“Heading out,” I call to Mom.
“You okay, hon?”
No. “Yes!”
“Spending time with Bob?” she asks.
I love that Mom knows me so well. “That’s the plan.”
“Be careful up there, sweetheart.”
“Always am.”
Before I visit Bob, I step into the chilly air of the Beckford Palms Public Library. The automatic doors make a whooshing sound as they open, and I shiver. After signing up for a computer, I research hormone blockers again—I need to be certain about the right time to start them. There’s something called Tanner Stage II. That’s when my boy parts start growing, when hair starts growing down there, when all the things I don’t want to happen start happening. That’s when I’m supposed to start the hormone blockers. That means I should be starting them now. It’s not like I’m asking for estrogen or surgery. Yet. I just don’t want to grow hair down there or get a deep voice or a bulging Adam’s apple or…Why can’t Dad support me on this?
I log off the computer and head to the children’s section. Memories flood back. Grandpop Bob helping me cut out a picture of an elephant during story time with Miss Carol. Grandpop Bob smiling while I signed my name for my first library card. Grandpop Bob reading The Lorax to me while we sat under the shade of our banyan tree next door to the library. Him rapping his gnarled knuckles against the trunk, saying, “See. It’s old like me, but it’s still sturdy and good.” I remember hugging Grandpop Bob then, feeling like I was hugging the trunk of our tree, feeling safe and protected.
I didn’t realize that feeling would end. I didn’t realize Grandpop Bob wouldn’t be around forever. I didn’t realize how hard things would become.
I borrow The Lorax and head outside.
Slipping the book into my backpack, I stand under the banyan tree’s twisty branches. “Hey, Bob,” I say, patting his trunk and feeling closer to my grandpop.
With a heave, I grab the lowest branch and hoist myself up, until I’m sitting in a solid crook, looking down on the world. I pluck some leaves and make a pile in my lap. Up here, I feel like I’m part of the tree—strong and solid, too.
Carefully, I pull out the book and read about the little creature who speaks for the trees, remembering Grandpop Bob reading this to me so many times. Hugging me. Telling me how much he loves me.
I try to recall the last time Dad hugged me like that.
An ache fills my chest.
I need this book today. I need my tree.
I’ve read the book three times when I take a break and look down.
I’m surprised by who is walking by.
I’m excited to see the boy again and forget I’m dressed very differently from when I saw him this morning. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut, because if I hadn’t yelled “Hey!” he wouldn’t have looked up.
People forget to look up. They forget about the treetops and the sky. They forget about the clouds and the birds and the sun and the moon. People are so focused on their small, skull-sized kingdoms and their dumb smartphones, they forget about the glorious world around them, especially the big, beautiful world above them.
As soon as the boy looks up, his eyebrows raise. I can almost see his mind flood with questions, or at least one specific question that I don’t feel like answering. I make sure my long hair obscures my face. What was I thinking, calling down to him? Stupid!
It would have been so much easier to stay in Bob’s branches and not have yelled down to this new, mysterious boy. To go back to my book as though I never saw him approach. But with Dare at horse camp in Pennsylvania and my family working so much and Sarah being so busy with her Knit Wits group and other high school friends, this entire summer has been one long exercise in lonely. And apparently, the subconscious part of me has had quite enough of lonely.
So after the boy looks up, startled, I send down my lapful of leaves—an avalanche of nature, a gift to rain over him. At first he jerks so awkwardly it looks like he’s having a seizure or something. Then I realize he might be afraid. Of leaves. Who in the world is afraid of leaves?
This tall, awkward boy intrigues me enough to pack The Lorax into my backpack and climb down. Enough to face him and deal with the inevitable question.
