"David?" Jenny's voice was swallowed up by another crack of thunder. She eased up onto her knees, steadying herself with one hand on the slippery rock beside her. "David!" she shouted. "David!"

The thunder was her only answer.

Chapter 3

Just wait a minute, Jenny ordered herself. David's on his way back, he just has to go slower because the rocks are wet. Don't panic.

She waited. She didn't panic, although it was very tempting. She hunkered back down and stuck her hands up the sleeves of her sweater and waited. For a minute.

When there was a pause in the thunder, she called again. "David! David, you okay?"

There was still no answer, and in the silence between thunder cracks, a gory picture formed in her mind: David, unconscious and bloody, lying on some jagged rock.

One voice told her not to be ridiculous. He knows these rocks like the back of his hand, it said. He's just waiting until the storm passes. She shook the picture away, and then another voice said, then why doesn't he answer you?

"Daa-viid!" she called, stretching his name out on a long breath. "Daa-viid!"

The thunder answered again. Jenny opened her mouth to shout, then stopped. Beneath the fading rumble of the thunder, she thought she heard a voice.

*T)avid!" she called. "Is that you?!" She tried to block out the whistling wind and the deep-throated begimiings of another thunderclap. Every muscle tense, she listened for an answer, praying that she hadn't imagined the whole thing.

There it was! It was muffled by the noise, but it was definitely a voice. Jenny rose to her knees again and cupped her hands around her mouth. "David! I'm still here! This way!"

Just as the thunder reached its crescendo, Jenny heard an answering shout. She scrambled to her feet, ready to call again, when the lightning flashed around her like a sheet of white neon, and she heard a scream. She clapped one hand over her mouth, thinking she was the one who'd screamed, but the sound went on for a moment, then blended into the shrieking wind.

Jenny took her hand away, knowing now that she hadn't actually screamed hysterically, and shouted again. "David! I'm still here! Are you all right?! David!!"

But there was no answer. Only the wind and the rain and the thunder building again.

He was hurt, Jenny knew it. And then she did

scream. "David! Can you hear me?!"

If he could, he couldn't answer, and Jenny decided she had to move. She had to get down, get into town, and get help.

She scooted to the edge of her little ditch, turned around and stuck a leg out behind her, poking around with her foot and praying she'd hit something besides air. When her foot touched something solid -- slippery, but solid -- she could have cried with relief. Slowly, she lowered her other leg, her hands dragging in the muddy gravel, and then inched herself over and down until she could stand.