And those were the last words Rashel heard him say.
She climbed the rope. It was even harder than she'd thought it would be, but when she got to the top it was wonderful. The whole world was a squiggly moving mass of netting. She had to hang on with both hands to keep her balance and try to curl her feet around the rough quivering lengths of cable. She could feel the air and sunlight. She laughed with exhilaration and bounced, looking at the colored plastic tubes all around her.
When she looked back down for Timmy, he was gone.
Rashel's stomach tensed. He had to be there. He'd promised to wait.
But he wasn't. She could see the entire padded room below the spider web from here, and it was empty.
Okay, he must have gone back through the tubes. Rashel made her way, staggering and swaying, from one handhold to another until she got to the rope.
Then she climbed down quickly and stuck her head in a tube, blinking in the dimness.
"Timmy?" Her voice was a muffled echo. There was no answer and what she could see of the tube was empty. "Timmy!"
Rashel was getting a very bad feeling in her stomach. In her head, she kept hearing her mother say, Take care of Timmy. But she hadn't taken care of him. And he could be anywhere by now, lost in the giant structure, maybe crying, maybe getting shoved around by big kids. Maybe even going to tell her mother.
That was when she saw the gap in the padded room.
It was just big enough for a four-year-old or a very slim five-year-old to get through. A space between two cushiony walls that led to the outside. And Rashel knew immediately that it was where Timmy had gone. It was like him to take the quickest way out. He was probably on his way to her mother right now.
Rashel was a very slim five-year-old. She wiggled through the gap, only sticking once. Then she was outside, breathless in the dusty shade.
She was about to head toward the front of the climbing structure when she noticed the tent flap fluttering.
The tent was made of shiny vinyl and its red and yellow stripes were much brighter than the plastic tubes. The loose flap moved in the breeze and Rashel saw that anyone could just lift it and walk inside.
Timmy wouldn't have gone in there, she thought. It wouldn't be like him at all. But somehow Rashel had an odd feeling.