by David Lubar
Oswald heard it through the open window in his bedroom. As he ran down the steps and out the back door, he wondered about the voice. It was loud but small.
Oswald had no trouble finding the source. The shouting kept on, nonstop, from under the dogwood tree. Raffi, Oswald’s gray tabby cat, stood there with her prey dangling from her jaws.
The prey was the source of the loud-but-small shouts. The prey himself was loud but small.
“Wow,” Oswald said. The tiny guy in the green suit had to be a leprechaun. No mistake.
Raffi had the collar of the leprechaun’s green coat clamped in her jaws.
“WRETCHED BEAST!” the captive shouted.
Oswald, who was no fool in these things, leaped straight to the point. “I get a pot of gold, right? Isn’t that the deal? I let you go, and you give me gold.”
The leprechaun glared at him.
“Come on, is that it?” Oswald asked.
Raffi shook her head, rattling the leprechaun around like an empty glove.
“STOP THAT!” the leprechaun shouted. “All right, I’ll give you gold, but you have to provide the pot.”
“What?” Oswald didn’t understand.
“The pot, you dim-witted foul-breathed monster,” the leprechaun said. “Go get a pot, I’ll fill it with gold, and we’ll be done with the whole thing.”
“Deal.” Oswald ran into the kitchen and searched through the cabinets. There were tons of pots, pans, skillets, and bowls. But they weren’t big enough. Oswald knew the pot he wanted—the pot his mom used when she made soup. He imagined how it would look filled with gold. That would be an awful lot of treasure.
He spotted the pot. It was sitting on the kitchen counter, filled with vegetables and a big soup bone. Mom must be making soup, he thought. With all the gold he was about to get, he could buy his mom a truckload of soup. Luckily, she hadn’t turned on the burner yet, so the pot was cold. Oswald dumped the vegetables in the sink and went running out the back door, eager to get the pot filled with gold.
Raffi was still under the tree. But there was no sign of the leprechaun.
“Huh?” Oswald stared at Raffi for a moment. Then he noticed something on the ground next to his cat. “Oh no.” Oswald recognized the label. He dropped the pot, bent over, and grabbed the can.
“You made a deal with him, didn’t you?” Oswald said, waving the can of tuna in front at Raffi. “You let him go for this. One stupid little can of tuna. And you can’t even open it. Unbelievable. You are such a stupid animal.” Oswald threw the can to the ground and stomped back into the kitchen—just in time to run into his mother, who was very interested in hearing his explanation for the sink full of vegetables.
Outside, Raffi waited beneath the dogwood tree. In a moment, the leprechaun came walking out from under the bushes, dragging a can opener.
“Here you go,” he said as he tossed the opener in front of the cat. “A deal’s a deal. Don’t pay any attention to that silly human. You aren’t stupid. Not at all. You’re a very smart kitty cat.” With that, the leprechaun chuckled and skittered away.
Raffi batted at the opener with her left front paw. It didn’t do any good. Then she batted it for a while with her right front paw. It still didn’t do any good. Eventually, Raffi gave up and went off in search of mice. They tasted better than tuna, anyhow.
THE UNFORGIVING TREE
It was on a Thursday just two weeks after school ended that Ricky noticed the tree had moved. It hadn’t moved a lot and there were no obvious signs that anything had happened, but Ricky knew right away that the tree wasn’t where it had always been.
It was easy for him to tell. He liked to stand with his back against the tree and bounce a ball against the house. He’d been doing it for so many years that he knew right away when something was wrong. Either the tree had moved or the house had moved.
Ricky was pretty sure the house hadn’t moved.
He started checking the tree each day. He measured the distance from the tree to the house. The tape didn’t seem to show any change from one day to the next, but Ricky could tell that the tree was getting closer. He didn’t mention anything to his parents. They wouldn’t believe him. He was sure of that.
But he kept an eye on the tree. By the middle of the summer, he was positive that it had gotten a lot closer to the house. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but the tree was right outside his bedroom window.
It wanted something. He was sure of that.
One night, a branch got so close that it broke his window. His parents came running.
“Why’d you do it?” his father asked.
“I didn’t,” Ricky said. He looked down and saw proof of his innocence. There was glass on the floor. “See,” he said, pointing to the shards. “It was broken from the outside. Otherwise, the glass would be on the ground.”
“Don’t try to act innocent,” his father said. “That window is coming out of your allowance.” He stomped downstairs, then came back with a piece of cardboard that he taped over the broken pane.
Ricky went back to bed and lay there listening to the sound of branches tapping against the side of the house. He looked out through the unbroken part of the window. There was no breeze that night.
The next morning, Ricky measured the distance from the house. The tree was three feet away. Ricky hadn’t checked for a week or so, but he was sure that the last time he’d measured the tree, it had been four feet away.
“Dad, that tree is moving closer to the house,” Ricky said during breakfast.
“Of course it is,” his father said, glancing up from the newspaper. “It’s growing. I remember when we moved here—that tree was just a scrawny sapling. Now look at it. I’d bet it’s at least thirty feet high. I still can’t believe it survived that little stunt you pulled with the saw.”
“What stunt?” Ricky asked.
His father grinned. “Don’t you remember?
“Nope.”
“Well, you were pretty young. But you’d gotten your hands on one of my saws, and you were doing a good job of cutting the tree down. I managed to catch you just in time. A couple more minutes and you would have cut so deep that the tree would never have recovered. I’m surprised you don’t remember. You got quite a spanking that day.”
Ricky thought back. He had vague memories of being punished for something when he was little, but all of that was a long time ago. It didn’t matter. His real problem was in the present.
“The tree’s not just growing,” he said. “It’s getting closer to the house.”
His father mumbled, “That’s nice,” and kept reading the paper.
Ricky went outside to look at the tree again. A foot and a half above the ground, he saw a long scar in the trunk.
“Hey, I’m sorry. That was years ago. I was just a kid. Can’t you forget about it?”
Ricky stood there for a moment, almost expecting to get some kind of answer. Then he realized how foolish he sounded talking to a tree. But there was one more thing he had to tell it. “You won’t get me,” Ricky said, “I can move faster than you.”
He stepped away, then jumped as a branch crashed to the ground on the spot where he’d been standing.
That night, Ricky heard his window sliding open. A branch poked through the gap. He grabbed his pocketknife from his desk and hacked at the branch. Something brown gushed from the cut and spilled over his hands. The branch pulled back outside.
Ricky slammed the window shut, then went to wash his hands. When he came back into his room, the window was open again. Ricky decided to go sleep on the couch in the living room. But he stopped by the door. “No. This is my room. Nothing is going to scare me out of it.” He turned back toward the tree. “You aren’t going to win.”
Ricky sat on his bed and watched the branch. It was still growing, moving deeper into his room. But it was moving slowly. At some point Ricky fell asleep. He woke late the next morning. His window was open, but there was no sign of the branch. In the middle of
his room, halfway from the window to his bed, Ricky saw a leaf lying on the floor.
Why now? Ricky wondered. The incident with the saw had happened so long ago. He’d once heard his father say that a wise man waits three years for vengeance. Were trees more patient than that?
Ricky closed the window. As he looked at the tree, he knew he had to do something. He had to do it before bedtime. When night came, the tree would get even closer, maybe too close.
After checking to make sure his parents weren’t around, Ricky went to the garage and searched through his dad’s tools. The saws were all too small for the job. There was an ax, but it was too heavy. Ricky looked for something else he could use. He thought about the shovel, but there was no way he could dig deep enough to remove the tree.
As he stood there, trying to think of something he could use, he heard his parents pulling into the driveway. It was too late. He’d have to find something else. For now, there were no answers in the garage.
Ricky went back outside. The tree was even closer to the house now. He was sure of that. He had to get rid of it.
Ricky sat in the yard, watching the tree, half-expecting to see it move. He was startled to hear his mother shouting for his father. “Fred! There’s water in the basement!”
Ricky followed his father downstairs. Sure enough, there was a large puddle on the floor of the basement and wet spots on the wall.
“Tree roots,” Ricky’s father said after examining the problem. “They’re growing through the foundation.”
“I told you it was getting close to the house,” Ricky said.
His father ignored him. But the next thing his father said thrilled Ricky. “Nothing to do but get the tree cut down.”
Ricky let out a cheer, not caring at all about the strange look he got in return. That night, he stayed awake and huddled in a corner of his room as a probing branch made it almost all the way to his bed. But the next day he had the pleasure of watching while a crew of men came and cut down the tree.
It was over.
“Yup,” his father said, walking over next to Ricky, “I’ll never forget that day you got your hands on my saw. Or the time you used your pocketknife to carve your initials on every tree around here.”
“Every tree?” It had been so long ago. But it came back to him. Ricky remembered when he had done that. He’d been six, so it must have been about a year after the incident with the saw. He looked around the yard. There were so many trees. And they all seemed closer to the house than before—a lot closer than he remembered.
“Yup,” Ricky’s father said. “Every tree. It’s amazing what you kids think you can get away with.”
All around him. Ricky heard the rustle of branches moving in the wind and the creak of roots straining against the soil.
BOBBING FOR DUMMIES
“This is so pathetic,” Arnold said as he looked around the room. He couldn’t believe he’d given up trick or treat for a stupid Halloween party at the YMCA. Especially a party crawling with little kids.
But his mom hadn’t offered him a choice. She believed Halloween was a dangerous holiday and that kids shouldn’t be “roaming from house to house, pleading for candy like a bunch of beggars.” So it was the party or nothing.
At least his friend Lewis was there. Lewis really knew how to have fun. Better yet, the woman who was in charge had just stepped out of the all-purpose room to go get more soda.
“Let’s wreck this,” Lewis whispered to Arnold.
“Sure.” Arnold looked around for something to wreck. But Lewis was way ahead of him. He stuck his head in the bucket where apples bobbed and sucked up a big mouthful of water. Then he spat the water back into the bucket.
“Who wants to bob?” Lewis asked, grinning.
A little boy toddled up to them. “I wanna bob.”
“Go away,” Arnold said, giving the kid a push. “You’re too small to bob.”
“No, he’s not,” Lewis said. He lifted the kid and dumped him in the water. “See, he bobs just fine.”
“You’re right. But he cries a lot, too.” Arnold moved away from the wet, noisy kid. “This is getting boring. Let’s do something else.”
Arnold looked around the room at the little kids in their stupid costumes. When he spotted a boy who was dressed as a turkey, he grabbed Lewis’s arm and said, “Let’s make a wish.”
“Yeah!”
They raced over and each grabbed a leg, like it was one end of a wishbone.
“I wish this party wasn’t so stupid,” Lewis said.
Arnold glanced over at the bobbing bucket, where the wet kid was still crying. “I wish bobbing wasn’t so boring.” He tugged at the boy’s leg.
The boy screamed. Lewis dropped his leg. “Guess I win,” Arnold said. But he was bored again. These kids were no fun to pick on. They just crumpled up and cried. It was too easy. Arnold dropped the boy’s other leg. “Now what?”
“Dessert!” Lewis attacked the snacks, taking one bite out of each brownie. Arnold joined him, licking a bare stripe across the top of each cupcake.
Just as they were finishing their snack, the woman in charge of the party returned and asked them to leave. Actually, she did more than ask. She demanded. Loudly.
Fine with me, Arnold thought as he left the room.
“Hey,” Lewis said, “let’s go swimming.”
“I think the pool’s closed,” Arnold said.
“Nothing’s ever closed,” Lewis told him. “That’s what I always say. Come on.”
They slipped into the pool. It might have been closed, but it wasn’t locked.
“That really was a lousy party,” Arnold said as he floated on his back in the middle of the pool.
“Really lousy,” Lewis agreed. “Stupid games. Bobbing for apples. That’s no fun. Bobbing is for babies.”
“Totally boring.” Arnold stared at the ceiling. As he gazed up there, something tore the roof off, exposing the pool to the night sky.
Giant heads appeared at the edges of the walls. Giant hands gripped the tops of the wall. One head pushed down toward the pool. Arnold screamed as the clamping teeth just missed him.
The head rose, then plunged down again. It got Lewis. Another head bobbed down. Arnold tried to reach the side of the pool. He never made it. But he got his wish. Briefly, very briefly, bobbing was definitely not boring.
EAT A BUG
Laura stood at the edge of the playground, watching the other kids. This wasn’t a good day. Sometimes someone would need an extra hand to turn a jump rope or an extra body to balance a seesaw. Not today. There was an empty seesaw, but Laura knew that it wouldn’t do any good to go over there. She was sure she could sit all day and all night and all the rest of her life and not a single kid would bother to take the other end.
Laura didn’t know why things were this way. It could be worse, she told herself, looking across the playground. At least I’m not Debbie Dirt-Digger. Laura took some small satisfaction in knowing that there was one person even lonelier than she was. She watched as Debbie knelt in the dirt on the other side of the playground and dug with a stick.
Every day at recess, Debbie walked past the slides and swing and seesaw, continued past the backstop, and went into the far corner of the playground. When she got there, she picked up a stick and dug in the dirt. It was so much a part of the playground routine that Laura rarely thought of it anymore. Even the meanest kids had grown tired of taunting her. As Laura looked at Debbie, she almost felt sorry for her.
Suddenly Debbie raised her head. Her eyes locked with Laura’s.
Laura wanted to look away. But that would mean losing some unspoken contest to Debbie. Maybe even moving below Debbie, all the way to the bottom of the invisible social ranking that followed Laura through school. There was no way she’d let that happen. She held the other girl’s gaze.
Debbie smiled. The smile reminded Laura of a caterpillar stretching across a half-dried leaf.
Laura found herself walking past the slides and
swing and seesaw and around the backstop. She felt as if she were being tugged through air as thick as syrup. She stood above Debbie.
“Hi,” Debbie said, still smiling. There didn’t appear to be any happiness in her expression.
“Uh, hi,” Laura said.
“You don’t have any friends,” Debbie said.
Stung by the blunt truth, Laura struck back. “Neither do you.”
“Yes, I do.”
Laura didn’t bother to answer. It would be ridiculous to argue about something so obvious.
“I’ll be your friend if you eat a bug,” Debbie said.
Laura was sure that she’d heard wrong. “What?”
Still looking at Laura, Debbie scratched at the dirt with her stick. “Eat a bug,” she said. Then she giggled. “It’s no big deal. Birds do it all the time. So do shrews and moles. Eat a bug. Just one. Then I’ll be your friend.”
This is ridiculous, Laura thought, but she knelt next to Debbie. A friend … A bug … Laura couldn’t look away from those eyes. At the edges of her vision, she was aware that Debbie had stopped digging and was taking something from the hole.
Debbie’s hand came forward. “Friends,” she whispered. She cradled something in her fist.
Laura, her eyes locked on Debbie’s, reached out. She flinched for an instant as a soft and wriggling thing touched her palm.
“Quickly,” Debbie said.
Laura’s hand moved toward her mouth. It was over in an instant, so quick she swallowed before she could even shudder.
“Did you chew?” Debbie asked.
Laura shook her head, then said, “No.” That would have been too awful. She wiped her hand on her shirt.
Debbie, her eyes still holding Laura, nodded. “Good. If you do that, they can’t lay their eggs.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Debbie said. “Don’t think about it. You’ll have friends soon, lots of friends. And so will I. So will everyone. Bugs are so much nicer than people. They treat everyone the same.” She looked away.
As Laura lost Debbie’s gaze, the world seemed to fade for an instant. When it returned, Laura was standing across the playground, watching the girl dig in the dirt. Laura frowned and brushed a small speck of dirt off her fingertip. For a moment, she thought she had just eaten a bug. But that couldn’t be. No, she’d never do something like that. Her stomach fluttered at the very idea. Her stomach fluttered and wriggled.
