by Maggie Allen
But before anything else could happen—besides the panic attack in her chest—the leaves were pushed farther across the concrete yard as the breeze picked up again. They made a scree-scree noise until they came to rest against one of the tire towers.
“Them leaves won’t hurt you.” Mr. Tallon nodded in assurance. “Leaves are a small thing, and the life goes out of them quickly when separated from a tree. Now a branch, it holds life a bit longer in its sap. You avoid the branches.”
“Yes, sir.” He didn’t have to tell her twice.
“Now, you see this here valve?”
She stepped up on an overturned milk crate and peered down into the station wagon’s engine. It was missing pieces, and even to her untrained eyes, looked wrong. She followed her neighbor’s instructions and had the pleasure of helping to bring it all back together, like fixing a broken heart.
This, she decided, was even better than weaving the hardest bracelet in the world.
Mr. Tallon was taking a nap. It was something he liked to do during the hottest part of the day. Car fixing, he told her, was for in the morning, and in the evening. Not when the sun baked down on concrete, making you hotter than fat pigs in fleece blankets. Lizette wandered his front pad, picking up random tools and oil-stained rags. She didn’t mind his frequent napping, as she didn’t like the way he looked or acted when he got too hot—shoulders sagging, with his hand kneading at his chest through his coveralls.
Lizette wiped her arm across her sweaty forehead. Maybe Mr. Tallon was right about the napping thing. She was about to cross the street for the comfort of couch, air conditioning, and afternoon TV when a car turned the corner.
A Greenery Defense police car. It drove by without any lights on, and Lizette scrutinized its green and white body as it passed. Before this summer, she wouldn’t have appreciated the choppy bumper and sculpted wheel wells. Cars like these made a statement: Watch me.
And she did, as it pulled up to a trim yellow house to the left of Lizette’s, the only other neighbor on their sparsely-populated street. No surprise there. The Greenery Defense officers checked in on Mrs. Crenshaw at least once a month. She was on probation for growing more than the legally allowed one plant per home. Lizette’s dad had said if she were caught again, she could serve time.
The Forest Dwellers could only appear where there was a significant amount of greenery, which was why no one had lawns anymore. Just concrete, or shredded up rubber turf. Some people painted their concrete fun colors, though never a shade of green. All of the Earth’s flora was ruled by the Forest Dwellers now, and no one wanted to see a reminder of that every day; the woods that ringed the town were more than enough.
Two officers knocked on Mrs. Crenshaw’s door. Then three more times until she finally answered. Even from where Lizette stood, she could see the sour expression on the woman’s face as she surveyed her visitors. Her cardigan was wrapped nearly twice around her thin body and secured with firmly crossed arms.
She jerked her head in the direction of her garage, and the officers disappeared around the back of it. A few minutes later, they reappeared, one lugging a large tomato plant in a white bucket. Mrs. Crenshaw banged through her screen door, her arms flying as she began to berate the police officer.
No longer bothered about being hot or bored, Lizette scooted across the street and jumped up the steps to her front porch.
“I know my rights! I’m allowed one plant per household. So you turn right around and take Red Gold back immediately!”
Hunkered behind a rocking chair, Lizette smothered a laugh. Mrs. Crenshaw named her plants? But then again, Lizette had been calling the green convertible Mr. Tallon had recently acquired Avocado these last several weeks.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the officer not carrying the tomato plant. “You are allowed one. But this one violates the height rule, and by law, it must be confiscated.”
“The height rule?” Mrs. Crenshaw screeched. “Now you’re just making that up, admit it!”
“No, ma’am.” Lizette thought he sounded like he needed one of Mr. Tallon’s afternoon naps. “Here is some literature from the Greenery Defense Council. Read it, and you’ll see we are perfectly within the law.”
Mrs. Crenshaw took the pamphlet and did read it, right there. Her shoulders slumped, and Lizette suddenly felt bad for laughing at her.
“Can I at least have the tomatoes so that they don’t go to waste?”
The officers exchanged looks. Then the closest one shrugged and stepped back from the bucket. “Sure, just make it quick.”
There were a lot of tomatoes on the bushy plant and as Mrs. Crenshaw gathered them off the vines, trying to cradle them to her chest, some fell from her hands and bounced onto the concrete. Lizette shifted uncomfortably; Mrs. Crenshaw was also on her mom’s Christmas cookie list.
Beside their front door was a battered basket. Lizette dumped out her dad’s old work boots and a half-deflated soccer ball, then hopped off her porch and jogged over the expanse of rubber chips separating the two houses. She held the basket out, afraid maybe she was doing the wrong thing, especially when she saw tears in the older woman’s eyes. But she placed the tomatoes in the basket as Lizette held it, until the plant was bare of color and the basket bursting with it.
“Sorry, ma’am,” one of the officers muttered. “We’ll be by the normal time next month.”
The police car backed out and glided away. Mrs. Crenshaw sniffed and transferred her attention to Lizette. “Well. Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me eat a tomato sandwich?”
Lizette tapped her bottom lip. “Do you have mayonnaise?”
“Do I have mayonnaise?” The older woman rolled her eyes. “What kind of question is that? C’mon.”
Lizette followed her into her house—cool, hallelujah—reflecting that making friends with her elderly neighbors really kept life entertaining.
Lizette sat on the sticky vinyl seat of the school bus, wishing it was the seat of the convertible, Avocado. Mr. Tallon promised if she helped him get it running, she could drive it around his concrete pad, just like the other three cars she had helped him with during the summer.
It was now two months into the school year, and Lizette’s life was vastly different than what it had been before the summer break. Her parents listened in bemusement at supper when she talked about the difference between muscle cars and luxury sedans. Her mother thought it was a phase that would pass, just like Lizette’s princess and horse crazes had. Her dad only laughed and said he hoped not because good mechanics were expensive. He thought how handy would it be if his very own daughter could tinker under a hood?
The school bus stopped before reaching Lizette’s house, drawing her from imagining the convertible fixed up and gleaming. Sitting on the left side of the aisle, she couldn’t see the reason why, but prickles raced beneath her skin as the kids on the right side pressed close to the glass. She stood up and wiggled past her seat mate, then raced down the aisle.
Seeing the whirling flash of neon lights, Lizette thought at first that Mrs. Crenshaw had broken the one-plant rule. Since the Red Gold debacle, Lizette visited her other neighbor several times a week. She was growing a cucumber plant now, and Lizette enjoyed peeking through the vines and seeing the green vegetables slowly lengthening.
Her own parents wanted nothing to do with any type of vegetation. As a result, Lizette still hadn’t touched the plant. She was, as she’d told Mrs. Crenshaw, working up to it.
* * *
Lizette’s stomach dropped as she arrived at the front of the bus—it wasn’t a Greenery Defense Council patrol car but an ambulance. It sat on the side of the road, neon lights swirling faster than the rides at the local fair.
“Looks like they’re at your neighbor’s house, the one with all the cars,” the bus driver said.
Lizette took the steps in one hop. She jiggled impatiently until the bus driver hit the lever and the doors crinkled back, blasting her with heat and the scent
of hot pavement.
A familiar figure stood by the open ambulance doors. “Mom!” Lizette said. “Is he…is he…?” She couldn’t get out the rest of her question.
“No, honey. He’s had a heart attack, but he’s alive. They’re going to take him to the hospital now.”
Her mother’s arm tight along her shoulders, Lizette peeked into the back of the ambulance. Mr. Tallon lay on a gurney. An oxygen mask was strapped to his face. He looked pale.
His eyes opened, and seeing her, his hand moved on his chest. The school bus eased slowly by, and part of Lizette wished she were still on it, were one of the kids whose best friend wasn’t lying on a gurney.
“Can I go with him?” she asked one of the medics. The other had just climbed in and slammed the driver’s door.
The medic looked up from adjusting a tube running from Mr. Tallon’s arm to a bag of fluid. “Are you family?”
“Yes,” Lizette answered promptly.
Her mother squeezed her tighter. “He’s practically family. He and Lizette are close.”
The medic looked down at Mr. Tallon. “All right, but just her. You’re welcome to follow us to the hospital, ma’am.”
“Of course. Thank you.” Mrs. Turner hugged Lizette and rubbed her back. “I’ll be right behind you guys.” Then pulling back she asked, “Are you sure you want to do this, Lizette?” she murmured. “It might be…too much.”
Lizette swallowed. She was terrified that once the ambulance doors shut with her inside, she would see something she didn’t want to see. She glanced into the ambulance again. The white sheet spread across Mr. Tallon highlighted the absence of his missing leg. The silly man hadn’t been wearing his prosthetic again.
He needed her to look after him. And that meant if she had to sit in that small space and will him not to die, then she’d do it. Once she was securely strapped into a fold-out seat, the ambulance pulled away. The sirens wailed and the lights flashed, but it still didn’t feel fast enough. She held Mr. Tallon’s hand, willing the warmth in hers to somehow seep into his.
Her arm lay on the edge of the ambulance bed, and the bracelet around her wrist looked shockingly out of place against the white sheet. Made of metal, it gleamed like oil floating on the surface of water—purple, blue, and green, with tinges of gold. Mr. Tallon had given it to her as a going back to school present, and Lizette hadn’t taken it off once.
It wasn’t as pretty as the bracelets she liked to weave, but it made her think about the roar of car engines and the fact that they were roaring because of her. And that...that was better than any combination of pink and purple. She gripped Mr. Tallon’s hand tighter.
They hadn’t been driving nearly long enough when they started to slow.
“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?” she asked the medic across from her.
“Not sure.” He set down the clipboard he’d been recording numbers on. “I’ll be right back.”
He went up front. Lizette looked anxiously at Mr. Tallon. His skin looked less brown and more like ash. His breathing was shallow and uneven. She gently laid his hand down and unbuckled. She leaned forward between the front seats, and looking out the windshield, she didn’t have to ask what was wrong—she could see for herself.
A large branch lay across the road. Thick and profusely leafy.
“Can you drive across it?” Lizette asked.
“Maybe,” said the medic who was driving. “But what if it gets caught?”
Lizette frowned, thinking of the implications of a large branch being dragged through town. Pandemonium for sure.
“We’ll have to reverse.” The two medics exchanged grim glances, striking a sharp arrow of fear into Lizette’s gut.
“But…but then you’ll have to go—”
“The longer way around. We have no choice.” The driver hit his flashers and threw it into reverse. Lizette looked over her shoulder; through the oval holes in the back doors she could see her mother already backing up, giving the ambulance room.
Her gaze fell from the windows to Mr. Tallon—the oxygen mask, the tubes, the wires attached to his chest. The fear-arrow dug deeper.
“No, just wait. Please.” Lizette lurched for the small side door.
“Hey!” one of the medics called, but it was too late. She was out. She heard the squeal of her mother’s brakes and her name frantically shouted; Lizette ignored it.
She approached the branch with quick steps, twisting her bracelet nervously around and around her wrist. Oddly enough, she wasn’t really afraid of the branch. She was more afraid of what was happening inside Mr. Tallon’s body and what more could go wrong the longer they delayed.
But her brain remembered that she should be very afraid. It screamed signals at her legs to run, her arms to pump. Adrenaline flooded through her, and the hands she thrust out toward the branch shook. Her first tug ended up doing nothing but ripping away a handful of leaves. They weren’t attached as firmly as she’d thought they’d be. She let them go, and they drifted to the ground as paper-light as they’d felt.
This time she grabbed a smaller branch shooting off from the main one. This was her first experience with touching bark, and she found it rough and gritty. She began to drag it to the side of the road that bordered the woods. She’d toss it into the shallow concrete ditch that ran beside the woods. Once they reached the hospital, a call would be placed to the Greenery Defense Council. They would come and torch the branch, reducing it to harmless ashes.
Almost there.
She slid the end of the branch down the concrete slope. As she lifted her arm higher in preparation to heave it away, a shadow rose from the leaves.
But no...not a shadow. Shadows are insubstantial things. This was changing into the color of black tar and gathering substance until a humanoid shape stood in front of her. Lizette looked down, because she couldn’t look up, and she found that the Forest Dweller’s feet had very long toes, tipped with very sharp nails.
She sensed a gathering in the air above her and by instinct threw her arms over her head. She caught sight of an open mouth descending (and teeth, so many teeth), and then several things happened at once.
A pulse from her wrist, a scream from her mother, the alien recoiling, bounding into the forest, the slap of feet, the feel of her mother’s arms, holding tight tight tight.
“Get in!” The medic opened the ambulance door and hustled them into the passenger-side seat. Lizette sat on her mother’s lap, cramped, her knees digging into the door’s molding. Their own car sat abandoned in the road, lights still flashing and the driver’s-side door open.
Lizette’s mother held her head against her chest, like when she was small and cried over thunder, and as they roared away, Lizette could feel the slamming beat of her mother’s heart.
Hospital waiting rooms were horrible places. If only she could be sweltering under a car hood right now. Or even helping her mother organize closets. Instead, Lizette sat in an uncomfortable chair, flipping through magazines of smiling people whose white teeth were grating on her nerves.
Very quietly, she tore a jagged line right through a woman’s perfect, happy face.
“Are you the Jamisons?”
Lizette quickly flapped the magazine shut. A worn-looking nurse stood a few feet away. After Lizette’s mother confirmed they were, she beckoned them to follow her. “We just finished an examination. He’s doing much better since he arrived yesterday.”
Lizette’s heart felt lighter as her sneakers squeaked down the hall. But as they entered the room and she saw the forest of equipment on poles and wires and heard the whoosh and beeping of it all working, some of her newfound buoyancy leaked away.
Mr. Tallon still looked pale and small in the middle of it all. His eyes were closed, and Lizette and her mother approached the bed quietly.
“Mr. Tallon, you have visitors,” the nurse announced brightly.
Lizette gripped her mother’s hand as his eyelids fluttered open, shut against the light and then open
ed again.
“Lizzie...Mrs. Jamison. It’s good to see you both.”
Lizette’s voice felt stuck in her throat as her mother replied for them both. This was much better? She thought he looked the same as when she first saw him in the ambulance.
In a dry voice, Mr. Tallon asked if he could have a few minutes alone with Lizette.
“Sure.” Lizette’s mother squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be right outside the door, honey.”
Once she was gone, Lizette blurted, “I saw a Forest Dweller.” Then she grimaced. She should have asked him how he was, though really, what was the point in that? He looked like he felt terrible.
The skin around Mr. Tallon’s eyes crinkled more than his lips did, which was his version of a smile. Seeing it eased some of Lizette’s worry for him. “I heard. All the nurses were talking about it. Every person who’s ever encountered a Forest Dweller that close has been taken.”
“That’s right.” Lizette moved closer to him and was comforted to see there was still some oil lingering around his fingernails—this was the Mr. Tallon she knew. “And I think I know why it didn’t.”
She held up her wrist. The metal bracelet he’d given her slid down her arm.
“What is this, Mr. Tallon? Why did it stop the Forest Person?”
He smiled, his eyes briefly dropping shut. “You’re a smart girl, Lizzie. And I owe you my life. For that, I thank you.”
She waited for more, and when it wasn’t forthcoming said, “You’re welcome,” to be polite, and because she would have done it again if she had to, even now knowing how scary the Forest People were. “But what about this bracelet?” She tapped her wrist.
He was quiet for a bit, taking deep breaths. When he started talking again, it wasn’t about the bracelet, but she didn’t feel let down. Instead, she had a feeling he was just working up to the answer she wanted.
“The Forest People have been here so long, it seems like we’ve forgotten that they don’t really belong. Can you imagine, Lizzie, that yards used to be made of grass? That there were trees in them, offering shade and places for children to climb?”
