The sky flickered again and Robin started counting aloud—“one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand . . .” There was another low rumble.
“Five seconds!” Robin said. “That means the storm is still a mile away.”
Danny looked up at the sky, his face tense. “Let’s get out of here! I’m serious. Let’s go back to the house while we still can!”
“We’re safer here,” Robin said. “Besides, it’s too late. It’s already dark.”
There was another bolt of lightning, then a low crescendo of sound that exploded into an earsplitting clap of thunder.
Ariel gave a little shriek and Danny cried, “We’re going to die!” They ducked into the cabin. It was even darker inside than out, and Julian had to blink a few times before he could see a thing. Finally, Danny, who’d been fumbling through the bags, turned on his flashlight. In its eerie white glow, he crossed himself quickly. “Oh, God, don’t strike this tree house!” he muttered. “I promise to be good for the rest of my life!”
Robin was still standing near the doorway, peering into the forest. “That was a big one,” she said. “But I don’t see any flames. I don’t think it hit anything.”
“Remember that tree in town?” Ariel said. “It was hit by lightning and burned to the ground.”
A forest fire. Or a lightning strike. They weren’t so uncommon. At the Monterey Aquarium, Julian had learned you were more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a shark and he’d always found that reassuring when he was swimming in the Bay. But, now, sitting thirty feet up in a tree in the middle of a lightning storm, Julian didn’t find it so comforting.
There was another crash of thunder. Danny’s flashlight dimmed and went out.
“Oh, great!” he said in a pained voice. “Doesn’t anybody else have a flashlight?”
Julian fumbled around, but the bags were all jumbled together, and it was almost completely dark.
The tree house trembled, and all at once the rustling sound of the trees seemed to expand until it was as loud as a rushing waterfall. Dense rain descended on the forest. With the rain, the last traces of light vanished.
“I can’t see you guys. I can’t even see my own hand,” Danny said with a note of panic in his voice.
Ariel’s voice came out of the blackness. “I’m right here, Danny.”
“Me too. I’m here,” came Robin’s voice.
“I’m right next to you,” Julian said. He scooted a little to the right until his knee hit what he thought was Danny’s leg. “See?”
The next clap of thunder was so loud that Julian jumped. Danny made a small whimper. A flash of lightning electrified the sky and revealed, for an instant, the inside of the cabin, and Julian could see that, underneath the darkness, they were all still there.
Then it was pitch black again. They sat silently, listening to the heavy drone of the rain. Each neon flash in the sky, punctuated by a crack like a shotgun, was like a warning that they were in mortal danger. But it was too late to go back. Robin was right. They were better off in the tree house than stumbling blindly through the forest.
The floorboards creaked beneath their feet. Whether I’m going to die now, Julian thought, is out of my control. In the terrible blackness, he felt half dead already. He shifted his knee against Danny’s leg just to reassure himself that they were both still alive.
The trees shuddered. Surely, they had been through worse than this, Julian reasoned. After all those years, what was the chance that the trees would be struck by lightning tonight? What was the chance that lightning would strike down the four of them, when they had lived such a short time?
On and on went the storm—a flash, a crack of thunder, and then the sound of rain gusting through the darkness.
Each time the wind rose, Julian could feel the tree trunks tensing and bending beneath them. He knew, of course, that, technically, trees were alive. He’d studied biology in school. He’d learned about photosynthesis and respiration and cell division. But now, for the first time, he understood that a tree was an actual living thing—unseeing, unhearing, unconscious, but alive and perhaps aware in some other way, swaying with the wind, absorbing the rain, breathing. Their tree house was anchored to a living thing. And all around them, a whole forest of living things bowed under the forces of wind and rain and electricity.
Nobody said a word. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the rain stopped.
The rustling of the trees rose up again through the darkness. The trees swayed back and forth, but stayed rooted in place. They had stood there, Julian thought, for a thousand summers and a thousand winters. And each year would have had at least ten bad storms, he figured, storms where the rain pelted down and the wind howled. Ten thousand storms. And somehow the trees had survived. And even when these trees died, the forest would still be there. After all, for a tree to die wasn’t the same as a person, was it? A tree lived for hundreds of years, and how could you even say when it died? Old logs lay on the forest floor, slowly turning to dirt, and little saplings grew right out of their trunks.
Through the windows, Julian could see the brilliant flashes lighting up the sky. He breathed in and out in the blackness, listening to the hushed whispering of the trees. And slowly, the periods of silence grew longer and longer. The growl of the thunder and the flickers of lightning grew fainter. An owl hooted, and hooted again. The storm had passed.
“It’s over,” Julian said at last.
They sat without speaking for another minute. “I guess we should try to find our sleeping bags,” Robin finally said, yawning loudly. Julian could hear her rummaging around. There was a clank and, finally, the glare of her electric lantern lit up the small cabin.
Julian walked outside and touched the floor of the deck. It was barely damp. The trees had acted as a kind of leaky umbrella over them. Danny was still slumped against the cabin wall. Julian grabbed their sleeping bags and pillows from the cabin and lay them out on the floorboards.
“Come on, Danny,” he said. “It’s all set up.” Without saying a word, Danny crawled out onto the deck and into his sleeping bag. Between the branches, Julian could see the stars blinking into view again.
“That was not fun,” Danny said in a low, rough voice. “You really shouldn’t be in a tree during a lightning storm.”
“All’s well that ends well,” Julian said.
“Fortunately, we’re not dead,” Danny said. “Unfortunately, now I have to be good for the rest of my life.”
Julian smiled in the darkness. “You know what, Danny?” he said after a moment.
“What?”
“I found that letter you wrote to Bob.” Julian paused. “I didn’t mean to, but—it was a good idea.”
“What are you? An actual undercover agent?” Danny said. “Jeez.”
Every minute it seemed like more stars filled up the black spaces in the night sky. It was like the storm had swept the air clean. Julian wasn’t tired now. He was wide awake and filled up with something like happiness.
Danny sighed and gave a little sniff.
“Lean on me,” Julian sang out suddenly in the darkness, “when you’re not strong.”
There was a pause and Danny bellowed at the top of his lungs, “I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on!”
“Oh! Our poor ears!” yelled Robin.
“Have some consideration!” Ariel said. “We’re trying to get a little sleep over here.”
“Well, you don’t hear me complaining about your snoring!” Danny said. “Mercy! The two of you are like a pair of elephants over there. Here we’ve been suffering in silence every night and you jump down our throats just for singing you a little lullaby.”
Julian heard muffled whispers and then the two girls started singing a round. It had only one verse and they sang it over and over.
“Stop! Stop!” the boys shouted.
“Truce,” said Julian. “No more singing!”
Robin stopped and Ariel finished out the ver
se in her thin soprano. After her last note, the only sound was the soft shush of the redwood canopy, far above them.
he next morning, the forest looked scrubbed and fresh. The rain had washed away a summer’s worth of dust. The girls went off to work duty, promising to check the paper to see if Bruce’s story had run. Just before noon, Julian heard a triumphant shout. Robin was running up the path, waving a newspaper in her hand, with Ariel and Molly close behind.
“Quick!” Danny yelled down. “Send up the paper in the pulley seat. We want to read it!”
“We haven’t even read it yet!” Robin called back indignantly. “We saved it so we could all read the story together.”
When all the girls were up, Robin spread the paper on the floor of the deck, turned a few pages, and there they all were, leaning over the tree-house railing and smiling. Page A6, not the best, Julian thought. But the headline was good: ANCIENT REDWOOD STANDS VANISH AS DEMAND FOR OLD–GROWTH CONTINUES.
Underneath their picture it said “Julian Carter-Li, Danny Lopez, Ariel Glasser, and Robin Elder stage a tree–house protest of IPX’s plan to clear-cut Big Tree Grove in Mendocino County.”
Julian’s eyes went up to the top of the story:
While most kids are still in camp, four children in the heart of Mendocino County have found a different summertime activity: protesting the logging of ancient redwoods. Big Tree Grove is part of a 120-acre parcel recently acquired by San Francisco investment firm IPX Investment Corp. In April, the state approved a timber harvest plan that would permit logging of the parcel’s rare old-growth redwoods, as well as a number of younger stands.
“Big Tree Grove has been here so long. It would be a terrible thing to see it destroyed,” said Julian Carter-Li. Julian, a student at Filbert Middle School in San Francisco, also happens to be the nephew of Sibley Carter, who stepped up as the new CEO of IPX last September. Coincidentally, he says he met Robin Elder, 12, who lives next door to Big Tree Grove, through a pen-pal program.
“No more logging of old-growth,” Robin declared, looking like a future forest activist.
Much of the original redwood forest in this area was logged by the 1920s and timber harvesting continued to dominate the economy through most of the twentieth century. Today, while logging still brings in tens of mil-lions of dollars a year, the volume of logs from Mendocino County is a fraction of historic levels. Local mill closures, increasing government regulation, and competition from overseas logging are leading to a change in the timber culture of the region.
Less than five percent of the original redwood forest remains today, most protected in state and federal parks. The most recent major governmental acquisition was the joint state and federal purchase of 7,500 acres of the Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County in 1999, which preserved the largest tracts of old-growth then in private hands. The few pockets of unprotected old-growth remaining today are subject to harvesting under the state’s forestry laws.
The article continued with interviews with state employees, wildlife biologists, and an IPX spokeswoman. Julian skimmed to the last paragraph, which read:
Ariel Glasser, 11, who grew up not far from Big Tree Grove, says she plans to stay in the tree house as long as she can. “My mother used to play in Big Tree Grove when she was a little girl,” she said. “Look at all this beauty. If they keep cutting down the trees, nobody will even remember what a forest is supposed to look like.”
Julian watched Ariel smile as she came to the end of the article. “So, what do you guys think?” he said.
“Here I thought I was being so articulate and witty,” Danny said in an injured tone, “and I didn’t even get a quote.”
Julian frowned and looked at the page more closely. “Well, you got the photo op. You’re the only one who looks halfway decent.” It was true. Robin was squinting, Ariel’s crooked smile was crookeder than usual, and Julian was staring slightly off to the side. Danny grinned at the camera like a movie star.
“Do you think people are reading it?” Ariel said.
“Sure they’re reading it.” Robin looked up at last from the paper. “Thousands and thousands of people. It’s exactly what we needed. This article is going to put Big Tree Grove on the map.”
But the forest was so quiet for the next two days that it was hard to believe their story was being broadcast to the world. The children continued to work on the trail in the morning and prepare their meals in the evening. They read and reread the article until they practically had it memorized. And all the time, they kept waiting for something to happen, but Big Tree Grove remained as still as ever.
Friday afternoon, Molly, Ariel, and the boys were playing poker on the deck while Robin sat brooding in the corner. “You know,” she said, “even after you leave on Sunday, I can still do Operation Redwood. I mean, Julia Butterfly Hill lived by herself for two whole years.”
“I could stay too.” Molly put down two pairs.
“After all, we can’t just abandon Operation Redwood. We’ve only been here six nights. That’s nothing. We can’t expect over-night success.”
“What do you want? A big battle with IPX, with armed guards and everything?” Danny said. Julian was in the middle of dealing the next hand, but something in Danny’s tone made him look up.
“I don’t know,” Robin said. “Anything’s better than this.”
“Well,” Danny said, shifting his gaze. “Be careful what you wish for, because there’s something big and ugly coming toward us. And it’s not in a good mood.”
Julian whipped around and saw two men who looked like security guards clomping through the forest. Pete, the man with the clipboard, was close behind. And following purposefully after them, his face set in stone, was Sibley.
Robin bolted up, leaped over to the pulley seat, and tied the rope to the cleat. “Remember, there’s nothing they can do to us. We’re safe up here.”
The four men stopped, and Pete pointed up at the tree house. Sibley gave a sharp nod, then strode forward alone. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, a gold tie, and shiny black shoes. He looked, Julian thought, like an executive who’d been kidnapped and released in the middle of the wilderness to find his way home.
“Where are these guys coming from?” Julian asked in a low voice.
“Greeley Road isn’t far,” Robin whispered. “It’s an easy walk from the road to here.”
They watched in silence as Sibley crunched toward them. When he was directly below the tree house, he stopped and stood looking up at them with a grim expression. “Julian. Danny. Girls,” he finally said.
“Hi, Uncle Sibley,” Julian said.
“Hey, Mr. Car-ter!” Danny was looking forward to this, Julian could tell.
Sibley’s expression didn’t change. “I knew you were hiding something, Julian,” he said at last. “I knew you came up here for some reason. No wonder you wouldn’t talk.” He stared at Julian as if he were trying to calculate what other schemes he might have cooked up. “Look, you’ve had your fun. It’s time to come down now.”
The children were silent.
“We can’t come down,” Julian finally said. “We can’t come down until you promise to save Big Tree Grove.”
“Julian, this isn’t a game. You need to come down immediately.”
Nobody spoke. A cloud suddenly shifted so that the sun was shining directly into Sibley’s face. He squinted and loosened his necktie.
“This land doesn’t belong to me, Julian,” Sibley began in a more conciliatory tone. “It’s IPX property. That tree house is IPX property. It’s not safe. You could break your necks.”
“Kids have been playing up here for years and years,” Robin said. “Nobody’s ever gotten hurt.”
“But you have to admit, it could happen.”
“We’re not admitting it!” Danny yelled down.
“Listen, you kids are trespassing on private property. That’s against the law. If you come down now, we won’t have to press charges.”
“We’re not
coming down,” Robin said.
Sibley didn’t even look at Robin. His eyes were focused on Julian. “I know you probably thought we were too tough on you after you ran away. I was your age once. We were doing what we thought was best.”
Julian considered. “Uncle Sibley, I didn’t come up here because of that. Or because of you. We’re doing this for Big Tree Grove. We just want people to know what’s happening so you won’t cut it down. We want you to change your mind.”
“Julian, I am not the bad guy here.” Sibley took out a hand—kerchief and wiped his gleaming brow. “This was a done deal before I even came on board. I tried to explain that to Preston this morning. It’s bad enough you’re giving IPX all this negative publicity. Now my own son thinks I’m the bad guy.”
“Preston read the article?” Julian couldn’t help smiling.
Sibley glared at him. “And of course, somebody gave him the idea to do a report on redwoods. You must think you’re pretty clever.”
“Preston did that whole report himself. I didn’t help him at all,” Julian said. “You shouldn’t cut down Big Tree. Even Preston knows that. Everything isn’t about making money.”
“IPX is about making money,” Sibley said in a low voice. “That’s what we do.”
“But there must be another way,” Julian protested.
“There’s always costs. There’s always risk. That’s the way the world works. Money doesn’t just grow on trees.” Sibley attempted a strained smile.
“There’s only four percent left,” Julian said.
“We’ll plant new trees.”
“It’s not enough. We can’t come down. Please, don’t cut down Big Tree Grove. Please.”
“There are ways to make you come down,” Sibley said. “Though we’d rather not.”
Operation Redwood Page 19
