“Does your dad know about the tree house?” Julian asked.
“Obviously, the answer is no!” Robin said. “That’s why it’s a secret, remember?”
“What are you going to tell him, then?” Julian didn’t think he could stand being that boy again. He looked at Danny. After all, hadn’t Danny begged Bob to let him come back? Hadn’t he basically promised he wouldn’t cause trouble again? But Danny looked unperturbed.
“I’ll tell him we’re camping in Big Tree, OK? That’s true, right? It’s not even a half–truth, it’s entirely true!” She looked at Julian’s worried face. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Come on, Julian, don’t chicken out on us now!”
That night, for dessert, Nancy barbequed peaches over the coals. She handed Danny and Julian each a heaping bowl topped with vanilla ice cream. “It’s so nice to have you boys around. It reminds me of when John and Dave were your age.”
“The new fence looks great. And we’ve finished a good chunk of that trail too,” Bob said. “It would have taken me weeks to do by myself.”
“I’m helping too,” Molly said, stirring her ice cream around to make a pinkish soup.
“Sure you are, bean sprout. You’re a big help.”
“I’m helping too!” Jo–Jo said. Bob picked him up and started spooning ice cream into his mouth.
Julian ate slowly, matching each bite of warm, sticky peach with a bit of cold ice cream. He was perfectly happy eating his dessert and listening to the pleasant hum of the conversation when he heard Robin’s voice, urgent as always, saying, “Mom, can we camp out in Big Tree tomorrow night?”
Julian ate another bite of ice cream. Everything was so pleasant. Nobody was mad at him. And, if you thought about it, wasn’t Operation Redwood bound to be a failure, like Operation Break–In? They could just spend their last week having fun instead: picking berries and swimming in the river and hanging out in the tree house.
He saw a glance pass between Nancy and Bob. “I don’t see why not,” Nancy said.
“Can I go too?” Molly asked. “Please, Mom?”
“No!” Robin cried. “She’s too little. We want it to be just the four of us!”
Nancy sighed and studied her daughters’ faces, but before she could speak, Bob said, “Now, I don’t see why Molly can’t go with them. She’s been working hard too.”
“Dad! Please! She’s going to ruin everything!”
“Robin, that’s enough,” Bob said sharply. “Molly can join you and you’re going to include her and that’s that. We’ve let you have your friends up here for two weeks, and she doesn’t have anyone. And I don’t want to hear that you’re not being nice to her. Do you understand?” He looked hard at Robin and gave a warning glance to Ariel and the boys.
Robin looked down. Even in the waning light, Julian could see tears in her eyes. She stood up and started grabbing the dishes off the picnic table and taking them inside. Ariel jumped up to help her and Julian and Danny sat awkwardly in the silence.
“Maybe tonight would be a good night for a campfire,” Nancy said with a forced cheeriness. “Why don’t you gather some kindling.”
Danny, Julian, and Molly started scouring the ground for twigs and dry sticks. Jo–Jo followed them around saying, “What are you looking for? Sticks? Are you looking for sticks? Are you gonna start a fire?”
By the time Robin came out with marshmallows, the fire was burning cheerfully. They had a contest for the most perfectly toasted marshmallow. Julian, who had patiently turned his over the coals until it was an even tan, won hands down.
“Your marshmallow’s on fire,” Ariel pointed out to Danny.
“I don’t care. I like them burnt.” He held the flaming marsh–mallow under his face and made a zombie face. “Tonight the moon is full,” he said in a zombie tone, “and I am hungry.”
Jo–Jo started crying and hid his face in his mother’s shirt.
“Shame on you,” Robin said. “Scaring a little child.”
Danny blew out the marshmallow torch with a sheepish grin. “For my penance, I vill eat it.” He stuck the blackened marshmallow into his mouth and pulled it off the stick with his teeth.
As the fire died down, Bob brought out his guitar and Nancy and the girls began singing. They seemed to know an endless number of songs: rounds, nonsense songs, songs about hiking and canoeing and mountains and flowers. Julian and Danny didn’t know any of the words. Finally, at Julian’s insistence, Danny agreed to sing “Lean on Me.” Julian stumbled along with the refrain, and at the end everyone applauded. Later, as the boys crawled into the cold tent, they could still hear Bob picking out the melody to Danny’s song on his guitar.
The following evening, the four operatives, with Molly in tow, began their march toward Big Tree. Their backpacks were loaded down with as much food as they could carry: sandwiches, granola bars, pistachios, beef jerky, carrot sticks, cheese, apples, bottles of juice, and a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. In addition, they were each lugging their own water bottles, sleeping bags, and flashlights. Julian watched Molly’s backpack droop lower and lower. Finally, as they started up the switchbacks, he unhooked her water bottle from her backpack and attached it to his own. Molly gave him a grateful smile.
At the faucet, they caught their breath and refilled their water bottles. It was all downhill from there. Once they crossed the creek, Robin pointed to a peeling wooden shack almost hidden behind a giant redwood. “Take note: the outhouse,” she said with a meaningful grin. When they reached the fairy ring, Robin turned to her sister and said sternly, “OK, Molly, we didn’t want to bring you into this, but we have no choice. We’re going to show you something secret, but you have to promise, cross your heart and hope to die, no crossies, that you won’t tell until we say it’s OK. You can’t tell Mom or Dad unless I specifically say it’s OK or you’ll ruin everything. Do you understand?”
Molly’s pale face glowed in the shade of the trees. She opened her eyes wide and nodded solemnly.
“OK, everyone! Let’s go!” Robin commanded. “We’re almost there.” The others groaned, then readjusted their backpacks and trudged forward. When they reached the fallen tree, they clambered up unsteadily, weighed down by the heavy packs. Molly gave a little cry of surprise as the tree house came into view. “Hey, what’s that?”
Robin ignored her sister until they’d all reached the base of the two giant redwoods and thrown their packs on the ground. “This is our tree house,” Robin finally said. “You weren’t supposed to know about it until you were twelve and then there was supposed to be this really cool initiation with me and John and Dave, but since you insisted on coming, you’re going to miss all that, OK?” Robin looked down at her sister intently. “But the important thing is we have a plan. A secret plan. Do you understand?”
Molly nodded.
“You know how they want to cut down Big Tree Grove?”
Molly nodded again.
“Well, we’re going to stay up in the tree house to protest. Like Julia Butterfly Hill. Remember her?”
“For two years?” Molly’s orange eyebrows shot up in astonishment.
“Not for that long. But as long as we can. That’s us. Not you. You’re too little.”
Molly started to object but Robin cut her off with a fierce stare. “You’re lucky we let you come with us tonight. And this is a secret, remember?”
In a few minutes, Robin was at the top, lowering down the pulley seat. They let Molly have the first ride. She clenched the rope so tightly her knuckles turned white, but the pulley system was foolproof and soon she’d scrambled into the tree house and was waving down at the others.
For dinner that night they had cheese and crackers and carrot sticks and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, all tasting mildly of bug spray. Robin parceled out two cookies each for dessert. Then, because there were no grown–ups around, she handed out two more. When they were done, the girls spread out their sleeping bags inside the cabin. The boys set up on the deck under t
he open sky.
Julian looked at his watch. It was just after eight. “What are we going to do now?”
“It’s too early to sleep,” Robin said. “It’s not even dark yet.”
“It will be soon,” Julian said. “The days are getting shorter.” As soon as he said it, he felt a little sad. It made him feel like summer was almost over.
They decided to play hide and seek. They played, searching and tagging and racing through the forest, until they could barely see each other’s faces. Julian was the last one to be It. He found Robin and Ariel hiding together behind a rotting, moss–covered log and Danny inside a burned–out redwood cavity, but Molly was nowhere to be found.
“Help me find Molly,” he said to the others. “I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not under that big fern like the last two times.”
In the vanishing light, they called for her and searched behind every tree and stump. When Molly didn’t answer, the forest seemed to grow a shade darker. Even the sound of her name, ringing out over and over, began to sound ominous. Julian felt like he was in the opening scene of a horror film.
They gathered under the tree house.
“I’m getting worried,” said Ariel. “Maybe she wandered off somewhere.”
The children stood peering into the gloom. A few minutes earlier they had been running around laughing, but now they could barely make out the shapes of the giant trees against the dark sky. An owl hooted and then there was silence. Julian suddenly remembered the bears.
“Let’s get our flashlights,” Robin said. “Come on. We better start a search party.” She turned toward the pulley seat. Only then did they notice that it was not suspended above the ground where they’d left it, but was dangling just above their heads.
“Boo!” cried Molly, her pale face peering over the edge of the seat.
Ariel shrieked. Danny laughed. Julian started breathing again and Robin yelled, “You are crazy, Molly Elizabeth Elder! You scared me to death. Here I was worried sick about you and you’re playing tricks on us!” She gave the chair a shove and sent Molly swinging above their heads.
Molly started giggling. With her legs tucked up and her head bent down she was invisible again.
“That was awesome!” Danny said with admiration. “That was a brilliant hiding place.”
“Go up in the tree house and brush your teeth and send the chair down for the rest of us,” Robin said. “And if you pull another stunt like that, you’re sleeping on the ground tonight, where the salamanders will crawl all over you.”
“I’m going up after Molly. My heart is beating so fast I think I’m going to die,” Ariel said.
Danny was the last one up. He climbed out of the pulley seat and secured the rope around the metal cleat so they would be safe from wild animals, serial killers, or other predators. Molly kept saying, “Were you scared? Did I surprise you? You didn’t see me up there?”
They brushed their teeth, spitting their toothpaste over the railings, and the girls changed into their nightgowns inside the cabin. Finally, everyone settled down in their sleeping bags. When they turned off their flashlights, they were enveloped by the dark night. Julian heard a steady chirping noise and then something scuffling through the dry leaves. A raccoon? A bear? Didn’t mountain lions climb trees?
“Hey! Don’t bears and mountain lions climb trees?” he asked into the night.
“Not redwood trees!” Robin’s voice answered him. “There’s no branches! Where do you guys come up with this stuff!”
It was a clear night. Julian looked up at the millions of stars, so dense and dazzling here. Their light took millions of years to reach Earth. Some of the stars might already be gone, he thought. And by the time they see us, we might be gone too.
The tree creaked softly in the breeze. An owl hooted. He thought of Popo, alone in her house in Sacramento. On the other side of the Earth, in China, the sun would be shining. Star shine and sunshine, somehow he’d never realized they were the same, he thought dreamily, and then he drifted off to sleep.
he sound of the birds woke the children early. In the sunshine, the forest looked bright and ordinary again. For breakfast, they ate the apples and the rest of the chocolate–chip cookies and passed around a box of cereal. Danny and Julian started a game of crazy eights and Robin and Ariel joined in after the first round. Molly lay down with her chin in her hands, looking into the forest.
“Somebody’s coming,” she said so softly that only Julian heard. He craned forward and saw two men, dressed in jeans and T–shirts, walking slowly from tree to tree. One had a mustache and was carrying a can of spray paint. The other was older and wore glasses and a camouflage cap.
“Everybody down,” Julian whispered loudly.
Danny and the girls looked up from their cards, and Julian pointed at the two men. Robin crouched down behind one of the storage bins and the others quickly flattened themselves on top of the sleeping bags and peered through the railings.
Nobody spoke a word. They watched as the man with the paint can sprayed a blue slash on a giant redwood about twenty feet away.
“Boy, you don’t see trees like this anymore,” said the older man. He gave the tree an appreciative look and jotted a note on his clipboard.
“This place is a gold mine. My granddaddy’s place used to look just like this when I was a kid. If he hadn’t sold it, I’d be a rich man.”
“The rest of the property’s not bad either. There must be half a million dollars’ worth of fir back on that northern slope.”
“Yeah, but this here’s the real treasure.”
The spray–painter was standing right underneath them. They could see his brown mustache and the glint of his blue eyes through the cracks in the floorboards. “Hey, look up here,” he said. “There’s a tree house!”
“You better watch out, there might be somebody living up there.”
Julian felt a sharp poke in his side. Robin was motioning for everyone to stand up. When nobody moved, she gave them a dirty look and stood up tall, her chin thrust out. Julian and Danny jumped up next to her, and Ariel and Molly reluctantly followed.
The spray–painter made a long blue streak on one of the trunks below them.
“Hey, this is our tree house,” Robin yelled down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The spray–painter grabbed his chest and pantomimed having a heart attack. “Holy smokes!” he cried. “What are you doing up there?”
“What are you doing spray–painting our tree?” Robin demanded.
“The trees you’re marking,” Julian said, “are those the ones you’re cutting down?”
“That’s the way it goes, kids,” said the man with glasses. “Sorry. You’re going to have to build your tree house someplace else.”
“We don’t want to build it someplace else,” Danny said. “We like it right here. Why don’t you go cut down trees someplace else?”
“Because we’ve got a THP for these trees, that’s how come,” the spray–painter said.
Ariel stepped forward. “But these trees are so beautiful. You guys just said there’s not many of them left.”
“Listen, kids,” the older man said. “The harvest plan’s already approved. These trees are worth a bundle. They’re coming down.”
“Well, we’re not leaving,” said Robin.
The spray–painter grinned and glanced back over his shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got some juvenile tree sitters here.”
“OK, we’ll make a note of that in our report to Mr. Carter,” the older man responded with mock seriousness, writing something on the clipboard.
“You better! You better make a note of it, because Sibley Carter is his uncle!” Robin said, pointing at Julian.
The men stared up at them, confused. “What in the world are you talking about?” the older man said.
“This boy,” Robin grabbed Julian by the arm, “is the nephew of Sibley Carter. The Sibley Carter. The CEO of IPX.” She pulled Julian forward a little. “And he�
��s not leaving either. Not until you guys agree not to cut down any of these trees.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, it’s true,” Julian said. The squeak in his voice made him wince and he tried again, in a lower tone. “He’s my father’s brother.”
“If Sibley Carter was my uncle, I sure wouldn’t be living in a tree house,” the spray–painter said.
“What’s your name?” the older man asked.
“Julian.” And a little louder, “Julian Carter–Li.”
He started scribbling in his clipboard. “Any of the rest of you claiming to be Mr. Carter’s relatives?”
They shook their heads. Molly said, “My daddy’s Bob Elder.”
“Oh, you’re Bob’s kids.” The man made another note on his clipboard. “Did your daddy tell you to trespass on this property?”
Molly shook her head solemnly.
“I didn’t think so. You tell him Pete came by.” He stepped back and adjusted his cap. “Come on, let’s finish up here,” he said to the spray–painter. “We better make sure there’s no other kids hiding up in the trees.”
Robin watched them walk away, dismayed. “Tell Carter we’re not coming down!” she yelled. “We’re serious! He’ll have to chop us down!”
The spray–painter gave her a thumbs–up. Then the two men walked off into the forest, stopping every so often to mark another tree.
“Well, we showed them,” Danny said sourly. “They were shakin’ in their boots. I’m sure they’re going to go back and call the whole project off.”
Ariel was craning over the side of the railing. “Our beautiful trees,” she wailed. “They’ve put graffiti all over them. Look at that!”
They all stared down at the blue marks. The men were now nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe we can erase all the marks. So they won’t know which trees to cut,” Danny suggested.
“I don’t think you can erase spray paint,” Robin said.
“Well, paint over it, then,” Danny said. “With bark–colored paint.”
Nobody responded.
Operation Redwood Page 17
