drop down the mountain...

Kerry is a cheerful, fun loving and a cool girl.
At the moment she was neither cheerful nor fun loving.She felt far from cool.In fact she was a bundle of nerves.Her hands were clammy .Her heart was hammering away in her chest .She had never been so scared in all of her sixteen years.Convinced that she was going to die in a few minutes , she was clinging to the rope that was her only link to safety, with all her might.
She had woken up in the morning with her usual exuberant smile.Even more cheerful than other days since she was going for team building activities with her school mates to an adventure camp in the Aravalli hills.The bus ride had been full of masti and unadulterated fun.They had all been looking forward to the rest of the day with anticipation..

Time for her to rappel down the rock face..a sheer drop...some seventy feet down...
Harness in place..rope tested...helmet buckled...instruction over.
Fear struck.
Kerry was immobile with fear.
Frozen on the ledge from where she had to rappel down ,she decided that she definitely did not want to do this...never ...never ever...she would ask the instructor to pull her up.

She could hear the cheering of her team ,they were calling out her name ,encouraging her to go on.She could hear them shouting her name over and over again......and again.
Her team would lose if she backed out.
She called out to the instructor to ask him to pull her up.
She heard herself say OK .
The rope began to slide down and she was rappelling down...trembling shivering scared.When her feet touched solid earth ,she could not stand up straight.She was surrounded by her team mates ,caught in a group hug,she did not recall how afraid she had been a few minutes ago...
she just could not!
i call her a hero.