1
The Bomb's Breath
You would think I'd never jumped off a cliff before, based on how long I stood there. Not jumping.
Of course, I'd never made this jump before.
Aaren and I hadn't been up here for two weeks, and I missed this place. We came today as my reward for finally finishing my invention. It was going to show everyone that for the first time since I was born twelve years ago, I wasn't the worst in town at inventing. I was even sure there was no way for this one to hurt anyone or do any damage.
When a gust of wind hit from behind and blew my hair out of my ponytail and into my face, I breathed in the fall air the morning sun had just begun to warm. Every part of my body tingled with excitement thinking about the jump Brock had challenged me to make. I stood at the edge of the cliff looking across the area where I knew the invisible Bomb's Breath spread across our valley, wishing Brock had shown up to watch me jump like he'd said he would.
But I needed to stop thinking about him and focus. Aaren and his five-year-old sister, Brenna, looked up at me with encouraging faces from the rock ledge I planned to land on just over thirty-five feet below. I made note of the wiry bush that grew out of a crack in the cliff face and told me where the Bomb's Breath began. The fact that the Bomb's Breath was invisible was one of the most dangerous things about it.
The fact that it would kill you if you took even one breath in it was the other dangerous part, but the Bomb's Breath was still my favorite side effect left behind by the green bombs of World War III. Mr. Hudson, our inventions teacher in Tens & Elevens, said that the way the oxygen molecules got cross-linked and bonded together made the air feel much denser than the regular air above and below the fifteen-foot-thick band. You couldn't breathe in the oxygen molecules separately and your body couldn't absorb them together, so you'd suffocate instantly if you inhaled while in the midst of the Bomb's Breath.
It was Aaren who came up with the theory that we could hold our breath and walk into it. Based on the horrified look on his face when I first tested his theory, he'd have never told me if he'd known I'd try it. But I had trusted Aaren's theories ever since we were five, and he told me that I could grab on to a skinny branch of the willow tree I was stuck in and it would lower me to the ground slowly enough. His theories were never wrong, so of course I'd try out his Bomb's Breath theory.
It took my walking into it twice, and nonstop talking about how incredible it was to be in air that felt so much thicker but looked the same, before he and his scientific brain had to test it, too. It was me, though, who figured out we could sky jump into the Bomb's Breath and it would slow our fall. Like we had wings.
After I jumped off this cliff, I'd have about fifteen feet of regular air to do a double front flip before I hit the air of the Bomb's Breath. My head would be the last thing to right itself, so I wouldn't be able to see the bush growing from the crack. And that meant I wouldn't be able to see when I needed to take my last breath.
I pulled my necklace from behind my shirt and rubbed my thumb over the rough stone. Not for luck, and definitely not because I was scared. I rubbed it because it was the only object in existence left by my birth mom before I was adopted. I didn't know her before she died, but I knew she was brave. Whenever I touched the coarse, uneven surface, I was reminded that she did impossible things, and so could I.
"Hope!" Aaren yelled up to me. His sand-colored curly hair glinted in the morning sun. "Just because Brock said you can't make the jump doesn't mean you have to try. If you can't make it, you can come down."
I laughed, because egging someone on was something I did, not him. Aaren and I had been friends for twelve years--since we were newborn babies and our moms put us in the same crib for naps--so he knew if someone told me I couldn't do something, I'd do it just to prove them wrong. This was Aaren's way of saying he knew I could do it and to hurry up about it.
I agreed. I pushed the necklace inside my shirt, then jumped into the sky.
Air rushed past as I threw my arms forward and tucked into a ball, the long hair of my ponytail flapping in the wind. The first front flip was easy--I'd landed that one a dozen times from the cliff that sat barely above the Bomb's Breath. It was the second one that made me nervous, so I sucked in the hugest breath I could manage before I rotated into it, even though I should have waited a little longer to take that last breath. As my view changed from the bushes below to the cliff, I tucked harder, hoping for more momentum. When the cliff gave way to sky, I straightened my body just as I plunged into the air of the Bomb's Breath.
This was, without a doubt, my favorite part.
The Bomb's Breath slowed my fall as I sank to the middle of the band of pressurized air. I stretched my arms and legs out and imagined I was held in midair by invisible hands as I slowly floated downward, feeling utterly and completely free. Sometimes I kicked my feet and windmilled my arms like I was swimming in the lake. If I kicked hard enough, I could stay in it a little longer. But taking that breath so early made my lungs burn. As much as I wanted to play around, I needed to get out so I could take a breath. Soon.
I squirmed until I managed to get into an upright position. The Bomb's Breath ended about six feet above the rock ledge, so I kicked my feet back and forth as I drifted down toward it, feeling the drag of the heavy air with every kick. When my feet swung without any resistance, I braced myself as gravity pulled me more than the Bomb's Breath held me. I dropped out of the Bomb's Breath and landed on the rocky ledge in a crouch, then gasped for air.
The excitement of the jump filled my chest with a crazy humming, like dozens of miniature birds lifting me off the ground. "I did it! A double front flip!" I wanted to shout it to the world. Of course, Brock was the only person I could tell who wasn't already standing with me. I wished he'd seen me. I shook off the regret and smiled--at least I knew I would really enjoy telling him.
Aaren looked as happy as I felt and gave me a "good job" nod. Brenna planted a running hug on me. Even though she was only five years old and small, it would've knocked me down if I hadn't been expecting it. With Brenna, though, I always expected it.
"I knew you could do it," she said. "Aaren told me you could and I knew you could but you took so long. I thought maybe you were too scared, but Aaren told me that you weren't scared, you just didn't know it yet, and to be patient because you could do it. And you did! You jumped and you did the flips!"
I scoffed in Aaren's direction. "I wasn't scared."
"Then what took so long? Admiring the scenery?"
I looked up at the ledge I'd stood on moments before, which now seemed so teeny. "Nah. I was just enjoying how fresh the air smelled when I wasn't standing right next to you." I winked at Brenna to make sure she knew I was just teasing her brother.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best choice in comebacks. Aaren's family and mine were farm partners, so I knew for a fact that he'd weeded his family's personal garden before we left, and he'd probably bathed right after. I, on the other hand, had cleaned out the chicken coops. Nastiest job on our farm. The whole time I worked, I thought about how much I wanted to get in a few celebratory jumps before school. And how much I wanted to prove to Brock that I could do a double flip. In my rush to get to the mountain, I didn't even bathe. I probably still smelled like a chicken coop. But that wasn't the most important thing.
"What do you think Brock's going to say when I tell him I made it?"
"Nothing," Aaren said.
"Yeah." I sighed. "You're probably right. You know, we should tell him that when you challenge someone and they win, it's only polite to say how upset you are about it. Possibly even yell. Stomp your feet. Something."
"The world would be a better place if everyone knew that," Aaren joked.
"Wouldn't it?" I grabbed Brenna's hand to leave, then I stepped so my body was between her and the dead squirrel I'd just noticed a few feet up the mountain. We saw a dead animal right at the edge of the Bomb's Breath almost every time, but I was determined to keep Brenna from seeing them. She knew how dangerous it was even without the reminder. Everyone did. It was one of the first things we learned as little kids. The fences were really only there to keep the cows and sheep away. The people of White Rock didn't dare come anywhere near the Bomb's Breath.
With each step down the mountain, it felt like I floated more than walked. I could've lived off the thrill from that double flip for days. Even if no one else knew outside of Brock, Aaren, and Brenna, doing tricks into the Bomb's Breath was what made me special. Different. It was one thing I was really good at.
I moved aside some branches from a bush and led Brenna through the mostly nonexistent path.
"When are you gonna let me go sky jumping?" Brenna asked, just like every time we brought her up here.
Aaren gave his usual answer. "Not until you're ten, like we were."
And maybe not even then, I thought. A lot of smart people lived in my town, and they all stayed far away from the Bomb's Breath.
I was still holding Brenna's hand as the three of us got to the part where several boulders lay together, making the ground drop three feet. Aaren climbed down first. I lowered Brenna to him, then climbed down myself. The rest of the way wasn't as rough, so we ran.
We stopped to catch our breath just before the warning fences. This was the best view of our perfectly round valley, ten miles in diameter and ringed by mountains. Across the valley, White Rock River cut through the mountain, making the passageway that provided the only route into White Rock. Our valley was actually a huge crater left behind by the green bomb that hit the plains of Cook, Nebraska, forty years ago. We weren't near the top of the crater by a long shot--it actually went up for miles past where I jumped.
I smiled as I looked across at the homes and farms set in rings all the way down to City Circle at the bottom. Even if all the people in town weren't deathly afraid of the Bomb's Breath, I was still probably the only one who could've landed that jump. Well, except for possibly Brock.
People always said that the Bomb's Breath covered the entire Earth, but most people didn't have it close enough to worry about or to play in like we did. I guess that wasn't a bad thing. People were more afraid of the Bomb's Breath than they were of the bandits who roamed the plains, even though the bandits were attacking more and more. But at least in White Rock we were safe. Completely protected. And as long as Aaren and I didn't get caught, we could sneak off to sky jump.
We yanked our schoolbags from where we'd hidden them under a chokeberry bush on our way up. I ducked my head under my schoolbag strap and swung it onto my back so it wouldn't be in the way as I carefully picked up my invention. Today we were going to present our projects for the Harvest Festival. Inventions Day had been disastrous for me since we started school at age four. But this year was different. Just like every year, I had cuts and scrapes all over my arms and I still didn't get along with the equipment, but this year, everyone would be impressed with my invention.
Brenna grinned as she picked up hers. It was simple--a metal pot with a wide wooden spoon inside. She'd drilled holes in the spoon, so when she was mixing runny stuff for her mom, it would stir easier and get mixed better.
Aaren hadn't shown me his invention yet, but he'd already told me he'd found a way to make a thermometer so he could boil chemicals to an exact temperature to make medicines. The way he was headed, his split job would be the town doctor, just like his mom. He stuck his covered invention under the arm farthest from me like it was nothing. He probably held another festival-winning invention and didn't want me to feel bad that it was so easy for him.
I put one leg over the two horizontal logs nailed to posts that formed the warning fences, while imagining the look on my teacher's and Mr. Hudson's faces when they saw how much better I did this year.
I swung my second leg over, careful not to bump my invention, and my shorts caught on a splintery part of the top log. I didn't notice, so when I slid off, it tore a three-inch gash in the fabric near my knee. I couldn't go to school with torn shorts! My mind was running through possibilities for changing into pants that weren't ripped or finding a way to make it not noticeable, when the huge steam whistle at City Circle blew and jerked my thoughts away.
"It can't be time for the nine o'clock train already!" I looked to Aaren and Brenna, hoping I'd see reassurance, but instead I saw panic. Only for a second, though, because then they took off running.

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Excerpted from Sky Jumpers: Book 1 by Peggy Eddleman
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