Matt only trembled a tiny bit as he climbed out the window, never turning to face away from the wall, even though everyone was standing there to block the view of the drop. He shuffled to the side, motioning for everybody to follow along. The group made their way down the slope of the roof, taking care to match Matt’s pace without hurrying him along, and soon they had reached the end of the line.

“All right,” Becca said, looking at the branches within easy reach of the roof. “The good news is that this is going to be even simpler than we thought. There are enough branches that we’ll be able to step over while still holding on to something with our hands.”

“Nice,” Miguel said. “You wanna go first again, Becca?”

“Sure,” she answered, taking care to look as relaxed as possible for Matt’s sake. They were so close, they only had to make it a little bit farther. “Here I go.”

Becca stepped effortlessly over to the first set of branches, which were thick and sturdy enough to easily hold her weight. “This is great,” she called back to Matt. “I could jump up and down on these if I wanted to—they definitely won’t break.”

“Don’t jump on them!” Matt replied, his voice a little higher than usual. “I mean, I believe you, but let’s not push it.”

“Sorry,” she said, realizing too late that jumping up and down on the branches probably did anything but make Matt feel more comfortable. “Anyway, I’m going to move in farther. Someone else feel free to follow me!”

Kylie came next, and after that, Miguel, Danny, and Frankie helped talk Matt through taking his turn. Once he saw the full situation with the branches, he visibly relaxed, and Becca beamed at him proudly. “You did it,” she said, meeting up with him as he climbed closer to the trunk. “Now we just have to make our way slowly down.”

“I’m not even sure we have to do that,” Matt said, his eyes shining as he looked at something over Becca’s shoulder. “It looks like we’ll be able to use the ladder coming out of that treehouse.”

Treehouse? Becca whipped around in surprise, her eyes growing wider as she spotted a cube-shaped treehouse nestled deep in the branches. It blended into the tree so well it was like camouflage!

“There’s a treehouse here!” Becca called to the back of the group, and everyone murmured excitedly as they all edged their way closer and closer. With all the leaves on the branches, it was no wonder that nobody had noticed the treehouse until now.

Soon enough, everyone in the group was standing safely on the deck of the newly discovered treehouse, the green GM symbol that they’d spotted with the telescope before hovering just over their heads.