Marama stopped abruptly. “How’s this?”
Erin dropped her bags and sat. “Looks great.”
She turned back to see the valley rolling along, including a small pond around which cattle grazed. From here, the cattle looked like dots.
So much of New Zealand was about perspective, she realized.
Roa investigated nearby boulders and dropped his gear. “Yeah, this’ll do.”
_________
Hank beckoned Erin to investigate the shoes. They smelled worse than Ben’s basketball bag, but love is blind. And anosmic. Erin may have, on occasion, let her swimsuit and towel fester in a sealed plastic bag for an entire weekend. But that was her own gross nastiness.
Hank’s rock-climbing shoe collection harbored some stranger’s bacteria. In a sunny patch, Erin held each shoe up to her left foot, in turn.
“They’re all too small.”
At the base of the lumpiest boulder, Marama situated her sponge mat and forced on her own shoes. “Supposed to be small. They become one with your foot. See?” She thrust her shoed foot forward, and it was thirty percent smaller than her bare foot. It looked like a child’s foot on the end of her leg.
Erin tried the bright orange shoes—the biggest ones—first and had trouble squeezing her foot into them. “It’s a little snug.”
Marama said, “Go for the next size down. They should hurt a little.”
Erin believed shoes should fit comfortably unless they were quite fancy or red-soled. Climbing shoes were neither.
The second-largest pair was nearly painful when she stood up, and Marama couldn’t coerce her into the third pair.
Erin walked like a bowlegged farmer eager to take a dump. “I gotta sit.”
Marama ran her fingers over several rough patches of stone and dug her fingertips into a ridge. “See, you just want anywhere you can find a little purchase. See this?” She cupped the edge of the boulder and shifted her weight onto her right foot. Lifting her left leg near her hip, she dug her tiny shoe into one of the little ridges. “Up we go.”
Up she went.
Marama scrambled across the enormous rock. Left and right, then up and down and up again, as if the rock had steps.
And Erin couldn’t even stand.
“You ready?” Roa asked.
“Hardly.”
Roa said, “Oh, sorry. Take off your shoes and check out the rock.”
Barefoot, Erin ran her fingers over the flat rock. There was nothing to hold onto.
“May I?” Roa grabbed Erin’s hand and guided her fingers over a ridge. “See that? You dig your fingers in for a good hold. This ridge near the bottom is perfect for your shoes.”
“They’re too small.”
“You’ll see. Look, just trust me. Just for today, trust me.”
“You just admitted you’re still drunk from last night. Why should I trust you?”
Hank jumped between them. “Because it’s fun. Trust me.”
“Or me,” Marama said.
Erin squeezed back into the shoes and waddled to the rock. She fondled it but couldn’t grab hold of anything. Hank scrambled up and down an adjacent face while Erin searched for something—anything—to hold onto. Defeated, she peeled off the shoes to placate her aching feet.
“It’s okay. Have another go in a few minutes,” Marama said.
Roa climbed until his feet were at Erin’s eye level, stretched his arm out over the rock, and reached for something Erin couldn’t see. He missed and landed on the mat.
“Crash mat.”
Erin said, “I see that.”
Hank scrambled up the rock, stood on top, and climbed down. He started on one side and scrambled across it, about two inches above the ground, all the way across—a good fifteen feet—without touching the ground.
“You’re like Spiderman,” Erin said.
He guffawed. All his laughs were guffaws. “That was my dearest wish as a boy. My mum sewed black ribbony stuff all over my favorite red shirt and I loved it. Wore it every day, even after I turned five. Most days I snuck it to school under my uniform.”
“That’s sweet.”
Hank scrambled around the back of the rock and re-appeared on top a minute later.
Erin crammed her feet into the orange shoes again, grabbed a few pieces of the boulder, and stuck her toe in a nook. Her right foot had nowhere to go.
Roa said, “Move your foot up and down until your shoe can grab onto something.”
She jabbed her foot into what looked like another nook, shifted her weight, and fell off the rock. Seven times.
Marama said, “You know, Erin, this is advanced stuff. I know a better boulder for you.”
“I can get it,” Erin said before failing five more times.
Marama grabbed a crash mat. “Let’s just take a look.”
Leaving the guys and their gear, Marama led Erin through a narrow opening. They wended around enormous boulders until Marama stopped abruptly. “Whoops! Occupied.”
Erin expected a couple making out but instead saw kids taking rock climbing instructions.
Marama trekked onward, as kids smaller than Pippa scrambled up the boulder even faster than Hank had. One kid actually crossed his arms and said, “Too easy.”
Marama shouted, “Erin! Found one!”
Erin walked around the rock but Marama was nowhere to be found. She squeezed between two boulders and walked in circles, but still no Marama. Erin was a rat trapped in a maze. “Marama?”
Marama called again. Erin followed her voice until their bizarre game of Marco-Polo ended next to a rock that had been too manhandled by the mythical giant toddler: deep holes scarred its sides, and thick ridges ran around the base.
“This’ll work for you.”
Erin said, “We don’t have to climb here. I’m sure I can handle more advanced stuff.”
“Nah. It’s fine. There are a couple rocks out here that will work for you.”
Erin whispered, “I don’t need to start on the kiddie rock.”
“Erin, you have to start somewhere. It’s like driving. Do you think a fifteen-year-old is an idiot because he doesn’t know the wipers from the signals? Start in your tramping boots.”
Too easily, Erin grabbed nubs of rock and stuck her feet into enormous holes. She was on top of the rock in no time. “It’s cheating. It’s
