Jenny didn't like the sound of the words "serious climbing," but she decided to go as far as she could.

"Okay," she called. "Fm on my way."

"So am I," he called back.

Jemiy scooted off the rock and into the gully, which was about six inches wide and fiill of pebbles. But he was right, it did go on for quite a distance. Sometimes she had to scramble over a group of big rocks, but she always found the path again. Every once in a while she called out to make sure he was still coming, and he'd call back and say yes, he was on his way.

She kept her eyes on her feet most of the time, so she didn't notice how much darker it was getting until the gully finally ended. She looked up then and found herself facing what looked Uke a smooth wall of stone. It seemed to go up forever. There was no way she could cUmb up that.

As if he'd read her mind again, he said, "It's not as bad as it looks, Jenny. Just move a few feet to your right, and you'll see a kind of gap in the rock, a split. There are plenty of footholds in there."

Jenny did as he said and found the gap. But it was shadowy. The whole place was shadowy now.

"Come on Jenny," he said. "I'm ahnost down to you. I'll be able to give you a hand in a minute."

At least he's right about that, Jenny thought. His voice was much closer now. She braced her hands on either side of the split in the rock, put her foot up, found a hold, and dragged the other one up beside it. The rock wasn't as straight up as it looked. It slanted just enough so that she didn't feel like a fly on a wall. Not quite, anyway. "This must be the

serious climbing you were talking about," she commented.

"You're doing great," he said. "Not much farther."

One foot up, wedge it in, bring the other foot up. Gk)od thing she was wearing jeans or she wouldn't have any skin left on her knees. Jenny was feeling almost confident when her wedged foot came un-wedged and slipped out. She gasped and clung to the rock with both hands, found her foothold again, and steadied herself.

"You okay?"

"Yes." Jenny swallowed a few times. "But listen, I don't like this," she said. "I think I want to go back down. I'd feel a lot happier with something flat under my feet."

"But you're almost here."

"Almost isn't there, though. I don't like this," she said again. **Why don't I wait while you come the rest of the way down to me? Or I could go all the way down and you could go all the way up and we could meet somewhere. Like at the diner, maybe. It's got a floor."

She'd been talking in a joking way, so she wouldn't sound whiny and chicken, and she expected him to chuckle at least. But he didn't.