"On your markreadysetgo!"

Coraline dashes down the trail, blue hair flying in the light breeze. She's a blur of vibrant color, a running rainbow, in the dead autumn woods: sepia-chestnut-chamoisee leaves blanket the earth, camel-bole-fallow trees twist and bend their branches with fawn-bistre-ecru pebbles and stones scattered about. Her cackle swirls with the sounds of birds and dancing leaves.

"H-hey, no fair, Jonesy!" Wybie stumbles behind with flailing arms as his friend (neighbor? classmate? he isn't exactly sure how to label their relationship) widens the gap between them. The grin on Coraline's face threatens to crack her cheekbones. The poor dweeb didn't even see it coming: the pair had been dawdling by a stream, skipping stones. One minute it's "what do you wanna do?" I dunno…what do you wanna do?" and then next it's a quick shove with "race you back home!"

But just as quickly as it starts, it ends. Exactly two minutes and eight seconds after the impromptu race begins, Coraline Jones flies through the sky when her left foot trips on her shoelace.

"Damnit! My ankle!"

All good things come to an end.

"J-jonesy?" Wybie finally arrives, panting lightly. He cocks his head at the peculiar yet amusing sight of Coraline sprawled on the ground. "Nuh-uh, you're totally – totally faking it!"

"Why would I be faking the most agonizing, painful, absolute miserable" –

"Can you be more of a drama queen?'

"How could you be laughing at me at a time like this?" Coraline falls backwards and covers her eyes with her arm. "I'm dying!"

"Pfft, I – well – whatever." But Wybie crouches, eyebrows crinkled in a concerning matter.

So she's being a bit more dramatic than necessary but it still hurt. Coraline winces as her hand massages her foot, the pain throbbing softly under the warm skin. The two preteens stay like this, a few seconds passing, until suddenly Wybie stands up and offers his hand.

She quirks an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"Uh, a hand? What else?"

"And what do you want me to do with it?"

"Jonesy," Wybie sighs, tapping his foot. This is her first time witnessing an Impatient Wybie. It's kind of cute. "I have cousins. A lot. Little ones I mean. I carry them – by myself – all the time."

"All the time?"

"Always."

"Even now?"

"Yup. You can't even, like, see them. That's how good I am."

"Pretty sure I'm bigger than a toddler, Wyborne." He rolls his eyes but smirks when she finally grabs it and clambers onto his curved back. It's a little awkward at first, unsurprisingly, but they finally manage: her legs hooked around his slim waist and her arms wrapped around his neck. Wybie's cheeks reddens and covers it with a cough –

"Hey, I'm not that heavy!"

"Uh-huhh."

In the next eight minutes and thirty-two seconds, the two friends gradually shuffle down the trail, bickering and joking along the way about Mrs. Appleton's class, extraterrestrial beings, peach cinnamon pie, and B-rate horror films. But even once they reach Coraline's front porch and her foot feels loads better, she insists that Wybie carry her inside too. It's rather comfortable.

A/N: Hmm...got a few views...maybe some reviews? A follow or two? *nudge nudge*