by Chris Howard
I didn’t feel like singing, though. So I just got up and bolted out of the Orchard, dodging bullets as I raced up the hill.
The tank was rolling ahead of me and I could see Zee was driving now, her hands on the control pad. And Alpha was standing tall, working her gun and keeping the trail clear behind me. I caught up to them and jumped for the top of the tank, and I knew beneath the black metal those green saplings were swimming in the golden light.
Alpha helped me up and we squeezed together, and it wasn’t long before we’d crested the hill and were about to sink down the other side. We waited until we’d almost lost sight of that big old bio vat. And then Alpha shot the thing clear full of holes.
I could feel white light heat as the explosion soared and cut the agents off on the other side of the ridge. And I could see Crow on the deck of the boat below, waving and calling our names as everything became lit in fiery colors and the lake showed the flames back to the sky.
“So what kind of trees are they?” Alpha shouted, after a third boom had echoed and flared.
“Apple trees,” Zee said. “A whole new kind.”
“Well,” said Alpha, wrapping her free arm around me but still clutching her gun. “Where to now, bud?”
“I don’t care,” I said as the tank bounced onto the beach. “Just so long as we all go together.”
And so we left Promise Island to the sound of gunshots fading. The agents could only watch from their smoking ridgeline as our boat disappeared from their shore.
Alpha said all we needed were stars, and the sky was chock-full of them. A map of cold white light overhead, guiding us south until sunrise. And deep black water beneath us, carrying us back toward home.
Home?
Is that what it was? That big old chunk of dirt?
I reckoned it was. Or I reckoned it could be.
We got the survivors dressed and fed in the cargo hold, and we got Pop’s tank stowed deep in the hull. And then I left the others in the cockpit with the charts and gadgets, Crow trying to figure our position on a GPS.
I sat by myself on the deck of the boat and stared south, the freezing wind sticking to my skin and turning me numb as I thought about my father.
We weren’t ever going to build that house in the treetops. And I reckoned I’d miss him every day of my life. But I wondered if we might build one more forest together. If I might plant up those saplings and watch them grow tall.
And I dared to think about a world where there were trees again growing. And if the trees had made it, then what other things might be out there, somewhere, still hanging on? The wild things that make the world worth believing in. That’s why folk had started tree building, after all. To have something to believe in. To prove you can take one thing and make one thing into another.
I imagined what I’d do in a world where trees spread their roots through the soil and made all the air worth breathing. But as I stretched out on that cold steel and felt my head sore and heavy and I ached all over, I realized everything that could still go wrong ahead of us. I wondered who’d come looking for this boat across the water. Or who might be waiting when the boat docked dry. And then I tried to picture what sort of hell was hidden amid the lava and steam. The wastelands of the Rift.
Had to be a route through, though. GenTech had found a way. And you got to think positive. That’s what Pop always said.
So I quit thinking about what might come and I stared up at the constellations, picturing the faces I reckoned I would always keep close. The ones who had passed and the ones still breathing.
And I thought about the statue down in Old Orleans, the woman my father had built and the face I had finished with the thousand shiny pieces, reflecting the world back at you, no matter how many times you looked.
Writing Rootless was an adventure, and I’m grateful to the family, friends and teachers who helped me out along the way. I’d also like to acknowledge all the artists who inspired me; people I’ve never met but who lifted me up whenever I sat down to write. I’d like to thank all the wonderful people at Scholastic, the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, CA. I’d like to thank each and every reader. And I’d like to extend special thanks to the three people who helped me turn this story into a book: My agent, Laura Rennert. My editor, Mallory Kass. And my inspiration, Allison Benner.
Before he wrote stories, Chris Howard wrote songs, studied natural resources management, and led wilderness adventure trips for teenagers. He currently lives in Colorado, and Rootless is his first novel. Visit him online at www.chrishowardbooks.com.
Copyright © 2012 by Chris Howard All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Howard, Chris.
Rootless / by Chris Howard. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In a world devastated by war and disease, a young tree builder searches for the last trees on earth.
ISBN 978-0-545-38789-7 — ISBN 0-545-38789-2 [1. Environmental degradation — Fiction. 2. Trees — Fiction. 3. Voyages and travels — Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H82832Ro 2012
[E] — dc23
2011041109
First edition, November 2012
Cover art & design © 2012 by Phil Falco e-ISBN: 978-0-545-47003-2
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