Citrus Jelly's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Citrus Jelly hooked his arms under Spearmint's and pulled. Spearmint slid up a few inches, then sagged. Citrus Jelly's own middle folded like warm pudding. His feet slipped on the packed snow. They both slid back down a full body length before he could dig in. "Sorry," Citrus Jelly said. His voice came out small. "I'm too soft. I keep bending." Spearmint didn't answer right away. He looked at his own green paws in the rabbit's blue light. "My belly is empty," he said. "I don't have the push. You have to be the push." Citrus Jelly tried again. He set his back paws wide and heaved. His shoulders bent sideways. His hips wobbled. Spearmint rose, then Citrus Jelly's knees buckled inward, and they slid another arm's length toward the dark. The rabbit hopped back to keep pace, ears flat. Citrus Jelly stopped. He was shaking. Not the lemon shake. The tired shake. "If I keep going like this," he said, "we go down, not up." Spearmint nodded once, slow. "Yes." Citrus Jelly looked at his paws. Soft. Wobbly. The whole thing he had always been embarrassed about. He remembered standing at the cottage door. He remembered thinking his squishy bottom was the problem. He remembered saying, out loud, that bouncing was the whole thing. He sat down on the slope. He pressed his back flat against the tunnel wall. He braced both back paws against a ridge in the snow. Then he pulled Spearmint down onto his lap so his brother sat between his knees, facing up the slope. "Hold my paws," Citrus Jelly said. Spearmint took them. Citrus Jelly bounced. Not a jump. A small, contained bounce, using his squish like a spring against the wall. It shoved them both up the slope one body length. He landed, braced, bounced again. Another length. His middle jiggled hard, but the jiggle was the engine now, not the leak. "Oh," Spearmint said quietly. "There it is." Citrus Jelly bounced them up the tunnel in slow, steady shoves. The rabbit ran ahead, lighting the next patch of wall. Citrus Jelly's back was raw from the snow. He didn't stop. Every bounce moved them closer to the seam of light above. When they reached the opening, Peppermint was sitting cross-legged just inside it, exactly where he'd promised to wait. He looked up without surprise. "You came out from under him," Peppermint said. "I wondered how you'd do it." "I bounced," Citrus Jelly said. He was out of breath. "Mm." Peppermint studied Spearmint's slack face. "He's colder than he should be. His green's gone pale." Citrus Jelly looked down. Spearmint's paws in his were cool and loose. The green skin had thinned to almost clear. "We have to get him warm," Peppermint said. "Soon. He isn't going to sit up on his own." Outside, the snow was still falling upward.