Operation Redwood

by S. Terrell French

  Julian frowned. He pictured ninety-six giant trunks lying on the forest floor and only four trees left standing. That couldn’t be right.

  He read on: “Large-scale logging of redwood began after the California gold rush of 1848 and continued steadily throughout the twentieth century. While redwood forests still blanket vast stretches of Northern California, most of these forests are less than 100 years old. Vestiges of the original, or ‘old-growth,’ redwood forest are protected today in areas such as the Redwood National Park and Humboldt State Park in Northern California.”

  Julian leaned back in his chair. Was Big Tree Grove, he wondered, one of the last vestiges of the original redwood forest?

  Sibley was home early that night, which meant a formal dinner in the dining room at seven o’clock sharp. Sitting at the long, polished table, Julian tried to think of a way to broach the topic of Big Tree. But his imagined questions all sounded completely fishy (“So, Uncle Sibley, any interesting new projects at work lately?”) or too obvious (“So, Uncle Sibley, bought any redwoods lately?”)

  Julian gave up and concentrated on the food. Besides the decidedly unvegetarian salmon, there were baked potatoes (acceptable), beet salad (dubious), and lima beans (clearly inedible). He was just trying the beets, which were sour and unpleasantly crunchy, when Daphne suddenly said, “Julian, there’s something we’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” She smiled the smile of a gracious hostess. “You know, summer’s just three weeks away, and we’ve made some plans we know you’re going to be very excited about.”

  He’d been expecting this announcement ever since he’d opened Sibley’s e-mail.

  “What’s that?” He fiddled with his napkin and tried to look innocent.

  “We’ve found this absolutely fabulous camp. It’s going to be a tremendous opportunity for you.”

  Of course, she wouldn’t admit she just wanted him out of the way.

  “I know you’re going to love it,” Daphne continued.

  “Anything but math camp, right?” Julian’s nerves were making him bold. “I heard they actually have such a thing. What a nightmare!”

  Daphne blanched. Julian looked at her with a smile of satisfaction that he hoped would pass for one of pleasant anticipation.

  Sibley, who was flipping through the business section of the newspaper, looked up at the unexpected silence.

  “Well, in fact …” Daphne hesitated and Julian smiled more broadly. “It’s called High Sights Academy. It’s not math camp … I would say more sciencey. Four weeks! Take a look!” She handed him a brochure. “And then, when that’s done—I just finalized this today—you’re off to study Mandarin! I mean, Sibley and I were saying how ridiculous it is that you don’t speak Chinese when you’re half-Chinese yourself! Right, Sibley?”

  Something about the way his aunt said “half-Chinese” always made it sound vaguely like an insult—or not an insult exactly, but something that made him less than Preston, who, at least in her view, wasn’t half anything.

  “Language of the future,” Sibley said. “In six weeks, you’ll know conversational Mandarin.”

  “You could talk to your mother’s family,” Daphne gushed.

  “They speak Cantonese,” Julian said. “Well, some of them. But they all speak English anyway.”

  “It’s not just to speak to them!” Daphne said with a trace of irritation. “Like Sibley says, it’s a very important language. A billion people! Your mom’s probably learning Mandarin right now. You two can practice together.”

  Julian doubted that his mom was learning much Mandarin. She’d tried some language tapes before she’d left and never got past “How are you?” He could still hear the counting in his head: ee, er, san, tse …

  “I’m sure your mother will be thrilled,” Daphne continued. “Of course, she hasn’t exactly been in touch. I sent her an e-mail last week, but I haven’t heard back.” She glanced meaningfully at Sibley.

  Hearing Daphne talk about his mom always made Julian a little queasy. He looked down at the brochure Daphne had given him, which featured a clump of goofy kids standing in front of a chalkboard, grinning broadly.

  “Well, Julian, do you have anything to say to your aunt?” Sibley said.

  “Thanks, Aunt Daphne,” Julian responded. “Math camp. Wow.”

  Daphne narrowed her eyes, then apparently decided to ignore Julian’s tone. “You leave the Monday after school lets out. There’s a bus that will take you to Fresno. Did I mention it’s through Fresno University? Very prestigious.”

  “Pricey,” Sibley added from behind the newspaper. “But worth it.”

  Julian stared at Daphne with loathing.

  “Of course, before you leave I thought we’d have a little party. Saturday night! We couldn’t let you leave without celebrating!” she said, then added with a saccharine smile, “Celebrating what a great time we’ve all had, of course.”

  Preston said, “Can we have ice-cream cake?”

  “Of course, darling. Ice-cream cake it is. And we’ll do takeout from Eliza’s. They have that fabulous roast duck and sesame chicken that you love, Sibley.” Daphne took out her BlackBerry and punched a few buttons. “Less than three weeks to go!” she said with poorly concealed glee.

  ulian sat through the next day of school in a kind of daze. As his teachers droned on and on, he became fixated on a single depressing thought: If he went to math camp and Mandarin camp all summer, he wouldn’t have a real summer vacation for more than a year! Two years of school without a break. Meanwhile, there were kids like Robin living in the United States of America who didn’t even have to go to school at all! That was injustice!

  After school, he just lay on Danny’s bed while Danny worked away on the latest e-mail to Robin. When he finished, he read it out loud:

  Julian watched a hummingbird dip into the feeder by Danny’s window. “You know, she doesn’t like it when you write like that. She thinks you’re making fun of her.”

  “Aw, she can take it! She’s a big girl.”

  “It would be nice to give her some good news for a change.”

  “What? Like, ‘Julian had a long talk with his uncle and convinced him that cutting down redwood trees is morally wrong’? Be realistic! We’re talking about Mr. CEO here!”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  They turned reluctantly to their homework. With the end of school approaching, their teachers were trying to cram as much into their heads as possible. Danny worked conscientiously for half an hour, then began to drum a syncopated beat with his pencil against his desk lamp. Finally, he turned to Julian and said, “Heard anything from your mom?”

  Julian reached into his back pocket. The postcard was still there and he unbent it and handed it to Danny.

  “Very touching!” Danny said. “‘Wish you were here.’ Very original.”

  “Aw, be quiet.” Julian studied the golden Buddha. “She’s doing good. She’s not in math camp.”

  Danny flipped the postcard onto Julian’s stomach and turned toward the computer. “New message from Robin Hood! See, if she were offended, she wouldn’t write back so quickly.”

  Julian sat up and looked at the screen:

  Julian hadn’t even gotten to the end of the e-mail when Danny cried out, “That girl is a genius!”

  “Danny!”

  “You can go to her house! Instead of math camp! It’s perfect!”

  “It’s not perfect! It’s crazy!”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first, I’m all signed up for High Sights Academy. Second, like Robin says, Sibley’s not going to send me off to live with his enemies.”

  “Say it’s an exchange program. Through FUN! He won’t even know!”

  “Come on. It would take Sibley about two seconds to figure out they live next to Big Tree Grove.”

  “You always look on the dark side,” Danny said in exasperation. “And you have no sense of adventure! You’re the most boring person on Earth. You’re going to live the boringest life e
ver and then bore yourself to death.”

  “I don’t see you running off to Robin’s.”

  “Umm,” Danny said in his airheaded girl voice, “am I, like, the one being sent to math camp here?”

  “Danny, there’s no way.”

  But Julian had pored over the pictures of Huckleberry Ranch on the FUN website until he knew them by heart: two goats, an orchard covered in pink blossoms, a mossy waterfall beneath towering redwoods. And, for a moment, he imagined a summer without points, without shoes, without math camp. He could walk down the shady path. Into the forest. Into Robin’s redwoods.

  Julian slipped into the house as the clock chimed seven and managed to settle into his designated chair just before Sibley stepped out of his office. After the perfunctory greetings, he was ignored. He picked discreetly at his salad, which was filled with nasty surprises like kidney beans and olives. Daphne was engaged in a long story about Preston’s school auction, which Sibley interrupted with sarcastic outbursts.

  Sometimes, in restaurants, Julian would see large families gathered together, everybody laughing and talking at once, and he would study them, trying to figure out what made them so happy. Robin’s family was probably like that. In his mind, Julian could see them clearly: a family of brawny Vikings, three giant sons, two fair daughters, living off the land and laughing at night around the dinner table.

  “You know, we usually strive to be cheerful at the dinner table. Not sullen.”

  Julian realized Daphne was talking to him. Sullen. Wasn’t that what Sibley had called him in the e-mail? Sullen. Like his father.

  “One point deduction. I’m sorry, Julian, but am I talking to myself? You really need to work on this.”

  “I didn’t even hear you!”

  “That’s exactly my point.”

  Now Julian really did feel sullen. And he’d lost the trail of what he’d been thinking. He’d been going along some pleasant path in his mind, but what was it? Now there was only Daphne’s smug expression. “That’s not fair,” he said softly.

  “Julian!” his uncle warned.

  “Talking back. Another point.” Daphne pursed her lips. “I won’t be treated this way in my own home.”

  “I hate this point stuff!”

  “Three points, Julian.” Daphne could have been calling out a tennis score. “Camp’s not starting a moment too soon,” she added under her breath.

  Thirty seconds ago, he’d been sitting at the table minding his own business and now, somehow, everything was his fault. He’d blundered into another one of Daphne’s invisible traps. “I don’t care about these stupid points!” he blurted out. “Why don’t you leave me alone? Why do you hate me so much?”

  Sibley stared at him for a moment with unblinking eyes. Then he cleared his throat and said in a strained voice, “Julian, you’re out of line. This may be hard for you to understand, but the fact that you’re my brother’s son creates certain obligations.”

  “You owed him one,” Julian said.

  “No,” Sibley said immediately. “No! He owed me. I never owed him a thing. I gave. He took. That’s the way it was.”

  Julian’s cheeks flushed. He felt like he’d been slapped, and he lowered his eyes and bit his lip.

  “But he was your brother, right?” Preston said in a worried voice. “So, you didn’t mind giving him stuff.”

  “Of course.” Sibley turned his glassy eyes toward Preston. “Of course I didn’t mind.”

  Julian couldn’t breathe. Something was squeezing the air out of his chest. He stood up abruptly and took his half-full plate to the kitchen. Then he ran up the staircase and into his room, locked the door, and threw himself on the bed. He blinked hard three times, then turned on his back and stared up at the blank square of the ceiling.

  With each breath, the block in his chest grew smaller and smaller until all he could feel was a dull ache. There was a small knock on his door, a pause, then the shuffling of footsteps down the hall. A burst of Daphne’s shrill laughter came from downstairs.

  Maybe math camp wouldn’t be so bad, Julian thought. It couldn’t be worse than Sibley’s.

  He opened his dresser drawer. There was the High Sights Academy brochure Daphne had given him, and next to it, a small pocketknife. It was longer than a typical pocketknife, and slimmer, with a circle of silver initials at the base: J.S.C. Julian picked it up and ran his thumb along its burnished ivory handle. He had a clear memory of taking the knife from his father’s pocket and opening and closing the two blades, intrigued by the satisfying way they clicked into place. His father had said the initials stood for Julian Super Clever.

  Julian set the knife back in the drawer and picked up the brochure. Inside, he read:

  Julian stared numbly at the words. His father would never have sent him to math camp. He loved crashing waves, storms, wild places. After a long moment, Julian picked up the telephone and called Danny.

  “Danny? It’s me. Maybe you were right.”

  “Of course I was,” Danny said sleepily. “What are we talking about here?”

  “Do you really think I could get to Robin’s? I mean, were you just being crazy, or do you really think it’s possible?”

  “Be calm, Julian,” Danny said, imitating the voice of Ms. Felicity, their favorite fifth-grade teacher. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Forget it. I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Julian said. “I should just go to math camp. It’s not going to kill me.”

  “No, no. Be brave! We make good plan,” Danny said, caveman-style. Then in his normal voice he added, “I’ll sleep on it. My brain works better when I’m unconscious. I’ll have a complete plan by eight a.m.”

  When he met Danny in the schoolyard the next morning, Julian half hoped that he’d forgotten all about their conversation the night before. But Danny immediately hustled him over to the corner of the chain-link fence and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “I’ve got the plan all figured out. It’s bulletproof.”

  “Are you sure that’s the right expression?”

  “First, the night before you go to camp, you sleep over at my house.”

  “OK.”

  “You tell Daphne we’ll take you to the math camp bus stop on Monday. And pick you up four weeks later. Tell her the day you get back is my birthday or something.”

  “It’s already sounding pretty complicated.”

  “This way, Sibley and Daphne will never even know that you went to Robin’s instead of math camp.”

  “If I don’t show up at math camp, don’t you think someone will notice?”

  “We’ll cancel. We’ll wait until the last minute and cancel.”

  “Cancel how?”

  “Just call up and say you’re not coming. My mom does it all the time—hotels, car reservations, anything. The people who answer the phone don’t care.”

  “Aw, Danny. I don’t know. I mean, Sibley would murder me if he found out. And I’d probably lose about ten thousand points. Plus, how am I going to get up there?”

  “Be calm.” Danny closed his eyes and struck a meditation pose, floating his hands at his sides and touching his thumbs to his middle fingers. Abruptly, he stopped and said, “Work with me here.”

  “You think I should go up there without even telling my uncle?”

  “You want to tell Sibley you’re going to Robin’s? Are you crazy?”

  “I was thinking we’d somehow trick him into letting me go.”

  “Great!” Danny said. “And how are you going to do that, exactly?”

  Julian shrugged.

  “As Sherlock Holmes says, ‘Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’ or, in your case, the Plan. I know it can work. I have a vision. Unless you really want to spend your whole summer being tormented by overachievers!”

  All through school the next day, Julian thought about the Plan. Maybe Danny was right. Maybe it would work. Sibley and Daphne would think he was at math camp. He could see Hu
ckleberry Ranch for himself. Robin sounded pretty nice (even if she did have a temper). She’d said her mom loved exchange students.

  The more he thought about the Plan, the more he thought it might actually succeed, if he and Danny were very careful and didn’t make any mistakes.

  During class, he worked on his list of things to do. By lunchtime, it read:

  Then he couldn’t think of anything to add, even though he felt certain there must be more than seven things he needed to do. During math, he added:

  After the last bell, he met Danny in front of school and showed him the list.

  “Hmmmm. Very good. Very good. I can see you’ve given this a great deal of thought,” Danny said, pulling on an imaginary beard. “Ze plan can now begin!”

  he evening of the good-bye party, Julian carefully packed his duffel bag, making sure he had clean underwear and slipping his ivory knife into an inside pocket. It might come in handy in the woods. When he went downstairs for dinner, the take-out Chinese had been placed on platters and Sibley and Daphne were sitting at either end of the table. Preston gave Julian a big smile and called out, “Happy Good-Bye!” Once Julian was seated, however, the celebratory mood seemed to dwindle. Daphne picked at her food and rattled on about her tennis games, while Sibley stared, preoccupied, at the walls. At least the food was good. In addition to the duck and chicken, there were steaming plates of noodles and stir-fried green beans and spicy tofu.

  In the middle of Daphne’s critique of her tennis partner, Sibley turned abruptly to Preston and said, “So, is that school of yours teaching you anything for all the money I’m sending them?”

  Preston squirmed. “I’m working on my final project. It’s a poster. With a bibliography.”

  “A bibliography? Excellent. And what subject did you choose?”

  “Well, we had to pick something on ecology. So I decided to do redwood trees.”

  Sibley’s blue eyes flickered into focus. “And what have you learned about redwood trees?”

  “I’m still kind of working on it. It’s not due until next week. I’m the last one to give my presentation.”