The Long Drop

Young Midge Hammers, aged ten, sat on the window of his tree house with his feet dangling down, he took out a pair of binoculars from his military style rucksack and looked down. The drop was long and there were branches of the tree to avoid.
‘Come on Jackson,’ he said, as he took out his favourite action man toy and began to prepare him for the long drop, ‘it’s your turn now. After all, I did all the climbing to get up here!’
The action man yawned, as he came to life and put on his small parachute, took his position on the edge of the window and looked down.
‘Yikes,’ he yelled with fear and jumped back into the rucksack.
A second later, he popped his head through.
‘Last time we tried this,’ said the action man, as he popped his head through the bag, ‘I landed with broken bones.’
‘You are made of plastic and not bones,’ said the boy, as he pulled him out and went and sat by the window and put on the parachute on the back of the action man.

Midge’s elder brother, Jack, unable to find his action man to play with, walked upto the tree house.
‘Midge,’ he shouted, ‘If you have Jackson up there, I’ll come up and give you a great, big walloping. Now give him back you hear me!’

‘You give me a whack and I promise you, Jack, I’ll throw him out’ yelled Midge, as he picked up the action man and he held him out of the window.

The warning came too late, as Jack at the entrance.
‘Whoosh!’ came the sound, as the action man was thrown out.
‘Help!’ cried out the toy with fear, as he suddenly felt being pulled up and gush of air past him. The parachute had opened and for a while, it seemed that he was floating down. Suddenly the motion stopped but he couldn’t feel the ground beneath him. He looked below. There was nothing. Then he looked around him. To his horror, a huge, large, green leaf stared at him in his face. The parachute was stuck on one of the branches of the tree! Struggling to get loose, the action man, got out his knife and tried to cut himself loose from the parachute.
‘No good,’ he said, ‘you are made out of plastic just as I am.’
Moments later, there was sound of ripping and cracking and once, again, the action man screamed for help, as he fell. A second later, he hit the ground with a ‘thud’ so hard that he lost consciousness.

Slowly, the action man felt blood flowing in his body as air began to fill his lungs and he opened his eyes. He was surrounded by brightly lit walls. For a moment he thought he was dreaming.
‘Good to have you back,’ said other action men, as they looked over him.
Action man Jackson was back and safe in Jack’s toy room.