The Summer We Turned Green

by William Sutcliffe

  Over Clyde’s shoulder I spot Dad approaching with a walk that’s so bouncy and excited it’s almost a skip. He greets me with one of his usual fleeting hugs, then he spots Clyde, and the two of them fall into each other’s arms like long-lost brothers.

  I slip away, leaving them to it, and pace the edge of the party, feeling uncomfortably as if I am both the centre of attention and a peripheral outsider.

  After a while I spot a teenage girl, slightly taller than me, with short hair and piercing eyes, who I half recognise. She stares back at me, also briefly puzzled, and after this instant of confusion, I realise it’s Sky, completely transformed since I last saw her.

  The conventional-looking woman next to her, wearing jeans and a fleece, no longer sporting even a trace of a half-shaved head, must be her mother.

  Sky and I step towards each other, and there’s an awkward moment when I’m not sure whether or not to hug her, but she solves the dilemma by reaching out and giving me a quick squeeze.

  ‘You’ve grown about a foot. I almost didn’t recognise you,’ I say.

  She shrugs and looks down, smiling.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she says.

  ‘You too. Still at school?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Still loving every minute of it?’

  ‘It’s good. A lot of people think I’m weird, and feel like they have to keep telling me, but … you learn to ignore the idiots, don’t you?’

  ‘First thing school teaches you.’

  We stare at one another, appraising the physical transformations we’ve both been through in the last two years, but neither of us seems to know what to say, until I tell her that the treehouse is still in one piece.

  ‘You ever go up there?’ she asks.

  ‘Never,’ I say.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t know. You want to go now?’

  She looks around uncertainly, taking in the crowd of people, all way older than us, intensely locked into their clusters of excited gossip and reminiscences, and says, ‘OK. Why not?’

  I lead her to a gap in the construction site fence that now runs along one side of the street, and we pick our way across the bare, levelled ground that used to be the front garden of the commune, towards the spot where we first met, which is identifiable only by the oak tree we briefly lived in. Where the house used to stand there’s just soil now, dotted with stones, lumps of crushed concrete and a ragged sprouting of weeds.

  Amazingly the rope ladder is still there, wrapped around a branch, slightly green with mildew, but otherwise exactly how we left it. I pull it down and step on to the lowest rung. It feels creaky and not entirely safe, particularly since I’m significantly heavier than the last time I climbed it.

  I give a couple of small jumps to test the strength of the ropes, and it squeaks but holds firm.

  ‘What do you think?’ I say. ‘Shall we risk it?’

  ‘Up to you,’ she says.

  It doesn’t feel entirely sensible to attempt the climb, but I also have a powerful feeling that we can’t just walk away. We need to go up into our tree one last time, together. I have a sensation of something unfinished hovering around us, like an unsneezed sneeze.

  Carefully placing hand over hand and foot over foot, I begin to ascend the rope ladder. It’s slippery underfoot, and still sways alarmingly, but I grip hard, push on and eventually make it up to the platform. After testing the boards with a few shoves and thumps, I clamber on to its rough, rickety surface, and am instantly taken back to that moment of fear when I first climbed up here.

  I lie on my stomach, look down at Sky and call, ‘I’m on! It feels solid.’

  After Sky has finished her slow, careful climb, we look around at the still familiar view, though of course half the street has now been demolished, but the branches around and above us are unchanged. The oak, of course, is magnificently oblivious of its last-minute stay of execution. It has no idea that we saved its life.

  ‘So weird to be back here,’ she says, after a long but not uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Happy memories?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve lived lots of places, but this one was special. Happiest I’ve ever been,’ she says.

  ‘Are you talking about the treehouse or the commune?’

  ‘Both. And your home. Your family changed my life.’

  ‘It goes the other way too. You helped hold us together when everything was coming unstuck.’

  ‘And now? Is it fixed?’

  ‘Not really. After the commune was demolished, Dad never moved back home.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. Is he still around?’

  ‘Yeah, I stay with him every other weekend,’ I say, before adding swiftly, ‘So I’m lucky, really.’

  ‘Must still be hard,’ she says.

  A cheer from below rises up through the leaves. We look down and see that everyone at the party has gathered around the front of my house, where Clyde is standing on a coffee table, holding a small microphone which seems to have been rigged up to Rose’s speakers. It looks like he’s beginning to make a speech. We can’t hear what he’s saying, but every other sentence elicits ripples of laughter and occasional rounds of applause. We watch, both of us sitting with our legs dangling over the side, until the rhythm of his speech changes and the crowd starts turning their heads, looking up and down the street. That’s when we realise that Clyde is saying, ‘Where are they? Sky? Luke?’

  More people start to call our names, and for a short while we just watch, then Sky lifts the unused orange whistle from the nail where it is still hanging and gives a single sharp blast.

  All the heads down below turn in our direction, but at first nobody sees us.

  ‘We’re up here!’ I yell, with a wave.

  There’s a ripple of laughter and the whole crowd waves back, then calls us to come down.

  ‘We need to celebrate you!’ Clyde shouts into the mic. ‘Come and join us!’

  ‘Better go back to the party, then,’ I say.

  Sky looks at me, takes a deep breath, gives a tiny little quarter-smile, then shrugs and says, ‘OK.’

  Clyde’s speech continues as we climb down, with more bursts of laughter, and as we approach, he says, ‘Come up here, you two! Join me!’

  The crowd parts, and as we walk towards Clyde everyone begins to applaud and cheer. Sky’s cheeks redden, and I can feel mine doing the same. As we pass through, people keep reaching out to shake our hands or pat us on the back.

  When we get to Clyde, he says, ‘Our two brilliant spokespeople!’

  A noisy round of applause bursts out, complete with whoops and wolf whistles, as Clyde pulls us up on to the table and draws us into a three-person hug.

  As the noise subsides, he says, ‘Sometimes, doing what we do, caring about what we care about, which often feels like a lost cause, it can be hard to stay hopeful for the future. But with young people like these two poised to take the reins of power from the fools and monsters we currently have in charge … honestly, how can you not feel hope? This is the generation that is going to change everything. I just pray that it isn’t too late, and that my lot haven’t destroyed everything by the time you take over. Because I believe in you, I really do.’

  There’s another cheer, and Clyde pulls us close to him, asking if we have anything we want to say. Sky shakes her head, but I say yes and he hands over the microphone.

  Suddenly there’s silence and everyone is staring at me, waiting for me to speak.

  I cough, momentarily regretting my decision, then say, ‘I’ve been thinking about this party over the last few days, and about seeing all of you again – people from all over the country who heard what was happening on our little street and decided to come and help – and about how you didn’t just talk about doing it, you actually came. Every one of you changed what happened here. And I know you’ve all moved on now, but … I took a look the other day and the Instagram feed for our protest is still there, and it still has lots of f
ollowers, and I know most of you have other feeds in other places … so now that the airport project is dead, I thought maybe we should see if it’s possible to raise some money to try and get back the land where the commune was, and to grow something there. A community garden or something. Not some pretty little park for picnics, but a nature reserve. Somewhere we could grow trees to be a family for the one that gave Sky and me a home for those few days. A tiny forest. A garden of hope. Maybe we could make another totem pole to go in the middle. Will any of you help me do that?’

  A wave of noise sweeps over me, clearly a resounding yes.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you. I know it’s a small thing, insignificant and maybe almost pointless, but it’s not nothing. And maybe, together, we can make it happen. So thank you.’

  I switch off the microphone, and as we jump down from the table, music begins to pump out of the speakers. Sky’s mum appears in front of us, tells me I’m a good kid, and pulls me and Sky into an embrace.

  I feel the threat of more hugs looming from all quarters, so I ask Sky if she’s hungry, and the pair of us slip away in search of food.

  By the time we’ve eaten a couple of platefuls of sandwiches, cakes and crisps, everyone else at the party seems to be dancing, which isn’t something I feel comfortable doing with Sky, so I ask if she wants to watch TV and she swiftly agrees.

  We head inside, and that’s where we spend the rest of the evening, sitting on the sofa, watching old episodes of Friends and half listening to the increasingly loud sounds of the party outside. It feels good to be with her again, together but not having to talk. We only knew each other for a very short time, but somehow she’s part of who I am, and I have a feeling she always will be.

  I thought we’d drifted apart, but sitting next to her on the sofa, feeling her physically transformed yet utterly unchanged presence alongside me, I realise that even if months or years pass without any messages or phone calls, there’s a connection between us that will never break.

  When people ask me what happened that summer, how I ended up on TV screens all over the world, I can’t explain it. I can go through the events that took place, but I can’t get across how it changed me and made the whole world around me slide into focus in a new way. I think the only person who will ever really understand is the one who was up there in the treehouse with me.

  After a couple of hours, we go back outside to see what’s happening. The food and drink tables are now more or less bare. Most people are flopped on the rugs and blankets that have been laid down in front gardens, lolling around chatting. Only a hard core is left flailing their bodies around the patch of space below Rose’s speakers, and right in the middle, lit by a street lamp, is a middle-aged couple dancing cheek to cheek, in time with some slow inaudible rhythm of their own which bears no relation to the thumping dance music filling the air. I stare at these two people, my mother and father, holding one another for the first time in years, and wonder silently to myself what will happen next.

  Sky reaches out a hand and holds it in the air in front of me, palm upwards. ‘Want to dance?’ she says.

  Thank you, Hannah Sandford, Felicity Rubinstein, Beatrice Cross, Anna Swan, Nick de Somogyi and Fliss Stevens.

  Thanks also to Peter Wohlleben for his fascinating and informative book The Hidden Life of Trees.

  Thank you, Saul, Iris and Juno.

  Above all, thank you, Maggie O’Farrell.

  SUNDAY TIMES CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR

  SHORTLISTED FOR THE YA BOOK PRIZE

  AVAILABLE NOW

  Turn the page for a sneak peek …

  ‘COME DOWNSTAIRS, EVERYONE! FAMILY MEETING!’

  Even though I was mildly curious about why Dad was back from work so early, and what a ‘family meeting’ might involve, I stayed put in my room.

  ‘PIZZA!’ he added. ‘Last one down gets the Hawaiian!’

  Doors slammed, footsteps thundered down the staircase and I leaped up. After a brief tussle with Ethan in the kitchen doorway, during which Freya somehow managed to crawl between our legs and get the first slice, we all assembled around the table, eating straight from takeaway boxes spread over a layer of drawings, uncompleted homework, unopened letters and unread magazines.

  Ethan, who was seventeen and hadn’t worn any colour except black for the last three years, announced through a mouthful of pizza, ‘I don’t mind who gets custody, but I’m not moving out of my bedroom.’

  ‘Custody?’ said Mum.

  ‘Yeah. I’m not leaving, and I’m not going anywhere at the weekends.’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, love,’ said Mum. ‘We’re not getting divorced.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ethan. ‘So what’s all this about a family meeting?’

  Freya, who lived in a seven-year-old’s fantasy universe populated exclusively by fairies, unicorns and cats, temporarily tuned in to reality and began to cry. ‘You’re getting divorced?’

  Mum jumped out of her chair, dashed around the table and lifted Freya into her arms. ‘We’re not getting divorced. You mustn’t worry.’

  ‘But Ethan said you are!’

  ‘Ethan’s wrong.’

  ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’ said Freya. ‘How do I know you’re not just saying that to protect me?’

  ‘Ethan!’ snapped Mum. ‘Look what you’ve done. Tell Freya you made it up.’

  ‘I didn’t make it up.’

  ‘You did! Nobody said anything about divorce until you piped up.’

  ‘I worked it out for myself.’

  ‘INCORRECTLY! WE’RE NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!’

  ‘Why not?’ said Ethan.

  ‘What?’ replied Mum. ‘You’re asking me why we’re not getting a divorce?’

  ‘If you can’t even think of an answer, maybe we should be worried,’ said Ethan.

  ‘STOP!’ said Dad. ‘Rewind. Stay calm. There’s no divorce. I called this meeting because we have something to tell you.’

  ‘Trial separation?’ said Ethan.

  ‘No. It’s good news.’

  This shut everyone up. The idea of good news hadn’t occurred to us.

  ‘I sold my company,’ said Dad, leaning back in his chair, with a grin spreading across his face.

  Ethan, Freya and I stared at him blankly.

  ‘You have a company?’ I said.

  ‘Yes! Of course I do! What do you think I’ve been doing every day for the last six years?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Well, until last week I had a company. But now I’ve sold it!’

  He beamed at us, waiting for a response. None of us had any idea what he was talking about, or why he was making such a performance of this fantastically dull information. Freya, losing interest in the entire conversation, pulled a notebook from her pocket and began to draw.

  ‘For a lot of money,’ he added.

  Ethan’s eyes rose from his pizza.

  ‘When you say a lot … are you saying … ?’

  ‘We’re rich!’ said Mum, leaping up with Freya still in her arms and beginning to dance around the kitchen. ‘We’re rich! We’re rich! Goodbye, Stevenage! Goodbye, cramped, boxy little house! It’s going to be a whole new life! Nobody believed he could do it, but he did! He made it! We’re rich!’

  ‘How rich?’ said Ethan.

  ‘Comfortable,’ said Dad.

  ‘Stinking,’ said Mum.

  ‘Not stinking,’ said Dad. ‘Mildly smelly.’

  ‘Can I have a new phone?’ said Ethan.

  The only clue this might have been about to happen was Dad’s job. Or lack of one. When Freya was still a baby, he walked out on whatever it was he was doing back then – something that involved wearing a tie and getting home after I was in bed – and installed himself in the shed at the bottom of our garden. He spent months on end squirrelling around down there, dressed like he’d just crawled out of a skip (which, in fact, he often had), and from this point on, when people asked him what he did for a livi
ng, he said he was an ‘entrepreneur’. If he was trying to sound interesting, he sometimes said ‘inventor’.

  He was always coming and going with random bits of machinery, then occasionally he’d turn up in the kitchen wearing a suit, and we’d all be kind of, ‘Whoa! Who are you? How did you get into the house?’ But after making fun of him for looking like an employable adult, none of us ever remembered to ask him where he was going.

  One of those meetings must have generated a source of serious money, because at some point he stopped tinkering in the shed, upgraded his wardrobe from skip-diver to blind-man-stumbling-out-of-a-jumble-sale and went off to work in a warehouse somewhere. Or maybe it was an office. I never thought of asking him. He was just my dad, going out to work like everyone else’s dad. What this actually involved didn’t seem important. As long as he showed up at breakfast and weekends, and drove me where I needed to go, it didn’t occur to me to wonder what he did all day.

  Then there was a week when he flew off to America, carrying brand-new luggage and a floppy suit bag I’d never seen before. This time I remembered to ask what he was up to, but he just said ‘meetings’. There was something in the way Mum wished him luck as he set off that did seem odd – the way she said it, like she genuinely meant it – but a couple of minutes later I forgot all about the whole thing.

  It was just after he got home from America that our first-ever family meeting was called.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, interrupting Mum’s celebration dance. ‘What do you mean goodbye, Stevenage?’

  ‘You don’t think we’re going to stay here, do you?’ said Mum. ‘Rich people don’t live in Stevenage. They live in London! Dad’s sold his company, I’ve handed in my notice at work, and we can finally get out of this dump and move to London!’

  ‘But I like Stevenage,’ I said.

  ‘The only people who like Stevenage are people who’ve never been anywhere else,’ said Ethan.

  ‘I’ve been to the same places as you.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. And you’ve barely read a book in your life. Your idea of culture is ten-pin bowling.’