family decided not to buy anything new for a year . Except food. I started it. Iâd learned that an oil company was polluting farmland in Guatemala and not compensating local farmers. I formed Girls for Renewable Resources, Really! We protested and got the company to pay up.
Olive joined GRRR!, but her parents didnât want Olive getting too involved. When she couldnât come to our protest, Olive got her parents to watch An Inconvenient Truth , a movie about global warming. They were so freaked out about carbon levels that they decided Olive had to be in GRRR! They vowed to reuse, reduce and recycle with a vengeance.
So, if Olive is out of batteries, our walkie-talkie days are over.
âMorse code?â I propose. âTelegraph?â
Olive giggles. âHow about semaphore flags?â
âCarrier pigeon!â I say. âSmoke signals.â
âWe could just yell,â Olive points out. âIt isnât that far.â
âWe could put a string between our houses, and zip-line notes to each other.â Iâm serious this time.
âA laundry line would do the trick,â Olive muses.
âNo.â I grin. âIâve got an idea. Let me surprise you.â
âOkay.â Liza plucks an apple from a branch and takes a noisy bite. She frowns. âSad news about Richard, huh?â
âYeah,â I say. âItâs weird. He just sat there and never talked. You would think you wouldnât miss him. But it feels so big, so loud , that heâs gone.â
Olive nods. âI know. Mom says he made us anxious in a good way. He reminded us how lucky we are to have a warm home.â
âMaybe,â I say. âI just wanted him to be warm, in a little apartment somewhere, and not always on public display.â
âWell, heâs not on public display now,â Olive deadpans.
âThatâs for sure,â I say. âHe has vanished. Disappeared.â
I remember the feeling I had in the park. âWhere do you think he is?â I ask.
âNowhere,â Olive says. âWeâre just a mass of electrical impulses, Liza. Without our bodies, weâre like a DVD without a DVD player. Thereâs no picture, no sound, no story. The only life after death is the worms that feast on your body and the plants that shoot up as you rot away.â
âUgh, Olive! Fat worms and a crop of tulips? Thatâs life after death?â
âWhat do you think? That Richardâs an angel, floating around looking down on us? Or that heâsââshe puts on a spooky voiceââa ghost?â
I try to think up an answer. Then the tree house groans. It sways, and then boards tear from each other with a screech, leaving raw edges and bent nails waving in the air.
Olive and I freeze. We stare wildly into each otherâs eyes. Weâre half smirking, as if itâs funny, and half terrified. Suddenly, the entire tree house skids down the tree trunk, scraping off bark and snapping branches. I protect my eyes with one hand and grab the windowsill with the other. Olive screams.
Thenâ whomp âit stops . My tailbone throbs . Olive moans and rubs the back of her head. We sit for a few moments. Then, slowly and without a word, we ease ourselves out the little doorway and leap to the ground. We run like mad, yelping and laughing. We fall onto the lawn, clutching each other.
Chapter Three
Thereâs a wide circle of yellow caution tape around the apple tree. Actually, itâs a yellow streamer. My enviro-mom doesnât like plastic, but she didnât want to pay for biodegradable caution tape. You have to buy it in bulk. âLetâs hope we never need five hundred feet of caution tape,â Mom told the hardware store clerk.
Silas made a sign: Tree Ailing: Do Not Climb . The entire tree is on a slant.
âLike the leaning tower of Pisa,â Silas comments at breakfast.
âTilting,â Mom says,
Maggie Brendan
Barbara O'Connor
Jan Washburn
Terri Blackstock
Norah Simone
Barry Kemp
G.P. Taylor
Alan Cumyn
Linda Barnes
Lisa Jackson