The Secret Tree (4 page)

The next day was muggy and hot. I kicked open the screen door and sat on the front steps. The cicadas whined, which made the hot day seem to boil. I sucked on an orange Popsicle, trying to finish it before it melted. It dripped onto the brick step. In seconds, a line of ants crawled out of a crack in the brick and circled the sticky, orange drop.

It was already the end of June. When school let out, the whole summer had seemed to stretch out in front of me endlessly, and now the first month was practically gone.

It’s funny how time goes so slowly at the beginning of summer. I noticed little summery things I’d forgotten about during the winter, like how the heat looks like oil rising off the black tar driveway, how mosquito bites itch the worst on your knuckles, and how ants march across the sidewalk in a straight line. How good orange Popsicles taste in the sun.

Orange Popsicles. Orange goldfish.

Funny how I could walk through the woods I’d known my whole life and suddenly find a tree I’d never noticed
before — a tree with a strange note inside that made me start wondering about the people who lived around me, loved and unloved. I was jolted out of this thoughtful mood by a clank in the garage. I sat up, imagining robbers. Intruders. Man-Bats.

The garage door was wide open. There was another clank. Someone was in there.

“Thea?” I called. Maybe Thea was knocking around in the garage for some reason. It wasn’t like her, but stranger things had happened. “Mom?”

No one answered. There were no more clanks. But I knew I’d heard something.

I crept up to the garage. What if it was a thief? What if someone was trying to steal my bike?

What if the Man-Bat was lying in wait?

I tiptoed up to the garage, whispering, “There’s no such thing as a Man-Bat. There’s no such thing as a Man-Bat….” Curse that Lennie Calderon.

I paused. There was a cardboardy, papery sound, like someone rummaging. I tilted forward and peered into the dark garage.

A boy crouched on his knees on the floor, digging through a box of stuff Mom was going to throw out. He looked up at me with big raccoon eyes. His head was shaved nearly bald, and he wore green camouflage, like a soldier. A chunky, black plastic thing hung from a cord around his neck.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

“Yah!” he shouted. He jumped up, did a quick karate kick in the air, and streaked out of the garage before I had time to react. He ran straight into the woods.

“Stop! Stop!” I chased him. He was a very fast runner, and the camouflage made him blend into the trees. I thought I lost him for a second, but he reappeared in a patch of sunlight far ahead of me.

I was sure I’d never seen him before.

About three-quarters of the way into the woods, the boy stopped. He turned around, breathing hard. I ducked behind a tree to hide, hoping he’d think he wasn’t being followed anymore. I wanted to see where he would go.

He caught his breath and looked around carefully. I didn’t move. At last he decided it was safe and walked the rest of the way through the woods. I crept after him, trying my best not to make any noise.

He emerged from the trees into the bright, shadeless light of the other side. I stopped at the edge in shock.

The other side of the woods had been transformed. The Witch House was still there. But everything around it had changed.

The fields around the Witch House had been flattened and divided into plots, and on each plot stood a half-finished, brand-new house. The walls were wrapped in plastic covering printed with the word
TYVEK
, and the
houses were missing roofs, doors, floors. The muddy yards were strewn with straw and a few shoots of young grass. One finished house sat at the entrance to the development with a sign that said
MODEL HOME
.

A whole new neighborhood was being built across the woods from us. But why did it look so forlorn and abandoned? Where were the construction workers?

I stayed hidden in the woods and watched the boy. He walked up to the Witch House and tried the front door. I wanted to shout,
Don’t go in there!
But the boy didn’t look scared. He rattled the doorknob again. It was locked. There was no sign of the Witch Lady.

The boy sat down on the front porch and pulled something small and flat — a piece of paper? — out of his pocket. He looked at it for a while.

Dong, dong, dong …
The sound of the old ship’s bell reached me all the way through the woods. Mom was ringing for me. She’d kill me if I didn’t go home right away.

Reluctantly I quit spying and headed home through the woods. About halfway through, I felt a low vibration and heard that murmuring sound. I stopped. There it was, the fat, old tree with the hole in it. Voices floated on the wind, whispering words I couldn’t catch.

I reached into the hole and felt something. Another note! I unfolded the paper and read it.

Mom’s bell kept ringing
hurry home, hurry home
. I tossed the note back into the tree — somehow it didn’t seem right to keep a second secret — and ran the rest of the way through the woods, thinking.

A lot of kids I knew were bad spellers — including both of the Mean Boys. They were always doing dumb things. I wished they
would
be held back a grade, then I wouldn’t have to see them so much at school.

Hugo Calderon wasn’t the greatest speller, but he wasn’t stupid. And he was only eight — learning to spell takes time. Once I heard Mom say Kip Murphy’s little sister, Casey, was dyslexic — that was a possibility. There was a kid named Mike on Bailey Street who’d already had to do first grade twice, and he was now in fourth.

When I came out of the woods, Otis and Esmeralda were clopping down the street. “Straaaaaawwww … berriesforsale! Straaaaaaawwwww … berriesforsale!” Otis hollered. He sat on his cart, shaded by a beach umbrella he’d attached to the front, while his horse, Esmeralda, pulled the cart. Every few days, they trotted through the neighborhood, selling strawberries or corn or other fruits and vegetables. If Otis didn’t have anything to
sell, he’d sharpen people’s knives. Mom and Dad said that he was out of another century, the last of his kind. He waved to me as I crossed the street.

Wendy ran out of her house, trailed by her cat, Phoebe, calling, “Otis! Otis, stop!”

“Whoa.” Otis tugged on the reins, and Esmeralda stopped in front of Wendy’s house.

“You’re early,” Wendy said. It was true. Otis usually came around in the late afternoon or early evening, and it was only lunchtime.

Mom stood on the front steps of our house and waved. “Hi, Wendy! Hi, Otis!” Then she put her hands on her hips and said in a less friendly tone, “Minty Mortimer, I don’t like you running around in the woods by yourself. All sorts of things could happen.”

“But this boy —” I started, but then I stopped, remembering how Dad didn’t want me chasing strange boys into the woods. And I’d done it anyway. Twice.

“What boy?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

“Lunch is almost ready. Run over and buy a quart of strawberries.” She gave me five dollars.

“Okay.” I walked across the lawn to Wendy’s yard. She was heading back inside with a pint of strawberries in her hand.

“Will I see you in the parade next week, Minty?” she
asked. Phoebe purred and rubbed her white fur against my legs.

“Yeah,” I said. “Paz and I are doing a roller derby routine.”

“I was thinking of dyeing Phoebe’s hair red, white, and blue and pulling her along in a wagon.”

Otis shook his head. “Don’t do that to her, Wendy. Cats are easily embarrassed.”

Wendy reddened. She was easily embarrassed too. “You’re right, Otis. I should spare her the humiliation.”

Phoebe ran back to the house as if she knew we were talking about her. Wendy waved good-bye and followed her.

“Minty, your ankle’s all furry,” Otis said.

I bent down to brush off the cat hair. It stuck to my fingers.

“Give me a horse any day,” Otis said. “Wendy tried to talk me into putting a straw hat on Esmeralda, but I know exactly how Esmeralda would feel about that.” He patted his horse.

“She’s got her bells.” I rattled one of the bells on Esmeralda’s harness. “That’s decoration enough, right? Quart of strawberries, please.”

“Here you go.” He piled a few extra strawberries on top of a quart and gave it to me. I gave him the five dollars. “And thank you very much.”

I paused to pet Esmeralda on the nose and feed her a strawberry. “Something’s different about you today, Minty,” Otis said. “Did anything happen?”

“Happen?” I wasn’t sure what he meant. How did Otis know something was different about me?

“Your aura changed color,” he said. “Used to be you had a yellow halo around you, but it’s greenish today. Heading toward blue.”

“My aura?” I self-consciously felt the cushion of air around my skin. When he talked about the color of an aura that way, I could almost feel it emanating from me like an electric charge. “What does that mean?”

“Hard to say,” Otis said. “It’s a change. Good or bad, I can’t tell.”

He clicked his tongue, and Esmeralda started walking. “Straaaaaaaawwww … berriesforsale!”

Interesting. But not very helpful.

I wandered into the garage and looked at the open cardboard box the boy had been going through. He’d taken something from it, I was sure. But what?

I picked through the junk in the box. On the top was a large envelope marked
Minty School
. Inside were extra copies of my fifth-grade school pictures — the small, wallet-size ones you always get too many of. Mom gave the big ones to our relatives and had one framed in the living room. Paz and I exchanged the wallet size with each other,
and these were left over. Mom didn’t need them, so she left them in the junk box.

Did the boy steal a picture of me? Why would he do that?

With a little shiver, I remembered that Paz’s photo ID was stolen the day before. That was an odd coincidence.

If it
was
a coincidence.

“Dad would let me go.” Thea kicked the leg of her chair and glared at Mom. I sat quietly eating my chicken, watching and listening and hoping no one noticed I was there.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Mom said. “And don’t bother contradicting me because I already called him at work to discuss it.”

Thea wanted to ride her bike up to the 7-Eleven with Melina after dinner, she said. She didn’t want Mom to drive her there. And she would not bring back a Slurpee for me.

“The whole thing sounds fishy,” Mom said. “I know what kids do in that parking lot. Your father sees the results in the emergency room all the time.”

“What?” I asked. “What do they do?”

Mom and Thea ignored me. They always ignored me when they were fighting.

“There’s nothing fishy about it,” Thea insisted. “I feel like going for a bike ride with Melina, that’s all.”

“Can I go with you?” I asked.

“No!” Thea snarled. “Does the whole family have to follow me around wherever I go?”

“I just want a Slurpee,” I said.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom said to Thea. “I’m not letting you ride your bike around town in the dark, number one, and two, no daughter of mine is going to spend her summer loitering at the 7-Eleven, of all places.”

“You never let me do anything!” Thea shouted. “You can’t keep me locked up in this stupid house forever!” She knocked her chair over with a bang and stomped upstairs.

Mom pressed her palms against her eyes. “I can’t take this…. You’d think she was living in a prison.”

I helped myself to Thea’s untouched ear of corn. Mom unpalmed her eyes and blinked at me as if she’d just realized I was there. “Do the Calderons really let Melina ride her bike up to the 7-Eleven at night? I thought they were strict.”

“They are,” I said. “But they don’t know half of what goes on.” Mr. and Mrs. Calderon worked in Washington and attended a lot of social events at night. Awa kept an eye on the kids, and Melina was supposed to help out now that she was fifteen. But who watched Melina?

“I liked it better when you all were little,” Mom said. “It was so much simpler. Thea used to tag along after me and imitate everything I did.” Butter dribbled down my chin. Mom wiped it off with a sad, nostalgic smile that
got on my nerves. “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up, Minty. You may not know it yet, but this is the best time of life.”

“Really?” That was depressing. “There’s nothing better after this?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mom said. “Never mind. I don’t know what I meant. Thea’s got me all crazy headed.”

“May I be excused?”

“Sure, honey.”

I put my plate in the dishwasher and grabbed my lightning-bug jar. Being a kid isn’t as great as grown-ups seem to think. Grown-ups are constantly bossing you around, for starters. And then there’s school, and gym, and homework. Grown-ups forget about having to eat Brussels sprouts because some adult insists you try it, or getting food spit at you by a Mean Boy at lunch, or studying for math tests, or being told over and over and over you can’t do something you want to do. At least Mom and Dad get paid for doing their jobs. Nobody pays me to do my homework.

I went out to the backyard to catch lightning bugs. It’s kind of sad, how easy they are to catch. They’re so trusting. I always feel guilty when I shut them away in my empty peanut butter jar. I make sure to punch plenty of air holes in the lid for them.

Even though I was mad at her, I went up to Thea’s room and knocked on her door.

“What?” she snapped.

I opened the door. Thea was lying on her bed, face-down on her pillow. The lights were off.

“Look,” I said. “I brought you some lightning bugs.”

Thea lifted her head. Her face was all streaky with tears. “I thought you were Mom.” She sat up and took the jar of light. It cast a greenish-yellow glow across her face. “Thanks,” she said. “Is it okay if I let them go later?”

“Sure,” I said. I understood. Lightning bugs can’t live long in a jar. They’re for keeping a little while, then letting go. You can always catch more another night.

Thea set the jar on her night table. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She wiped her hand across her wet cheek.

“Then why were you crying?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Sure I would,” I said.

“It’s just … so stupid,” she said. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t know why I do anything anymore.”

“Oh.” Ever since she turned fifteen, Thea had been completely baffling. Nothing she said made sense.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “You know?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone either.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Are you in love with someone?” I was just taking a wild guess. In movies, whenever people started crying into their pillows, it was because they were in love.

“No!” She got up, turned on the lights, and wiped her face. “But let me tell you something, Minty — never fall in love. It’s like having a stomachache all the time. A good stomachache, but it still hurts.”

“A good stomachache?” Did that mean she
was
in love?

She sat at her dresser and started putting on some makeup.

“Going somewhere?” I picked up one of her eye shadows and opened it.

“No. Put that down.”

“Then why are you putting on makeup?” I put down the eye shadow and picked up her hairbrush.

“Why are you so nosy?” She snatched the brush away from me. “Don’t use that.”

“I was just looking at it.” I sat on her bed to give her some space. I picked up her cell phone and stared at the screen.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

I put the phone down. “Nothing. Keeping you company.”

“I don’t need you to keep me company. Why are you always touching my stuff? It’s like you’re physically incapable of keeping your hands to yourself.”

She could have come into my room and put her fingerprints on everything I owned if she felt like it, and I wouldn’t have cared. But she never felt like it.

“I’m not hurting anything,” I pointed out.

“Can you just get out of my room please?”

I stood up and started for the door. On the way I stopped by her desk and picked up a purple pen. “Where did you get this?”

Thea groaned and threw open the bedroom door. “Mom!” she yelled down the stairs. “Minty’s touching my stuff!”

“I don’t want to hear about it!” Mom called.

“Okay, I’m going.” I walked into the hall. “Don’t forget to let the lightning bugs go.”

“I won’t.” She shut the door.

Downstairs, Mom was doing the dishes. “I’m going to Paz’s,” I told her.

“Okay,” Mom said. “What’s Thea up to?”

“Talking crazy talk,” I said.

I went outside. Next door, Mr. Gorelick was practicing at his electric organ. “Disco Duck” sounded kind of eerie on the organ at night.

At the Murphys’ house, Casey was riding her bike in a pool of light in the driveway, around and around in a circle. I thought about the note I’d found. I knew dyslexic people often had a hard time with spelling and writing.
But I couldn’t just go up to Casey and ask her if she’d written that note. It was a secret, after all.

The light was on in Kip’s room, and music blasted out the window. His red Mustang was parked on the street, all shiny, since he’d just washed it that day. I waved to Casey and crossed Western Street to the Calderons’ house. I knocked at the back door, and Awa let me in.

“Snack?” She offered me a strip of freeze-dried octopus.

“No, thanks — I just had dinner.” Some of Awa’s snacks were kind of disgusting. Paz never noticed. She was used to eating freeze-dried octopus and salty plums and chicken feet.

Mr. and Mrs. Calderon were sitting in the living room. I hardly ever went into their living room — it was very formal. All the furniture was silky and gilded and easy to make dirty.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Calderon,” I said as I passed by. They liked it when kids were very polite.

“Hello, Araminta!” Mr. Calderon waved me into the room. “We haven’t seen you in so long. Come in and tell us all about your summer.”

I really wanted to go see Paz, but there was no getting out of this. Mrs. Calderon smiled and nodded encouragingly. I stood in front of them, ready to recite an essay on “My Summer Vacation.” Talking to Mr. and Mrs. Calderon was like talking to a teacher or an old relative.

“Well, Paz and I are making up a roller-skating routine for the Fourth of July Parade,” I reported. “We’re practicing some new tricks.”

Their faces clouded. They weren’t crazy about the roller derby thing. That’s why I said “roller skating” instead of “roller derby.” They saw through it.

“Do your parents like you to spend so much time roller-skating?” Mrs. Calderon asked.

“Oh, they don’t care,” I said. “Long as I stay out of their hair. And don’t turn out crazy like Thea.”

That was the wrong thing to say. “Paz is going to take figure-skating lessons in the fall,” Mrs. Calderon told me. “Between that and school, she won’t have much time for other things.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” This was the first I’d heard about figure-skating lessons. “Well, till then we can goof around, right? I mean, that’s what summer is for.”

Wrong again. “Summer can be just as productive as the rest of the year,” Mr. Calderon said. “Why waste precious time?”

I knew they wanted me to say something like
You’re right — please excuse me while I go learn calculus
, but I just couldn’t. I liked wasting time. I wasn’t brave enough to say it to Mr. and Mrs. Calderon, though.

“You may go upstairs and see the girls now,” Mr. Calderon said. Dismissed.

“Nice to see you!” I waved and backed out of the room. I almost felt like bowing. I ran up the stairs, glad to get away.

Lennie lay on her bed reading a book called
Man-Bat! The Story of Man-Bat
, and Paz was propped up on her bed texting someone. “Where’s Melina?” I asked.

“She’s babysitting.” Paz didn’t look up from her phone. “At Troy’s house.”

“Ooh. Hope she makes it out alive.” Then I realized that she couldn’t go to the 7-Eleven with Thea if she was babysitting. Hmm.

I sat on the bed next to Paz. Paz scratched her arm. “What’s all this about figure skating?” I asked.

“What?” Paz put her phone away. “Nothing. Mami wants me to take lessons. It doesn’t have to be figure skating. It could be ballet. Just some kind of lessons to keep me busy.” She scratched her arm again. “Why am I so itchy?”

“But you’re already busy,” I said. Her phone vibrated on the bed. “Were you texting someone?”

“Just Isabelle.” Paz gave a
no big deal
shrug, but she didn’t look me in the eye. That’s when I noticed the four silver barrettes she was wearing in her hair. Four barrettes all in a row. Last time I saw them, Isabelle, Katie, and Lydia wore three barrettes in their hair. I wondered if they were all wearing four now.

“Did you know that the Man-Bat flies over people’s rooftops at night, looking for stray dogs and cats to snack on?” Lennie informed us from across the room.

“Did you know that if you mention the Man-Bat one more time you’re going to be his next meal?” Paz said. She scratched again. She seemed very irritable. Her forearm was all red, and little bumps were popping up at an alarming rate.

“Paz, what’s wrong with your arm?” I said. “It looks like you have a rash.”

Paz rubbed it. “It’s so itchy!”

“Don’t scratch,” I said. “It could get infected.”

“I can’t help it!” Paz said. “Where did this come from?”

“Are you allergic to anything?” I asked.

“I don’t know! Make it stop!” She jumped up off her bed. “Awa!”

Awa came in, trailed by Hugo and Robbie. She looked at the rash, then went into the bathroom down the hall.

“What’s going on?” Hugo asked.

“Paz has developed a mysterious rash,” Lennie said. She put down her book and sat up, suddenly very interested in Paz’s health. “Have you noticed that a lot of weird, bad things have been happening to you lately, Paz? The stomach pains the other day, and then your ID was stolen, and now this mysterious rash —”

“What’s your point?” Paz snapped.

“Point?” Lennie said. “I have no point.”

“It’s like you’re cursed,” I said.

“Some people say the Man-Bat can curse people,” Lennie noted.

The rash was growing redder and itchier by the second. Awa returned with some cream and spread it on Paz’s arm.

“It’s not a curse,” Paz said. “It’s just bad luck.”

Awa shook her head vigorously. “No, no. Not bad luck. Curse.”

“But who would curse Paz?” I asked.

“What about the Witch Lady?” Hugo said.

Paz shuddered at the memory of Halloween night. “That was months ago. Why would she start cursing me now?”

“Witches don’t need reasons,” Hugo said.

“But that wasn’t my fault,” Paz said. “I didn’t egg her stupid house.”

“Yeah, but the Witch Lady doesn’t know that,” Lennie said. “Remember what she said? ‘Curse you kids!’ Sounds like a curse to me.”

“Maybe she stole your ID to get your picture,” Hugo said. “Witches use people’s pictures to cast spells on them.”

“Who told you that, Hugo?” I asked.

“Otis,” Hugo said. “Where he comes from in Louisiana, everybody goes around cursing everybody else all the time.”

I thought about the boy in camouflage. Had he stolen my school picture? What would he want with it?

Maybe he would use it to curse me. Maybe he was the Witch Lady’s helper!

If she was cooking up curses, it looked like I might be next.