Recover the Ball

The thing no one tells you about space is just how far away it is from the ground.

I mean, it’s obvious, but you don’t really know until they shoot you up the space elevator in fourth grade and force you and all your classmates out onto the glass observation deck. It’s only when you’re there, getting jostled by the idiots who think jumping up and down might crack quadruple-reinforced oxyglass and get you all sucked out into the vacuum of space, that it hits you. You stare down, seeing entire oceans and continents below your feet.

And then you throw up.

* * *

“Stretch, Annin! You almost got it, man!”

I stretched my arm as far as I could, almost hearing the muscles in my shoulder screaming in protest.

I, too, wanted to protest. To say that just because I was the tallest one in the class didn’t mean people should always ask me when they need someone to get something from up high. Especially when that something was as trivial as a bouncy ball. But I was already here, so I squeezed my eyes shut and kept feeling around the top of the cupboard.

“It’ll be easier to find if you keep your eyes open,” said a familiar voice from my right.

“Shut up,” I growled back. “I’m… I’m enhancing my other senses.”

That’s what they always say about blind swordsmen in the shows, right?

Unfortunately, the fact that I was thinking about this kind of thing meant I was now distracted. I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop myself. My eyes opened, and I looked down to see Elliso. His face, framed by blond hair with a meticulous middle part, displayed a charming grin designed specifically to harass me.

I had other problems, though.

The feeling of vertigo hit me at the exact same time my fingers made contact with the ball Deji had accidentally bounced on top of the cupboard.

Now, you might say that having your fear of heights kick in when you’re on a chair that puts you barely two feet above the ground is absurd. You might also say that it happening to the tallest guy in the classroom makes it even more ridiculous.

No one would agree with you more than me.

After that, everything happened in slow motion. My fingers loosened around the rubber sphere I’d risked my peace of mind to capture as I started to tip off the chair. My left hand slid toward the edge of the cupboard, unable to decide if it wanted to re-tighten around the ball or grab on to something to save me.

Below me, Elliso’s face transformed from a wide smile into surprise as he took a step back. At the back of my panicking brain, a distant part processed an elongated, “Waaaaaaaatch oooouuuuut!” coming from his mouth.

Finally, my left arm, which was somewhere above my head at this point, decided to give me a hand. The bouncy ball went flying, and my palm slapped against the door to the cupboard, sliding downward until my fingers locked around a metal door handle. I held on for dear life, praying the door was locked.

I don’t know how my feet or the chair didn’t go flying in the opposite direction, but I came to a stop with my arm fully outstretched, body at a forty-five-degree angle above the floor, shoulder once again protesting.

Thankfully, the cabinet door stayed locked shut, saving me from the embarrassment of faceplanting into the floor.

Beneath me, Elliso was leaning away, his face almost directly below mine. His hands had spread wide, and I made a mental note that, despite the fact he had initially looked like he was going to run for it, he’d been ready to catch me.

“You okay?” he said. “What just happened?”

“I, uh…” I dug around my brain cells for my words, but the aftermath of the vertigo had rattled them together and shaken them out in disarray. “I just, uh…”

For just a moment, the easiest answer jumped to the tip of my tongue.

I’m afraid of heights.

It would be so simple to say it. It should be. And yet…

Before I could open my mouth and expose my secret, a new voice inserted itself into my plight.

“Annin’s just doing his T*rzan impression. Right?”

Elliso and I looked at each other.

“What?” he said.

Both our heads turned toward the source of the voice. There, walking up the aisle between the desks, Nelle XI Yumin Ronder held the ball I’d risked my life to recover. Her blue hair, its low, short twintails falling over her shoulder, bounced with her steps as she came toward us. Beneath her shifting bangs, her green eyes held a rueful look that said, “Yeah, not the best I could have come up with.”

What she said out loud was, “You know, hanging from the trees?”

If I was lucky, maybe the fact that I’d managed to get the ball would distract everyone from what she’d just said.

The look Elliso gave me said he wasn’t convinced.

“Why are you doing an impression like that right now?”

“Just help me get back up, will you?”

Elliso put his hands on my shoulders and pushed while I pulled myself back to upright on the chair. I’d just regained my balance when a joyous hoot drew our attention back to the classroom.

“You got it!” Deji, the guy who was the reason I’d had to undertake this rescue mission in the first place, sprang into my field of vision to reclaim the ball from Nelle’s hand. He hooted again, and then, to my dismay, spun and hurled the ball straight into the floor.

I didn’t even need to watch to know where it was going to end up.

“…”

“Annin… please…? You’re already up there.”

I closed my eyes, inhaling a long breath.

“Don’t talk to me this time.”

I reached back on top of the cupboard, leaning my forehead against the door as I stretched for extra stability. As soon as I found the ball, I flicked it over my head, not really caring where it landed.

“Ow!”

Actually, scratch that. I did care. Hearing Deji’s yelp of pain was just the satisfaction I needed.

Behind me, the classroom erupted into chaos as I carefully let myself down from the chair. The ball had rebounded off Deji’s head, ricocheting among our unprepared classmates. Voices rose, but I ignored them as I crouched, then put my butt on the seat, then slid my feet to the hearteningly solid floor, moving like an old man getting out of the bath.

Deji launched himself after the ball, Elliso joining him. The latter tried to grab the pink sphere, but missed, accidentally kicking it across the room. A girl shrieked, several guys ducked, and the quick grin I saw on Elliso’s face made me wonder if it had been an accident at all or if he was just enjoying the unfolding mess. The ball went sailing out the open front door to the classroom.

In the midst of it all, only one person was watching me.

“Come on,” Nelle said, her hand closing around my wrist as she pulled me toward the still closed back door. We slipped out unnoticed, a pile of students forming at the other door to complain and laugh as they stuck their heads into the hallway to watch Deji attempt to corral the ball.

Nelle and I went around the nearby corner in the opposite direction, and I felt a bit of relief as we leaned against the wall. Somehow, I’d manage to escape the whole ordeal with my secret still hidden and only a minor, jungle-man-shaped bruise to my pride.

I sank down until I was sitting on the ground, my face between my knees. A hand patted the top of my head.

“You could have let someone else get it, you know.” Nelle’s light voice floated down from above me. “It’s okay to say you don’t want to do something.”

“I didn’t have an excuse.”

“No one’s going to guess you’re afraid of heights just because you refuse a request like that.”

I sighed. Now that the adrenaline of the incident was fading, all I felt was exasperation. In the grand scheme of life, being afraid of heights was far from the worst thing. It was kind of pathetic, sure, but it wasn’t like I was, say, in danger of dying in an interplanetary war or something truly serious.

“Telling people I’m doing a T*rzan impression isn’t exactly helping.”

“Hey!”

I heard a quick rustle of clothes and turned my head to see Nelle’s eyes large next to me.

“It was the best I could come up with.”

“That was your best?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Did it?”

A smile spread across her face, proud, with one side of her mouth curving up.

“It was close enough. It doesn’t matter anyways. No matter how I have to do it, I haven’t forgotten our promise.”

“Listen, that–”

“No, no.” She placed a hand over her heart. “Whatever happens, I, Nelle XI Yumin Rondar swear to you, Annin Sessa, that I will protect your secret no matter the cost.”

I tried to protest. Unfortunately, the sensation of someone speaking directly into my ear made it not only impossible to speak, but to breathe.

“And a princess,” Nelle whispered. “Never breaks her promises.”

You can understand why I was having such a hard time not falling in love with this girl.