Deadwood (15 page)

“Yeah,” Hannah said, nearly elbowing Martin out of the way to talk. Fine with Martin. “But we're the lucky ones, finding you here. Martin's my partner on the Spirit Tree project. We were researching plant diseases, and we have some more questions for you about what might be stressing the Spirit Tree.”

“That's a funny way of putting it,” Jake said, snorting. “Like a plant could feel stressed out. You've heard the expression ‘vegged out'? Where do you think it comes from?”

“It's not funny,” said Hannah, lifting her pointed chin. “I just meant stressed, like it needed more water or had an insect infestation. And plants
do
react to danger. We've even heard that trees and plants in distress send out signals.”

“Be glad they don't,” he said, eyeballing Martin as if he expected a fellow guy to laugh along with him. Martin didn't smile, but Jake kept riffing. “I already know what lawns would say. Feed me. Water me. Mow me. Edge me. But I don't take orders from plants—I show them who's boss.”

“I'm serious,” said Hannah, furrowing her brow deeper. “Phytochemical markers, electromagnetic vibrations, that sort of thing. Some scientists have picked up ultrasonic vibrations with lie detectors.”

Jake leaned in, and Martin got a whiff of something sour under the menthol. “And do the plants lie?” Jake said.

“Of course not. What we mean is, some people think they communicate, like if they are injured or endangered.”

“I've never heard that, and I started cutting lawns when I was your age. Never thought I'd do it for a living, but here I am, a tree surgeon for the past five years. Never had a patient complain once.” Jake straightened up to his full height, and for a second he looked almost professional to Martin instead of like just another overgrown frat boy. Then Jake cracked himself up. “Maybe I just can't hear them screaming over the sound of my chainsaw.”

“You don't have to make fun of us,” Hannah said, crossing her arms. “If you're a tree surgeon, don't you even care about trees?”

“You wouldn't like plants so much if you spent your days cleaning up after them like I do,” Jake said, frowning so that his thick brows nearly touched. “You kids are so susceptible to all that stuff those tree huggers made up, like global warming.” Hannah tried to catch Martin's eye, but Martin just shook his head. He didn't expect any better from Jake, who had probably bullied kids just like Martin back in the day. “Figures. Leave it to tree huggers to think the world is a greenhouse.”

Martin's jaw dropped. “Didn't you study any of this in school?” he asked. “A.J. said he wanted to take classes to get certified as an arborist.”

“Forget classes,” Jake spat. “Who needs certification? Tree surgery ain't brain surgery. Mostly amputations and euthanasia, the way I do it.”

Martin exchanged a worried look with Hannah. They should never have involved this guy. “We can see you're really busy, Jake,” Hannah said, smiling weakly. “Maybe it's better if you don't look at the Spirit Tree, after all.”

“Already did,” said Jake. “Good thing you called me when you did.”

“Why? Do you think you can save the tree?” Hannah said, a little hope in her voice. Martin felt nothing but dread.

Jake waved her off. “It's not worth it. I already recommended to the township that the tree be cut down, and the sooner the better.”

23

Professor Google

M
artin crumpled up Jake's invoice as soon as he slammed the door behind him.

“I can't believe it,” he said, clenching his fists, trying to stay in control as he paced the hall. “That tree butcher has no idea what he's doing. Guys like that carved the tree up, then they chop it down when it's too weak to take anymore. It's a death sentence.”

“Not if we can stop it,” Hannah said, so calmly that Martin felt ashamed of himself. He tried to think, but he felt as if his whole body was about to explode.

“What can we do? Jake already put in the work request. He said he was going to get it fast-tracked, whatever that means. Next time we see the Spirit Tree, it'll be mulching Aunt Michelle's shrubs.” Martin shuddered, thinking of Jake's wood chipper. It was like imagining a dismembered body buried in the yard.

“Calm down. We'll think of something. We still haven't figured out what the inscriptions mean. If we can solve the puzzle before the work order comes in, we can save the tree.”

Martin took a breath, the way his mom had taught him. Take a breath, count to ten. He couldn't let Jake throw him off. “All right. Let's get to work.”

Hannah followed him into Aunt Michelle's home office, which had an oversized window overlooking the yard. Jake still lurked outside. He put the SUV into gear when he saw Martin glowering at him, backing over the grass on the way out. Martin would have snickered if he weren't so angry. Served Jake right—Aunt Michelle would freak when she saw tire tracks on the lawn. Some courtesy call.

Martin typed in his password. A
Dragon Era
discussion board popped up before he could open Google. Crap, he was such a nerd. Not that Hannah would be surprised.

“I saw that,” she said, teasing. “So, you play video games. No surprise—so does every guy.”

“I guess,” Martin said. “I don't even get to play
Dragon Era
since I moved here—the graphics card on this old computer couldn't handle it even if Aunt Michelle let me. I just lurk on the boards so it's almost like I'm playing.”

She looked at him as if he was the saddest person on earth. Time to change the subject. He said, “You want to drive, or should I?”

“You can. It's your machine.”

He snorted. “My aunt's. The desktop is her backup—it would be powered by a hamster wheel if Aunt Michelle let hamsters in the house. My system wouldn't be anything like this—none of this business crap. Just a gaming package, plus a nice webcam.” He'd be able to video chat his mom every day. Martin stopped when Hannah's eyes glazed over. He pecked out the letters, stumbling under her scrutiny, but he only used the backspace key three times.

S
IGMA SIGMA SIGMA SIGMA SIGMA SIGMA
.

“No exact matches,” he said.

“What about that one?” Hannah pointed to a link for Tri Sigma. “That's pretty close.”

The homepage for a sorority alumnae chapter popped up. A group of middle-aged women with round faces and lacquered flip hairdos stood on a staircase straight out of
Gone With The Wind
. Martin whistled. “Scary. They are definitely guilty.”

“No way. They look like my mom on her way to church.”

“Don't rule them out so quick. You thought Jenna was guilty once, remember?” Martin said, only half-kidding. “Why not a bunch of ex-sorority sisters? Come to think of it, what's your mom's alibi? Mine's in Afghanistan, but yours has had plenty of opportunities to curse the tree.”

“Ha ha. My mom is not the revenge type. This might be a joke to you, but that carving is the best lead we have.” She glared at him.

“It's not a joke to me,” Martin said quietly. Hannah looked into his eyes for a moment and her expression softened. Funny, he always thought her eyes were blue, but up close they were brownish gray, like storm clouds. Nicer than blue.

Her gaze flicked away. “Let's try something else,” Hannah said. “If Sigma Sigma Sigma goes by Tri Sig, maybe we should search the inscription another way. Sigma to the sixth power? Sigma times six?”

Martin didn't answer. He just typed.

S
IX
SIGMA
.

As soon as he hit enter, the page filled.

A
BOUT
987,000
RESULTS
(0.14
SECONDS
)

“Bingo. We have a match,” he said. He clicked the hypertext for Wikipedia and read aloud in his best news anchor voice:
“Six Sigma is a management strategy implemented by businesses and managers since its initial development in 1981.”
Whatever that meant. He had hoped for some fraternity guys—anything other than business talk.

“That's weird,” Hannah said. “Keep going.”

“
Six Sigma is a process improvement approach that improves quality in manufacturing and business by reducing errors, defects, and variability.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don't know. But if it sounds business-y, maybe Aunt Michelle would,” he said, swallowing. He looked around the room at Aunt Michelle's Lucite training awards and engraved brass plaques, and had a small, disturbing thought. Six Sigma sounded a lot like something Michelle would talk about. “I'll ask her later.” Much later, if he had his way.

Through the door came the sound of a faint jingling—one of the most dreaded sounds on Earth, as far as Martin was concerned. He shut the browser window.

“Hey!” Hannah said. “We're not done yet.”

“Yes, we are.”

The door creaked open and Aunt Michelle stood there, smirking at them.

“I didn't know you had a little friend over,” she said.

“Hannah was just leaving.” Martin expected Hannah to scowl at him, but she had switched to cheery talking-to-grownups mode, her bag already slung diagonally across her body.

“Gotta go,” she said. “I'll call you later to talk about our project.”

Aunt Michelle's smile vanished as soon as Hannah left.

“Martin, I'm glad you have a girlfriend, but only chaperoned visits from now on. If you want to invite her over for a date, the three of us can have a movie night together. I have
You've Got Mail
on DVD—love that Meg Ryan.”

He nearly gagged. If that was what it would be like to date Hannah, Martin felt extremely glad it would never happen. Well, mostly glad.

“Sorry I didn't ask first,” he said. “Next time we'll go to Hannah's house—it's in the old part of town.”

“That's what I was afraid of.” Aunt Michelle heaved a sigh. “That kind of girl is fun to hang out with, but you can do better. She'll drag you down. Her brother mows my lawn, for crying out loud. I'm trying to help you overcome your background, but it won't work unless you really want it, Martin.”

The heat rose in Martin's face so quickly he felt like his hair was standing up. His mom was risking her life for her country. Even his dad had earned his degree on the G.I. Bill while working two jobs to support him, not to mention his grubby little half-brother. Martin wanted to live up to that, not overcome it.

“Then it won't work,” he said. He didn't want anything to do with her or her dumb ideas.

The vein throbbed in Aunt Michelle's temple. “We'll see about that. Better get dressed. Tonight is Junior Junior Executives of Tomorrow, and you're already late.”

Anything was better than staying here with Aunt Michelle. He'd go if he had to, but no way would he wear a suit. He would never be one of them.

24

Slow Walk

H
annah couldn't let it go. Jake had laughed at her when she talked about the tree. He might be an idiot and a bully, but being mocked by an idiot was more humiliating because she ought to be able to defend herself. But she couldn't tell the truth, because everyone knew trees didn't talk. She wasn't Alice in Wonderland. She didn't believe in impossible things. But still, the tree had texted her. Anything she could observe was real, and she'd find a logical explanation. Or a semi-logical one. Or at least an explanation.

She fired up the ancient computer in the kitchen as her mom chopped vegetables and seasoned ground meat for dinner. The machine cranked, and Hannah groaned along with it. She cracked open a plant ecology textbook from the library. Cross-referencing the book and the web, she set to work on a scientific timeline, writing as neatly as possible.

1747—Jean Antoine Nollet, physics tutor to the French dauphin, studied electromagnetism in plants. When he electrified seeds (LIKE WITH LIGHTNING???) they grew faster, and when he electrified plants, the water moved more quickly through their vascular systems
.

1859
—London Gardener's Chronicle
reported that light flashed from one scarlet verbena to another before a thunderstorm (JUST LIKE THE SPIRIT TREE!!!). They said the earth has a negative electrical charge and atmosphere positive. Usually electrons stream up from soil and plants, but during storms the polarity reverses and it goes the other way
.

1900s—Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian scientist, found that every plant responded to stimulation. When he shocked plants with electricity, they had spasms, just like animal muscles. When he played pleasant music his plants grew faster, and when he treated them harshly they grew slower. (IS THAT HOW THE CURSE HURTS THE TREE?)

1920s—Georges Lakhovsky, Russian scientist, thought living cells were electromagnetic radiators that emitted and absorbed high-frequency waves. He said they were circuits with stored electric charges. (LIKE A CELL PHONE?)

1960s—Cleve Backster, American scientist, attached a polygraph (lie detector) to a philodendron to measure water resistance. The tracing looked just like a person's!!! (IF PLANTS REACT TO SPEECH, THEY CAN UNDERSTAND IT!)

Before she could get to the 1970s, her mom told her to set the table for dinner.

Usually Taco Night was Hannah's favorite meal at the Vaughan house, but tonight she just wanted to get back to research. Her cat was impatient, too, tugging at her sneaker laces. Distracted, she misjudged her first bite, shattering the hard corn shell and dumping shredded lettuce all over her lap and the floor. Tacos weren't the best food to eat when her mind was elsewhere. Too bad Vincent Vaughan Gogh didn't like Mexican food.

“You're quiet tonight,” said Hannah's father. “You're not worried about Nick's ball game against Radnor Saturday, are you?”

Nick grunted but didn't look up from his playbook as he popped a taco into his mouth with two quick chomps. The Vaughans gave him an exception to the no-reading-at-dinner rule, and luckily Nick had better taco technique than Hannah did. Or maybe he just had a bigger mouth.