by Joan Bauer
Tree tried to take the insult apart, find the good. Giant he could live with, but sloth didn’t have an upside.
He got out the can of deicer, sprayed the front steps, watched the ice evaporate. The ice had to be gone so Grandpa wouldn’t fall when he came home.
He wondered if deicer would work on Larry.
Then he remembered.
Everyone was coming home, but he was supposed to stay at his mom’s next week.
Curtis and Larry got to stay at Dad’s for their whole winter break. Mom was supposed to turn her attic into a bedroom for them, but she couldn’t yet. Money was tight.
Tree threw the can down.
He had to be there when Grandpa and his brothers came home.
CHAPTER SIX
Tree’s mother . . .
In workout clothes.
At the kitchen counter.
Typing on her laptop computer while studying fabric swatches for the couch.
Looking up occasionally to make eye contact with Tree.
Uttered the Big Question: “Honey, what would you like most to happen on Christmas Day?”
What Tree wanted most was for it to be the way it had always been.
He didn’t know how to say that.
The Christmas Schedule: “Your dad and I have worked it out. You and your brothers are going to be there for Christmas Eve, and then early in the morning he’ll bring you all over here.”
There and here.
It sounded so easy when she said it.
“I’m going to make apple, pecan, and pumpkin pies and roast beef and get those dinner rolls you like. The tree will be up and it’s going to be okay, honey. It’s going to be fine.”
Tree looked down.
He wasn’t sure about fine. He knew it was going to be different.
A blur of memories flooded Tree:
Grandpa’s Christmas lights strung around his house in Baltimore—the house looked like Santa Claus himself lived inside.
The blinking sign on the roof—MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!
The crowds walking by.
Bradley’s reindeer outfit that one year. Bad idea.
The Christmas the stove broke and they had to eat at that all-you-can-eat buffet.
The Christmas Larry threw up on their grandmother’s lace tablecloth and they finally figured out he was allergic to turkey.
The Christmas Mom broke her leg and lay on the couch, shouting instructions for where each ornament was to be hung properly on the tree.
Mom had stopped typing. “If I could, honey, I would fast-forward us all to a few years down the road when we’ll be more comfortable with this, even though I’d be older.” She laughed, looked at the fabric swatches on her lap. “Green, I think. Stripes get tired.”
Tree didn’t understand how stripes could get tired.
His mother used mysterious words when she decorated.
“Curtis and Larry are coming home on Friday,” he said.
She smiled. “I know.” She was clipping coupons now.
“Grandpa’s coming home then, too.”
She looked up. “So soon?”
Big breath. “And, Mom, you know, I promised I’d help when Grandpa got home. He’s going to need a lot of help.”
She knew that. She loved Leo, too.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be here.” He looked down; didn’t like lying.
“It’s just that you want to be there,” she said flatly.
She wished she hadn’t said it that way.
“I’ll come visit, Mom. I promise.”
She threw down the coupons. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re just visiting me. I’m doing everything I can to make this house our home.”
Tree looked at the freshly painted light green walls.
The yellow curtains at the windows.
The scented dried flowers that would make his father sneeze.
Conan, the little gray terrier she got after the divorce, was barking with irritation.
“I’ll let him out, Mom.”
“He’s just saying hi.”
Conan looked like he wanted to kill someone.
Mom smiled weakly. “Hi, baby. Hi.”
Tree tried to feel at home, but there weren’t any memories here.
The rooms were cramped, the ceilings were low, the dog was too small.
He’d walk through the door and divorce would hit him in the face.
He stood up, cracked his head on the low-hanging ceiling light.
“Oh, honey.” His mom checked the cut. “Let me put something on that.
The pain stung.
She dabbed the cut with cotton and peroxide.
He didn’t know the house well enough to remember where to duck.
Ducking is a key survival skill for the too tall.
Tree and Conan were standing in Ripley Memorial Park in front of the great white oak. Conan didn’t appreciate this tree like Bradley, who would lie down in front of it in dog reverence. People said this oak had been there close to two hundred years. Just growing all that time.
Trees never stop growing; he’d read that somewhere.
To most people, that’s an interesting fact. To him, it was grim news.
“We’re going to have to raise the roof if you get any taller,” Uncle Roger always said.
Having to raise the roof was one of Tree’s greatest fears.
He touched the wound on his head, remembered the story Grandpa told him about the USS Constitution, a battleship. The ship had been made from wood of the white oak. That wood was so hard, cannonballs bounced off it during battles at sea.
Old Ironsides, the boat got named.
Tree would like to be made of such tough stuff.
His grandpa sure was.
No matter what happened to him, he kept on going.
When his wife died of cancer seven years ago.
When he had to sell his electrical business because his leg got so bad.
Tree had heard the big story so often—the one about Grandpa in the hospital in Vietnam when his leg had been shot.
So scared.
Sure that leg was going to go.
Men dying all around him.
“I wasn’t strong enough to handle it,” Grandpa said. “Then a chaplain came over, asked how I was doing. I told him. A nurse was calling him to come quick to the bed of a soldier hurt worse than me. But he grabbed my hand and said the shortest prayer: ‘Lord, let this man’s best years be ahead of him.’ He ran to the other soldier’s bed. But that prayer just stuck. I couldn’t shake it. I got home a month later. I’ve never had much luck with the leg, but I say that prayer close to every day.”
A cold wind blasted through the park. Tree pushed up his hood, shivered. Conan whimpered.
Tree took out the blue-and-yellow schedule his mother made for December.
Blue was for Bradley and Grandpa.
Yellow was for Conan the Crab.
Blue was when he got to feel real.
Yellow was when he didn’t fit.
Curtis and Larry were too old to have plasticized sheets. Too old to be told where to go, where to sleep.
When you’re twelve, everyone tells you where to go, what you need.
He wanted everything he cared about under one roof.
What Conan wanted was anybody’s guess. This dog was barking weird.
“You want to walk some more?”
Conan wouldn’t budge.
“You want me to rub you?”
Conan backed away.
“You want to be a famous, rich dog on television?”
Conan moaned, couldn’t take the cold. Tree picked him up, stuffed him inside his coat, his little head sticking out, and walked back to his mother’s house.
House.
He turned the word over in his mind.
I’m going to my house.
I’m going to my mother’s house.
House was a word he’d always taken for granted.
He kne
w there was a big difference between a house and a home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mocha pecan frosted brownies wrapped in cellophane with a plaid bow. Sitting on Mom’s kitchen counter.
Grandpa’s favorite.
Tree knew she was going to let him stay at Dad’s.
“Give these to Leo,” Mom said. “I know this is an important week for all of you. I called your grandpa. We had a good talk. We hadn’t talked for . . .” She started to cry, stopped herself.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll come and—” He was about to say visit. “I’ll come over and tell you how everyone is doing and Curtis and Larry will come, too, and maybe Bradley even.” He looked at Conan, who couldn’t care less.
She touched his arm. “I know you have things to do to get ready.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
He looked down; she looked up. She was five-nine.
He bent down to give her a hug. Took the brownies, almost dropped them.
Clutched the tray, walked carefully out the door.
He didn’t see her fold her arms tight, lean against the refrigerator, and start to cry.
Curtis and Larry barreled into the house, tossed duffels in the hall.
“You look old enough to go, you might as well have one.” Curtis threw a University of New Hampshire sweatshirt to Tree.
Tree put it on, beaming. “Thanks.” Smiled at Larry, who looked upset. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Larry stood extra tall, didn’t smile back. “Did you grow more?” Larry was five-eleven.
Tree shrugged. “Probably.”
“You’re the little brother now.” Curtis laughed, poking Larry.
“Shut up,” Larry snarled.
Curtis, six-one, looked at Tree: “How tall will he become? Stay tuned for the late-breaking news.”
Tree slumped a little. “Come on, you guys.”
Dad came racing home in the Kramer’s Sports Mart van and they all headed to the VA to pick up Grandpa.
But Grandpa couldn’t get in the van—it was too high.
Curtis and Larry tried to lift him. Grandpa cracked his head on the door.
“I’m going to need more surgery and I’m not home yet.”
Tree, on hands and knees, a human step. Curtis and Larry lifted Grandpa up on Tree to the passenger seat. Curtis stepped on Tree’s right hand. Larry stepped on Tree’s left hand, and Tree shrieked right there in the hospital quiet zone.
“We’re going to grab hold of the first rule of electrical power,” Grandpa hollered. “You need a negative charge and a positive one to get something moving. We’ve got the negative; we’re going to find the positive if it kills us.”
Swoosh.
Tree had just put a submarine sandwich in the basket and let it ride to Grandpa in the living room. Curtis timed it.
“Thirteen and a half seconds,” Curtis shouted.
Grandpa laughed. “You could earn money with this rig!” He pulled the rope from his end, shot the basket back. “You forgot the chips,” he yelled.
Tree grabbed the basket that was racing toward him, stuck chips inside, hurled it back.
“I can get used to this,” Grandpa shouted.
Curtis and Larry took over, trying to get the kitchen–to–living room run down to ten seconds.
Bradley stayed in the hall.
A knock on the door. Mrs. Clitter walked in, holding a basket; gave Grandpa a lovesick smile.
“Leo, this must be such a difficult time. I’m here to help in any way I can.”
“Hello, Dorothy,” he said miserably.
Swoosh.
She looked up, saw the ropes, the basket hurtling toward her.
“Duck,” Grandpa ordered.
She did.
The basket flew by, stopped by Grandpa’s arm.
“What is that?” Mrs. Clitter held her basket tight.
“State-of-the-art in-house food delivery by an up-and-coming genius.” He sent the basket back.
Tree was so proud.
She stayed low. “I brought . . . cookies.”
“That’s kind of you, Dorothy. You want to see my scar?”
“Actually—”
He leaned down to unroll the bandage. “It’s still pretty ugly. It might be oozing pus or something worse.”
“I’ll come back later, Leo.” She left the basket on the table, raced out the door.
Bradley barked.
Everyone laughed, ate the cookies.
Grandpa tried to get comfortable on the couch. Couldn’t.
Tree could see the pain in his face.
“Are you okay?” Tree kept asking.
“I’m okay,” he kept answering over the next few days as he did his exercises, practiced with his walker, strengthened the parts that were weak and were strong.
“How much time do I have left?”
Grandpa asked it, huffing and puffing on his exercise mat in the living room. He was doing his abdominal exercises twice a day like Mona Arnold told him.
Tree checked the stopwatch. “Ten minutes.”
“I’ve been doing this for half a day.”
“It’s been two minutes, Grandpa.”
Tough soldier face. Sucked in his gut, kept going; picked up the hand weights on the table.
Tree wished there were exercises to help you get strong after your parents got divorced.
He and his brothers could use them.
Larry was hardly ever home—when he was home, he’d just lie on the couch, watching TV.
Curtis didn’t seem to want to do much.
They hadn’t gone to a movie yet.
Hadn’t practiced basketball together.
Tree wondered if divorce was like war and always had a lasting effect on the people who went through it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sophie Santack was standing at the popular-eighth-grade-girls’ table in the Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School cafeteria, determined to make a point. She looked smack into the beautiful face of Amber Melloncroft.
“I’m not here to make trouble. I just want to know how come, ever since I showed up at this school, you look at me like I fell off a garbage truck.”
A gasp rose from the popular girls assembled as Amber, their leader, looked at all of them like she couldn’t believe this. . . .
Sophie gripped her tray. “I just want to get one thing clear. You’re not any better than me. I’m not crawling with bugs or have green slime running down my neck. I’m a person just like you.”
Amber made a shocked noise of disgust and all the other girls made the exact same noise.
“I’ve moved around a lot. What’s at this school isn’t all that different from other places. We don’t have to be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies, either.”
And with that she walked off and sat at the back of the lunchroom by herself.
It was near the table where Tree sat with Sully Devo and Eli Slovik—far away from Jeremy Liggins, who used to “accidentally” spill chocolate milk on Tree.
Sophie was looking at her lunch and, it seemed to Tree, trying not to cry. A mean laugh rose from the popular-girls’ table, followed by whispers, giggles, and stares at Sophie. Tree hated it when girls did that. He thought Sophie had been brave. Tree knew that Amber would get back at Sophie every chance she got. Sophie had started at the school a few months ago and didn’t have any friends.
Tree knew what that was like. Sometimes it felt like every seat in the world was saved for somebody else.
He looked at Sophie and said something he’d never said to a girl. “You want to sit with us?”
Sully and Eli looked shocked because, first of all, they were seventh-graders, and a seventh-grade boy never sat with an eighth-grade girl. And second of all, Sophie was weird.
Sophie shook her head.
“We’re not crawling with bugs or have purple slime running down our necks.” Tree surprised himself by saying this.
Sophie half smiled. “It was green
, the slime I mentioned.”
“Slovik’s got green slime on his neck, but he’s done eating.” Eli punched Tree in the arm. “So, you want to eat with us?”
“Okay, well . . .”
They only had seven minutes before the bell rang, but in that time Sophie told them close to her whole life story.
“Okay, so the last place I lived was in the Bronx—we were there for three years—and then my aunt Peach and my mother decided it was cheaper to live here, so we moved, and we’re all living in an apartment, which is torture, over by the railroad station—me, my mom, my cousin, my aunt, six cats, and my iguana, Lassie. There should be a law that makes trains be quiet so people can get their sleep. When I’m a lawyer—if that’s what I do—I’m either going to be a lawyer or have my own talk show. I haven’t decided. But, one way or the other, I’m going to take care of problems. We don’t know what the future’s going to bring, but I figure law and talk aren’t going away. And I was just born with a big mouth—my aunt Peach tells me that all the time—so I guess I’m going to use it. They named me Sophia because it stands for wisdom. I usually say what people are thinking and don’t have the guts to say.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “This is the worst food of any school I’ve ever been at. We should do something about this. Demand justice. People have more power in this world than they think.”
Tree had never heard anyone talk like this.
Sully and Eli hadn’t, either.
“Okay.” Sophie was moving her head back and forth in a kind of rocking motion, like she was listening to music that only she could hear. “So, here’s how it is. Here’s my motto: Speak your mind and ride a fast horse. There’s just one problem.”
“You don’t have a fast horse,” Tree guessed.
“You got it. What’s your name?”
“Tree. That’s what they call me.”
“What’s your motto?”
Tree thought about that. “I don’t have one.”
“You’ve gotta have a motto.”
Tree looked at Sully and Eli. They didn’t have mottoes, either.
“How do you know what you’re about?” Sophie slurped down the last of her milk.
Tree, Sully, and Eli weren’t sure how to answer.
That’s when the bell rang.
