“Get down from there right this second, you headache of a person!”

No response. Keisha sighed, bracing herself to start climbing.

“I’m about thirty seconds from coming up there to get you, and you aren’t gonna like the consequences,” she warned.

Still no response.

Swearing under her breath, Keisha hauled herself onto the brick wall.

“If you make me climb all the way up there, I will shove you off the damn roof.”

Squinting up, she caught a glimpse of black hair among the tree branches.

“Okay,” Jess called down. “But I’m not technically making you do anything, so…”

She trailed off as Keisha grabbed a tree branch, still cursing.

“You’ll wanna jump to that one really thick branch, and then start climbing with your back towards the roof, by the way,” Jess advised.

Reluctantly, Keisha followed her instructions. With branches tearing at her hair and clothes, she finally found herself level with the roof.

“You made it,” Jess remarked, somewhat surprised.

“How do I get onto the roof?”

“Figure it out.”

“Go jump in front of a car.”

Keisha scooched around, finding a branch that conveniently was near the edge of the roof. Gingerly putting her weight on the end, she was able to sit on the roof backwards.

“If I can’t get down from here, I will jump and use you as a landing pad.”

“Or I could just lower you to the ground,” Jess pointed out.

“That’s not as satisfying for me.”

Jess ignored that statement.

“Why’d you come up, anyway? I was about to climb back down.”

Keisha hesitated.

“I don’t know. I guess maybe I wanted an excuse to try.”

Jess considered her.

“You know you don’t need an excuse, right?”

Keisha just shrugged. Changing the subject, she said, “It’s nice up here. You can see the bay, look.”

“Yeah, it’s cool. You see that tree? The really weird, really tall one? That used to be a marker for the Native Americans.”

“Tell me about it.”

And as Jess launched into a long explanation, the two girls lay back and watched the clouds move slowly across the sky.