The Secret Tree

by Natalie Standiford

  If I had a babyish birthday party that Paz hated, we might not be friends by the end of the summer. I just had that feeling.

  “Here’s today’s secret.” I showed Raymond what I’d found in the Secret Tree on my way to visit him. “It’s a weird one.”

  I’m secretly sabotaging my dad’s diet shake by putting cream and sugar in it. He keeps saying he can’t believe a diet shake could taste so good! And wondering why he isn’t losing weight. But I don’t want him to. I have my reasons.

  “Diabolical,” Raymond said. “Who’s got a fat father?”

  I consulted the secret notebook. By this time, Raymond had pictures of just about everyone in the neighborhood. He must have sneaked off and taken pictures when I wasn’t around. “There are five dads who could be on a diet: Mr. Jack, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Serrano, Mr. Kendall, and Mr. Murphy.”

  “Mr. Jack has a very big belly,” Raymond noted.

  “Huge,” I agreed. “But his kids are grown up. They don’t live in the neighborhood anymore.”

  “Do they come back and visit?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “But if they don’t live with him, how can they sabotage his diet shake?”

  “Good point. Next.”

  “Mr. Rogers and Mr. Murphy are pretty chubby too. I’ve seen Mr. Kendall buying diet soda at the grocery store.” Mr. Kendall was Lydia’s father. “And David Serrano’s dad is on the tubby side. Plus he’s always yelling at David about being slow. I could picture David sabotaging his diet out of sheer meanness. Or revenge.”

  “Let’s spy on the Murphys tonight,” Raymond suggested. “We’ve already spied on the Rogerses and the Serranos.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But we’ve got to be careful. Everybody’s freaked out about a prowler on the loose. We can’t get caught.”

  “We won’t.” Raymond took out his harmonica and started playing a song. Then he suddenly stopped. “Hey — I’ve got a present for you.”

  “A present for me?” I couldn’t imagine what it could be. As far as I could tell, Raymond didn’t have any money. “What is it?”

  He handed me a small package wrapped in a page from the comics. FOR MINTY was written across it. FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND, RAYMOND.

  I paused. I did not consider Raymond to be my best friend. But what could I say? He was giving me a present.

  “Open it,” he urged.

  I unwrapped the package. Inside was a shiny silver harmonica.

  “So we can play duets together,” he said.

  I put the harmonica to my lips and blew a note. It sounded froggy and sweet and wonderful.

  “Thank you, Raymond.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it!”

  He showed me how to play a scale, how to make different notes by blowing in and out on the same hole, and how to use my fingers to block out the notes I didn’t want to play. Then he taught me “Frère Jacques.” Soon we were playing it in a round. It sounded very good.

  We started with the kitchen, since that’s where diet sabotage was most likely to happen. I wore all black and my ski mask. Raymond wore camo as usual.

  We tiptoed into the Murphys’ yard. Their kitchen was in the back, so we started to round the side of the house. Suddenly, Raymond froze.

  “What?” I whispered. “Come on!”

  “Someone else is here,” Raymond murmured. “Look.”

  In the shadows under the bushes that lined the side of the house, something moved. Was it a dog? Was it a prowler? Was it … the Man-Bat?

  I could just make out a dark head peering into the dimly lit basement window. Someone else was spying on the Murphys!

  But who? And why?

  “Hide!” Raymond whispered.

  We crouched behind the hedge that separated the Murphys’ house from Wendy’s, very quiet and still, spying on the spy. The crickets and cicadas chirped in the woods. A car rushed down Rockwell Avenue a block away. Waves of laughter came from Wendy’s TV.

  And somewhere, someone was crying. I strained to pick out the source of the crying from all the other night noises.

  It came from the spy. The mystery spy was crying.

  From inside the house a face darkened the basement window. “Hey! Is someone out there?”

  “That’s Kip,” I whispered.

  The spy jumped up and ran away, sobbing. The shadowy figure crossed the street and ran to the Calderons’ house. Pink shorts, a tank top, long, dark hair.

  Melina.

  The Murphys’ back door slammed, and Kip ran around to the side of the house. “Who’s out here? What was that noise?” He shined a flashlight all around the yard.

  I gripped Raymond’s hand, which was very sweaty, squeezed my eyes shut, and held my breath. If Kip found us, he’d think we were the ones who were spying on him. Which we would have been, if Melina hadn’t gotten there first. But that wasn’t the point.

  “If you’re a prowler, you’re in big trouble,” Kip shouted. “One more sound and I’m calling the police.”

  I flattened myself on the grass as flat as I could go, trying to melt into the earth. Please don’t catch us, please don’t catch us….

  After more yelling and looking around, Kip finally went back inside the house. I let out my breath.

  “We’d better get out of here,” I said. “It’s too dangerous to spy tonight. Everybody’s all edgy.”

  “But we didn’t find out about the diet sabotage,” Raymond said.

  “Maybe tomorrow night. I don’t want to get caught.”

  Raymond disappeared into the woods. I sneaked back into my room. When I was safely in bed, I took out my harmonica and played it softly. I wondered about Melina. Why was she spying on Kip? Was that what you did when you loved someone?

  And what had she seen in his basement that made her cry?

  “Did you hear there was a prowler at the Murphys’ last night?” Mr. Rogers said. “And I had my windows wide open!”

  After dinner on July 3, Mom and I went to a neighborhood meeting at Wendy’s house to plan the Fourth of July Parade. Wendy served iced tea and watermelon on her back patio. Almost everybody was there: Troy Rogers and his dad, David Serrano with his mother and sisters, Mr. Jack, Mr. Gorelick and Mrs. Gorelick….

  “Another prowler! What is going on around here?” Mr. Jack hoisted his beer. He drank a lot of beer and had the belly to show for it. I had the feeling he wasn’t on a diet.

  “First the Carters, and now the Murphys.” Mrs. Serrano shook her head. “Tsk tsk …”

  “I wonder if the prowler stole my Phoebe?” Wendy sniffled.

  Mr. Rogers touched her arm. “Are you all right here all by yourself at night, Wendy?”

  Wendy shook her head. “I don’t know. I miss Phoebe. She wasn’t useful like a watchdog, but it was nice to have company.”

  No one loves me except my goldfish, I found myself thinking.

  “I know exactly how you feel,” Mr. Rogers said.

  No one loves me except my goldfish, I thought again.

  Troy reached for a slice of watermelon and took a bite. Then he spit three seeds — pow pow pow — onto the grass. Like he was shooting at something.

  David copied him, spitting watermelon seeds at his sisters. One landed in Connie’s ear. “Bull’s-eye!” David crowed.

  Connie picked the seed out of her ear and threw it back at him. “You don’t spit food at people. Don’t you know anything?” She turned to Wendy and added, “I don’t know if it’s a head injury or what, but David’s never quite been, you know, like the rest of us Serranos.”

  David took a defiant, embarrassed bite of watermelon and chewed loudly. Wendy’s eyes ran down the line of Serrano sisters, from Connie to DeeDee to Claudia. “You mean, because he’s not a girl?”

  Connie laughed. “No, I mean he’s always doing some crazy, stupid thing like setting ants on fire or wearing his underwear outside of his pants.”

  Pfft! David splattered her with seeds.

  “See? Like that!” Conni
e delicately picked the seeds off her dress.

  “That time I put my underwear on over my pants?” David said. “That happened once. In kindergarten. But you won’t let me forget it.”

  “That’s because you’re always acting like you’re still in kindergarten.”

  “Kids! Quiet!” Mrs. Serrano snapped.

  “Maybe we should cancel the parade,” Mr. Murphy said.

  “Yes! What if the prowler robs our houses while our backs are turned?” Mrs. Serrano said. “We’ll all be lined up along Carroll Drive, watching the parade. No one will be home!”

  “You think he’ll strike in the middle of the day?” Mom said.

  “Why not in the middle of the day?” Mrs. Serrano said. “This nut has no fear!”

  “Lennie Calderon told me somebody was spying on the kids a few weeks ago, taking pictures and prowling around in the woods,” Mrs. Gorelick said. She held Kelly, her wheezy little Pekingese dog, in her arms, rocking her like a baby.

  I got chills as they talked. I knew there was no prowler. It was all me and Raymond. If only they knew that the prowler they were so scared of was just a couple of kids! I needed to throw them off our scent.

  “The Man-Bat,” I said.

  “The what?” Everyone turned to look at me.

  “Lennie thinks we’re being stalked by a monstrous creature who’s half-man, half-bat,” I explained.

  “You mean Batman?” Mr. Rogers asked.

  “No. The Man-Bat is more slimy and gross, like a real bat,” I said. “Only human-size.”

  Mrs. Serrano shuddered. “That’s ridiculous,” Mr. Murphy said.

  “We have to be strong,” Mr. Gorelick said. “If we cancel the parade, the prowler wins! We must go on with our lives.”

  “The parade will go on!” Mr. Jack said.

  “Hooray for the parade!” Mr. Rogers said.

  I knew I should tell the truth. I knew that if I didn’t, things would probably get worse. But we had good reasons for spying. We were solving mysteries. We were trying to save Paz from a terrible curse.

  If I said anything, I’d get in trouble. And so would Raymond.

  And I’d promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about him. I’d promised.

  Somehow, deep inside, I knew that was important.

  My T-shirt said CATONSVILLE NINE on the front and LEMON E. KICKIT on the back. It was gold and black, which clashed with the red-white-and-blue theme of the parade. But I didn’t care. Roller derby was the most important thing.

  Mr. Jack led the parade down Carroll Drive with the littler kids playing “Yankee Doodle” on kazoos. The Carters waved and cheered as Thea pulled Tessie and Bo in their wagon. Mr. Gorelick honked Old Donna’s horn as the ancient car rolled slowly down the street, hung with flags and bunting. Lennie and Hugo had decorated their bikes and rode them proudly while their parents and Awa and Melina clapped. Troy and David hadn’t bothered to decorate their bikes, but they rode them down the street anyway, terrorizing the spectators with their squirt guns.

  Thea pulled her wagon over to Melina to say hello. “Don’t Tessie and Bo look great?” She’d painted American flags on their faces.

  Melina looked down her nose at them. “Yeah, they look great,” she said without enthusiasm.

  Strange. Why was Melina being so frosty to Thea?

  “Pull!” Tessie ordered. “Pull us, Thea!”

  Thea put her head down and pulled. She suddenly reminded me of Otis’s horse, Esmeralda.

  Paz wasn’t there, and neither were Isabelle, Katie, or Lydia. I guess they were all too cool for the parade. I skated down the street alone. I couldn’t do any fancy tricks without a partner, so I played the harmonica to make it less boring. I felt like an idiot — an idiot who had no friends. Everyone around me was either a little kid or an old person, and I was stuck in between.

  “Hey there, Minty Fresh!” Mom and Dad waved to me from the sidelines. I pasted on a smile and waved back at them, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  The parade wrapped around the block and ended in front of the Gorelicks’ house. Otis and Esmeralda waited for us, the cart loaded with watermelons and peaches and lemonade to sell. “Happy Fourth of July!” Otis called.

  The barbecue ran through three backyards, from the Gorelicks’ to our house to Wendy’s. We lined up all the picnic tables we could find and fired up four grills.

  I sat down on the front steps and took off my roller skates. I wondered what Raymond was doing right now. Otis sat on his cart drinking lemonade. Esmeralda munched on a watermelon that had smashed on the street.

  “How’s your aura doing?” Otis called.

  I stood awkwardly in front of him while he studied the air around me. “What color is it now?” I asked.

  He squinted. “Ooh, that aura has blued. You’re a deep muddy blue now. How are you feeling?”

  “Blue,” I replied. “Lonely.”

  “Yep, I can see that.”

  “Can I do something to change it?” I asked.

  “Your aura’s just a reflection of how you feel inside,” Otis said. “Change how you feel, and the aura will change color.”

  “But how can I change how I feel?” I didn’t see what good it was knowing the color of my aura when I already knew how I felt — lousy.

  “Hey, if I knew the answers to everything, I wouldn’t be driving this cart selling fruit,” Otis said.

  “But you do know the answers to some things,” I said.

  He nodded. “Try me.”

  “What do you know about the Witch Lady?”

  “Mm-hmmm.” He drained his cup. “Not too much, I’ll tell you that. I drive over that way once in a while, just to see how things are going. I used to see a little boy over there, a couple years ago. All by himself, playing outside in all kinds of weather, even the rain and the freezing cold. Once I asked him why he didn’t go inside and get warm and he said he couldn’t — the door was locked. And I said, ‘Where’s your mama?’ and he said, ‘She’s inside sleeping.’”

  He poured himself some more lemonade and a cup for me. “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “Well, I didn’t like seeing this boy outside in the cold and the wet, so I knocked on the door. The boy said, ‘She won’t answer,’ and sure enough, not a peep came from the house. I knocked again, harder this time, but nothing happened. I tried the knob, but it was locked, just like the boy said. Short of breaking in through a window, I didn’t see what else I could do. I walked around the house, peering inside, looking for that boy’s mother, and finally I saw her lying on the kitchen floor, out cold.”

  This was a terrible and fascinating story. “Was she dead?”

  “No, no, she just drank too much liquor or something like that, I suppose.”

  “And is she the Witch Lady?” I asked.

  “The very same.” He offered me a peach. I rubbed the fuzz and waited to hear more.

  “Well, after that, I didn’t see that boy around anymore for a long time. Early last spring, those construction fellas started clearing the fields and building those new houses, and a few weeks ago I saw the boy again. I asked him where he’d been, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “He’s got a secret,” I said.

  “Looks that way.”

  Up the street, Paz limped toward us. She didn’t need crutches, but her ankle was tender. That reminded me …

  “Otis, do you know anything about voodoo curses?”

  “Ha! I know plenty. Too much. My high school girlfriend made a mean love potion. How do you think she got me to take her to the prom?”

  “Someone put a curse on Paz,” I said. “I’m trying to figure out who it is.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Otis said. “But if I were you, I’d look for a doll. Find the voodoo doll, you find the source of the curse.”

  “Thanks, Otis.”

  Paz finally made it to the cart. Otis gave her a cup of lemonade. “Cures what ails you.”

  “Even sprained ankles?” Paz asked.

&nb
sp; “Sure, why not?”

  Paz drank the lemonade. From the backyard I heard Mr. Jack yell, “Hamburgers ready! Who wants one?”

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting for.” Otis jumped off his cart and jogged over to the picnic. I walked slowly across the grass with Paz.

  “Sorry I didn’t come to the parade,” she said. “It gets tiring standing on one foot.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “How was it?”

  “Boring and stupid.”

  “I figured.”

  We settled at a picnic table. I got us each a hamburger, and we ate among our neighbors.

  “Is this seat taken?” Wendy sat beside Paz, her paper plate loaded with a ketchupy burger and potato salad.

  “Mind if I sit here?” Mr. Rogers sat down next to me. He had a hamburger patty, no bun, with pickles and no potato salad. And a Diet Rite cola.

  Hmmm.

  I glanced at Paz, but she didn’t seem to notice. Then I remembered: Paz didn’t know about the secret diet sabotage.

  That was my other friend, Raymond.

  “I don’t know why I don’t just give up,” Mr. Rogers said to Wendy. “My diet’s not working anyway.” He laughed and patted his belly, but it was a sad laugh.

  Wendy, who’s tall and thin, nodded and smiled, her mouth full of burger, as if she understood. After she swallowed she said, “I think you look fine, Ken.”

  “Thanks, Wendy.” Mr. Rogers looked down at his plate. “It’s for health reasons, you know, the diet. I have to stay healthy to keep up with Troy there.”

  Troy and David were sitting at the end of the table, competing to see who could stuff the most potato salad into his mouth at one time. Mayonnaise dribbled down David’s chin. Potatoes spewed out of Troy’s overstuffed mouth.

  “Any sign of Phoebe yet?” Mr. Rogers asked.

  Wendy’s eye grew wet. “No. I’ve posted signs everywhere. I check the animal shelter every day. Looks like she’s just … gone.”

  Mr. Rogers’s eyes welled up too. That surprised me. Again I checked to see if Paz was watching this, but she was studying Kip and Melina at the next table. Melina was talking to Kip, but his attention kept wandering away to the buffet line. She’d tap his hand, and he’d look at her and nod to show he was listening. But he obviously wasn’t.