Like on the starting line for the 100 metres. You kneel on the track and settle into your blocks. You rise when they say ‘set’, but you have to wait for the gun. Sometimes they make you pause for ever but jump the gun and you’re out. I could leap two days ahead, I feel so ready. But no. I must wait. You have to wait for the nanosecond the gun goes off and the trick is, when you hear the gun, to run like a bullet. Like it’s life and death.

Chapter 13:00: Rite of Passage

Chapter 13:00

RITE OF PASSAGE

I know what’s going to happen tonight. Storytelling. I LOVE the pattern of stories: you start with a problem and you have to solve it before the end. Bob Beamon’s story started with him being born and his mother dying and no one wanting to claim him in the hospital. He had a hard life because he was black and poor and couldn’t read. But 8 metres 90 changed his life. It didn’t happen straight away. It took time. He said if you don’t succeed the first time, you have to try again and again, until you get it correct.

The most important thing about a story is WHEN it happens. When Bob Beamon did his jump, it had to be that exact moment otherwise he could have done a foul or gone from 0 to 10 and been disqualified from the Olympics for swearing, or jumped 8 metres 50. Instead he jumped ahead in time because no one jumped that far for 23 years. That’s why Bob Beamon’s an honorary Leapling.

Tonight, we’re doing storytelling by the campfire with the criminal MC2 who speaks in rhyme. I don’t know why he’s called it Twice Upon a Time instead of Once Upon a Time. He does like speaking in riddles.

There’s a minor Oops. The session’s being run by MC2 AND Le Temps. Le Temps says he has to be here in case one of us Leapers decides to take off into the future on a whim and besides, it’s his job to look after the fire. He mumbles something about Health and Safety and rolls his eyes clockwise 360°. I don’t think he likes Health and Safety very much. He prefers Death and Danger.

He takes us to a clearing in the woods. Mrs C Eckler comes too. I’m surprised to see her here because I thought she’d still be doing her meditating, which is taking a deep breath like you’re going to run the 100 metres and humming ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. We haven’t been to this part of the woods before. When we get there, Noon says one word:

‘Beautiful.’