Where I Belong

by Mary Downing Hahn

  I don’t want to give myself away, so I grin at the floor. No middle school next year—my wish come true. No, not completely true. What I wish is to be through with school and all that goes with it forever, safe in my tree house, deep in the woods, all by myself.

  “I recommend summer school,” Mrs. Funkhauser says. “If he passes the tests before school starts in the fall, he can go on to seventh grade with the rest of his class.”

  No. My smirk vanishes, wiped clean by the threat of summer school. I won’t go. They can’t make me. Summer is mine. Mine.

  “That’s a good idea,” Mrs. Clancy says, suddenly all chummy with Mrs. Funkhauser.

  “What do you think, Brendan?” Mrs. Funkhauser’s small brown eyes try to get inside my head, but I block them.

  I shrug. “I’m not going to summer school.”

  “Surely you don’t want to repeat sixth grade?”

  “Maybe I like sixth grade,” I say.

  “I don’t know what to do with him,” Mrs. Clancy tells Mrs. Funkhauser. “I’m at my wit’s end.”

  Wit’s end, wit’s end. I roll the words around in my head silently, liking the sound of them. I live at wit’s end. It’s a place you go when there’s nowhere else to go. Mrs. Clancy knows nothing about it. Her wits were lost a long time ago.

  “It’s very frustrating,” Mrs. Funkhauser says. “He’s not stupid, you know. I’ve seen his test scores. He simply doesn’t try. He reads, draws, and daydreams.”

  Now they’re talking about me like I’m not sitting in the same room with them. Well, in a way I’m not. I’m down in the woods, far away from them, beyond the sound of their voices as tinny as insects talking on a telephone.

  “He should be tested for ADD,” Mrs. Funkhauser says.

  “ADD?” Mrs. Clancy echoes.

  It sounds like a fatal disease. Something exotic transmitted by evil creatures who live deep in the sewer. If I have it, I’ll be dead in six months.

  “Attention-deficit disorder,” Mrs. Funkhauser says.

  Mrs. Clancy sighs. “When I was young, you were sent to the principal if you didn’t pay attention. You’d be paddled or kept after school.”

  “I can set up an appointment with the school psychologist,” Mrs. Funkhauser says.

  “Is there a charge for that?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’ll think about it. (It’s too much trouble, lazy brat, he’s not worth it, attention-deficit disorder my foot.) She gets to her feet, frowning. “Thank you for your time. I’ll enroll him in summer school. No matter what he says, I’m sure he doesn’t want to repeat sixth grade.”

  That shows how little she knows me and what I think, but it doesn’t matter. I already have a plan for the summer and it doesn’t include school.

  Mrs. Funkhauser stands up too. “Thanks for coming in, Mrs. Clancy. I hope you’ll reconsider the testing. I hate to see a smart boy waste his intelligence.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first person to waste his intelligence,” Mrs. Clancy says. “Kids today have no respect for anything. They don’t care about school or making anything of themselves. They’re looking for the easy way out. Just look at all the young girls having babies and living on welfare.”

  Mrs. Funkhauser looks puzzled. What do girls living on welfare have to do with attention-deficit disorder? Maybe that’s how they got pregnant? They weren’t paying attention?

  Mrs. Clancy walks out of the classroom as if she has something important to do. Go home, have a cup of coffee, and watch TV, that’s what she has to do.

  On the last day of school, Mrs. Funkhauser hands out our report cards. The other kids give each other high-fives. They’re going to middle school. Hooray.

  Careful to shield it from the prying eyes of the girl behind me, I take a quick look at my report. I’ve flunked everything except art. As predicted, I’m not going to middle school next fall—unless I do well in summer school. Which I won’t, because I don’t plan to go.

  When the dismissal buzzer sounds, I get up to run, but Mrs. Funkhauser stops me. “Not so fast, Brendan. I want to speak to you.”

  “Brenda flunked,” a kid shouts as he dashes out the door. “He’s too dumb to leave baby school!”

  Mrs. Funkhauser frowns. “Come here, Brendan.”

  I approach the dragon’s lair, a desk piled high with grade books, textbooks, and papers. If there’s any treasure, it’s well hidden.

  She pulls a sheet out of the pile. “This is your enrollment form for summer school. Please give it to your mother—your foster mother, that is—and have her fill it out.”

  I take it.

  “I warned you this would happen,” she says.

  I nod. Does that mouth know how to smile, I wonder.

  “You’re a smart boy, Brendan,” she says in the fake voice adults use when they’re pretending to be sincerely concerned about you. “I don’t understand why you refuse to do your schoolwork.”

  I shrug.

  “You can’t spend your whole life drawing and daydreaming.”

  Why not, I wonder.

  “Look at me when I talk to you, Brendan.” Her voice is the dragon’s now. No more pretending. She hates me.

  “Can I go now?”

  She sighs. Not sadly. She’s angry. “I don’t think I’ve taught you anything this year.”

  She’s right. I back away from the desk. “I have to go,” I mumble.

  “Suit yourself.” She stands up, her face flushed.

  Without looking back, I leave the classroom. Next year I’ll have a different teacher, but Mrs. Funkhauser is sure to give a full report on me, enumerating my faults, which I don’t need to repeat here, since everyone, including me, knows them already.

  No need to stop at the house today. Mrs. Clancy’s at work. She has a part-time job at the card shop in the mall. I watched her there once. She didn’t see me. It’s amazing how nice she can be to strangers. I guess that’s how she talked the social worker into giving me to her (Biggest mistake I ever made, the boy never appreciates a thing I do for him. He won’t even call me Mom).

  As soon as I cross the train tracks, I leave the ordinary world behind. The trees close in around me, deep and green and thick enough to hide me. I walk silently, a warrior’s walk disturbing nothing, attracting no attention, slipping from one dapple of sunshine to the next. A crow calls once, twice, three times. I stop and listen. Is it warning someone I’m here? I stand still, testing my hearing, my vision, straining to glimpse the Green Man.

  The crow caws again, farther away now, making its dark way through the woods.

  I climb to the platform and get my carving knife. Last week I found a fallen branch that hid a face in the twist and grain of the wood. Now I’m trying to free the face, to reveal its eyes, its nose, its mouth almost hidden by its beard and mustache. I think it’s going to be the Green Man.

  After a while, I notice the shadows are lengthening. The ground below me is darker than the branches over my head. Mrs. Clancy is home now, fixing dinner and fussing to herself about me (Where is that boy, he knows it’s dinnertime, if his food is cold he has no one to blame but himself).

  Reluctantly I put my knife and my carving into a hollow in the trunk and climb down. As soon as I step away from the tree, I sense someone nearby. A smell, maybe, a soundless movement, a stirring in the underbrush. I freeze and wait. Am I afraid? Maybe. Am I excited? Maybe. Should I run? If I do, will it chase me? Maybe maybe maybe.

  At last, I whisper, “Who’s there?” Immediately I feel stupid for asking such a silly, unoriginal question.

  Of course there’s no answer. Whatever I sensed is gone. Alone in the early summer twilight, I walk slowly through the woods, cross the tracks without looking back, and climb the hill toward the house.

  The first thing Mrs. Clancy wants to see is my report card. I make an elaborate search of my pockets and shake my head. “I don’t know what happened to it,” I tell her. “It must have fallen out on the way home.” Fallen into the t
rash can by the school steps, I think but do not say.

  “Did you pass?”

  “Of course I did.”

  She looks at me sharply (Little liar, do you expect me to believe that?). “I’ll call the school tomorrow,” she says.

  After dinner, I retreat to the safety of my bed and read The Hobbit until I’m too tired to follow the words. Then I lie awake in the dark and think about the Green Man. Was he hiding in the shadows watching me? Surely he’ll make himself known to me soon. I’ve treated his woods and his creatures with dignity and respect. He must see I’m worthy.

  But in my head, I hear Mrs. Clancy: Worthy? You think you’re worthy? Worthy of what?

  She’s never actually said this, or, for that matter, most of the things I imagine her saying. It’s what she thinks, though.

  What, you can read my mind? Don’t make me laugh.

  I wish I could turn off her voice. It’s like a radio without a volume control. It plays on and on in my head, one terrible song after another. You can’t, you’re not smart enough, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re selfish and inconsiderate, and all you think about is yourself. What’s going to become of you?

  I pull the pillow over my head, but it doesn’t silence Mrs. Clancy. Nothing silences Mrs. Clancy.

  FIVE

  WHEN MRS. CLANCY comes home from work the next day, she says, “I stopped at your school this afternoon and talked to Mrs. Funkhauser. She told me she had no choice but to fail you.”

  She waves a copy of my report card. “While I was there, I enrolled you in summer school. You better pass so you can go on to seventh grade with your classmates.”

  Tossing my report card on the table, she adds, “Classes start next week at nine a.m. I’ll drive you there myself.”

  During dinner, she goes on and on about how disappointed in me she is. “F’s in everything except an A in art,” she says. “Where do you think that will get you in life?”

  She loves asking the big questions about Life. Which of course is her concept of the real world. Life is the place you go to die before you die. Life turns you into a boring person who has a job he hates. Life dries up your brain. Life makes you think money and success are important. Life is for grownups. I don’t plan to go there. So I sit at the table slowly chewing my way through lumpy mashed potatoes and gray string beans, and cover the pork chop with my napkin when she’s not looking. I’ve heard the Life spiel so often, I don’t need to listen.

  “Don’t you have anything to say, Brendan?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’m talking about your Future. Don’t you care what happens to you?”

  Future—just another word for Life.

  I shrug. What happens happens, I think. No sense worrying or planning or expecting things. One speeding dump truck can wipe you off the earth.

  I pick up my plate and scrape my pork chop into the garbage can, making sure my napkin still covers it. If only I had a dog. I could sneak the pork chop to him and he’d destroy the evidence. Maybe if I make it to real life, I’ll get myself a dog as a reward. A big one to protect me, maybe a German shepherd or, even better, a tame wolf.

  Mrs. Clancy follows me out of the kitchen. She’s relentless.

  “Can’t I talk any sense into your head? Won’t you even listen to what I’m telling you? It’s for your own good, Brendan. Your own good.”

  Funny how for my own good is always for her own good.

  I don’t say anything, I don’t look at her. I go to my room and shut the door and start drawing.

  The next morning I’m up at six a.m. and heading for the woods before Mrs. Clancy is awake. It’s Saturday. Three joggers run past me on the trail along the train tracks, red-faced, huffing, sweating, their faces all screwed up. Maybe when you’re grown up, running hurts. From the looks of the men, it’s certainly not fun for them.

  Last night I waited until Mrs. Clancy went to bed—she was on Facebook later than usual, probably posting messages about the ungrateful, difficult, moody foster kid she’s stuck with. But sometime after midnight I raided the spotless refrigerator for bread, fruit, and cheese. I now have plenty for myself and someone else if he should choose to join me.

  I cross the tracks and head into the cool, damp woods. Quietly. Calmly. Breathing in the smells of moss and rotting leaves and dirt, listening to birdcalls of all sorts coming from every direction. One of the books I keep in my tree house is a copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America.

  I bought it for a quarter at the library’s used book sale. It’s an old edition, and mildew spots the yellowing pages, but birds don’t change. A jay’s a jay, a crow’s a crow, a red-tailed hawk’s a red-tailed hawk. I’ve learned to identify almost every bird in the woods, not only by its song but also by its appearance. I hear wrens in the thickets and mockingbirds and cardinals in the trees. A hawk cries sweetly overhead. And the crows are making a racket near my tree. Something’s disturbing them, something’s not right.

  Taking care to make no noise, I sneak through the woods until I’m in sight of my tree. A dozen or more crows populate its branches. At first I’m puzzled. Why are they there? Why are they cawing?

  Then I see him. A man is asleep on the ground under my tree. His clothes are so faded, they have no color and blend in with the earth. His skin is brown, and his beard is long and bushy. He’s weathered and worn and probably as old as the forest.

  I stay where I am, holding my breath. It’s him. It must be. The Green Man has come at last.

  But I hesitate at the edge of the clearing, still hidden in the undergrowth, just in case it’s not him after all. He has a few leaves in his hair and his beard. They aren’t growing from his face or sprouting from his mouth, yet I sense a sort of wildness about him. He’s no ordinary man. He belongs here in the forest.

  I tiptoe closer as silently as I can. I don’t want to frighten him. When I’m about a foot from him, I sit down on the ground and watch him sleep. His chest rises and falls—he snores softly, sighs. Once in a while he twitches like a dog when it’s dreaming.

  Above my head, the crows hop back and forth on the branches and flap their wings. They caw loudly—Wake up, wake up. There’s a stranger nearby.

  The man opens his eyes. I draw back, suddenly afraid.

  “Where did you come from?” His voice is deep and rumbly.

  I hesitate. Does he mean literally or figuratively? I take a guess. “That’s my tree house up there.” I point at the platform even though it’s almost invisible at this time of year.

  “You live in a tree?”

  I shake my head. “I wish I did.”

  He studies me. His eyes are kind but puzzled. Laugh lines make deep wrinkles in his cheeks. “Most boys run away when they see me,” he says.

  “I’m not scared,” I tell him. “I know who you are.”

  “Is that so?”

  I lean closer and whisper, “You’re the Green Man. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”

  He smiles and his eyes almost disappear into the network of lines surrounding them.

  “This is your forest,” I go on. “You protect it and all that dwell within it. Birds, rabbits, foxes, deer, squirrels. Maybe even unicorns.”

  “Especially unicorns,” he says solemnly. “But they’re rare these days. Very rare. It’s been years since I’ve seen one.”

  We sit quietly for a moment. The woods are so still, I can hear the creek running over stones. A squirrel chirrs in the tree above us. The crows fly away, dark shapes in the green light of the forest. A deer bounds across a clear space near us, white tail up.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask. “I brought enough food to share with you—just in case I finally met you.”

  He nods and I spread out Mrs. Clancy’s food.

  We eat together, the Green Man and I. A few sparrows appear and peck at crumbs. The Green Man tosses a chunk of bread toward a squirrel, who wastes no time grabbing it and retreating to a branch to eat it.
r />   “Greedy little bugger,” he says. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he turns his attention to me. “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Brendan Doyle,” I tell him. Even though he didn’t ask, I add, “I live with Mrs. Clancy. She’s my foster so-called mother.”

  His sky blue eyes study me. “Where are your real parents?”

  I tell him the truth, even though it hurts me to say it. “My mother left me at the hospital after I was born. Nobody knows who she was or where she went. Same with my father. Nobody knows who he was either.”

  I pause and clear my throat. I look down at the ground. I keep my voice steady. “Neither one of them wanted me. And neither did anyone else.”

  He starts to say something, but I clear my throat again and tell him things I’ve never told anyone. “So the hospital sent me to Social Services. They put me with a family specially trained to care for infants, but when I was two, they moved me to another family. I stayed with them until I was five. Then the mother had triplets, and the agency had to find a new foster parent.”

  What I don’t tell him are the things I used to think about my mother—she had amnesia after I was born and forgot who she was, she forgot she had a baby, she might remember someday and come looking for me.

  I certainly don’t tell him what the social worker said, what she thought I didn’t hear, that my mother used drugs and I was a crack baby.

  The Green Man’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “So that’s when Mrs. Clancy entered the picture?”

  “No,” I say, “the Baileys were before her. They had a bunch of kids, some their own, others fosters like me. I didn’t get along with them and I didn’t try to fit in and I ran away once or twice. I didn’t go far, but after the third time, they decided I was too much trouble and they didn’t want me anymore.”

  I don’t tell him the two older boys beat me up every day, that I wet my bed, that Mrs. Bailey made me wash the sheets and made sure all the other kids knew I was a baby-wet-the-bed. I didn’t tell him the other foster kids told everybody at school and they made fun of me and called me names.