“By the way,” the officer calls up to Mom and me through her bullhorn, “I’ve been in touch with the mayor’s office. This tree is coming down first thing tomorrow. No matter what.” She takes a few steps toward her car, then turns back. “And I hope for your sakes you’re not still here when that happens.”
When the officer drives off, Mom looks at me. “Lily,” she says. “I’m going to let you stay up here. All night if you want, because it looks like it will be your last time in Bob. But I’m going to be here at the base of this tree the entire time. You’d better be incredibly careful.” She takes a deep breath. “And you’ve got to climb down in the morning before the guys start cutting.”
I don’t tell Mom I have no intention of climbing down in the morning. But I’m glad she’s okay with me being up here tonight. And that I won’t be alone.
Carefully, slowly, I lean forward and manage to give her an awkward hug.
Mom hugs me and pats my back. It feels so good.
“Anything you need help with before I climb down?”
I whisper to Mom.
And since it’s getting dark and the last of the onlookers left when the police officer did, Mom helps me pee in the bottle. It’s disgusting, but I realize that for once in my life, I’m glad I have male anatomy.
Mom takes the bottle down with her to “dispose” of it.
I use water from one of my drinking bottles to wash my hands.
I sure hope Bob appreciates all I’m doing for him.
Mom gets me a sandwich from Publix and some fresh fruit and brings it up to me.
Afterward, she and Sarah set up lawn chairs and sit at the base of Bob, eating the food Mom bought for them.
It’s like we’re having a picnic together, except they’re down there and I’m up in a tree. And it’s dark, except for the glow from the streetlight.
Normal people don’t have picnics in the dark.
But who wants to be normal?
Dad arrives, and Mom hands him a sandwich and a banana.
“Tim!” he calls up in a voice that makes my breath catch.
“Hey, Dad.” I expect he’ll tell me to come down, and I have a feeling that if he does, my resolve will melt like an ice cube on a sweltering sidewalk.
My butt and back are incredibly sore. Gnats fly near my eyes. I have fire ant bites on my arms and legs. I’m exhausted and achy. If Dad insists, I have a feeling I’ll be down in a heartbeat, with the rest of my family.
And I will hate myself for it.
“I don’t like this,” Dad calls up. “I wish there were another way.” He clears his throat. “But I’m proud of you for standing up for something that doesn’t have a voice to stand up for itself.”
Dad’s words surprise me. They warm me. They remind me of the dad I know and love. Remind me of what I’m sure Grandpop Bob would have said. “Thanks” is all I can manage.
My eyes have adjusted to the dark, and the nearby streetlight allows me to see Dad nod, then join Mom and Sarah for dinner. He paces while he eats.
“Bob,” I whisper in my quietest voice. “I have the best family.”
He rustles his leaves to tell me he knows. And maybe to say thank you.
I look at my family, eating and laughing below me. Then I pull my jacket from my backpack and settle in for what will probably be a very long night.
At least I don’t have to pee anymore.
RUN, NORBERT. RUN!
When the bus pulls into the lot at school, it feels like my teammates are moving in slow motion to make their way off—purposely—to annoy me. I want to push past them, but force myself to wait.
Finally, FINALLY, I’m free in the breezy December air. Tim was right about it getting cooler after November fifteenth. I thought I’d never survive the heat and then, like a switch was flipped, it cooled off. Not New Jersey cold, but enough to keep me from sweating to death.
Mom waves from where she’s leaning on our car, and I jog over. It feels good to be moving. To be in forward motion.
“How’d you do?” Mom asks. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the game.”
“Didn’t play,” I say, shifting from foot to foot. “Not even one minute. Warmed the bench the whole game.”
“Again?” Mom asks, glaring toward Coach, who is standing near the bus.
“It’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t. “Team won.”
“That’s good, I guess,” Mom says. “Hey, let’s get home. Bubbie’s baked some blueberry flaxseed muffins for us.”
“As awesome as that sounds, I need to move.”
“Huh? I drove over here to pick you up.” Mom’s looking at me in that way again. Really staring into my eyes. “Don’t be mad at me, but I went in your room today and checked your medicine bottles.”
I am mad. Incredibly mad. My-head’s-going-to-shoot-off-my-neck mad. “I’m not mad,” I say, trying to stand still. It’s impossible. I jog in place a little.
“It appears you’re taking your pills,” Mom says. “The bottles are nearly empty.” She reaches up and puts her fingertips on my shoulders so I can’t keep jogging. “But are you?” she asks.
People mill around us in the parking lot.
I wrap my antipsychotic pill in a tissue every single day and dump it in a trash can. “Absolutely,” I say, pulling back from her and jogging in place again.
“Because it seems like you’re not taking them, Norbert. It seems like you’re not doing so great. Do I have to start watching you take them again, like we did in New Jersey?”
“No! I’m fine!”
“Honey—”
“Mom, I’m absolutely, one hundred percent, terrific, fine, great and wonderful. I need to move. That’s all. I was cramped on the bus and now I need to move.” In truth, I want to burst out running like an Olympic athlete after the starting pistol, but I force myself to jog in place a few seconds longer. Act normal. Hold it together, Norbert.
Run, Norbert. Run!
I look over my left shoulder.
“Norbert,” Mom says, “you’re not acting—”
Run, Norbert. Run!
“See you at home, Mom.” I throw my sports bag and backpack on the trunk of the car and take off.
As I’m running, I expect Mom to pull alongside me and make me get into the car, but she must have gone back home. I’m alone and it feels so good to move fast—to make my body match the energy inside my mind.
I feel like I could run all the way back to New Jersey—twelve hundred miles—and I bet I could, too, but Dunkin’ Donuts seems like a more practical destination.
So that’s where I head.
UP A TREE
I’m slurping down my large iced coffee and carrying a bag with four Boston Kreme doughnuts. I wish Dad were here to help me eat them. Dad.
I’m near the tree Tim calls Bob and trying unsuccessfully not to think about Dad when I see something so strange that I blink several times to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
Three people are sitting in lawn chairs under Bob, like they’re having a picnic or something, except it’s nighttime. The man has a flashlight on, so I can see his face. I’ve seen him before. But where?
I clutch my bag of doughnuts more tightly and figure I’ll motor past the weird picnickers and head back to Bubbie’s house.
“Hey, Tim!” the man yells into the tree.
I realize he’s calling to someone who’s sitting in the tree. Tim?
“I’m heading home to take care of Meatball. You need anything?”
“I’m good, Dad. Thanks.”
That’s when I see him—Tim!—sitting way up in the branches of Bob. At night. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I should be taking my meds after all.
Even though I’m still a ball of energy, I stop moving. My breath comes in short gasps. “Tim?” I call. I don’t know why I do it. I should have kept going.
Four people look at me—three from the ground and one from the tree.
“Dunkin?” Tim asks. “What are you doing here?”
It’s like Earth stops spinning. This must be the important thing I was meant to do tonight. I can feel it in every molecule in my body. I walk closer to the tree and to the people who I guess are Tim’s family. “Hi, I’m Nor—” Then I stop myself. “Dunkin,” I say. “Tim’s friend from school.” And I know that’s right. I am Tim’s friend, even though I should have been a whole lot nicer to him. Sat with him in the lunchroom. Given him a Pop-Tart once in a while. Something.
Everything is becoming clear now.
“Hi, Dunkin,” they say, and his dad shakes my hand.
“Well, I’ve gotta go,” Tim’s dad says. “Be careful up there. Don’t fall out.”
“I won’t,” Tim says.
Why is he sitting in the tree?
“Climb up and join me,” Tim calls to me.
“Can’t,” I say, not even thinking about it. I feel like running again. Every cell in my body is pushing me to move, move, move.
“Oh.” Tim sounds disappointed.
Outside of helping him at Halloween, I haven’t been much of a friend. But I could be one now. As a way of thanking him for sticking up for me during the game, when everyone else was yelling at me for scoring a basket for the wrong team and for all the mean things Vasquez and the guys have done, all the fruit lobbed at his head. All the insults.
This was the important thing. Be a friend to Tim.
“Okay,” I say, despite my fear of heights. “Here I come.”
I throw my empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can, grip my bag of doughnuts, reach up for a branch and…falter.
“Go around the other side,” Tim says. “There are more things to grab on to.”
Tim’s right. The twisty trunk on the other side is loaded with places to hold on to, so I climb.
The moment my feet leave the ground, I tremble. I can’t do this. Even though I’m only a few inches off the ground—I’m paralyzed—and my body feels like it’s made from lead.
“You can do it, Dunkin,” Tim says.
Can I?
Of course you can.
I look over my left shoulder to see who said that. My heart thumps wildly.
No one’s there. But it feels like someone is. Someone very familiar. The same someone who had whispered a few things to me in the lunchroom the other day, then disappeared.
“You don’t have to,” Tim says. “If you’re too nervous.”
I look up. It’s not that far. And Tim’s up there, waiting.
So I climb.
ONE QUESTION
It’s not until I’m on the branch across from Tim that the fear settles in. It courses through my veins like ice water. My legs go weak and my heart jackhammers so hard my ears ring.
“Dunkin?” Tim whispers.
I can’t answer.
“You okay? Do you want me to call down for my mom or something?”
“No.”
I want to ask Tim what’s going on, why we’re up in a tree at night. I have a million questions spinning around my brain, but fear keeps my mouth sealed.
“I can’t believe you climbed up here with me.” He reaches out and touches the back of my hand. “You’re crazy, but thanks.”
I want to shrug to show him it’s no big deal, but I can’t move.
We’re quiet. Then I finally look at Tim and ask, “So, why are we here?”
Tim lets out a huge breath. “Today’s the day the city had scheduled to cut down Bob.”
“Oh no.” I realize this really is a big thing, and now I’m part of it.
“But they didn’t,” Tim says. “They didn’t because I was sitting up here.”
“That might be the coolest thing ever,” I say. “Does this means we’re protesting?”
“I guess we are.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah, it is pretty cool.” Tim nods, then slaps at something on his arm. “Bite number nine or ten. I’ve lost count.”
I don’t want to know what kind of bite and I don’t want to think about what might be crawling around on this tree with us, so I pull out my phone and let Mom know where I am. Except I don’t tell her I’m in a tree. That would totally freak her out, especially with how worried she’s been about me lately. I just say that I’m with a friend. Mom says to be quiet when I come in because she’s going to bed. She has a migraine.
Perfect.
Tim gives me a Pop-Tart from his backpack, and I give him a Boston Kreme doughnut from my bag. As we’re munching on our treats and Tim’s sister is singing softly below, I realize that besides first getting on the basketball team, this is the most fun I’ve had since moving to Beckford Palms. A picnic in a tree. At night! Phineas would love this. I wish my brain were calmer, though, because it’s racing at such wild speeds, I feel like the rest of me is going to jerk, and I’ll fall out of the tree.
If that happens, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to put Dunkin together again.
“Lily,” Tim’s mom says. “I’m running home to get me and Sarah sleeping bags. Need anything?”
Tim looks at me and tilts his head.
“I’m good,” I say.
“We’re good!” Tim yells down.
“Okay. Be right back, then.”
Tim’s mom drives away, but his sister stays. Below us, she’s curled in a chair, reading a book with a flashlight. I don’t know her at all, but there’s something about her I like already.
“Hey,” I say to Tim. “Maybe you should get a job working in a tree.”
“Huh? I don’t think there is such a thing.”
“Then you could be a branch manager,” I say. “Get it? Branch manager.”
Tim shakes his head. “Oh, I get it. Unfortunately.”
But I can tell he’s smiling. Jokes are not my best thing. I wish I could do a magic trick for Tim, but it’s too dark. “Wouldn’t it be cool,” I say, “if we could live up here?”
“We might have to if we want to save Bob,” he says.
“My butt’s already sore,” I say. “How long have you been up here?”
“My butt’s so sore it’s numb,” Tim says. “I’ve been up here the whole day.”
“No way!” I say too loudly.
Tim nods.
Then I whisper, “You cut school?”
“Had to.”
“That’s awesome,” I say. But what I really want to do is ask Tim a question that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. Instead I ask another question. “Didn’t you need to…pee or anything?”
“Nah,” he says. “I’ve got a bladder of steel.”
I nod, but don’t believe him. If I go the whole school day without peeing—which I sometimes do because the school bathrooms are disgusting—by the time I get home, my bladder’s about to burst. But that’s not what I really want to know. There’s a niggling question that’s been knocking on the inside of my skull, demanding to be let out and answered.
So I ask.
“Why did your mom call you Lily?”
