Out on a Limb (17 page)

NOTEBOOK: #22

NAME: Rosamund McGrady

SUBJECT: Footprints

The Windward students
were very privileged. You could say they were spoiled. This was especially clear in December, when they started talking about holiday plans. Just about everybody was going to Mexico or Hawaii or Florida. The Smithereens were going to southern Italy for a month: Kendra broadcast this in a voice meant for the whole classroom. Devo did some high-volume bragging too, about renting a twelfth-century palace on a privately owned island off the north coast of Morocco. I couldn’t help feeling jealous. It all sounded so warm, and the treehouse was getting so cold.

Once Eveline left for southern Italy, Tilley had nowhere to go after school except home to the treehouse. This meant that I had to go with her. Treehouse life was hard at that time. The water pipe was still frozen solid. All our water was scooped right from the stream and hauled up to the treehouse in the dumbwaiter. Water is amazingly heavy, and the average North American uses 343 litres per day, so using the dumbwaiter for our water supply was literally tons of work.

“I don’t know, Andrea,” Dad said one evening as he staggered into the treehouse with a big pot. He had just winched up the daily water supply. “The treehouse has been great, but we can’t keep on doing this.”

“But think of all the people in the world who have to travel to their water supplies,” Mom said. She set the pot on the stove to boil any parasites dead. “For miles, some of them.
They
keep on doing it.”

“Because they have no choice,” Dad said. “We do.”

“The choice of some depressing apartment?” Mom asked. “Oh David, no. The pipe won’t stay frozen forever.”

“It’s December,” Dad said. “We’ve got at least two more months of winter.”

“But winter isn’t usually as cold as this. This is unusual,” Mom said.

“We should have insulated the pipe.”

“So let’s insulate it now.”

“I’m not sure we should sink any more money into this place Andrea. I always said it wasn’t practical.”

Despite the hardship of winter, Tilley and I were terrified at the suggestion of moving from the treehouse. We therefore helped draw water without complaint. As soon as we got home, Tilley would fill the pots in the stream and I would winch them up. Then I’d winch up lots of firewood, because the treehouse was literally freezing cold inside. Mom and Dad’s leftover morning coffee was ice; the washing-up water in our porcelain pitcher was ice. The inside of our propane fridge was the warmest place in the treehouse. I’d make a fire first thing after school, then Tilley and I would hop into our bunks, still wearing toques and jackets and mitts. We’d watch the firelight glow on the polished wooden walls as we waited for the treehouse to heat. Luckily, the treehouse heated fast. Pretty soon we’d peel off our outdoor clothes, and throw back our quilts, and emerge into the new coziness. I would do my homework by lantern light, and Tilley would cut fancy snowflakes and tape them to the treehouse windows. I lent her my special bird scissors, which made ultra-precise cuts now that Dad had tightened up the screw. Tilley was passionate about her snowflakes. It got so you could hardly see outside except through the cut-outs.

“Let’s make the whole treehouse Christmassy,” Tilley said, so one afternoon we went out and gathered holly from the grounds to make a wreath. Making a wreath out of holly was not easy. It felt like being attacked by a small vicious animal, but the wreath looked good. The bloodstains were not obvious.

Another afternoon we scavenged fallen pine and fir boughs from the grounds, and festooned them around the treehouse ceiling. We added red berry clusters for colour. The boughs smelled like the essence of Christmas, and for awhile Tilley and I lay on my bunk, inhaling as hard as we could. “You know that the supermarket sells boughs just like these ones,” I told Tilley. “We saved major mega-bucks by getting them from the woods.” Before I’d finished this sentence an idea had formed.

That Saturday, Tilley and I gathered more boughs and loaded them into the bike trailer. We rode through the frosted woods to the supermarket, wearing so many layers that it was hard to bend our legs to pedal. In the corner of the supermarket parking lot I brought out my cardboard sign and placed it on the trailer.
BOUGHS FOR SALE
, it said. The sign had looked okay when I’d been lettering it at our folding table, but out in the harsher atmosphere of a public place it suddenly looked unprofessional. I thought that Tilley, being cute, would attract customers, but we stood around a long time in that freezing parking lot, totally ignored. It seems weird that being ignored would make a person feel conspicuous, but that’s how I felt. I worried about being seen. I kept making false sightings of Devo and Sienna and Twyla in the parking cars. I was feeling like a loser and was thinking about giving up and going home when we got our first customer, a nice lady who bought four bundles. Customers seem to attract more customers, and then business was brisk. My zippered plastic bag filled up with bills and coins. After awhile there was so much that I didn’t even have to ask people for exact change. Tilley and I stayed until the last boughs were sold.

“I think I’ve got frostbite,” I said.

“What’s frostbite?”

“When your body can’t heat your nose and fingers and toes because it’s saving the heat for your insides,” I said.

“I have that,” Tilley said.

“And I think I’ve got hypothermia too,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“When your body can’t heat your insides either.”

“I totally have that for sure,” Tilley said.

“The cure is hot chocolate. Let’s go home,” I said, and we rode off, the empty bike trailer bumping along behind us. I had just come through the trap door onto the treehouse porch when I saw a snowflake pirouette from the blank grey sky. “It’s snowing,” I yelled, and by the time Tilley reached the porch the air twirled with flakes. We hung over the porch, monitoring the meadow below us to see whether the snow would stick. It did. It stuck, and filled in, and piled up, and hurried from the sky. It kept on snowing at bedtime. I slept with my porthole window open, staring into the blizzard until I got optical illusions. Every now and then a snowflake would stray through the porthole and melt on my cheek, and I’d snap back to my ordinary senses.

The next morning the treehouse was bright with snowlight. Through Tilley’s paper snowflakes we could see the oak branches doubled in snow. Tilley and I hurried to get ready. We had already decided that this was our Christmas-shopping day. Mom and Dad were still drinking morning coffee when Tilley and I climbed the ladder down the trunk, keen to make the first tracks across the smooth white meadow. But as we descended, we saw that we were too late.

“Hey,” Tilley said. “Something came here.” There were tracks leading right up to the giant oak.

“
Somebody
came here,” I said as I reached the bottom of the ladder. The tracks were footprints. They came from the gate in the so-called electric fence, and returned there as well. “Great-great-aunt Lydia came here. Weird. I wonder why.”

“Maybe she likes making footprints in new snow too,” Tilley suggested.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s it.” As I stepped into the snow, I saw something on the oak trunk. It was a blue envelope, thumbtacked to the bark. “The McGradys,” the envelope said. The handwriting was familiar: fancy but shaky.

“Tilley,” I said. “Great-great-aunt Lydia has written us a letter.” I removed the thumbtack as carefully as if I were gathering evidence at a crime scene. I handled the envelope by its corners. I held it for a long time, to prolong the excitement of finding out what Great-great-aunt Lydia had to say. Finally I untucked the paper flap and opened the envelope.

“What the ...” I said. “It’s empty!”

“Empty?”

I shook the envelope upside down. “Empty,” I confirmed. “So why did Great-great-aunt Lydia trudge all the way over here in two feet of snow just to leave us an empty envelope? She is
so
weird.”

“Yeah,” said Tilley. “Weird.” I tucked the envelope into my jacket pocket.

There was way too much snow for bike riding. Tilley and I waded through the lacy white tunnel of woods until we reached the sidewalk. We caught the bus, taking the bus fare from our plastic bag of bough money. The bus seemed an exotic form of travel. The destination was exotic too, at least to us. We were going to the mall.

Upon arrival, we ran up the down escalator and down the up escalator a few times to satisfy Tilley’s urges. Then we wandered through the stores, humming mall carols and picking presents. Out of the bough money, Tilley bought Eveline a spy kit with a periscope. I bought Bridget a really cool friendship bracelet, made of braided cord and silver beads.

On the way out of the mall we saw Santa Claus sitting on his throne. Since she’s only six, Tilley got all excited and we joined the line of waiting kids. When it was our turn, Tilley sat on one red velveteen knee and I sat on the other. “Ho, ho, ho,” Santa said. “And what are your names?”

“Tilley,” said Tilley.

“Rosie,” I said.

We told him what we wanted for Christmas and, presto, we had two free candy canes.“

Hey,” I said, as we followed the red velvet ropes to the exit from Santa’s Castle. “These would look really good on the boughs in the treehouse.” I looked over my shoulder at Santa. Clearly, he was a valuable resource. Tilley and I went straight back to the end of the line-up, taking off our jackets and toques to change our appearance. When we reached Santa for the second time we introduced ourselves as Matilda and Rosamund. We made a third trip as Matty and Rosa, this time with our hair pulled back into elastic bands that I’d found in my pocket. On our fourth trip we stuck out our teeth and called ourselves Tilda and Mundie. On the fifth trip we puffed out our cheeks with air and used our middle names, Penelope and Millicent.

By this time I’d memorized all the veins in Santa’s nose, so I was really not surprised when he recognized us. “Ho, ho, ho,” he said. “You girls certainly do like visiting with old Santa Claus.”

“It’s the candy canes,” Tilley admitted. “We want them for decorations.” Santa gave us three candy canes each that visit, which was very nice of him, considering that we’d already sort of abused his hospitality.

We left the mall and crossed the street to Home Depot. “Excuse me,” I said to a salesman in a zippered orange shirt.“ I need insulation for an exterior water pipe.”

“Why do you need insulation for an exterior water pipe?” he asked. He sounded very guarded. I think he thought my request for insulation was some kind of in-person prank call, and that all of my Grade Seven friends were hiding on the shelves behind the microwave boxes, giggling at him.

“My parents need it,” I explained. “It’s my Christmas present to them.”

“You’re buying insulation as a Christmas present.” He said it skeptically, to show that he was no fool.

“Yes,” I said, and I described what I needed. I wasn’t sure he believed me, but twenty minutes later I had a cart full of self-adhesive foam pipe insulation, cut in six foot lengths. I was a bit daunted by the mass of it. As I fished the cash from my plastic bag, I wondered how Tilley and I were going to get it home on the bus.

“Rosie,” I heard. I looked up to see Paige, one lineup over.

“Oh, Paige, hi,” I said. “You’ve met my little sister, Tilley.”

“Yes, on Halloween. Hi Tilley. Now Rosie, what is that in your cart?”

“In my cart? Oh, this. This is pipe insulation.”

“What on earth are you doing buying insulation?” “Umm. It’s for the renovation.”

“For the renovation? But why are you girls the ones out buying it?”

“Why are we the ones? Oh. Umm. Our contractor just asked us to pick it up, that’s all.”

“Your contractor asked you and your little sister to go buy the insulation?” Paige looked astounded. “Who is your contractor?”

“Our contractor?”

“Yes. Your contractor. This is so unusual! Who is it?”

Once again, pressure had pressed everything from my mind. As I stood there at the check-out, my mind contained not a single thing, except what was before my eyes. “Gum and mints,” I said. “And company.”

“Gummen Minz and Company,” Paige repeated. “I don’t know them. How on earth are you girls going to get this home? Can I give you a lift?”

“Oh no. No. Our Dad is picking us up. In his car. Yeah. He’s out on the parking lot. In his car. Right now. We’re just watching his cart.”

“Oh, good. Well, that makes a bit more sense then. Okay, bye now girls. See you soon.”

The cashier put the insulation into three huge plastic bags that Tilley and I dragged like sleds over the snow to the bus stop. When the bus came we couldn’t get the bags up the steps until passengers jumped out of the courtesy seats to help. It was extremely tiring dragging those huge bags down the long, snowy path through the woods, but I was glad to do it. I would have done just about anything to keep on living in the treehouse.

NOTEBOOK: #23

NAME: Rosamund McGrady

SUBJECT: Blackmail

On the last school day
in December, Miss Rankle commanded our class to recite “The Night Before Christmas” at the Volunteer Tea. Only Kendra, who was already in Italy, escaped this embarrassment. When our class got to the ‘breast of the new-fallen snow’ there was a lot of immaturity by Devo and his friends. Miss Rankle made us all stay afterward for a scalding lecture. But finally she finished with us and we were on Christmas holiday.

I couldn’t go over to Bridget’s because I had to pick up Tilley. Since Bridget was leaving for Hawaii the next day, she walked with me to Sir Combover. Outside the school grounds she handed me a small square box. The one I handed her was the exact same size. When we unwrapped them we laughed. We’d given identical bracelets.“

Coincidence?” I said.

“I think not,” said Bridget.

“No. It’s great minds thinking alike.”