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Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Liam Miari. Liam had three best friends. Pinky, Garrog, Caden, and Brodhi. The problem was that they were all older than him and liked to go do big kid stuff.
It wasn't fair. He was even taller than Pinky and Brodhi, and better at climbing trees than Garrog and Caden, and he was the best at holding his breath underwater. He could hold it for like ten seconds. Which was a very long time.
But he'd never done it while anyone else was around so they teased him and called him a lying baby about it. But Liam wasn't a liar. He wasn't.
Not like Brodhi, who lied about who stole the candies the other day. Or Pinky, who said she ate her vegetables when Liam knew for a fact that she'd squashed her peas underneath the cushion of her chair.
And don't even get him started on Garrog. It would be easier to list the things Garrog didn't lie about, except that Liam couldn't think of anything. He lied about stealing Caden's dad's shoes. And eating the cookies Brodhi's mom made. But for some reason parents always believed him because he was older. Stupid Garrog.
And speaking of stupid Garrog- there was his loud voice now. "COME ON!!" Liam heard him yell, and next thing he knew, they were all barrelling past him like a herd of dragons, elbowing each other out of the way.
"Where are we going?" Liam called, hurrying after them.
"Keep up if you can, Little Liam!" Garrog cackled. That made Liam kinda mad, because as he's already explained he was way bigger than Pinky and Brodhi. If they could keep up then he could too. Plus he thought he saw Brodhi's weird friend Ribbit in the herd and Ribbit was even younger than Liam was.
"Fuckssake," he muttered to himself (but only quietly because Liam was a Good Boy and didn't really swear). Where were they going? They were going to miss dinner! Liam was hungry, but he also didn't want to miss out.
Running along after his friends, Liam thought of all the fun things they might be doing. Maybe they were going to play dragon rider like Pinky and Garrog liked to do. Or maybe they were going to look for rocks because Brodhi and Ribbit loved rocks. Or maybe they were sneaking out to see Caden's kitten, Violence, because Caden's dad didn't allow her in the house. But when they finally stopped, Liam's eyes flew wide as he realized where they really were going.
"We'll get into trouble," he said, catching up to them, gazing wide eyed up at the wall they were all now hovering beneath.
“Pfft,” Garrog scoffed. “My middle name is trouble.”
“Your middle name is DOOFUS,” Pinky said, elbowing him.
“It’s totally fine,” Caden told Liam. “We won’t get caught.”
Liam wasn't sure he believed them but he wanted the big kids to like him so he took a tentative step toward the others. His legs shaked beneath him and his heart hurt. Liam was so scared.
"I'll go first cos I'm the oldest," Caden said importantly. He turned, and began climbing the wall using the stones like a very super duper scary ladder, until he reached the dark window above and scrambled in. He peered over the edge looking down at the rest of them.
“Whatcha waiting for? Are you CHICKENS?”
"Not me!" croaked Ribbit. "I'm the best climber of my age!"
Garrog sniggered to Pinky, "I bet his mama told him that."
"Don't speak bad about Ribbit's mama!" Bodhi whisper-shouted. "She almost got eated by a dragon once."
While they were arguing, Ribbit easily scaled the wall even faster than Caden had and that shut Garrog right up, because now he had to go as fast as Ribbit or else get beaten by a little kid. Sometimes, Liam realized, maybe it was better to be little after all.
Garrog climbed the wall as quickly as he could but there was no WAY it was as fast as Ribbit, and one of his giant feet slipped when he was almost at the window.
“DON’T FALL, YOU’LL SQUASH US!” Pinky yelled up at him.
Luckily, Garrog just managed to catch the window sill with his fingertips, and slid in after Ribbit and Caden.
Liam’s heart was beating so fast he thought they could probably all hear it. He wished it would shut up, so they wouldn’t know he was scared.
"I'm next!" Pinky announced pushing Liam out of the way. "I'm not going to get shown up by a bunch of stinky boys."
"Hey!" Brodhi said. "I'm not stinky!"
"Yes you are," Pinky insisted. "All boys are stinky."
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Brodhi and Pinky argued about who was stinkier for so long that Liam's feet started to hurt.
He took a step closer to the wall, then another and another until his toes were right up against it. He looked up at where Caden, Garrog, and Ribbit stood on the edge.
He took a breath in and told himself he was NOT scared, and reached for the first stone. It was cold beneath his hands, and his fingers gripped the rough surface tightly.
One hand, then another. One foot, then another.
“Hey!” Brodhi shouted.
“HEY!” Pinky echoed.
Liam ignored them both, because he was focusing on being brave.
"That's not fair!" Liam heard Brodhi stamping his feet but he didn't dare look down because if he looked down, he'd see how high up he was. And then he might get scared. And when he was scared, he sometimes cried and then Garrog always told him, "That's why babies can't play with the big kids."
Well, Liam wasn't a baby anymore, not after today. He stuck his tongue out to help him concentrate as he reached for the next rock. His arm trembled, but he held on anyway. He was doing it! He was really doing it!
Liam was climbing the wall just like the big kids.
He looked up, biting his lip. He was so close.
And then the rock beneath his hand broke off with a CRUNCH and Liam was still gripping it tightly but it was no longer attached to solid wall and he was falling, falling. He heard the yells of the others and felt the wind rushing past him and all he could think as he plummeted downwards was “uh oh.”
The world changed to slow motion.
He was going to die and he didn't want to. He was too little to die. Garrog was right all along.
"CATCH HIM!" Caden roared.
Bodhi and Pinky were still arguing as Liam braced himself to get splattered all over the ground. Only he didn't hit the ground. Brodhi and Pinky hit the ground, and he hit them instead.
He was saved.
"OOF" Pinky grunted. "He sure is heavy for a little guy."
Liam blinked dazedly up at the sky as Pinky and Brodhi extricated themselves from beneath him.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Pinky asked him, waving her two middle fingers in front of his face.
“Two?”
“He’s not dead!” She called cheerfully to the others, and then someone shoved her aside, and Caden was there looking down at him. His dark eyes look worried. Probably because he’d be in trouble if he’d broken Liam.
"Is he hurt?" Garrog shouted down. "His mommy will tell my mum if she finds out and I don’t want to get grounded again."
Brodhi frowned down at him. "I don't think so?" he said without any confidence. "I think the wind just got knocked out of him."
"What does that mean?" Ribbit asked as he jumped, yes actually jumped off the wall, yelling something that sounded like "Parkour!" But that wasn't a word as far as Liam knew.
Brodhi shrugged and walked over to his friend. "No idea, but my mom said it once."
“You hurt?” Caden asked him, while Ribbit burped loudly to demonstrate the air inside of him.
Liam considered it. He felt kind of bruised, like a teddy bear that had been hugged too hard, but otherwise not too bad.
“I’ll let you hold Violence, if you want,” Caden promised him. “She always makes me feel better.”
He sniffled. "Yeah, I think I'd like that. Can I..." Liam trailed off, unsure if he could ask for what he really wanted.
"Anything you want," Caden promised. "Just don't tell your mommy what happened."
He cleared his throat, remembering that he's big and brave. "Can I take Violence home with me tonight?"
Caden wrinkled his nose. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.
Liam sat up. “Really?” He was so glad he didn’t die. Now he was one of the big kids, and he'd get to cuddle Violence without having to hand her back straight away. He knew exactly where she liked being scratched behind her ears.
“Just one night,” Caden added quickly.
Liam nodded. One night of cuddles and not being dead sounded pretty good to him.