Fish in a Tree (8 page)

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I hear the front door slam and Travis calls for me.
He sounds happy. I mean really happy. He appears in the doorway of my room. “Guess what?”

“What?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. He just stands there with a big, dumb grin on his face. And then I notice what he has in his hand and I jump up. “You
got
it?
Really?
”

He still doesn’t answer. He just shakes the keys like a baby rattle.

So we run outside, and sitting there at the curb is a surprise. But not the kind of surprise I’d hoped for.

“I know it doesn’t look like much.”

But he’s wrong. It looks like a lot. It’s enormous and bright green. I mean seriously. It’s like a pickle with tires. “No,” I say. “It’s cool.”

“You can’t lie to me, squirt. I know you too well.”

“Why are there lines on it?” I ask, leaning in.

“Oh, well, I guess the guy that had the car painted it with a brush instead of a spray gun. I’ll have to sand that out. And strip the chrome on the side. But the engine is good. It’s gonna fly.”

The only way this thing is going to fly is if he straps it to a giant balloon. A sketchbook picture is already drawing itself in my head.

“And there are no computers in a car this old. Just a man and his machine.”

I look up. “Is that really a good thing?”

He shoves me a little. “You’ll love it when it can take us places. To the beach? Six Flags?”

I look up quick. “Really?”

“Wherever you want to go, squirt.”

I had never imagined that his car would be
our
car. That he would take me places.

“You want to take it out with me now?”

“Sure. Am I pushing or pulling?”

“You’re going to be sorry you dissed this beauty. I’m telling you. You’ve got to be loyal to your car.”

“Travis, you do know it’s only a car, right?”

“Only a car?” he asks. “Only a car?” He runs to the other side and slides in. He unlocks the door for me and I get in, too. It’s a big bench seat. The Walking Liberty half dollar hangs from his rearview mirror. It makes me feel like Dad and Grandpa are with us.

When he turns on the engine, it sounds like a giant with a bad cough. We head up Farmington Avenue past St. Thomas Church.

It had been raining all morning, and now it starts again. Big drops of rain fall on the windshield like bombs. Travis says a bad word, pulls over, and grabs a silver spring and a piece of wet rope from the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?”

He jumps out into the rain, grabbing the windshield wiper on my side and connecting it to something at the bottom of the window with the spring. Then he ties that wiper to the second wiper and throws the rope through his window and jumps in. Laughing and dripping wet.

“What the heck are you doing?” I ask.

“Three.
Hours,
” he says.

“What are you talking about?”

“Three hours after this thing was registered this morning, the wiper motor went. So I went by the hardware store and rigged this up. Watch.” With his left arm, he pulls the rope and the wipers clear the window of water. When he lets go, the spring yanks them back down, slapping the bottom of the window.

“Hey, I thought you said you were a genius,” I joke.

“I am. All geniuses deal with bugs in the system.”

“Isn’t that more like what anteaters do?”

“Hilarious.” He laughs.

“Isn’t it a little hard to drive and do that?”

“You’re right, squirt. You can do the wipers,” he says, throwing the rope into the backseat. “Climb over and sit behind me.”

“Okay!” I say, climbing over the seat. I give the rope a pull and then let it go, and the wipers slap up and down. It’s kind of fun to see the wiper clear the window—make the blurry clear. And I think about what a great drawing this will be later and I’m happy for the weird pickle-colored car.

“Wow, this is fun—and hard,” I tell Travis. My arm is getting tired.

He watches me in the rearview mirror and laughs. I laugh, too, and it makes pulling the rope even harder.

We pull up to a red light and Travis tells me to look at the face of the lady riding the car next to us, and I do. She looks shocked and I think her expression is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

Until I see Shay sitting next to her.

• • •

As soon as Mr. Daniels steps into the hallway to talk to another teacher, Shay says in her I’m-being-loud-on-purpose-so-everyone-can-hear-me voice, “So, Jessica. Yesterday, I saw that Ally riding in this disgusting green-colored car that I can’t believe was even allowed on the road. Ally had to pull a rope to even get the windshield wipers to work.”

“You
must
be joking,” says Jessica.

“Ally? What junkyard did you find that heap in?”

Jessica laughs like she’s supposed to.

I try to ignore them. My mom has always said you just ignore mean people because they are only trying to get a rise out of you.

“I mean, what kind of loser would have a car like that? Probably the only thing your mother can afford.”

Finally I can’t take it. “It’s my brother Travis’s car. And it is
not
a loser car.”

“Oh no. It’s a loser car all right. I guess that makes your brother Travis a loser.”

They laugh.

“I didn’t think there could be a bigger loser than you, Ally, but I guess I was wrong,” Shay says.

“Shut up!” I say to Shay just as Mr. Daniels walks back in. “You’re the losers.
You.
Not
him.
”

“Ally?” Mr. Daniels calls. “Come here, please.”

“
What?
” I ask, trying not to sound disrespectful.

“I haven’t known you to name-call before.”

“They can call me anything they want. And believe me, they do. But they can’t say anything about Travis. Never.”

“Is Travis your older brother?”

“He’s my
big
brother.”

He half smiles. “Is there a difference?”

“Yeah. There is. An older brother is older. A big brother looks out for you and smiles when you walk into a room.”

He nods slowly. “I see.” He clears his throat. “I understand you’re upset and I appreciate that you’re defending your brother, but walk away next time. Okay?”

I nod, but I have to admit that I’m getting awfully tired of walking away.

B
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Our classroom is brainstorming ideas for a community
service project.

Shay raises her hand. “I am having a birthday party and inviting everyone because I don’t want to leave anyone out.”

“How does that relate to our community service project?” Keisha asks, and the whole class waits for an answer.

“Well, it’s about community. Everyone being involved.”

“Yeah, right,” Keisha whispers to me.

Mr. Daniels compliments Shay on inviting everyone and moves on quickly. Later, as we get our stuff for lunch and recess, Shay speaks to Jessica in her loud voice. “I’m so mad my mother is making me invite everyone.” Then she looks directly at Keisha and me and says, “I hope some people know better than to actually show up.”

• • •

My mom insists I go to Shay’s party. Even after I tell her that Shay is mean, my mom asks, “Well, there will be other kids there, right? You may actually have fun.”

Albert grabbed his invitation from the mailbox before his mother saw it. Keisha’s family is visiting her grandmother. So I’m alone.

At lunch, I ask Albert and Keisha about some diseases I can use as an excuse not to go.

“How about bubonic plague? Otherwise known as the black plague?” Albert asks.

Keisha almost spits out her milk. “
Seriously?
”

“Uh, that may be a bit much,” I say, but then I begin to wonder. “What does that look like, anyway?”

“Oh, well . . . chills, fever, cramps. Seizures. Toes, fingers, nose, and lips turn black because the cells die. And you’d likely spit blood.”

“
Albert,
” Keisha says. “That’s nuts. She can be sick like a normal person, you know. Cough. Runny nose. Sound familiar?”

“That’s fine,” he says, taking a bite of his sandwich. “It just seems uninteresting, that’s all.”

• • •

Shay’s party is at the Butterfly Gardens, and when I arrive, I recognize some girls from other classrooms. They are all wearing friendship bracelets. Jessica wears even more now. I still ache to have some and wonder if Keisha would like a bracelet like that.

Soon, we are lined up and brought to the main butterfly garden, which is a clear plastic tent set up inside a bigger room. The tent is filled with plants and flowers, and flying around are tons of butterflies. People stand there as the butterflies land on them, and you can feel how happy people are just by watching their eyes.

Before we enter the tent, a lady talks to us about the butterflies. She tells us about their patterns and to look for ones with a giant dot on each wing. These are adaptations to scare other animals into thinking they are eyes, so other animals will think they are bigger and more dangerous and leave them alone. I wish I could do this with Shay—and that Albert could do that with those boys.

She reminds us not to grab any butterflies, because they are injured easily. We are supposed to stand and let them come to us. Then the lady points to me and says, “They’ll love your orange shirt.”

She’s right. The butterflies do come to me. Their colors and patterns make me wonder why I haven’t been drawing butterflies. They don’t fly like birds. Instead, they kind of fly all over the place. Makes me wonder if I’m part butterfly.

I put my arms out like a tree and one, then two land on my arm. I love them. I never knew before how much I love butterflies.

I think about the story Albert told in social studies when we were studying Native Americans. He said that they believed butterflies were special creatures and wish givers. And that if you can catch a butterfly, whisper your deepest wish to it, and then set it free, it will carry your wish to the spirits, who will grant it.

I would never grab a butterfly, but once again, my hands do things without my say-so. When a beautiful, bright orange-and-black one lands on my hand, I loosely close my fist around it.

And then my thinking part steps forward and quickly realizes what I’ve done. I open my hand and the butterfly zigs and zags before landing on the ground.

The lady who gave us the directions is next to me in a second. “Oh no, what have you done?” she asks.

I want to explain about wish givers, but Shay and the others appear. “It figures it was Ally. She probably killed it. Everyone knows you can’t touch a butterfly’s wings.”

“I didn’t kill it. I mean, I would never hurt it. I had a wish and I thought that . . .”

The girls laugh. “Such a freak show,” Shay says.

Suki rushes to the butterfly to try and help, but a woman runs over and tells her to step back.

“Who are you with?” the woman asks me.

Shay’s mother steps forward. “She’s with us, but she’s not my daughter. She’s part of my daughter’s party.”

I wish my own mom were here; she’d understand. I feel terrible watching the butterfly on the ground, flapping its wings and not going anywhere. I know the feeling.

The first butterfly lady wears white gloves as she puts the injured one in a box, saying, “At least its wings aren’t torn.” The second lady stares at me like I’m a ruthless butterfly hunter.

I want to say I’m sorry, but I forget to because I’m watching mind movies of the butterfly falling and falling and never being better. And then the movie is filled with butterflies that are all falling like rain. And I feel as sad as I did watching the real one fall.

Suki comes over. “I know you didn’t hurt the butterfly on purpose.”

“Thanks,” I mumble. She’s right, but it was still my hand.

I guess I just had to make that wish.

Sometimes a person will do just about anything for a wish to come true.

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Later, I try to call Albert, but a recording says that
the number is no longer in service, and I worry that he had to move away or something.

When I see him at school on Monday, I am so relieved.

I run up to him. “Albert, is it true that if you touch a butterfly’s wings, you keep it from flying ever again? Basically, kill it?”

“A rather curious question for such a cold day. In temperatures such as these—”

“Albert! Just
tell
me.
Yes
or
no.
”

“No, it is a myth that you render a butterfly unable to fly by touching its wings. The powdery residue on their wings is actually scales. They shed these scales on a regular basis, so merely touching them is okay. You only injure the butterfly if its wings are torn.”

I remember how the lady said its wings weren’t torn. I hug Albert until I realize what I’m doing. His surprised expression is so hilarious. Like Einstein himself just told him that Earth is not round but instead shaped like a spoon.

• • •

“Nice shirt, Albert. Is it new?” Shay laughs at her own comment. Before he can answer, she draws her fingers down her own sleeve. “I got a new sweater. It’s purple, which is the color of royalty,” she says, looking directly at me. “That’s why it’s my favorite.”

I wonder what she wants from us and I hate that I never know what to say to her. I come up with great comebacks to her the next morning, hunched over a bowl of cereal.

“Indeed. Purple is the color of royalty,” Albert tells Shay.

“Yes. Yes, it is.” Her voice is singsongy and makes me wish she’d go eat paste.

“You two are just so uncouth.” She turns to me. “I bet Ally doesn’t even know what the word
uncouth
even means.
Do
you?”

“I know what
uncouth
means,” Albert says. “I know something else, too. Only an uncouth person would wear snail snot.”

She looks at us like we’re wearing it.

“You say purple is the color of royals,” he says. “They only wore purple because it was the most difficult and expensive color to make. In medieval times, they needed to collect three thousand
Murex brandaris
snails to have enough slime to make one cloak. So, good for you. I’d prefer beige.” He turns to me. “What about you, Ally? Slime or beige?”

“Oh, I’d have to go for beige.” I try not to smile, as much as I want to, and I try to keep my voice from sounding as happy as it is, because the look on Shay’s face when she looks down at her new sweater, like she is actually covered in snail slime, is pretty unforgettable.