My Oak Tribe

Bad, Bad News

The girl and Oako's mother stayed inside their hut for hours. Oako tried to get close enough to hear what they were saying, but whenever he got close enough to hear muffled voices, his mother's assistants shooed him away. He tried sneaking round the back, found. Crawling round the other huts and creeping in from another angle, found. He tried every direction for hours. Now he sat with Ferne, while they contemplated which direction to try now.
"OOH! OOH! I KNOW! We haven't tried from above!" Ferne suddenly cried.
"Haha Ferne, very funny." Oako rolled his eyes.
"No I'm serious!"Ferne stared at Oako with her eyes glinting angrily.
"Ok! Go on..." Oako sat back against the skin layered over the walls of the hut from his position sat on the floor of Ferne's hut. This was the first time Ferne had allowed him to come in here since her parents passed away, and he didn't want to ask her and upset her. He was worried, but wouldn't risk seeing tears welling in her eyes.
"Ok... So, you know that the stone wall around the camp?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well, you climb over that, land behind the hut and go through the fire escape door!"
That actually wasn't a bad idea...

Every hut has a fire escape door, just in case a fire starts and the main door is blocked. Although it was smaller and inconveniently exited upon the stone walls surrounding the camp, (as every hut lined the walls, with the communal area in the middle) so no one used them.

Oako hasn't thought of using the fire escape door. Rather, he planned on sneaking behind the advisors and hoping with all his might they wouldn't turn around at that moment.
And of course, every time they tried his idea, they found him before he even came withing ten feet of the door. And of course, if he tried sneaking around the other huts and coming from behind, someone else from the tribe would see him, or as has happened before, the advisors would find him.

So, Oako declared he was going for a walk to the tribe, and while everyone raised an eyebrow at his eagerness to leave at the crucial moment when they had a visitor, they dismissed it as anxiety and let him continue. He exited through the large gates, easier to open than last time, as the snow was nearly all melted. It was almost lunch time now and the sun was high in the sky. Oako pushed the gate closed and immediately redirected towards the bit of wall behind his hut.

He ran his fingers across the bumpy stone wall, worn away by time. He knew this area so well; it was where he had lived his whole life. But even so, he was relieved to hear the chirruping from inside the camp. It was Ferne, standing in front of the hut to guide him to the correct place to climb.

When Oako was at the top of the wall, he would jump down on the ground below and go through the fire exit door. That's all he needed to do. But five minutes later he was question this plan. After spending a while scaling the wall, he was at the top, his head peeping over. He looked back behind and below him again. It looked much higher from up here. He could see Ferne subtly checking to see if he was over yet. She was to give the signal to jump at the right time.

But as she glanced over to him, she saw a sly smile creep over her face. Of course... Of course... This was just some trick to keep him occupied. Oh... Oh how was he meant to get down now... I mean, it would still be fun to jump down... Maybe. And also he didn't want to crush Ferne's spirits. So he pulled himself on top of the wall and balanced there. The world swooned and spinned as the hight seemed to double. But he readied himself, bent his knees... And thought 'Oh well, it's too late now...' and jumped. He felt his stomach flip and turn as he soared through the air for a few seconds, before his stomach seemed to land it's flips. But it appeared that his stomach hadn't landed on its feet. Oako tumbled and he felt like he was about to throw up. Falling. Tumbling. Landing. The last thing he saw before he landed, was Ferne running, guilt and worry intertwined into her features. Oops...