Up High in the Trees

by Kiara Brinkman

  It’s okay, Cass says, go get your bike.

  Cass gives me a little push on the back and I go to where my bike is behind the house. I put on my helmet and ride to the front. Jackson and Shelly are waiting for me.

  Where can we go? asks Jackson.

  I start riding to school since I know the way. Jackson and Shelly follow behind me. I pedal fast and do all the turns without slowing down.

  At school, we ride in fast circles around the blacktop where there are the basketball hoops and also the tetherball poles. Jackson rides standing up high on his pedals. I don’t try to do that. Jackson can also let go of his handlebars. He holds up his arms above his head like a bad guy, and yells, Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!

  Jackson does a sideways skid stop and drops his bike onto the ground.

  Show off! Shelly yells at him.

  I stop my bike next to Jackson. Shelly keeps riding in circles.

  This is your school? asks Jackson.

  I nod and get off my bike.

  You got a small playground, he says. He runs over to the red-and-white painted merry-go-round. Some of the paint’s scraped off so you can see the gray metal underneath. I like to touch the metal with my fingertip and feel how it’s cold.

  Jackson sits down in the middle of the merry-go-round.

  Push me, he says.

  I hold on to one of the bars and run around as fast as I can and then let go. Jackson lies down with his arms up and out so he looks like a big spinning letter X.

  Shelly comes running over. You’re going to get sick! she yells at Jackson.

  She grabs on to one of the bars and lets the merry-go-round drag her until it stops. Jackson stands up.

  Damn it, he says, you leave me alone.

  He barfs every time, Shelly says to me.

  Shut up! Jackson screams. He jumps down off the merry-go-round and pushes past us.

  I watch him walk over to the rope ladder and climb to the top.

  Last time, Shelly says in a low voice, he threw up his whole pack of sour gummy worms.

  She’s standing close and I can feel her voice coming out on my neck. Her voice feels warm.

  Then he started crying, says Shelly, because he said it wasn’t fair and he wanted more gummy worms to eat, but Mom said no.

  I don’t say anything. I’m watching Jackson at the top of the slide. He’s standing up there looking around.

  I got an idea! Jackson shouts at us. He slides down.

  Come on, he says.

  I follow him back to the bikes. Jackson gets on and starts riding fast. I look at Shelly. She’s still on the playground.

  Come on, I tell her, hurry.

  We ride across the dead grass field all the way to the brown wooden fence. Behind the fence is an apartment building with rows of balconies that all look the same. I’ve counted and I know the building has twenty-four balconies.

  How do we get over? asks Jackson.

  You have to go the other way from outside of school, I tell him.

  Let’s go, he says.

  I ride back over the field and the blacktop, out of school. Jackson and Shelly are behind me.

  I stop in front of the driveway where you go into the

  building. There’s a small parking lot and also a swimming pool with a fence around it. Jackson rides past me to the pool and pushes open the gate.

  Look, he says. Jackson goes in with his bike and the gate slams shut behind him. He starts riding around the pool in fast circles. He goes faster and faster.

  If you fall in, then you die, says Jackson. Come on.

  I walk my bike over to the gate. I try to open it, but the gate’s locked now. The handle won’t turn.

  Jackson skid-stops and opens the gate for me and Shelly. The pool water is low down with a blue cover over it. The cover’s not moving and I don’t know if the water is ice or not.

  I don’t want to, says Shelly.

  Jackson looks at me.

  Why’re you wearing your backpack? he asks.

  Because it’s important, I tell him.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  I get on my bike and ride slow around the pool. Jackson rides fast and when he passes by, his wind pushes me backward hard, but doesn’t tip me over.

  Stop it, Shelly yells at us, stop! I want to go. Sebby, she yells, please, I want to go now! Sebby! she yells my name again.

  I stop my bike next to her and get off. We watch Jackson going fast around the pool.

  We’re leaving, Shelly yells at him, and you don’t know the way back! Let’s go, she says to me.

  I look at her.

  He’s just showing off, she says, he’ll come.

  We walk our bikes out and the gate slams shut. Jackson’s not stopping and he’s not looking at us. He keeps riding around the pool.

  Go, Shelly yells at me, go!

  I start riding. When I look back, Shelly’s there following, but Jackson’s not.

  Good, Shelly says, faster.

  I keep going and I don’t look back anymore. I ride like it’s just me riding home by myself. I ride looking up at the skinny, stick trees.

  Then I hear Jackson’s voice yelling behind me.

  Screw you guys! he yells. I could’ve fallen in and died! What if I died! he yells.

  You idiot! Shelly screams at him.

  I don’t look back.

  Dad and Cass and Leo are sitting in the kitchen with Jackson’s mom. Baby Chester’s sleeping on the floor in his car seat. I watch how Jackson’s mom rocks the seat back and forth with her foot. Today she’s wearing red socks.

  You’re home fast, Dad says to us. He’s holding a carrot and takes a loud bite.

  On the table, there’s a big silver platter that has carrots and celery and cauliflower and in the middle is a bowl of white dip.

  How was the ride? asks Dad.

  I look at Jackson and Shelly standing next to me. Shelly goes over to her mom and hugs her around the neck.

  It was fine, Jackson says.

  Good, says Dad.

  I pull on the collar of my coat to stretch it away from my neck.

  You guys can take off your warm stuff and play, Cass says. Why don’t you show them your room, Sebby?

  I walk out of the kitchen then and unzip my coat. I let it fall down on the floor by the couch. Jackson and Shelly drop their coats next to mine.

  We go upstairs and sit on the floor in my room. I dig my hands down into the scratchy brown carpet.

  I know a joke, I say.

  What is it? asks Jackson. He takes off his green sweater. Underneath he’s wearing a blue turtleneck.

  Why don’t skeletons fight each other? I say.

  I don’t know, says Shelly.

  Because, I say, they don’t have any guts.

  I get it, Shelly says, I get it! She’s smiling.

  I’ve never heard that one before, says Jackson. He smiles a little bit. Do you have toys? he asks.

  In the trunk over in the corner I have my wooden toys, not the kind he would like. I don’t say anything.

  Let’s hide, says Shelly.

  I nod, yes. I already know where to go.

  Where? Jackson asks.

  I get my orange flashlight out from under my bed. Jackson and Shelly come with me into Dad’s room. I open the closet and feel for the handle of the secret door.

  It’s called a crawl space, I say.

  Mother told me this was the best place to hide in the whole house.

  I remember she waited for me to get home from school and she said, Let’s disappear. We hid together and she held my hand in the dark. All the noise in her head went away.

  We won’t come out, she said, until we’re sure they miss us.

  Mother felt like she was disappearing and I felt like I was growing. She let go of my hand and I was everywhere in the dark.

  Woah, Jackson says, cool.

  I point my flashlight so we can see.

  Shelly pushes Jackson in first and then I go. Shelly comes in last.
We sit, not talking. I point my flashlight straight up at the low ceiling and the light shines back down on us.

  I listen to Dad’s voice talking downstairs. I listen and wait to hear Leo’s voice and Cass’s voice, too. They’re happy, sitting around the table. Dad’s face is warm, I know, and his ears are red from laughing. Their voices make me safe.

  When Jackson pulls the short door all the way shut, I can’t hear the voices talking to each other anymore, but I know they’re still there.

  Turn the light off, Jackson says.

  I turn off my orange flashlight and the dark is so dark I can’t see Jackson or Shelly. I can’t see my legs or my arms or my hands. Shelly puts her hand on my face. She spreads her fingers out on my cheek and holds her hand like that so she can know I’m still here. I listen to the quiet and I hear Jackson’s nose sniffling. The dark is dark like the inside of my head. I can see Jackson like he’s a picture. I can see him wiping his nose on the back of his hand, but really, I can’t see him at all.

  Shelly giggles. I like this, she says.

  Shh, Jackson tells her.

  I think about how I want to be here, where I am right now.

  In the dark my body is growing, filling up space so that I can reach all the way to where Mother is. My chest is big and warm. I can feel time, my whole life stretching out and out.

  I know what to do. Tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. I’ll take more pictures and my album will fill up.

  I promise, Mother, I’ll remember everything.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank my family—especially my parents, Bill and Randi Brinkman, and my grandmother, Arlyne Geschwender—for their constant love and support and for raising me on good music.

  Many thanks to my incredibly dedicated editor, Elisabeth Schmitz, and everyone at Grove/Atlantic. I am indebted to my agent, Alice Tasman, who has read this book as many times as I have and whose enthusiasm and encouragement never wane.

  I am always grateful for Keith Hedlund, who believed in me from the very beginning.

  A warm thank-you to my generous and talented teacher, Maud Casey, for all her thoughtful advice. A big thank-you to Cristina Garcia for her kindness and support. And, my gratitude to Alison Smith for guiding me through numerous revisions.

  Thanks to Dave Eggers for taking a new writer seriously and continually finding the time to read my work.

  Many thanks to Rebecca Brown, Paul Selig, and my fellow writers and friends at Goddard College, especially Jen Eriksen, Ross Brown, Alexis Smith, Sarah Edrie, Tifa Boss, and Elaine Livingstone.

  Thank you to all the children at San Francisco’s Up On Top Afterschool Program for surprising and inspiring me every day, especially Drew Connery. And thanks to Drew’s wonderful grandmother, Ann Connery.

  Also, thank you to Zack Montague for showing me how to experience the world in new ways—and thank you to his parents, Valerie Montague and Steve Kravitz.

  Finally, I want to thank my friends, many of whom have read and reread my work: Augusta Meill, Hamish Chandra, Alyson Sena, Liz Anderson, Emily Benz, John Scopelleti, Laura Steuble, Julie Popkin, Susan Campbell, Ruiyan Xu, Aimee Lee, the Hannum family, and the Grasso family.

  A GROVE PRESS READING GROUP GUIDE BY BARBARA PUTNAM

  UP HIGH IN THE TREES

  KIARA BRINKMAN

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  We hope that these discussion questions

  will enhance your reading group’s exploration

  of Kiara Brinkman’s Up High in the Trees. They are

  meant to stimulate discussion, offer new viewpoints,

  and enrich your enjoyment of the book.

  More reading group guides and additional information,

  including summaries, author tours, and author sites for

  other fine Grove Press titles, may be found on

  our Web site, www.groveatlantic.com.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. How would you describe the voice of Sebby, the narrator? Does he seem troubled, perhaps as a result of the early loss of his mother, or something else? Does his voice sound erratic and unstable to you, or is he particularly alert and sensitive? As you get to know him, is he so different from other bright, strong-minded, lonely eight-year-olds? Would you agree it is a powerful and always honest voice we hear?

  2. When does Sebby take responsibility for others’ welfare? Think of his caring for his father’s feet, his aiding Shelly, and nurturing the cat. Other times? On the other hand, Cass, in frustration, accuses him of not thinking of others, when he wanders off or demands a painful artifact from the past. Is he perhaps a mix, like most of us, of the two aspects?

  3. Why do you suppose the setting is left vague? We do have clues to the era, from current events discussed. And the settings of home, summer place, school, and playground are described in detail. But where we are is ambiguous. Is it perhaps to leave the story as a kind of fable, with truths for all times? Might the compression of the action in one year, with flashbacks, add to this mythic quality?

  4. What do we know about the interior lives of characters other than Sebby? We can deduce attitudes and feelings, but it is all through what filter? Do the family members seem unusually bound to home? Why might that be?

  5. What do you recall about food in the book? How is it important for sustaining family life or marking occasions? Often Sebby is plain not hungry. Is this a sign of his sadness? Need for control? When is a time he gobbles joyously? Is it telling that the story ends with a feast?

  6. Does Sebby seem to have special dispensation just to be himself? Is he perhaps more privileged, sometimes to his peril, than other eight-year-olds who need to learn protective coloration?

  7. Sebby is special, no question. What is it he provides in his near-mythic role, to other people? Challenge? Clarity? If so, what kind?

  8. How does Sebby show his willingness to risk as he reaches out to others? Ms. Lambert? Jackson and Shelly? Others?

  9. How does Jackson’s mother provide a life line to Sebby? Are you surprised she is as non-judgmental (of both Sebby and his father) as she is?

  10. How are we to understand Sebby’s plunge into the water? Is it all impelled by his memory of his mother and her soap owl? Can his need to reconnect with his mother go this far?

  11. We know that multicultural writing explores what it feels like to be on the edge or outside. How does this story open out into other kinds of marginality? Are we moved to remember times we have felt “other”? How do stories help us find out who we are?

  12. What is the function of Sebby’s letter writing to his teacher? How did you respond to those letters? What do you think they meant to Ms. Lambert? How had Sebby earlier expressed himself in heartfelt notes? Do the letters offer an important counterpoint to the rest of the narration?

  13. At one point Dad says, “We still have to be a family” (p. 317). Even though the mother is said to have “left,” how does she provide an enduring legacy?

  14. Are you struck that Cass and Leo are truly competent, both at school and at home? Is it their necessity to function without a mother that matures them? Is it their relationship to Sebby? How do they relate to their father?

  15. What is the role of world news in the novel? How does Cass particularly try to engage her family in a world beyond their own? Talk about her father’s response at the end when Cass asks, “You know about Somalia?” (p. 293).

  16. What are some of the precarious mental states in the book? What are the manifestations? Is there a symbolic connection between hiding under tables and beds and wandering out into the night?

  17. Pictures are a central image throughout the book. Cite examples. The grandfather? The mother? Ms. Lambert? The Polaroid camera? How do pictures provide both a solace and a hope for the future for Sebby?

  18. How is music important to this family? Are you familiar with the songs that provide a framework of memory for the father—and by extension for his children? Is music actually one of the ways they b
ecome a family?

  19. How are books central to the lives of these children? The town library is a refuge at times. When? Do you think that Sebby’s love of reading reassures the social worker? What is the father’s connection with books? (see p. 66)

  20. When do serious health threats afflict the family? Recall the events imperiling Sebby. And what do Dad’s numb, bloody feet indicate about him? And Sebby’s near frostbite?

  21. What does the title mean? (see p. 25). How has Sebby held onto the concept of “up high in the trees”? Could it imply something about Sebby’s special vantage point in the story?

  22. Talk about Sebby’s view of time in the tale. When does he want to accelerate it? Slow it down? Retrieve lost time? How does the dark hiding place at the end change from earlier hiding places? How has Sebby’s idea of time evolved?

  23. Even though the book often focuses on loss, specific as well as elemental, how is it also about restoration and redemption? How do love and patience, loyalty and courage work their magic?

  24. What do you predict for the family in the future?

  SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING:

  The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas; Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov; A Slant of Sun: One Child’s Courage by Beth Kephart; The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; Childhood and Other Neighborhoods: Stories by Stuart Dybek; The Pink Institution by Selah Saterstrom; The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz; Hotel World by Ali Smith; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce; Monkeys by Susan Minot; Call It Sleep by Henry Roth; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson; Florida by Christine Schutt; The Collected Prose by Elizabeth Bishop; Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje; The Question of Bruno by Aleksandar Hemon; Things You Should Know by A. M. Homes; Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban; Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel