I’m running so fast it feels almost like flying, my feet barely touching the ground. Or maybe that’s the ground dropping out from under me, which is so terrifying a thought that I run even faster. Desperate to get ahead of that sickening rumble of the cliff falling away. Raindrops blurring my glasses. Flashes of trees and leaves and Mia a few yards ahead of me, racing for her life, pack bobbing higher than her head.

I don’t dare look back to see if the others are following us away from the ravine edge. Looking back might make me stop to help, and stopping means you die. And I’m so scared I can’t think about anything but staying alive.

Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die. The words on loop, screaming in my brain.

The rumble of the collapsing cliff fades away. In the silence that follows, all I can hear is my heart pounding. I made it. I’m alive. And then, with my glasses blurred, I run straight into a tree.

Wham, flat on my back.

Behind me, Deke hoots and laughs. “Oh, dude, that was perfect! Like a cartoon, the way you bounced backward!”

Not “Are you okay?” or offering to help me up.

I roll over, panting and wheezing and spitting out rainwater. Can’t even respond to the big jerk because the breath has been knocked out of me.

I try to dry my glasses, but it’s hopeless. Doesn’t matter. We’re lucky to be alive, all five of us.

Mia calls out, “Over here! Give me a hand, you guys!”

Staggering to my feet, I follow her voice. There she is, struggling with a blue tarp taken from the pack. She never quits, Mia. Always thinking ahead, doing what needs to be done.

She tosses me a bundle of rope. “You’ve got a jackknife, right? Cut off some lengths and we’ll tie this to the tree branches. I swear if I don’t get out of this stupid rain I’m going to melt.”

Luckily the jackknife is buried deep in my pocket. A present from my dad, who said it might come in handy. If only he knew! I saw away, cutting the rope into shorter lengths.

Imani appears and silently takes some of the cut rope. With shaky hands, we tie one side of the blue tarp to some branches, up as high as we can reach. The other side we fasten to a couple of saplings, about waist high. The tarp slanting down so the rain runs off. We duck under the tarp, and Mia is grinning at us, me and Imani.

“We’ve got a roof over our heads!” she announces.

“Very cool. That was smart.” I dry my glasses as best I can and peer out from the shelter. “Hey, Deke! Tony! Over here!”

Mia snorts. “Who says they’re invited?”