The Dragon Tree (6 page)

Only one thing was left of Emerald’s old life, a folder of matches printed with her father’s name:

She carried it in her pocket and looked at it sometimes, remembering the bundles of cedar shingles
in the warehouse and her father striding between the stacks of sweet-smelling boards.

Instead of a father she now had a stepfather, instead of a mother, a stepmother. But surely most of the stepfathers and stepmothers in the world were kind to their stepchildren? Why were hers so different? They seemed to have come from the fiercest of the fierce old folktales, like the one about the wicked queen who sent a woodcutter into the forest to kill her stepdaughter and bring back her heart.

Her own heart, thought Emerald, was not worth the trouble because it was broken already.

F
RIEDA WAS GOING
crazy. Her list of tree-watchers wasn’t working.

“I can’t possibly do Tuesdays,” said Rachel. “I have these really important ballet lessons.”

“Monday’s out for me,” said Cissie. “That’s when I baby-sit my kid brother.”

“Me too,” said Sidney. “Saturday nights I have to keep my bratty little sister from crawling under the sink and eating rat poison.”

But after the brutal felling of Mr. Swallow’s purple beech—after its dark cloudy head no longer rose above the rooftops on Laurel Street—the list
almost made itself. The nine Knights of the Fellowship vowed to keep watch on their own precious tree night and day.

“We’ve got to get going on the tree house right away,” said Eddy. “It’s important. We can keep watch a lot better from way up there.” Standing high on the mounded roots of the tree, he made an imperious decree. “Speaking as your sovereign, I command all you vassals, serfs, and thralls to get busy.”

“What’s a thrall?” said Oliver.

“Listen, Eddy,” said Sidney. “I mean, oh, sir, forgive me!” Sidney fell to his knees and whimpered, “O Gracious Sovereign, your humble servant begs leave to speak.”

“Hear, hear!” shouted Otis.

“You see, Your Majesty,” began Sidney, “this fellowship is a democracy. Your Glorious Majesty can’t order us around.” Springing to his feet, Sidney cried, “All in favor of building a tree house, say aye!”

They all screamed “AYE,” and got to work at once.

It was a big job. First the boards that had once been Otis Fisher’s father’s garage had to be transported to No. 40 Walden Street.

The boards were stacked behind the furnace in Otis’s cellar. Oliver and Otis looked at them, and Oliver bulged his biceps and said, “Lemme at ‘em.”

“Hey,” said Otis, “me first. I mean, it’s my house.” He clawed at one of the mildewed boards, dropped it on his toe, and squealed.

“Out of my way,” said Oliver. In the gloom behind the furnace he heaved at the pile of wood, swept up a dozen boards, and drove a nail into his thumb. Dropping the wood with a clatter, he yelled, “Ouch!” The boards bounced. Blood dripped on the floor.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Otis’s mother, running down the cellar stairs. At once she hurried Oliver up to the kitchen, sprayed his thumb with disinfectant, and wrapped it in a bandage. “There now,” she said kindly. “Just be more careful in the future, young man.”

“Oh, I will,” promised Oliver. “Thanks, Mrs. Fisher.”

He thumped back downstairs, and soon he and Otis were carrying armfuls along Everett Street and around the corner to Walden.

Under the tree, the noble tree—which was now taller than the chimneys of all the houses on Walden Street—the pile of boards looked small. But when Frieda inspected it, she said, “Good,” and slapped her hands smartly. “Okay, you guys, get to work.”

But then there was an interruption. Georgie cried, “Look, oh, look!”

They looked. All nine members of the Fellowship—Otis and Oliver, Eddy and Hugo, Georgie and Rachel, Sidney, Frieda and Cissie, and even Cissie’s horse—looked up at the noble tree as it slowly began to flower. Enormous blossoms were softly opening at once. A sweet smell wafted down.

For a moment all of them were lost in wonder, breathing in the fragrance, their arms hanging slack. Above them, reaching out from her window in the house next door, Emerald plucked a flower from the nearest branch and held it to her nose.

Then Frieda woke up and snapped her fingers.
“Hey, everybody, let’s get going. Who’s got tools? You know, saws and hammers and nails, et cetera? And maybe a ladder? Who’s got a ladder?”

H
AMMERS, SAWS, AND
nails appeared in a jiffy. So did all the et ceteras. Workbenches were pillaged in many a house along Walden Street, Hubbard, and Everett. Many a father complained.

It took a week of messy effort. Sawhorses stood here and there under the tree. Electric cables snaked out of Aunt Alex’s kitchen and looped across the weedy lawn. Hand saws wheezed back and forth, sawdust piled up and matted in the grass, electric drills buzzed, a faulty plug sparked, and Aunt Alex’s toaster went
sphutt.

At last the job was half done. The six parts of the tree house lay flat on the grass, ready to be hauled aloft: the four walls with their window openings, the floor with its open trapdoor, and the plywood roof.

Frieda walked around the finished pieces, bending to inspect them with narrowed eyes. The proud carpenters stood around, waiting for compliments. Instead there was only another command. Frieda straightened up and said, “Okay, you guys, what about those ladders?”

They groaned. But of course she was right. To lift the house high in the tree they would need ladders, lots of ladders.

Eddy dragged a long aluminum ladder out of a tangle of blackberry bushes behind the chicken house, while the bantam hens scrambled in and out and the peevish little rooster screamed.

Sidney’s ladder was short enough to carry on his bike. Sidney lashed it to the handlebars and wobbled down Laurel Street, pedaling fast because if he slowed down the whole top-heavy apparatus would tip over.

Cissie’s ladder was just a kitchen step stool, but it made a dramatic entrance because she brought it on horseback. Maisie was only a plump brown nag, but high on her back Cissie really looked like a knight.

But then there was another interruption, because Rachel had a surprise. She had been making badges. “Here they are,” she said proudly, “your heraldic devices.”

They were gorgeous. Rachel had pasted silver paper and green ribbons on pieces of cardboard and fastened safety pins to the back.

Aunt Alex too was carried away. She rummaged in her sewing closet and found a bolt of green cloth. In no time she turned it into knightly doublets by ripping it in nine pieces and cutting round holes in the middle of each piece.

“Here, dear,” said Aunt Alex to Georgie, “try this on.”

Georgie pulled the green cloth over her head, and then they stood together looking in the mirror, admiring the way the doublet hung loosely front and back.

“Gallant Sir Georgie,” said Aunt Alex, smiling down at her. Then she frowned. “It needs a belt, I think.”

By afternoon the entire Fellowship was outfitted in green tunics, held together with belts scrounged from drawers and closets. Next morning Sidney’s father came down to breakfast holding up his pants with his hands. He glowered at Sidney.

“Uh-oh,” said Sidney, but his mother said quickly, “Wait a sec,” and hurried upstairs. In a flash she was back with a pair of red suspenders. “I hate suspenders,” said Sidney’s father, but he wore them like a good sport.

For a while the nine knights strutted around, showing off their new doublets, and Otis said, “It’s like we’ve got armor, sort of.”

Aunt Alex looked on admiringly, and then she had another idea. “Oh, Cissie,” she called out, “your horse. I’ve got just enough left for your horse.” She ran inside and came out with the last square of green cloth. Cissie tucked it under Maisie’s saddle and mounted proudly. Maisie tossed her head and looked magnificent. So did Cissie.

“It’s too bad you don’t have helmets,” said Aunt Alex, “but they’re beyond my powers, I’m afraid.”

It didn’t matter. Even without helmets they felt swashbuckling and brave like true Knights of the Round Table, or better yet, the Fellowship of the Noble Tree.

It was true that Eddy felt foolish dressing up like a little kid, but his huge friend Oliver Winslow slashed the air happily with an invisible sword and Hugo Von Bismarck pushed a button on his antique CD player and a band crashed into life and a singer shouted and a drumbeat rocked the neighborhood, and over their heads the noble tree rustled its leaves almost in time to the music.

But on the ground Frieda was tired of playacting. She said, “Okay, how about that tree house, you guys?” So once again the nine Knights of the Fellowship got back to work, swaggering in their gallant clothes.

In the neighboring house Emerald was busy too. She pulled a chair across the floor to her bedroom window, stood on it, and began unhooking the curtains. They were a fine bright shade of green.

U
NCLE
F
RED WAS
doing his best to keep his nose to the grindstone. His great book about Henry Thoreau and the Oversoul was nearly done.

But there was too much going on. Outside, the tree was like a green village with a population of kids, birds, butterflies, squirrels, and a hundred thousand greedy so-called bugs. And the kids were always spilling over into the house, invading its spaces from cellar to attic. “Hey, Professor Hall,” shouted Oliver Winslow, charging into his study, “you got any pulleys?”

“Pulleys?” whimpered Uncle Fred.

“Right, pulleys. Like, you know, they pull stuff.”

“Oh, pulleys.” Uncle Fred put his head in his hands.

Oliver was big and goofy, but he wasn’t stupid. Looming enormously over Uncle Fred, he said, “What’s this?” Reaching down with his huge paw, he snatched up a page, stared at it, and said, “Hey, Professor, what’s all this stuff about the Oversoul?”

The boy actually seemed interested. “Well, it’s a long story,” said Uncle Fred, and he did his best to explain.

“Oh, I get it,” said Oliver. “You mean it’s kind of a cloud up there over the roof, right? Like a power station of good ideas?” Oliver slapped the page back down. “So how about those pulleys, Professor Hall?”

There was no point in fighting it. Uncle Fred made up his mind to let the tide of kids roll over him. He gave up on his chapter and led the way to the cellar. In the dimness he pulled the light string and looked around vaguely, but at once Oliver whooped, snatched up a box of pulleys, and thundered back upstairs.

Uncle Fred retreated to the kitchen, where he found his wife opening cans of tuna fish and Georgie spreading mayonnaise on slices of bread. But there was no peace here either, because Sidney Bloom flung open the side door, his eyes insanely bright, his doublet flying behind him, and shouted, “Hey, Miz Hall, we need more rope! Okay if we use your laundry line?”

Uncle Fred crept back to his study and Aunt Alex looked dazed, but Georgie jumped up at once and ran out to the back porch and pulled down the sheets while Sidney undid the rope from the hooks in the ceiling. Then Georgie draped the sheets over the railing and Sidney galloped back through the kitchen with the rope in his arms, explaining as he headed for the door, “We tie one end to a piece of the tree house, see, Miz Hall?”
Slam
went the screen door. “Then we throw the other end over a branch, and pull it down, and up she goes!”

“I see.” Aunt Alex sighed. She also saw the force of the driving will of the nine Knights of the Fellowship in their insane devotion to a wild idea gone mad.

But her laundry line wasn’t enough. “More rope!” yelled Frieda.

The knights scattered around the neighborhood, and soon Mrs. Winslow was surprised to find herself draping Oliver’s baggy pants over a bush while Hugo’s mother hung her husband’s union suit over a windowsill and Frieda’s father looked on helplessly while Frieda charged out of the house with his best climbing rope. “Okay, okay,” he shouted after her. “Just don’t cut it, that’s all. Don’t you dare cut that rope!”