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For Allie the fall was themoment she ever had to endure It orse than the crash, for that had been over so quickly, she had no ti through her, because that, too, had coone in a flash The fall from the tree, however, seemed to last forever Each branch she hit jarred her to the core Jarred her, but didn’t hurt her Still, the lack of painShe screamed all the way down, and when at last she smashed upon the hard earth of the dead forest with a hearty thump, she felt the wind knocked out of her, only to realize there was never actually any wind in her to knock out Nick landed beside her, disoriented, with eyes spinning like he just ca and laughing

"What’s wrong with you?" Allie shouted at Lief, and the fact that he still laughed when she grabbed hirier

Allie put her hand to her forehead as if all this was giving her a killer headache, but she couldn’t have a headache now, could she, and that just ravated The rational part of herher that this was all a drea, or an elaborate practical joke Unfortunately her rationalevidence She had fallen froh a Greyhound bus No, her rational mind had to accept the irrational truth

There are rules here, she thought Rules, just like the physical world She would just have to learn the world e when she was very little Heavy airplanes flew; the sky turned red at sunset; clouds could hold an ocean full of water, then rain it down on the ground below Absurd! The living world was no less bizarre than this afterworld She tried to take so into tears

Lief saw her tears and backed away He had little experience with girls crying--or if he did, his experience was, at best, a hundred years old He found it highly unexpected and disturbing "What are you crying for?" he asked her

"It’s not like you got hurt when you fell from the tree! That’s why I pushed you--to show you it wouldn’t hurt"

"I wanthis own tears, too This was not at all how Lief had i day would be, but maybe he should have Maybe he should have realized that leaving one’s life behind is not an easy thing to do Lief supposed he would have missed his parents, too, if he could still reh It wasn’t a good feeling He watched Nick and Allie, waiting for their tears to subside, and that’s when the unthinkable occurred to hi to stay here, are you?"

Nick and Allie didn’t answer right away, but that silence was enough of an answer

"You’re just like the others!" he shouted out, before he even realized what he was going to say

Allie took a step closer to him "The others?"

Lief silently cursed hi said it He hadn’t meant to tell them

He wanted them to think it was just the three of them That way maybe they would have stayed Now all his plans were ruined

"What do you ain

"Fine, leave!" Lief shouted "I don’t care anyway Go out there and sink to the center of the Earth for all I care That’s what happens, you know If you’re not careful, you sink and sink and sink all the way to the center of the Earth!"

Nick wiped away the last of his tears "Hoould you know? All you know is how to swing fro"

Lief bolted away frohest perch, up in the slimmest branches

They won’t leave, he told himself They won’t leave because they needThey needalive

Here on his high perch, Lief kept his special things: the handful of precious ite fros he had found when he woke up after the flood that had taken his life--ghost things that he could touch and feel They kept hi memories There was a shoe that had been his father’s

He often put his own foot in it, wishing that so that he never would There was a water-da he had to remember what he looked like It was pocked with so many spots, he couldn’t tell which spots were dirt, and which were freckles In the end, he just assumed they were all freckles Finally there was a rabbit’s foot that was apparently no more lucky for him than it had been for the rabbit

There had once been a nickel, but it had been stolen by the first kid he came across in Everlost--as if money had any value to them anymore He had found all these items marooned on the small dead-spot he had awoken on, and when he had stepped off the little spot of dried un to sink in The sinking was the first lesson he had learned You had to keep , afraid to stop, afraid to sleep

Crossing from towns to woods, and back to towns, he had coh it terrified hihost and not an angel? Why did he not go to heaven?

That’s what the preacher always said: Heaven or hell -- those were the only choices So then as he still here on Earth?

He had asked hi, and just accepted Then he had found the forest; a huge dead-spot large enough to make his home It was a place where he could actually feel the trees--a place where he did not sink--and he knew in his heart that the good lord had provided him with this forest It was his personal share of eternity

As for these new kids, they would spend forever with hiht leave now, but once they sahat the rest of the world was like, they would come back to him, and he would build theether, and they would talk and talk and talk to make up for all the years Lief had existed in silence

Down below, Nick had watched Lief climb up the tree until he disappeared into the lush canopy Nick found his of sy dead He felt queasy, and wondered how that could be if, technically, he didn’t actually have a stoht just made him even more queasy