Nothing But Bones

10: Up and Down the Maple Tree

Climbing up is easy. It always has been. Getting down is a problem for the version of Tiff that exists three minutes from now. The version of Tiff that exists now pulls herself up to the highest branch that can support her and pokes her head out through the leaves to try to get a better view of the area around the manor.

There he is. One idiot dog, under the lowest point of the gate. He certainly looks stuck.

"I found him!" she calls down, free hand cupped around her mouth. "Look left!"

Elton holds Tiff's bag in his arms with clear instructions to not peer into it. Yet, that is exactly what he's going to do. Just a peek. He eyes Tiff as she starts climbing the maple tree and unzips the main bag pocket to turn his eyeballs to the mysterious contents held within.

Half of it is exactly what he expected from the day bag of a nineteen-year-old girl: a couple loose yellow hair clips, a bandanna patterned with dinosaurs, a small tupperware of freeze-dried bananas, exactly three tampons, a set of precision screwdrivers, the odd Transformers band-aid, a hard case that might have glasses in it, and a half-empty disposable bottle of water. The rubber safety goggles track with the chemistry major thing, at least. There's also what he thinks might be a sketchbook, based on the paint-stained sides; the notebook she was doodling in at the Big Beaver yesterday; and a third book labeled with only a start date on the marbled black front.

Some of the other things don't quite add up, though. There's more than a few unlabeled clear plastic bottles of pills in various shapes and colors, a blood-stained knife, a pair of binoculars, some plastic syringes full of an odd green liquid (secure in a pencil case), and an a gold-and-clear metal-and-glass contraption that looks suspiciously like a gun. Scratch that— he can see a second one, more derringer-shaped and decidedly less toy-like, shoved to the bottom of the clutter.

Elton clocks a lot of this stuff, but didn't want to go digging through to find some of the more loose and buried items. Who cares how many permanent markers she has in here? Not Elton. His brain is having a harder time processing the pencil case full of syringes and the gun. Is that a gun?

Unable to stop himself, Elton reaches in and pulls out the ray gun at the same time Tiff looks down at him and calls. Their eyes meet as he holds the ray gun up, but he breaks it to turn left and see his idiot stuck under the gate. Fuck.

He hastily shoves the gun into the bag again, drops the bag on the grass, and races to the gate. Dingus's wiggling butt is stuck there, favoring this side.

Shit. Seeing the ray gun in his hand turns her blood to ice— or maybe to a cold Coke, because it burns a little. She should have known better than to leave her shit with him; she should have just put it on the ground and hoped the ants didn't find her trail mix bananas. It's enough to make her hands weaken a little.

Up in the tree, Tiff loses her grip and slips— tries to catch herself, slips again— and falls to the next branch. She should have learned her lesson from her last tree run-in, when she was out in the woods with Jacob Kezele for some fucking reason, or the time before that, when she fell from the sky and then from a tree.

But no. Here she is. Hands grabbing at bark that's a little too slick with moss and lichen for her to hold on to; feet scrambling for purchase on the branches; right shoe, loose, falling to the ground below; body following soon after.

She hits the ground with a thud. A branch falls in the grass next to her. The air reeks of maple and wet earth.

Truly, this isn't her brightest moment.

Elton turns just in time to watch Tiff fall from the tree, a flightless bird of brown leather and neon paint-stains. He has no fucking clue what to do. Everything is so chaotic! It's impossible to get a coherent thought in under these conditions. Dingus is stuck under the gate, this strange American girl he decided to have some weird adventure with had a god damned sci-fi weapon, and now she's flat on the ground after falling from a fucking maple tree. Fuck.

And she knows Bryce. Double fuck.

"Just..." He sighs, looks down at Dingus. "Don't go anywhere, boy."

Elton races over to where Tiff is sprawled on the ground. He crouches down next to her. "Fuck, are you okay?!"

"I'm fine," she grumbles, even though they both know that's not the case. "I'm not dead."

"I can see that. Are you hurt at all?"

She sits up, wincing. For once, the pain in her ribs is non-metaphorical. She pushes herself up to standing anyway. "I'm fine."

He stands and puts his hands up. "Alright, if you say so, but seriously let me know if we need to go. You took a big fall..."

"I'm aware. The jacket helped."

His gaze turns back to Dingus and his current situation and sighs. "Let's get that idiot unstuck, eh?"

"Can I have my bag back now? Before we do that?"

The bag. That's right. Tiff has a gun. Was it a gun? Looked like a gun.

"It's on the ground over there." He points. "Packing some serious heat for a podcaster."

"It's not— I told you not to look in there." Cross and deciding not to look at Elton, Tiff bends over to pick up the bag, trying not to wince when her ribcage moves with her. She straightens up, tosses the strap over her head, and marches over to the wall. "I'm not going to explain what all the shit in here is. It's my business."

He puts his hands up in surrender, not really meaning it.

Now she actually does look back at Elton, because her plan bears explaining. "Here's what we'll do. I'll climb the wall. You'll hand Kepler up when I'm on top. I'll pull Dingus while you push. Then you climb over. Deal?"

He decides to let the gun issue go. For now. Right now, he wants to see this thing through and get in that house. So he nods at Tiff.

"Seems like a solid plan. Will Kepler let me pick him up?"

She looks down at Kepler, who seems woefully ambivalent about the idea. "He'd fucking better."