Brad stood on his top bunk. His head scrunched to the side up against the ceiling; static electricity fanned his hair up. His room had a high ceiling but he still couldn’t stand straight up on the top bunk. He hadn’t been able to do that since third grade. The boy’s eyes were focused on the wall across the room; his hands up against the ceiling, poised to fly. Suddenly he leapt, snapping his arms forward to pull his body into a full turn. His feet hit the wall. Crash! And he pushed off. Brad's spine arched back in a flip, another 360 turn; his feet caught the lower bunk clunking the beds against the back wall. He sprang again off the lower mattress, twisting to hit the wall again. Bamm! A second turn, pushing hard for a handspring, but he was too close to the ground. Smuck. His face smeared into the blue shag carpet. 

Brad lifted his head, spitting out a piece of blue string. He wasn't hurt. He never got hurt. Brad rolled over laughing, and shook a flop of straight brown hair off his forehead. He wasn’t all that troubled about eating carpet. This was a new flip he was working on. He called it the double bunk whammy. But the landing wasn’t right. What was he going to do? 

A single bunk whammy was easy; Brad could do that with his eyes closed. But adding a second flip just wasn’t working. He couldn’t seem to land on his feet. Brad muttered and squinted at his bunkbeds; need more height. 

"Brad!" his mom's voice came from downstairs, "Hurry up. Petes is here." Brad picked himself off the floor and straightened the covers on the beds. He was supposed to be getting ready for camp, but had got carried away in practicing his new trick. It was important. He needed something new to show Petes at the camp.

This double bunk whammy was going to be the best. The aim was to hit the wall twice on the downfall (as hard as he could) and spend as much time in the air as possible, landing on his feet in the end. The landing is the most important part. It had to be on his feet to count.

Brad pushed his dresser drawers shut, catching the tip of a red sock in the corner of the top one. Then he kicked a ball into the closet, grabbed his backpack and headed for the stairs. He could hear Petes down in the kitchen. 

Pocket Petes could never bounce off walls, Brad thought as he double flipped to the first landing, backpack held to his head. He'd probably break every wall in town. He backflipped to the bottom step.

Brad stopped and adjusted the pictures at the bottom of the stairs. This was a problem in his house; pictures had to be hung with four nails so they wouldn't fall down; books constantly had to be picked up and put back on the shelves. Brad's bouncing shook everything on the walls. His dad complained about it every day. His mom just sighed a deep, heavy sigh.

Brad could remember the first time he had decided to get someplace by going up side down. He was two years old and it seemed like the logical way to get out of the highchair. The crash had sent his mother running from the other room. But he didn't notice. He was already climbing back up for another run. From that moment nothing could prevent him from being air-born.

In those younger years he would bleed much more often than he did now. There was a six-month period when his mother called the doctor three times a day. This is actually documented at the emergency room nurses' desk. Once a psychologist was called in. They tried keeping the baby in playpens and thought about removing all the furniture from the house. But, everything they did just sent Brad climbing and plummeting from higher and higher perches. He could climb a wall with virtually no handholds. Finally they gave up and accepted Brad’s strange way of getting around. He never broke a bone, and didn't seem to be in pain, so gradually his parents got used to it and quit worrying. All they could think to do was put extra thick padded carpet in every room and reinforce the bookshelves. No one had tried to stop him from bouncing for years. Brad was eleven, now, and going to camp. He never thought twice about leaping off something into the air and preferred doing most things up side down rather than right side up. It wasn't accidental either, he practiced every day.

Down in the kitchen Brad found his friend, Petes, working on a large stack of pancakes. "What's you thumping now?" Petes mumbled around a mouthful.

"New trick." stated Brad, in a matter of fact tone. "Double Bunk Whammy."

"Humph." muttered Petes. He kept chewing.

Pocket Petes was Brad's best friend. They often joked about each other's oddities, and it never got mean. Brad was thin and acrobatic; he bounced. Fatso was big; he ate and grew. Pocket’s nickname might seem odd, but he liked it. He got the name because he always had a candy bar in one of his pockets. Those candy bars helped Pete maintain his nice big size. At first kids called him Pockets in a mean way. But Petes was a happy guy and he would just smile as they teased him. Soon his friends started calling him Pocket Petes, then his mom and dad joined the game. The bullies never got any satisfaction out of their teasing. Over the years Pocket Petes had grown in every direction. Feet, hair, everything. His hair was black, curly and if not cut regularly got bigger, rounder, and wilder. His bones were big, his muscles big and, yes, his stomach was big. Right now he was shoveling pancakes to his mouth, fork fisted with large hands.

Brad stood next to his friend and the difference was striking. Brad's elbows stuck from his arms, his legs were long like pencils, even his brown hair was thin, cut short underneath, longer on top. It never seemed to grow much. Brad was lanky, long and flexible. He wasn't as tall as Petes. Brad had blue eyes, Petes' were chocolate brown. Neither wore glasses.

Trista, Brad's baby sister, was smearing her pancakes across the tray of her highchair. Brad's breakfast was sitting on the table ready for him. Looked like the heat was already gone from the stack of pancakes. Petes' whole stack was almost gone. Brad scowled at the top of Petes' curly head. "Didn't you eat at your house?" he asked.

"Sure," mumbled Petes around his last bite. "But you never can tell how they'll feed us at camp. Gotta stock up."

Brad smiled at his friend and sat down. He arranged his stack of pancakes around his plate in a spiral and poured hot syrup over it in loops. Carefully he cut the first bite from the first cake.

Brad's mom was hanging a frying pan back on the wall, tapping the nail with a hammer to tighten it; the double bunk whammy must have knocked it loose. "Are you all packed?" she asked. She brushed a thin wisp of hair, just like Brad's, from her cheek.

"Yup," answered Brad. He cut another exact bite.

Brad's mom scowled at the frying pan. "Maybe a bigger nail would help," she murmured. "Or a screw." She tapped gently with her hammer, the nail slowly moving.

"Camp's going to be great," said Petes. He spread jelly on a piece of toast, then added a slice of bacon, and folded it over.

"It sure is," answered Brad. "I'm going to sign up for everything, especially horseback riding." He drank some juice. "I don't think I'll bother with a saddle. I'll just ride standing up."

"The camp probably has rules," warned Brad's mom. "You'll have to follow them."

"Never stopped him before," said Petes.

Brad's mom gave a long sigh, "I suppose that's true." She gave the frying pan a pat as if that would help it stay on the wall. "Come on," she said. "Hurry and eat your breakfast. Then brush your teeth and get your pack in the car. It's almost time to meet the camp bus."

Petes crammed the rest of his toast in his mouth and scooted back his chair; the wooden legs creaked ominously under his weight.

Brad leaned back, staring at a crack in the ceiling, lost in thought. Two whole weeks! He bounced lightly in his chair, kicking his feet as he chewed. Camp! It was going to be great. Maybe they would have a trampoline there, and a big black wild stallion for him to ride.