T is for Tree Read online

  The window on the side of the house was good too, but for a very different reason. The view was nowhere near as good. All it did was point across to the same sort of window, in the same sort of bedroom, in the same sort of house. What made this ordinary window so wonderful was what lay between the twin houses – a tree. A big tree. It must have been there for an awful long time, Eddy reckoned, because it had grown too big for the space the houses had left for it. The window-stopper on the window had given way years ago, so it opened wide enough for Eddy to fit through. Not that he’d ever dared. Muscled branches had first grown up against each house and then, refusing to give way, they had toiled up the side of the weatherboard planking like a climbing vine on steroids. Even better was the fact that one knuckled and barky elbow had lodged itself so steadfastly against the sill of his window that the window itself could no longer close all the way shut. It was one of those windows with a latch at the bottom and you lifted the whole frame up to open it. Now, with a knobby and determined tree in the way, when you closed it as low as the branch would allow, you were left with a good two or three inches of wide open window.

  Grandma Daisy had threatened to have the tree seriously trimmed. It was ruining her house, she kept saying. She called it ‘that damned tree’. And she had meant it too. She was going to have the whole thing chopped down if she could. One, two, three with an axe.

  What Grandma Daisy says, goes. Eddy knew that as a time-honoured tradition. If she said – and she did – that the world was the Devil’s playground and that God had given up on His creation years ago, then she was undoubtedly right. If she promised him a ‘whooping’ if he ever so much as stepped a foot outside his door without her permission, then a whooping was what he would get. Grandma Daisy wasn’t like the tree. If she ran up against a house, she’d just crash right through it.

  So it surprised even Eddy himself when he’d put up a fuss about her having the tree, his tree, cut away. He’d sobbed and he’d pleaded. ‘Peese, peese, peese,’ he must’ve cried a thousand times, ignoring the very real potential of Grandma Daisy’s backhand. Even more to his amazement was her eventual surrender. To this day the tree had not so much as sniffed a blade and, if anything, had further entrenched its hold on the house.

  Grandma Daisy wasn’t going to leave it without at least some points on the board though. No, that wasn’t her style. Instead, she nailed the window frame to the jamb so that six or seven inches was all that he was ever going to get. At least that’s what she thought anyway.

  For the first few months Eddy refused to take this small mercy for granted and he didn’t dare fiddle with the nail. But as the weeks and months passed by something strange happened. Well, at least he had a suspicion that something strange had happened.

  When he wasn’t sleeping or looking through one of the many secondhand books that Grandma had scooped from the library’s throw-out rack, Eddy was invariably glued to one of the windows. The fact that there was a big, wide world out there absolutely fascinated him. His favourite books had pictures, pictures that showed things not just beyond his window but beyond his street, his town, his country and even his planet. He was never going to see all these things through the narrow focus of his bedroom windows but, unlike the pictures, what he saw out on the street changed each and every day. Starting with the first neighbourly ruffles in the morning, every day carried with it the potential to deliver something entirely new. And that was the key. For Eddy, and he most certainly couldn’t encapsulate it in this way, this was his connection to the human race. If he could see it in action, he could believe he was a part of it.

  While the front window was the one that delivered all the ‘action’, he would often find himself folded up against the side window, forehead nudged up against the glass so long that it left an impression on his head for over an hour afterwards. When Grandma Daisy saw the red mark on his brow, she’d call it his ‘nosy head’ and shake her own head to herself. It was the sort of shake that said more than it did. It said Eddy was indeed dumb and dumb people simply did dumb things.

  But that tree, that special, stubborn tree, was a very real connection to life beyond this house. Unlike the tunnel vision afforded by the front window, he could actually touch it. Smell it. He’d just lean up against the cold glass, reach through the gap in the window and pat the rough bark like it was a loving and loyal dog. It was relaxing, almost hypnotic, and Eddy quite often found himself drifting away on a magic carpet of daydreams, or even talking quietly to himself about anything from dinner to dinosaurs.

  Day in and day out, he followed this routine. It wasn’t as though there was much else to do. And so it was, as with many things that live around us every day, Eddy didn’t really notice the incremental growth of the branch as it continued its dogged search for the sun. As the weeks turned into months, the single nail holding the window frame in place was beginning to strain. As the tree exerted itself against the house it literally began reaching into the gap, one eternally slow millimetre at a time, and there was no way that a few taps from Grandma Daisy’s old hammer were ever going to restrain it. By the time Eddy noticed something strange was going on, the nail had all but surrendered.

  When Eddy saw what was happening it astonished him. It was like the tree was coming to visit. But it was also a worry. What if Grandma Daisy saw this too? She couldn’t necessarily blame him, even though she’d do her very best to, but this would undoubtedly give her the excuse she needed to rip the whole thing out, roots and all. And that would be bad. Dreadfully bad.

  So Eddy did the only thing he could. He left the nail to fight a losing battle and crossed his fingers fifty times a day in a hope against hope that Grandma Daisy would keep looking right on past it like nothing was happening.

  3

  Sticks and Stones

  Saturday mornings were always exciting for Eddy. The routine was always the same inside, but outside on the street, you never knew what was coming next. Especially in the summer when the sun came up early and kids had energy to burn.

  Eddy would always eat his cereal with hearty anticipation and as soon as Grandma Daisy had collected the plate and left him to his own devices he’d be up to the front window, watching for signs of movement like a soldier on patrol. On the basis that Grandma Daisy was an early riser, so was he, and that meant that it could be a good hour or so before the first murmurs of childhood activity resonated along the cul-de-sac. This particular Saturday was no exception.

  While he waited, he did what he always did and grabbed one of his tattered books, lodged it up against the windowsill and exchanged about a hundred glances a minute between the pictures in the pages and the world outside. Somebody had to go outside soon. If he could, he’d be outside every waking moment of the day. These kids just didn’t know how lucky they were.

  This Saturday, Eddy’s book was about volcanoes. There were lots of pictures showing what they looked like inside and how all the hot stuff exploded out the top. He didn’t know if there were any volcanoes nearby but it would be an amazing thing to see. All that smoke and fire. Sometimes when he read this book he would think hard inside his head, picturing that there was indeed a volcano just down the road, and that one day soon it would explode. That way there’d be danger and the policemen would make Grandma Daisy take him away from the house, take him outside and along the road and around the corner to where everything would be wide open and new. Yep, Eddy liked volcanoes.

  The words were tough though. If any of his books had a page full of words he’d just flick through to the next picture. All those squiggly little shapes annoyed him. He knew they had a story to tell all by themselves, and that they were simply shapes for the words that came out of your mouth, but he just couldn’t get it. How could shapes be sounds?

  Grandma Daisy had tried to teach him a couple of times. No matter how hard Eddy had tried to concentrate, it just wouldn’t fit in his head right. She’d ended up throwing the book across the room and screaming at him about how even kids half his ag
e could at least read a few words. That was the same day she’d said to him that if he ever wanted to jump out the window and kill himself that was just fine by her. Maybe that was why she had left the side window partly open. It sure was a long way down. On those long weekday afternoons, when he could hear the children laughing over at the school, he’d look down from the side window to the hard ground below, with all its knotted and gnarled tree roots sticking out here and there, and think about what it would be like to break his body against them. Would it hurt or would he just die before he could feel it?

  Or would the tree catch you, Eddy? Would the tree catch you and lift you right back into your bedroom?

  Somewhere a door slammed shut. Not a car door, a front door. All thoughts of volcanoes and trees disappeared and Eddy scanned the street with eagle eyes. At last someone was out and about.

  Straining against the right-hand window, Eddy looked up the street towards the intersection. The noise had come from somewhere up there. For an immense minute or two there was nothing else, just expectation as thick as treacle and a chug-a-chug heartbeat.

  And then there they were. Bert and Ernie. Eddy didn’t actually know their names. What he did know was that one of them was tall and thin and the other quite short and a bit tubby. That alone was enough to classify them on the basis of his Sesame Street expertise, all thanks to another one of his tired old picture books.

  They were brothers who lived about five doors up the road from him but on his side of the street so he’d never actually seen their house. He could imagine it, though. He was very good at imagining.

  One thing for sure, it would be messy. The sort of messy where the neighbours wished Bert and Ernie and their parents would move. The lawns would be scraggy and there’d be old toys and stuff almost lost in the weeds. The paint on the house would be peeling and no one ever seemed to pull the curtains open, no matter how bright and sunny it was outside. Even worse than that, if you ever got through the front door, the whole place would reek of rotting leftovers and unwashed dishes.

  On the other hand, Bert and Ernie were free to wander to their hearts’ content. It seemed almost everything in this world had a catch.

  The boys were walking along the footpath in his direction. Bert had a football tucked under his arm and they both had that Saturday morning eagerness about them.

  Eddy knew exactly what they were going to do. There was an empty section at the end of the cul-de-sac and until somebody bothered to build on it, it had become the local hang-out. One of the dads down that end of the street even mowed it on a regular basis and someone had drawn pretend football goal posts on each of the neighbouring fences. On a good day, it seemed half the town’s kids were down there with one shaped ball or another and when Eddy squashed up against the left-hand front window he was able to see almost all of the action. Sometimes he thought about how much he’d love to be down there with them, laughing and throwing and kicking, but mostly he simply enjoyed watching it. He’d accepted the fact that he was never going to be one of those kids and, other than the odd pang of envy, he’d learned to reap his own version of fun from the enjoyment of others. It was like he would feed on the sights and sounds, the pure emotions of joy and exuberance, and translate them as his own. Invariably, five minutes into looking down at a neighbourhood football match, he’d have a grin stretched across his face that wouldn’t leave until well after the street’s mums had called their sons and daughters home.

  Bert and Ernie were now sauntering past Eddy’s place, lost in some conversation or other. Eddy couldn’t quite make it out so he shifted against the windowsill, trying to get his ear closest to the thin opening between the frame and the jamb. It was this movement which caught Bert and Ernie’s attention and they both looked up to see their spectator.

  ‘Hey, Freak,’ called out Bert. ‘What ya lookin’ at?’

  Both boys stopped in their tracks, now on the footpath right in front of Eddy’s window.

  ‘Yeah, Freak,’ echoed Ernie. ‘Why don’t ya just take a photo. It’ll last longer.’

  ‘H-h-hi,’ Eddy stammered. These kids were actually talking to him. Saturdays were definitely his favourite day. ‘I’m Eddy. One, two, three.’

  Bert bent over and whispered something into Ernie’s ear. It must’ve been good because they both broke out into a Cheshire grin.

  ‘Hey, Freak—,’ continued Bert.

  ‘No, um, I’m Eddy. E, A, B, C . . . Eddy.’

  Eddy figured he must’ve said something good because both boys laughed. Eddy laughed too.

  ‘Your name’s Freak,’ corrected Bert. ‘E, A, B, C . . . Freak.’ Ernie obviously agreed because he was looking up at Eddy and nodding. ‘You got that?’

  ‘What?’ Eddy was confused. He was sure his name was Eddy. He didn’t know much but that’s what he was called. That’s what Grandma Daisy called him.

  ‘How dumb are you?’ asked Ernie. ‘Cos I heard you’re dumber than a really dumb thing.’

  Bert let the football drop from under his arm and trapped it with his foot.

  ‘Y-you-you’re good,’ praised Eddy as he nodded down at the ball.

  ‘Just answer the question, Freak,’ insisted Ernie. ‘How dumb are you?’

  ‘Um . . .’ Eddy closed his eyes for a second and rocked back and forth as if it would shake his answer free. ‘Um . . . Grandma Daisy, she says that I’m as dumb as dumb can get.’ Eddy self-examined his answer and nodded again. ‘Yeah. One, two, three. As dumb as dumb can get.’

  He was on a roll here because Bert and Ernie thought that was hilarious. Making friends was so easy. Saturday friends. Brand new Saturday friends.

  ‘Hey, Freak,’ called Bert. ‘Do you wanna be part of our club?’

  ‘What – what’s a “club”?’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Bert and Ernie were now looking at him with that same expression Grandma Daisy sometimes gave him, the one that usually ended up with her throwing her hands in the air and walking out of his bedroom, door slamming behind her.

  ‘Yep, yep,’ blurted Eddy before it could all go wrong. ‘I wanna. Sorry, I was dumb.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Bert appeared to be thinking real hard. Eddy liked Bert. He was real smart. ‘This is a very special club . . . and it’s secret. You got that?’

  ‘Secret means I don’t tell. One, two, three, just you and me.’ Eddy was real proud of himself. He knew that one. ‘One, two, three, just you and me’. That was the song he and Grandma Daisy had made up. The one they sang over and over before the lady came to visit every month.

  ‘Man, you are a freak,’ chimed in Ernie.

  ‘Eddy, E, A, B, C. Eddy,’ corrected Eddy.

  ‘Well your club name is Freak,’ continued Bert, ‘and if you want to be in the club you have to keep it a secret. You’re not allowed to tell anyone, you got that?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘’Cause if you do tell, you’ll die.’

  ‘Die? Die like Grandpa Nevil?’

  ‘Die, like a vampire bat will fly into your room and suck all your blood out until your eyes fall into your head.’

  Eddy most definitely didn’t like the sound of that, whatever a vampire bat was. He opened his eyes wide and tried to imagine what it would be like to have his eyes fall inside his head. It wasn’t a nice thought. ‘One, two, three, just you and me.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I – I – I promise.’

  ‘You just gotta pass a test to see whether you’re good enough to be in our club,’ explained Bert.

  ‘Test?’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Ernie. ‘You gotta prove to us that you’re our friend, our secret friend.’

  ‘Eddy’s your friend,’ spurted Eddy. ‘Eddy’s really, really your friend. I p-promise.’

  ‘Okay, here’s your test then,’ decided Bert. ‘I want you to stand up on a chair or something so we can see you properly. Have you got a chair up there?’

  Eddy glanced across at his desk on the other side of the bedroom. Tuck
ed in underneath it was the wooden chair he used when he was reading.

  ‘Yep, yep. Eddy has a chair.’

  ‘Cool. Now go and bring it over to the window and stand on it.’

  Reining in his nerves, Eddy tiptoed across to the desk and carefully dragged the chair over to the window. He didn’t want to give Grandma Daisy the slightest reason to pay a visit. Pushing the chair up against the wall beneath the window he did exactly as he was told and stood up on it, making sure not to lose his balance. Once he was certain he had it all under control he looked back down at the two boys as if to say See, dumb ain’t so bad after all.

  ‘Now, this next bit makes sure you’re part of our club,’ Bert instructed. ‘You need to wet your pants so we can see it, and then throw your pants and underwear out the window.’

  ‘I can’t do that!’

  ‘Don’t be our friend then.’ Bert made as if he was bending down to pick up the soccer ball.

  ‘Yeah, don’t be our friend then . . . Freak,’ added Ernie.

  ‘But – but, I can’t. I’ll get into trouble.’ And it was true. Eddy knew that all too well. His bed-wetting phase was a memory that would forever haunt him. Grandma Daisy got angry a lot but when it had come to his bed-wetting, she’d been scary, really scary. Once he’d been convinced she was going to kill him. That she was going to send him to where Grandpa Nevil was. He had tried so hard to stop it. He hadn’t done it on purpose; it was the dreams. He kept wetting himself in his dreams and when he woke up it had happened for real. Grandma Daisy didn’t believe him though. She said he’d done it on purpose and that he was doing it to drive her mad. But that wasn’t true. He could vividly remember those early mornings, before the sun had even dared show its face, when he would wake up, feel the wetness in the bed and know that his fate was sealed. Those hopeless hours before Grandma Daisy sprang through his door like a booby trap were some of the most terrifying hours of his twelve-year-old life.