True Tales

I am assigned to a team with two other women. I don’t know them, they’re grown-ups.  We are to get over an eleven-foot wall, the three of us, with no ladders, no ropes, and no footholds - just the three of us, using our “shakti power.”

This wall is my nemesis. It has glared at me since I got to camp. I can see it from my tent. My eyes always dart its way when I walk to the big top or to the bathrooms. It’s a big, square monster made of wood, smooth and slippery-faced and painted bright white. I don’t think anybody has made it over yet. We discuss our strategy. I know that our team is made weaker by me. I’m only twelve, not too tall, and not too strong but teamwork is part of the challenge. Nobody advances unless all of us make it over. I feel responsible, doomed, but responsible, to complete this horrible task.

We decide that the tallest of us should try and get up first. We try to lift her; she climbs on our braced hands, then thighs, then our shoulders. She can reach to the top and on the third try she hoists herself all the way up. She’s strong too. Who’s to go next? I suggest the other lady. She uses me as a stepladder, and our teammate reaches down pulling her by her arms. She falls. I fall under her. We try again. We have no choice. Finally, she too straddles the top of the wall. Now it’s my turn. On my tippy-toes, I reach up and grasp their hands. We try to link wrists, gripping hard.

“Jump up,” they tell me. I try, like a kangaroo, a bullfrog, but I come straight down again. I can’t simply “jump” up eleven feet! What do these ladies mean? 

“No”, they say, “jump and try to run up the wall, use your feet.”

I try again. The new glossy paint is so slippery there’s no friction, and I can’t get a grip with my feet. How will I ever get up?! They try to simply pull me straight up. My armpits are burning; it feels like my arms are being pulled right out of their sockets. I feel their frustration. I will myself to be as light as a feather, to simply float up, like a balloon, joining them at the top. 

“This is NOT working,” one of them says in a firm voice. I know they blame me. I feel like a failure, the last one, holding my team back from success. “If you were taller, we could get a better grip, and you could help pull yourself up."

I can’t help that I’m barely five feet tall. I’m the youngest person at Ladies Camp. I don’t belong in children’s camp and now I feel like I don’t belong at Ladies Camp. I’ve always been “in between,” not quite fitting in. We try a different strategy. One of them gets down, and she helps push me from below while the first lady pulls me up. I finally get up to the top. I’m scared of heights. I’m trembling. My legs grip hard on either side of the ledge and I bend my body down low, like I’m galloping on a racehorse.

“That’s right,” my teammate says. She thinks I’m getting into hoisting position, but I’m really just holding on for dear life, trying not to fall off.

Now we’re to pull the last one up. She’s taller than me, so has fewer feet to climb up to the top. We grasp her arms, and she shouts “pull, pull!” I try with all my might but I’m just not strong enough. My hand slips from her arms and she falls to the ground. We try several more times. Finally, through sheer will, and mostly the strength of my partners, all three of us are astride the top. We whoop and holler at our success. But I am not celebrating yet. We still have to get down. I am petrified, scared and immobile on my six-inch ledge high up in the sky.