Parker looked up into the tree. She could hear other children laughing up there above her, but the only thing she could see was leaves and the occasional disembodied foot as its owner swung his or her leg back and forth.
She could do this. She could climb straight up that tree and hang from the branches with the best of them… Well, she could if she was about a foot taller and had substantial upper body strength. As it was, she was 4’11” with arms the consistency of chicken wings: all fat, no muscle.
But she wouldn’t let that stop her, couldn’t let that stop her. How would she ever become a singing veterinarian pop sensation who also acts, designs clothes in her spare time, and takes the photos for the ads for said clothes if she couldn’t climb a little tree?
Parker looked up again. Okay, a medium-sized tree.
She stood on her tippy toes and reached up, her splayed fingers barely scraping the bark of the lowest hanging branch. She sighed angrily and let her arm fall. It was a big tree… Definitely a big tree.
Parker put on a face of fierce determination and bent her knees. She glared at the branch; how dare this tree mock her size by growing a branch too high for her to reach. She sprung, unleashing a Tarzan-like battle cry as she flew, arms extended, into the air.
Miraculously, she felt that branch land solidly in her palms and she wrapped her fingers around it so it couldn’t get away. It was only a little tree after all and Parker alone had the power to tame it, to force it into submission beneath her sweaty hands.
Her non-existent muscles strained as Parker began to pull herself up, slowly inching farther and farther away from solid ground and closer and closer to the sky. Her chin was level with the branch, her stomach; just a bit more…
Parker’s arms twitched and gave out. She was jerked away from her dreams of soaring through the treetops and to reality. Pain rippled outward from her armpits to her biceps. She let her body drop heavily.
But as her body fell, Parker became suddenly aware that something else was rising… Namely, her shirt.
Panic mounting, Parker looked up to find that her shirt was caught on the branch. She wiggled her body, but all she succeeded in doing was pulling her shirt off more. But she refused to ask for help from the parents standing nearby. Instead, she wiggled harder. Still, the material slipped; past her chest, past her shoulders, until it covered her face, the collar tight across her neck. Parker struggled to maintain her grip on the branch and her decency.
She couldn’t see anything with her shirt obstructing her vision, but all of a sudden, something pulled on the fabric and her shirt was torn free from the branch. Parker hastily pulled her shirt back down to cover herself. She sniffed and looked at the man standing in front of her, someone’s dad that she was really glad she didn’t know.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes…”
Parker ran away before he could see her crying.
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