The funnel walls were screaming as Jo Sef went careening, twisting and spiraling down, down, down through the center of Tornado Ridge! He kept his forearms placed strategically in front of his face for protection as he became an out of control projectile reaching breakneck speed (literally)! He knew that if he could just hang in there until the final exit that he would have a chance… Just a few more moments of pummeling without sustaining any major injury. Finally the mountain spit him out like a giant loogey!

Jo Sef was instantly soaring weightlessly into blinding daylight! Then falling, falling, falling with a final, explosive SPLASH into the waters of At Last Shrugged Bay. The mountain had indeed succeeded in shrugging him off. Jo Sef sank deeper and deeper.

His feet actually touched bottom before he began kicking them vigorously in an attempt to reach the surface and escape a potential watery grave. At last he broke through the water’s grip emitting one loud, long gasp as he filled his lungs with air! He looked around and found that he was alone but just as he was about to swim to shore projectiles started to fall out of the sky above him, each in turn disappearing in an explosive splash. Then a deathly quiet… Jo Sef was surrounded by his soon to be captors, all silent under the water’s surface and soon to be coming back up for air—and for him! He swung around in circles treading water, desperately trying to take in every direction at once.

Finally, one immediately after another, each form broke the surface. Jo Sef suddenly felt an iron grip on one ankle as he was savagely pulled back under! He struggled free and rose back to the surface to find he was hopelessly trapped, surrounded by—an outbreak of jubilant laughter, hoops and hollers! Jo Sef let out a victorious war hoop and burst into hearty laughter himself!

Jo Sef and his young cohorts had acted out this melodrama many times before but never had Jo Sef been “captured” before diving headlong into the funnel. Not that his friends hadn’t given it their all, but Jo Sef could run faster, climb higher and endure longer than any one of them.

It was a motley crew that was assembled, consisting of representatives from five of the six clans of Barbarik. Clever and tenacious Illy Ore was a Skeptic. So was gleefully vociferous Roti Art.  Len Bek, Jo Sef’s steadfast friend for as far back as he had memory, was a True Believer. Except for the golden locks, it would have been impossible to guess that good natured Doog Sejes was a member of the Clan of the Truly Persecuted for he never whined. Then there was the Indifferent, Wah Tever. The friend called Ay Bud scowled with good humor because once again he had failed to overtake Jo Sef. He knew he was bigger, stronger and smarter, superior in every way and could never quite figure out how Jo Sef always came out the victor when he, himself, was such a Power Hungry dynamo.

None knew that Jo Sef arose every morning with the dawn and ran for one hour to build up his strength and endurance. No friend knew that he went to the far edge of his parents’ property and climbed the giant and gnarled Sukima tree from bottom to top at least twice each day. For certain no one realized how driven Jo Sef was to never willingly consider defeat as an option.

It was getting late as the rowdy platoon swam to shore and headed for their respective homes. They would be dry before they got home and their parents would never know that they had been to forbidden Tornado Ridge. It was against the law to enter the funnel at the summit for it had proven unsafe time after time. Some had even lost their lives challenging that perilous slide but it had never been closed off because there was a rule in The Dimension of Barbarik against tampering with natural wonders. But Jo Sef and his friends knew every turn, twist and bump in the funnel and knew they could never really get seriously hurt. Of course they were too young to take the possibility of death seriously for they knew they were certainly much too young to die.

Some time later upon arriving at his home, Jo Sef immediately knew that something was terribly wrong. Buk Lee and Al Lex were sitting in the front yard looking very solemn along with Jo Sef’s little sisters, Demel Za, Dag Nee and Soo Zee who looked exceedingly grim also. Looking as if someone had died… “What has happened? Mother? Father? The Aged One? What’s happened! What is it? Is someone hurt? Tell me!” implored Jo Sef. His brothers just motioned for him to go inside.

Inside their home there was a deathly silence. He saw his father standing by the hearth looking to be in deep, agonizing thought. His mother was sitting in the chair beside him, her hand clasped tightly within his, a singular portrait of devastation.

Something horrible had happened. Jo Sef shivered involuntarily. His mother looked up and into his eyes and he saw that the laughter in hers was gone and was replaced by an anguish that he had never seen on her countenance before.

“What is it, Mother? Please tell me. What has happened?” Jo Sef pleaded. His mother handed him a sheet of parchment which he immediately recognized for it had the gold seal of the Leader of Barbarik. An Executive Order? A new Executive Order must have been handed down by Charismatic Leader. But what could it be? What was so horrible as to affect his family in such a way? With an indescribable sense of foreboding Jo Sef unfolded the official document and began to read out loud:

Jo Sef’s insides had clenched into a violent knot. It was impossible! It was insanity! How could it have happened? He knew there had been hushed talk of such action but everyone knew that any practice so inherently evil would never become the law of the land. It was not real. It could not be happening, not in The Dimension of Barbarik. It was… an impossibility. But Jo Sef was holding the reality in his hands.