Up High in the Trees (2 page)

She folds a piece of paper and tells me it's a note to give to Dad. I take it from her.

Okay, bye, I say and leave.

I walk until I'm outside of school and then stop to unfold the paper. The note says:

Dear Mr. Lane,

I'm worried that Sebastian may not be getting a full night of sleep at home. Recently, he's been dozing off in class. I've also noticed him squinting and rubbing his
eyes—maybe he needs glasses? As you know, I am so pleased to have Sebastian in my class—I just want to ensure that he's getting as much as possible out of his school day. Please call me so we can discuss this.

Thank you, Judy Lambert

I don't want Dad to read the note, so I rip it up and then I let go. The pieces blow all around. They sound like leaves on the sidewalk.

A long time ago, Mother let her papers go in the rainstorm. I followed her outside.

She said, Go back in, you'll get yourself sick again.

I went in and watched her from the window. She ripped up her papers and let them fly in the wind. When she came back inside, her face was so white and her eyes were staring off far away, not seeing anything.

All your poems, Dad said to her.

Mother said, Sebby, I'm lonely, come sit with me.

So I sat with her and hid my face in her hair. I wanted to bite her because she smelled so good.

The rain stopped and we went out to look. Little wet papers were stuck onto the house. Dad said to help, so I helped Dad peel them off. We found one with a whole word that didn't get washed off by the rain and Dad said to put it in my pocket, because it was for me.

What does it say? I asked.

Dad said the word said baby.

I want to be home now. The ripped-up note from Teacher is flying all around me. I run away from the note.

At home, the door is unlocked.

Sebby, that you? my brother's voice asks from the kitchen.

It's me, I say. My forehead is sweating. The inside air feels cold on my face. I go to the kitchen and there's Leo, eating pickles.

What'd you do, run all the way home? he asks.

I don't say anything. Leo tells me he has to go to the library.

Do you want to come with? he asks. Leo's in eleventh grade and he's in smart classes at his school because he reads so much. He can read a whole book with chapters in two hours. I like to watch his eyes moving back and forth, back and forth over the pages.

I can't tell him about the note from Teacher. The note is a secret. Now I know it was not right to rip it up because Ms. Lambert is a good teacher to me. She lets me go outside and breathe the air by myself when I need to. I like it when she comes close to look at my work and her brown-black hair touches the top of my desk and her smell is like the Chap Stick she puts on her lips.

I follow Leo to the library. I walk behind him so I can step in the same places he steps. Leo doesn't like it when I
do this. He stops still all of a sudden and makes me bump into his back.

Cut it out, he says.

The library has so many books you can smell the sour smell of the pages getting old. Leo takes out all his folders and his pencil pouch. He puts up his arms and reaches as high as he can because that makes him feel ready to work. The ceiling is far away and Leo's happy because there's space for stretching and thinking. I tap him on the shoulder.

Not now, Sebby, he says, I have to study for my chemistry test.

I slide down off my chair and go under the table where it's dark. My eyes are hurting. There's too much time and I want to fall asleep, so I close my eyes, but I can't sleep, because I have a question in my head. The air is quiet. I open my eyes and watch my brother's foot tapping.

Then I crawl back up onto my chair and sit next to him. He doesn't look at me, so I write down my question in big letters at the top of one of his papers and I push it in front of him.

Who told you that? he asks me.

I don't say anything.

You don't look like a girl, he says, you need a haircut is all.

Okay, I say. I stand up and push in my chair.

Where are you going? he asks.

I shrug.

Just don't hide from me again, he says.

Okay, I say.

I liked to sit in the cabinet under the sink.

Dad said, I don't understand why you hide under there.

I hugged my knees tight to make myself smaller.

If you sit under there like that for too long, you'll stop growing, Dad said.

Stop it, Mother told him.

They got mad at each other then and I held very still.

Under the sink was the dirty smell, like cooked carrots. It's true that carrots grow down instead of up. I thought of growing down into the ground, deeper and deeper, and I knew then that the whole inside of the earth smelled like dirty carrots.

If he wants to hide, Mother said, let him hide.

Dad said, It's not normal. Dad's voice was loud and mean.

Why are you so worried about what's normal? Mother asked. Her voice was louder now, too.

Louise, Dad said and he put up both of his hands, like two stop signs.

You're not worried about him, she yelled, you're worried about what's normal.

Just tell me why you're so mad, will you? Dad asked.

I can't, Mother said. I'm leaving, she said and then she left.

Downstairs in the library, the books reach all the way to the ceiling. You have to climb up a ladder to touch the highest ones. I don't like how there are so many books. I don't know which one to pick out and read so I don't read any of them. I put my face up close to the pages and they smell peppery, like how the wood floor smells at home.

I walk until I find the right spot. At the very top, one shelf has a long empty space. I climb up the ladder to the empty space and make myself fit. I have to lie on my side because when I lie on my back, it feels like I'm going to fall off.

Leo said not to hide.

In the quiet you can tell when you are doing something wrong, because the quiet gets more quiet. I try to hold very still. I think about how nobody's seeing me and nobody's hearing me and then I can pretend to be not here at all. But the shelf is hard and I can feel my body against the shelf and I know I am here.

Leo said not to hide, so I climb down the ladder.

To make the time go by, I look at all the reading posters on the wall. President George Bush reading, and Bill and Ted, from the movie
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
, both reading and trying to make their faces look smart. My favorite is the one with the kittens climbing around on a pile of books. You can tell the kitten poster is old because it has yellow, turned-up corners and rips fixed with tape.

Upstairs, I go stand by Leo. He looks at me and nods, but doesn't say anything because he's in the middle of thinking about something. If he talks, then he loses what he's thinking about and gets mad. I crawl under the table and watch his foot tap. I press my ear against the floor and I can feel the tapping in the back of my head.

Why's he asleep down there? says my sister's voice. She sometimes comes with the car to give us a ride home.

I'm not asleep, I say with my eyes closed.

Why're you lying on your back like a dead man? she asks me. Why's he lying like that? she asks Leo. It's creepy, she says.

I open my eyes and Leo is bent over, looking down at me.

Why didn't you tell him to stop doing that? she asks him.

I'm not doing anything, I say.

Leo laughs at me. My sister stares hard at his face and then walks away.

Cass, Leo calls in a voice that's half-loud and half whisper, because the rule in the library is that you have to be quiet.

Cass keeps walking away.

Cass, he calls. He says her name again and that makes it sound funny, like it's someone else's name and not a name I know.

I say her name in my head, Cass, Cass, Cass.

Mother named my sister after Mama Cass because Mama Cass had such a sweet voice it could lift you right up off the floor and carry you away. That's what Mother said. Mother showed me a picture of Mama Cass singing alone on a dark
stage. In the picture Mama Cass is wearing a long red dress that looks big and full like a red balloon.

I crawl out from under the table and watch Leo put all his papers into different colored folders. Then he puts the folders and books into his red backpack, and that makes his backpack so full, it's hard to zip closed.

We go to the parking lot, but Cass and the green car are gone.

Shit, Leo says.

The way home has a big hill. Leo starts walking fast because he's so mad that he can walk fast even with his heavy backpack. I try to walk fast too, but I'm tired now. I hold on to Leo's coat and practice walking with my eyes closed.

Stop pulling on me, Leo says when we get to the hill, so I let go.

I can still walk with my eyes closed. I listen to Leo's steps on the sidewalk and I copy them.

Our feet make a crunching sound when we get to our gravelly driveway. I open my eyes. Leo kicks up the gravel rocks. He looks tall and angry now and his breathing is fast.

Just go in and leave me alone, Leo says. He throws his backpack against the house and the house makes no sound.

I wait for a sound, but the house is like a giant pillow. Damn you, Leo screams at the house. He goes and picks up his backpack where it landed in Mother's garden.