest floor, clutching at weeds, grasses, rocks, and sticks as if they could hold me in place. It felt like the earthquake still shook inside me. I pulled my necklace from under my shirt, held the rough stone pendant from my birth parents, and stroked my thumb and finger down the smooth silver chain from my adoptive parents. Over and over again I rubbed the necklace, as though everything bad would stop if I did.
Before any of us caught our breath enough to speak, I heard shouts in the distance. The other four. Mr. Williams and Stott hobbled toward us with Ben Davies between them, his shirt torn, his arms over their shoulders. Helen Johnson held her arm, which must have been injured. They limped their way to us and collapsed on the ground.
"What was that?" I choked through the dust that coated my throat.
"Earthquake," Stott said.
I shook my head. "An earthquake can't be that bad, can it?"
"They can be that bad." Mr. Williams looked at the mountain where it curved out of sight, toward home. "We need to get back into White Rock. See the damage." He turned to the base of the mountain. "The horses are gone. We'll have to walk."

2
A Crack in the Earth
All nine of us stumbled our way around the crater with trembling legs and frazzled nerves for two hours and three aftershocks, until we finally reached the tunnel into White Rock. None of us talked. I think we were all afraid of what we might see. I grasped my necklace almost the whole way and told myself I'd find my parents soon.
At the opening to the tunnel that led us and the river into town, we froze. I looked up at the ceiling of the cave, and thought of the miles of rock that lay above it. Miles of rock that could come crashing down on us if another aftershock hit.
We waited there for an eternity, not moving, before Mr. Williams said, "Well, we can't stand out here all day." He adjusted Ben Davies's arm over his shoulder, and he, Ben, and Stott took a shuffling step into the tunnel.
I clutched Aaren's hand with my right and Brock's hand with my left, then followed Mr. Williams. It was a million times worse than being in the tree. The seams of white rock cutting across the mostly black ceiling a dozen feet above me had never looked dangerous before, but now it seemed as if chunks bigger than my house were waiting to fall on us. Dust covered the floor of the tunnel, like it had shaken down from the ceiling above, and the river carried broken tree branches and tumbling rocks.
This main tunnel was wide and tall and the few times I had been through it, I'd always felt safe. It wasn't at all like the tunnel on the other side of the crater, where White Rock River exited our valley, that we had crawled through months ago when bandits attacked. Yet right now, this tunnel felt even scarier than that one. I made myself look at the sunlight coming from the other end of the tunnel, a half mile ahead of us.
Every few minutes we'd hear a deep groan coming from inside the mountain itself, followed by rock dust raining down on us. For the first two groans, I managed to keep my eyes on the river. For the third groan, though, I looked up. The thought of it all falling on us made me take off running, Brock and Aaren at my sides, to the end of the tunnel.
"Whoa," Aaren whispered as we burst out into sunlight again.
We stood on the third ring--at one of the best vantage points into our valley. Each flat ring leading up and out from City Circle was a half mile wide, like a step that went in a complete circle. A packed gravel road ran along the back of each ring right before the hill leading up to the next ring, and every single one was damaged. Sometimes broken in large chunks, sometimes with cracks, and sometimes with uneven rises or drop-offs. White Rock River flowed along the third ring toward the south side of the valley, where it spilled into a small lake before exiting through the mountain. The shaking had made the river overflow, and the water streamed all the way down to the runoff ditches around City Circle.

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Excerpted from Sky Jumpers Book 2: the Forbidden Flats by Peggy Eddleman
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.