The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Getting Lost One Giant Leap at a Time

Roci had a very active imagination. Just because she was quiet and pensive looking on the outside, it didn't mean her head was idle on the inside.

Roci could also scare herself sometimes by telling herself that something was a certain way when it really wasn't. A couple of her classmates had families that fell apart. One parent left. Or her friend complained out loud that each week or weekend they had to stay at a different place. "I am staying with my mom and her new husband this week." Or, "I am going to be with my dad and his new girlfriend." Roci didn't want anything like that to happen to her, or her family. Still, her imagination took her there.

Behind her steel countenance, her serious approach to always adding things up, calculating the odds, strategizing about next steps or just planning out her daily schedule to make sure she got everything done on time and well enough to keep her 'rector's streak' alive, Roci loved to think she was a horse. Actually a unicorn. She would use her active imagination to see herself running, galloping, trotting or in a high-step prance. When she was sure no one was watching she would raise her knees high and pretend she were in a parade. She'd throw back her head and let her ever present ponytail be ... a pony's tail. She would sometimes pause for a moment, raise her head and shake it violently to the left and right. If you were nearby and listened closely you could hear her neigh. On her forehead visible only to her was a horn. Her royal purple, baby blue, princess pink and cotton candy yellow horn swirled up to a point and glistened as if sprinkled with a fairy-dust like magic powder. Roci could leap over fallen trees. She could bound from rock to rock, up the side of steep crags and jump as if flying back down without ever making a noise. The creatures in the forest gasped at her power, the trees bowed down when they saw her beauty and the leaves clapped when she stood majestically in a field of flowers, always careful to never damage even the tiniest of pedals.

Roci also frightened herself by thinking too hard about the shadowy shapes she thought she sometimes saw. Shadows cast by the sunshine in the midday sometimes startled her so much that she would uncontrollably jump causing her friends to wonder, "What's up with Roci? Did she step on a hot coal?" Followed by giggles and good-natured teasing. Roci put on her most iron-like face and responded with silence and a piercing stare.

Night shapes were the worst. She often could see giants walking along walls cast by stray cats and dogs who, of course, had not yet met Mousi. Furniture would come to life and battles would take place in her living room. Tables fought chairs. Lamps competed against coat racks. Sometimes all of the furniture would turn on Roci and attack her. Her protection was her imaginary 'force field' blanket. Beneath this blanket she was safe from all the powers of demons, witches and fairies who failed school and turned evil either because they were lousy students or just too lazy and didn't try hard enough. Because they couldn't achieve high marks in school they were bent on causing havoc instead of creating beauty. And because she was so good at what she did, they targeted her first and foremost.

Nothing frightened Roci more than the shadows cast at night by trees. Trees without leaves were the worst. Summertime trees were not as fearful because of the softness created by the gowns of leaves that they wore. When a full moon hung low, so bright that all the other heavenly luminaries were invisible and there was a tree that had died but not yet fallen, Roci could become almost paralyzed with fear. Tonight was one of those nights.

The camp, located in a giant forest, had trees of all kinds.They were immense in size and variety. In days past trees could be used to provide logs and planks for cabins and sheds. Some trees could be used to make bowls, chairs, even cradles! In the forest that was home to Mt Hermon there were huge oaks, hickory, ash, walnut, sugar maples, beech, and largest of all the giant redwoods. Each cast a different shadow and made a different impression on the active imagination of a well-read, intelligent girl.

"Trees are the enemy!" Roci said to herself. "They grab, scratch and claw at you. They trip, catch even hang you up. You have to duck, sway and sometimes jump. If I had an axe, why, I would ..." her imaginary stories went in many directions.

As her friends stepped out of the cabin to head to the Conference Center, Roci bent over her bunk to get her Bible.

"Someone as fast as I will have no trouble catching up," she thought to herself somewhat smugly.

"If you have run with footmen, how can you compete with horses" from Jeremiah was one of her favorite verses.

"I'll catch up in a moment!" Roci neighed to her friends.

However, when Roci went down the two steps leading out of her cabin the first thing she noticed was her friends were nowhere to be seen.

"Funny. They must have scurried away and are hiding to startle me while I am on my way. Or maybe they want to see how really fast I can run." She smiled to herself thinking she would scare them first if she could catch them hiding behind some object before they saw her.

"It'll be easy," she muttered. "After all, the moon is low, full and shining as brightly as I have ever seen." As she finished her sentence, she came to a full stop. After a long pause, she took a step ... except her foot didn't move. She tried to step again. She couldn't move. Her foot was caught in an exposed root of a dead birch tree.

"Da .. stupid, tree! The enemy!" She snorted.

The near full moon's beams magnified a dead tree onto the outdoor walls of the girls bathroom opposite Roci's cabin. The wind whipped up suddenly and the dead tree seemed to come to life! The tree waved. It bent over. There was a whistle. And now a branch with 20, maybe 30 fingers was heading towards her as if to pluck her up off the ground and and and .... And Roci didn't want to imagine what would happen. She broke free and began to run. She surprised even herself at how fast she could run. The wind began to howl and the trees cackled. Roci's heart raced so hard as she was desperate to catch up with it. Her feet responded with a mighty effort.

Down a path she went, leaping over a fallen redwood. "An evil attempt to trip me up!" she thought out loud. "Hah! Cause me to stumble, will you? No way!"

"Air!!!"

Roci had run so fast, leapt so high, ducked so low and sprinted so hard that she had missed a sign:

<DANGER! DO NOT ENTER>

Roci had gone down a path that led to a waterfall that dropped some 100 feet into a nearby creek ... and unwittingly, she ran right over the edge!