There's a Spaceship in My Tree! by Robert West

completely closed.
    She opened the door and pulled out a book that was lying on its side. “Oooh, this one’s really cool,” she said, sucking in her breath. There were squiggled gold designs all over the cover. “R.I.P.,” Scilla said, reading the biggest designs in the middle. “Who would ever name a book Rest in Peace?” she exclaimed.
    She tried to open it. “Hey, it’s locked!”
    â€œLocked?” Beamer said, turning from the window. “Whoever heard of a locked book? Most of the time everybody’s trying to get you to open a book, not lock you out.” He came over for a closer look.
    â€œIt must have a key, then,” Scilla said. “I bet it’s right around here someplace.” They looked on the lamp tables and in a candy dish. Scilla was too short to see what was on top of the mantle, but she brushed her hands along it, feeling for the key. “Hey, what’s this?” she asked when she swept something metallic to the edge of the mantle. She reached for it but fumbled it to the floor where it clanged on the tile at the base of the fireplace.
    Beamer quickly scooped it up. Even more quickly, Scilla snatched the key out of his hand and grabbed the book out of Ghoulie’s at the same time. “Let’s try it,” she said, placing the book on the table between the two fireplace chairs.
    She carefully inserted the key and turned it. With a slight click the leather flap fell loose. “It worked!” she exclaimed in a hushed voice. She opened it reverently. “Hey, it’s not printed!” she gulped. “It’s somebody’s handwriting.” She flipped back to the front page. There, in bold letters, was written, “The Diary of Rebecca Ilene Parker.”
    â€œD’you mean, R.I.P. is Old Lady Parker’s name?” Beamer said as he reached over to flip through the pages. “She used to crawl through that tunnel?”
    â€œWe can’t look at this,” Scilla gasped, starting to close it.
    â€œHey, look,” Beamer interrupted. “There’s something about the meteor!” He pushed in closer.
    â€œNo, it’s bad luck to read somebody else’s diary!” Scilla insisted, trying to wrest the book away from him.
    â€œWait a minute!” Beamer insisted. “She’s talking about the tree — our tree! See!” he exclaimed, jabbing his finger at the words: “ . . . the night the meteor struck.”
    â€œCool!” Scilla whispered in awe.
    â€œWhat meteor?” Ghoulie asked in confusion.
    â€œListen!” Beamer began to read: “This was a different kind of storm. The night was clear and glowing with stars until the sky flashed with the light of a meteor shower. I saw one streak of fire slice through the night and split in half a tree down the street. Flames leaped up, then quickly faded. I don’t know why. It had rained earlier, so maybe it was too wet to burn.”
    He paused, turning the page to the next day’s entry. He continued: “I went over to look at the tree today. It was black all over and completely split in two, but there were still little green buds all over it. It couldn’t live after that, could it?”
    â€œYou were told to touch nothing!” a deep, crackling voice thundered behind them.

17

Legend
    â€œOld” didn’t begin to describe Old Lady Parker! This lady of the castle had wrinkles where no wrinkles had been before. She used a cane, but frail she wasn’t. In fact, she was big enough to have been Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grandmother.
    â€œYoung lady,” she said in an icy voice, “please bring that book to me.”
    Scilla handed the old woman the book, still open to the page they had been reading. “We saw that you were writing about the tree and — ” Scilla said weakly.
    â€œSilence!” the woman ordered.
    â€œIt’s my fault,” Beamer stammered.