by Jaco Jacobs
Next to me Leila sniffed loudly. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Without a word I passed her the kitchen dishcloth.
Mrs Merriman cleared her throat again. ‘The two of you will have to excuse me today.’ Suddenly her voice sounded normal again. ‘I have to go and make arrangements for this poor dog and her puppies to be taken care of. Unfortunately I have no more sandwiches but I still have your cold drinks. Don’t let that man from the municipality bully you! What you’re doing here is a good thing. A good and a brave and a beautiful thing. Far too few good things are happening in the world.’
I stared after Mrs Merriman as she walked away. Leila’s puffy eyes made me uncomfortable, so I preferred not to look at her.
I never knew what to do when girls cried. My mum wasn’t like other mothers who cried at the movies. Maybe that was a good thing. Rohan, my best mate who had gone to America for the holidays, had a mother who cried about everything. She once burst into tears when our rugby team lost a match. For an entire week after that, Rohan seriously considered taking up chess.
It was starting to get warm. I stretched my legs and tried to make myself comfortable against the trunk of the tree.
‘I wonder what that journalist is going to write about us in the paper?’ I said to Leila.
She just shrugged.
‘You don’t even look glad about it,’ I said. ‘But my little brother actually did us a favour. If people read about the tree, we could have a better chance of saving it.’
I looked up.
Had I ever truly looked at a tree? All of a sudden, it felt as if I was looking at the trees in the park with new eyes. The tree we were sitting in was hardly ever quiet. The leaves kept rustling lightly, even if you couldn’t feel the wind blowing, and they kept changing colour – greyish green, shiny green, khaki-green, shadowy green. Until the day before, I had never even known that white karee trees existed. Leila, on the other hand, could even remember the tree’s scientific name.
‘D’you know some other trees as well?’ I asked.
Leila started to name all our tree’s neighbours. ‘Blue gum. Pine. White stinkwood. Sweet thorn. Cabbage tree.’
‘How come you know all the names?’ I asked.
Leila shrugged. ‘It’s just something I know.’
At lunchtime, Leila’s mum brought us some sandwiches and fruit. I was happy for an excuse to climb down because it felt as if my backside had been chafed raw. When my grandfather was ill, I heard that you could get bedsores from lying in bed for too long. I wondered whether you could get tree-sores from sitting in a tree for too long.
Leila ate her sandwiches up in the tree. So far that day she had climbed down only once, to use the restroom at the bowling club.
After we’d eaten, Leila’s mum sat down under the tree, read for a while and then went back home.
Leila and I remained in the tree, alone again. But not for long.
Soon I saw two children walking towards us. I groaned when I recognized Donovan’s tilted cap and help-me-look-strong shirt, and Adrian’s button-up shirt. My little brother refused to wear T-shirts – he was only nine years old but he dressed like an adult. A very boring adult. Apparently it had something to do with his business and the fact that he wanted people to take him seriously.
‘Hey, tree-hugger,’ Donovan said sneeringly.
‘Hello, Donovan,’ answered Leila cheerfully.
Donovan’s cheeks went red. ‘Sorry, I was actually speaking to that baboon,’ he said.
I ignored him. ‘Adrian, if Mum finds out that you called the paper and tried to make money from this, she’s going to skin you alive and make some shoes so she can kick your arse.’ It was the same creepy threat my mum always used when we’d been up to no good.
My little brother rolled his eyes. ‘Who’s going to tell her – you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Don’t forget you still owe me heaps of money.’ He took something from his pocket. ‘And I think you probably want this.’ He triumphantly held my PSP in the air.
‘That thing doesn’t work anyway,’ I said.
‘I know someone who fixes electronic stuff,’ he said. ‘You owe me for that as well.’
‘I didn’t tell you to have it fixed,’ I muttered.
But Adrian was one step ahead of me yet again – he obviously knew I was bored to death up there in the tree. In my little brother’s mind even someone’s boredom was an opportunity to make money.
‘Mum told us to bring your toiletry bag,’ said Donovan. ‘This is the first and last time. Don’t think I’m going to run after you every day just because you’re sitting in a stupid tree.’
‘What did Mum say when she got home last night?’ I asked gingerly.
Donovan whistled through his teeth. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to know. All hell broke loose. Mum was worse than a T-rex with toothache. You’d better come home – you’re messing up everyone’s holiday.’
‘I’m glad you’re missing me that much,’ I said sarcastically.
‘C’mon, Adrian. I’m not going to stand here all day, yakking to our crazy brother in the tree,’ said Donovan.
When they turned to leave, I quickly called, ‘Adrian, wait! Erm…the PlayStation?’
My little brother grinned as he handed it over. I could pretty much see the dollar signs in his eyes, like in the comics.
After they’d left, I held the PSP out to Leila. ‘You want to play?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘No, you go ahead.’
Adrian had put Pro Evolution Soccer into the PSP. Not my favourite but at least it would help pass the time.
And talking about time – thanks to the PSP, I could see what time it was. It was 3:17 and my team had just lost spectacularly against Brazil, when three municipal pickups stopped some distance from us.
I gave Leila a worried look.
Teams of workmen got off the pickups. Red-face started barking orders while Rat-face helped the workers to unload their equipment.
‘Sweet thorn,’ Leila said softly, as if it was a secret, magic word.
It took a moment before I realized it was the name of a tree. The tree the municipal workers had tackled.
A chainsaw started buzzing.
As if hypnotized, I sat watching as they cut down the tree. At first the chainsaw roared like a furious predator, and then there was an awful tearing sound, followed by a muffled thump. It looked as if a final shudder was going through the tree.
The air smelled of fresh sawdust. In the ensuing silence, not even one bird chirped.
I slowly breathed out and looked at Leila.
She was sitting there, staring into the distance as if she hadn’t seen anything, but the white lines around her mouth told me that she was clenching her teeth.
When she looked at me, there were ice splinters in her blue eyes.
10
Milly
It was late evening. Our second night in the tree.
I yawned. Below us on the ground I could hear Leila’s mum breathing peacefully. I wasn’t sure how, but I just knew Leila was still awake too. It was as if I could sense that she was also listening to the sounds of the night. I leaned back against the rough trunk and looked at the stars that were slowly sliding by in between the leaves.
The Tree At The Centre Of The Universe, Leila had called it. I still didn’t know what exactly she meant by that.
I wondered how Mrs Merriman and the big dog were doing. Around five that afternoon, she had showed up in the park with an SPCA van. They had come to fetch the dog and her puppies.
When Mrs Merriman saw that the sweet-thorn tree had been felled, she burst into tears.
It had been a day of tears. I hoped there would be less crying the following day.
It was quite a struggle to get the dog and her puppies into the van. She was really vicious when the people from the SPCA approached her. In the end they had to put a tranquillizer into a piece of meat, which they positioned near her hiding place.
> I felt sorry for the poor drugged dog when she and her puppies were loaded into the van. What would become of them? I knew what usually happened to stray dogs that had no home, but this dog was a mummy dog…
At around seven thirty in the evening, my mum showed up again. This time she didn’t fight. To tell you the truth, she barely said a word to me. She brought me a pillow, a tracksuit top, a large bottle of fruit juice and a container with meat pies from Woolworths. Then she left.
Leila and I scoffed the meat pies down cold. I wondered if Mum thought the average tree was equipped with a microwave oven.
‘Milly,’ Leila whispered as we sat on the ground.
‘Huh?’ I whispered back.
‘The dog,’ said Leila. ‘Can we call her Milly?’
‘Why not?’ I said and shrugged. ‘I mean, I don’t think Mrs Merriman would mind.’
For some reason I felt proud that Leila had asked me for my opinion.
11
Green
The first thing I became aware of the next morning when I opened my eyes was that I was lying with my head on Leila’s mum’s shoulder. I wanted to die of shame but I remained lying like that, too scared to get up and wake her. Hopefully I hadn’t snored or drooled on her shoulder in my sleep. Leila and I had swapped places just after midnight.
The second thing I became aware of was shreds of whispering voices.
‘…really amazing…’
‘…so cool…’
‘…and they’re still so young…’
‘…most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen…’
‘Marnus, wake up!’
The last voice was louder and belonged to Leila.
I sat up.
And my mouth fell open.
A little way from us I saw a group of people. There were about fifteen of them, I guessed. Most of them were wearing weird, gaudy clothes. They stood there, looking at Leila and her mum and me as if we were exotic animals in a zoo. Next to me, Leila’s mum woke with a startled ‘huh?’ and sat up.
A girl approached us. She looked like the leader of the group. The morning sun glistened on her dark brown, shaved scalp. She had three nose rings. I wondered if it hurt when she had her nostrils pierced.
‘I’m Killer,’ she said.
I swallowed. It’s not every day that you meet a girl by the name of Killer on an empty stomach.
‘Erm…I’m Marnus,’ I said. Having just woken up, my voice still sounded tinny.
The group of people laughed as if I had made a joke.
‘We know who you are, Marnus,’ said Killer with a smile. ‘We read about you and Leila in this morning’s paper. You’re very brave. We immediately decided to come and help you.’
‘Help?’ I asked.
‘We’re all students,’ she said. ‘And we’ve just finished writing exams. So we’re going to give the two of you a hand.’
‘Stop the fascists!’ exclaimed one of the guys in the group, a redhead with wild dreadlocks, who held a poster up in the air. The poster said: STOP THE FASCISTS!
‘Save our tree! Save our tree! Save our tree!’ a girl started chanting. She sounded so angry that it made my stomach turn.
Anxiously, I glanced at Leila’s mum. I had no idea what a fascist was but it didn’t sound good.
‘The tree must stay! The tree must stay!’ Now the entire group of students was chanting.
Up in the tree, Leila sat as wide-eyed as a startled bushbaby. It looked like she didn’t know what to think of Killer and the group of student demonstrators.
‘Hold it!’ bellowed a voice.
The chanting stopped.
Everyone looked at the caretaker in surprise. I was impressed with Uncle John’s loud voice. He was standing with a tray in his hands, glowering at the students. ‘What are you lot doing here?’
‘We read in the paper about Leila and Marnus who’re trying to save the tree,’ said Killer. ‘We decided to come and help them.’ She looked the caretaker straight in the eye as she spoke. Her voice was calm but she sounded like someone who wouldn’t mind fighting, if that was necessary.
Uncle John seemed to ponder this for a moment. Then he eyed the students, one after the other.
‘All right,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I guess I can’t stop you. But you’re not allowed to use the restrooms at the bowling club. I don’t want any trouble. Only Marnus and Leila are allowed there. And this isn’t the local Mugg & Bean, so I didn’t make coffee for all of you.’
Without a word, Leila’s mum and I each took a mug of coffee. Leila clambered down and I carefully handed her the third mug.
‘The tree must stay! The tree must stay!’ the group of students started chanting again.
Uncle John gave me a folded newspaper. ‘Some reading matter for you.’
I quickly swallowed my coffee, climbed into the tree and sat down next to Leila, who was already back up there. When I unfolded the paper my throat tightened. On the front page, just under the lead story, was a picture of Leila and me in the tree. It was taken from below, with our dangling feet filling almost the entire picture. The headline was: Young friends go out on a limb for tree.
I glanced at Leila. Were we friends? Before she rang our doorbell two mornings ago, I had never set eyes on her, even though we had been living only a couple of streets away from each other. Actually, I still knew very little about her.
‘Right, I’m going to shower,’ Leila’s mum said. She glanced at the group of students and then gave us a worried look. ‘Will you two be OK?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.
Leila just nodded.
The caretaker gestured with a thumbs up that she needn’t worry.
I wondered why Leila didn’t really speak to her mum. Had I been more like Leila, I would have asked her bluntly, ‘What’s going on between you and your mum?’ – the way she’d asked Mrs Merriman, ‘Why pink?’ – but I was too shy.
After a while, Killer and the rest of the students seemed to realize that it was no use shouting ‘The tree must stay!’ and ‘Stop the fascists!’ when there were no fascists to shout at. They had moved aside and were sitting in the sun, smoking.
Sometime after the caretaker had left with the tray of coffee mugs, two municipal pickups and a smallish lorry approached. They stopped at the sweet thorn that had been felled.
Red-face got out of one of the pickups. Placing his hands on his hips, he looked at the chopped-down tree. Dew was glistening on the leaves that were now dull green and wilted. Workers in blue overalls descended on the tree.
‘Front page, eh?’ shouted Red-face at Leila and me. ‘Don’t think you being in the paper will save that tree. The town planners looked at the plans yesterday. The pipe has to pass through here. There’s no other way.’
From where Red-face was standing, he obviously didn’t see the students, so he staggered back a few steps when Killer and the others suddenly surrounded him.
They were waving their posters, chanting angrily, ‘The tree must stay! Stop the fascists!’
Red-face wagged his finger at them but the chanting and the noise the workers were making with their chainsaws drowned out his voice.
I looked at Leila. It was difficult to guess what she was thinking. I’d expected that she would sit and watch all this with a satisfied smile but there was a small frown between her brows. You could see that her hair hadn’t been close to a brush for the past two days. The tousled ponytail hung limp on her back.
I wished I could touch it.
That stupid thought made my face go all hot. I was sure that I looked like a thirteen-year-old version of Red-face for a moment.
The rest of that morning, the municipal workers were busy sawing up the tree and loading the pieces on to the lorry. They didn’t seem very bothered by the students waving posters around while shouting slogans and singing furious songs.
One of the girls recited a poem that she made up as she went along. At least, I thought she did because I didn’t think anyone could learn a p
oem that long by heart. It was about a tree bleeding and a planet suffocating, and innocent women and children suffering due to war and violence. I actually didn’t understand much of what she was saying but when she finished all the students applauded.
Cars in the street slowed down so that people could watch this spectacle, and every so often curious people approached to watch from up close. Some even chatted to Leila and me. They said things like:
‘Hey, I saw you guys in the paper!’
‘Where are your mothers and fathers? How can they allow you to stay up there?’
‘Isn’t that branch damn hard?’
‘It’s great that someone is doing something to preserve the planet.’
Around eleven, Junior du Toit showed up. He was wearing the same tight, bright-green pants and black and white sneakers as the previous day. First he took pictures of the group of students and the municipal workers, then he took up position under our tree.
‘Did you see the article?’ he asked and held a newspaper out to us.
I nodded.
‘I hope you liked it.’ He smiled in his beard and pointed towards the students. ‘Seems like you grabbed people’s attention. I’m going to write a follow-up for tomorrow’s paper. But tell me: how are you guys feeling this morning?’
I waited for Leila to say something but she just stared straight ahead of her.
‘Well…my bum is hurting a bit,’ I said.
Immediately I felt like an idiot. Donovan and Adrian would kill themselves laughing if that was to appear in the morning paper.
‘But…erm…it’s for a good cause,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to give up hope. We’re going to stay here until the tree is saved.’
That sounded more like something that should be quoted in a newspaper article.
Junior asked some more questions. I tried my best to give clever answers. I wished I could see what he was writing in his notebook.
At last, he was satisfied. He took more pictures of Leila and me, and then he walked off.
When Junior had left, I gave Leila a dirty look.
