It was one of those trees that MEANT something. It was probably older than the town we lived in. At some point in its life, some calamity (worms, disease, fire, something) struck it, and it was pretty cleanly split in two with about a two foot gap between the halves. Half of the tree was dead, but the other half was very much alive. In fact, one year I was able to collect sap from the living side and I made my own maple syrup. DAMN that was good.
Anyway, the dead side was slightly tilted and it was relatively easy to climb right up the middle of the split and perch in the gray branches. The living side, however, had grown and was quite a bit taller, and so harder to climb. It was a proud day when I was able to finally climb that tree and join Jeff and Andrew up there (Jeff was older, and Andrew was crazier). When I got up there, I finally realized why they were so excited to be there. It had fort-potential.
So, one day, Andrew, our other friend Darren, and I were clearing the path to the fort area. Brushing away leaves, setting stick traps, and such. Along the path was this old, dead shrub that had a very large branch right in the path. Andrew set about clearing the path of the branch. He pushed, and pulled and yanked that thing, but it seemed to have some amazing elastic properties. Finally, he grabbed the branch with both hands, and just leaned his body over it, pushing the branch down. CRACK! The branch gave way, but the part of the branch still connected to the shrub rocketed back up, and tore an amazing gash along the left side of Andrew's neck.
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa," Andrew went screaming into the house. Darren and I looked at each other. We were eleven. We were just confronted with a weird and stressful situation where our best friend just spectacularly injured. The situation certainly warranted SOME kind of reaction. So we laughed.
We followed Andrew inside. By that point, my mother had given him a wad of tissue to press against the wound, and was in the process of calling his parents. He sat on the couch doing that strange gasping half-cry thing where you just finished crying, and your breathing comes in starts and gasps. Darren and I continued to laugh, but, somewhat sensitive to our wounded comrade's plight, did our best to stifle the laughter. Well, our best didn't amount to much, just lots of red faces and "pffffff"-ing. Then he said it.
"Shut up *huh*," gasped Andrew, "It's not funny *sniff huh* It might get infected and they'll have to amputate my head."
"BWAAAAAAAAAAAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!" Said Darren and I.
Well, they didn't amputate his head. He probably wished they had though (who is THEY, by the way?). His father, a crazy Brit who was a child during WWII, pinned him down, scrubbed his neck out with a wash cloth, bandaged him up, and sent him back to my house. But I'll always remember that moment when Andrew feared someone might amputate his head.