The Jumps

"You want to...what at the Callanish Stones?" Katherine was fairly sure she hadn't heard her best friend properly. There was no actual way that was allowed, and Isla was usually the kind of girl who read school policy documents when they were handed out at assembly.

"I'm telling you, Celtic people did it for centuries. I've been reading about it. It's supposed to keep the rain away all summer, and I don't know about you, but I do not fancy another washout like last year."

She pointedly wiped the remaining raindrops from this morning's deluge from the cold bench they were sitting on, which overlooked the harbour, giving them a premium view of the still-moody grey skies for miles.

Katherine was increasingly concerned. While Isla's argument couldn't be faulted - the temperature hadn't managed to hit 15 yet this year, and who wanted to try and enjoy the festival in a raincoat again? - she was fairly sure you weren't allowed to do more than touch the ancient monuments. She took a long drag of her green apple vape, mentally daring her suddenly criminally deranged friend to make her usual snippy remarks about this bad habit.

"They're protected." she tried. "I think you can get fined for damaging them. Besides, they're always crawling with hippies at this time of the year, dancing around them and talking to hedgehogs or some shit."

"Protected, sure. But do they need to be? They're 5000 years old. What are we going to do, hurt them? Anyway, I'm pretty sure the hippies do a lot worse there." Isla said darkly.

While rumours abounded about weird sex rituals and drug-fuelled Pagan dances at the stones, Katherine doubted that the people who made the pilgrimage there every year to celebrate the summer solstice actually did anything to damage the stones. She also doubted that Isla, hardly a gymnastics champion at the best of times, would follow through on her outrageous plan. She occasionally got these bees in her bonnet; it was probably best to discuss, while trying not to encourage, the same way she had when her best friend had decided they should run away to Glasgow together, age 13, or start an Etsy business selling driftwood keyrings, last year.

"Wouldn't we need thirteen people to do it? I don't think we have eleven friends willing to break the law for us. I'm not even sure we have three, and that's including us."

Isla considered this for a worrying amount of time. The vape was probably running dangerously low on juice by the time she replied.

"Nothing I've read said we definitely had to do them all at once. We just have to keep track and do half each. I'll do the leftover one, promise!"

Katherine laughed. "You? You haven't been caught dead in P.E. once this year?"

"I don't think climbing a ladder a few times exactly requires a degree in the rules of sodding basketball."

"So now we have a ladder, do we?"

"My brother does. In our barn."

"You're going to steal D.J.'s ladder, trudge a couple of miles with it to the Callanish stones, climb up and down it seven times, watch me do it six times, somehow not get caught by hippy sex maniacs or prosecuted by the Scottish National Trust, drag the ladder back home, and bring sunshine to Scotland?"

Isla's eyes lit up. "Exactly! See, it's not nearly as bad as you're making it sound. Besides, you'll help with the ladder."

"Oh, will I?!"

- - -

The ladder was not that heavy between the two of them.

Although they'd left it as late as they reasonably could - well past 10pm - to escape any possibility of D.J. locking the ladder in the shed, there was still enough light to make their way easily from Isla's home to the stones.

Other dangers of village life lurked, though. Curtains twitched, even at this hour.

"What are those girls up to?" muttered one of the culprits, and picked up her trusty landline. Morag may have been 83, but she wasn't one to miss the opportunity for a gossip with her friends - or a midnight stroll, for that matter. Within a few minutes, the unsuspecting girls had picked up a tail, slow moving but in experienced possession of binoculars.

As they reached the stones, they turned to find half the village behind them.

"Um." said Katherine, and sorely wished she had bought a new vape. D.J. was in the crowd, and unlikely to take well to the theft of his ladder, especially when he heard about his little sister's dangerous and illegal plot.

Much to her surprise, though, several of the caileachs were grinning and chattering happily in Gaelic.

Her own father stepped forward. He was not in the same good mood as the older members of the crowd.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Katy? And Isla? Why have you got a ladder?"

"We're going to jump on the stones to make the weather better?" replied Isla, leaving out the rather more elaborate argument she'd made to Katherine a few days prior.

"That's illegal! And dangerous! And insane!" Katherine's father thundered.

"Esht, amadan!" cried out Morag. "We used to do it when we were girls! And the summers were a lot better then!"

Isla dropped her end of the ladder in shock. "Then why did you stop?" she demanded.

Morag frowned. "Well, a'ghraidh, I don't think it's exactly an activity for old people, do you? We had to stop it when those heritage people started sniffing round, years ago. Or maybe it was the health and safety lot..." she said, the disapproval of both sets of interferers evident in her tone.

"We were never sure it worked, anyway." said Beathag. "The church didn't like it, either."

"Well, we were never sure it worked." said Morag, "but we were never sure it didn't, either. And I'm getting a bit old for running out to my washing line to rescue my drawers from the rain. I say we let them do it."

Several members of the crowd laughed. Katherine's father could sense he was losing them.

"Fine! But not these two! Isla can trip over her own feet on a flat road, and our Katy's bloody grounded - literally!"

"So, who do you suggest?" Morag sniped. "Me and Beathag? I don't think her hip replacement is up to it!"

"I'll do it." said D.J., dragging his friend Kevin out from the crowd to suggest his volunteering too, although Kevin's face said no such thing.

"No, you won't. It has to be girls, or it'll have no effect at all."

"It'll have no effect anyway, except to bring the wrath of the Lord upon us!" yelled an irate Free Church Elder from the back of the crowd.

"ESHT, amadan! If the way your son spends his life propping up bars and girls in the pubs on a Saturday night doesn't bring the wrath of the Lord upon us, neither will this!" said Morag.

Isla and Katherine looked at each other. Shrugging, Isla picked up her end of the ladder, and they walked towards the first of the thirteen stones in the main circle. Two other girls, from a couple of years below them at school, joined them.

They placed the ladder against the stone and Isla was halfway up it before the arguing villagers noticed. Morag and Beathag started cheering. Katherine's father covered his eyes.

At the top, Isla took a deep breath. It was true, after all, that co-ordination was not her strong suit, and the stone was worryingly narrow. She wobbled a bit even standing still.

"You don't have to jump high!" shouted Morag encouragingly. "Just make sure you leave the ground!"

Isla did it. One jump, possibly the lowest jump recorded in human history, one of the younger girls told her later, and then clambered down.

Then it was Katherine's turn, then the girls, then Isla again. Round they went, to the cheers of just the elderly ladies at first, then more and more people, until by the last stone (which should have been Isla's, but was mercifully taken on by one of the other girls) everyone but the Elder was whooping.

There were a few days of worry for Katherine - who knows who might snitch to the authorities - but she got over it as she enjoyed the, perhaps co-incidental, sunshine of late June.

- - -

"Unprescented heatwave!" blared the Stornoway Gazette by mid-July. "Twenty days without rain - global warming blamed."

Morag laughed to herself as she used it to line her cat's litter tray. "Unprecedented, indeed."

The day of the festival dawned bright and hot.

---

Gaelic Glossary

caileachs - old ladies

esht, amadan - shut up, idiot

a'graidh - dear, love

---

N.B. - Don't jump up and down on ancient monuments, just in case you need telling.

If you want to know more about the Callanish Stones, you can start with Wikipedia.

I really enjoyed writing this story, but I may have made it a little too "local" in places. Don't hesitate to ask any questions, or pass any remarks, in comments.