by Lisa Graff
Love,
Winnie
After delivering her two letters, Winnie marched directly to her treehouse. She stuck one foot on the bottom rung of the rope ladder and hoisted herself up, rubbing the bronze plaque that read PLANTED BY THE REPUBLIC OF FITTIZIO for good luck. When she reached the trapdoor, Winnie spun the combination and let herself inside.
And after that, Winnie didn’t come down for a long, long time.
Part II
How It All Happened
Talking Through the Window
the afternoon what happened happened!
Winnie figured it wouldn’t take long for her parents to do something weird, and as it turned out, she was right. Just about four o’clock, Winnie heard, out the south-facing window of her treehouse, the back door of her dad’s house creak open. She saw her dad storming across his back lawn, toward the thick patch of dirt that circled the linden tree. Winnie’s note was crumpled in his hand.
Not three seconds later, through her north-facing window, Winnie heard her mom’s back door creak open. And Winnie watched as her mom stormed toward the treehouse, clutching her own copy of Winnie’s note.
“Winifred!” her parents hollered, at exactly the same time.
“You get down here this instant!” her dad shouted.
“I need to talk— Is that your father?” Winnie’s mom exclaimed.
“What’s your mother doing here?” Winnie’s dad bellowed, craning his neck to get a better look around the linden’s trunk. “Winifred, please tell your mother to go home. I need to talk to you before she does.”
“No, Winifred, I need to talk to you first!”
Winnie sat perched on the edge of her daybed, staring at the cat door in the treehouse wall, willing Buttons to figure out where she was and come find her. And because Buttons was the world’s greatest cat, he sensed what she needed and popped inside the treehouse. Winnie had never been quite so happy to see him.
Once Buttons was comfortably snuggled in her arms, Winnie stood up.
“I’m not coming down,” she told her parents out the open windows. “I have a local history report to work on. And also, I don’t want to. You can both go home now.”
Buttons’s purr let Winnie know she had made some excellent points.
“What do you mean you don’t want to come down?” Winnie’s mom called back, from the northern side of the treehouse. “It’s Dolphin Day! Do you realize how much preparation I put into our celebration? I transformed the entire den into an echolocation chamber, just for you.”
From the southern side of the treehouse, Winnie’s dad snorted. “Echolocation,” he said. “Do you know what I’ve been planning for Rubber Eraser Day tomorrow? Let’s just say I’ve ordered some truly massive rolls of butcher paper. There will be a lot of erasing.”
“I’d like to erase you,” Winnie’s mom muttered.
“Mom!” Winnie shouted. “Dad! Sheesh! Will you just . . . stop it? You’re being ridiculous. Both of you.”
“Meow!” Buttons agreed.
To Winnie’s surprise, both of her parents were silent after that. For a moment, Winnie thought she might have hurt their feelings, calling them ridiculous and everything. (She wasn’t sure if she felt bad about it or not.)
“You really don’t want to come down?” her dad said at last. “Not even for our day tomorrow?”
“Nope,” Winnie said. She made her voice steady, clear. Buttons pressed his wet nose into the crook of her elbow, for support.
“Well,” her mom said slowly. “I guess that’s okay.”
Winnie hadn’t expected that. “It is?” she asked.
“Sure,” her mom replied. “I mean, I don’t love the idea of you missing your day with me, especially after all the hard work I’ve put into making a special celebration for you. But I suppose it’s fine, as long as you miss your father’s day tomorrow, too. That way, everything’s still even. That’s what’s important.”
“That does seem reasonable,” Winnie’s father put in, from his side of the tree trunk.
And that, that made Winnie mad.
“No!” Winnie shouted. She squeezed Buttons tighter. She could tell he was mad, too. “That’s the problem!” This mess had all started, Winnie realized, when her parents had begun insisting that everything be exactly even between them, all the time. “I don’t care about even!”
“Oh, now you’re just being silly,” Winnie’s dad said. “Of course you care about evenness.”
“Winifred, dear,” her mom said—and her voice was extra calm, the way you’d try to reason with a fussy toddler who didn’t want a bath—“you just let us know when you come to your senses, all right, honey? Well, let me know first, obviously, since it’s my day you’re missing today.”
“Wait, why should she talk to you first?” Winnie’s dad demanded. “She should come to me first, since she clearly doesn’t want to talk to you to begin—”
“Dad!” Winnie shouted again. “Mom! I don’t care who’s first! And I’m not the one who needs to come to my senses!” (“Mew!” Buttons added.) “In fact”—a thought popped into Winnie’s head just that second, and she liked it at once—“if you guys want me to come down, you have to come up here together, both of you, at the same time, and talk to me.”
“Together?” her mom snapped. “With your father? Why, I—”
“I’ve never heard such nonsense!” her dad boomed. “I think you ought to stay in that treehouse for a while and contemplate what you’re saying.”
“Sounds good to me!” Winnie called back, because it did. It sounded good to Buttons, too; Winnie could tell by his satisfied snuggles. “And you should both probably leave now, because you’re not in America anymore, you know, and that’s trespassing.” Winnie wasn’t totally sure about that last part, but it sounded right.
“Very well then, young lady,” her mom said. “I’m leaving.”
“Me too,” her dad said.
“Fine!” Winnie told them.
“Fine!” they both called back.
And with that, Winnie’s parents stomped off the circular patch of dirt at the base of the linden tree, and onto their own lawns. Winnie’s mom opened the door to her den. Winnie’s dad opened the door to his kitchen.
Slam! went both doors at once.
Buttons gave Winnie a little purr of victory.
She smiled at him. “How about some Froot Loops?” she asked.
Winnie ate four bowls of Froot Loops for dinner that night and gave Buttons all the leftover milk. They worked on Winnie’s local history report together and felt very happy with the progress they were making. Winnie even snuck in a little doodling time, occasionally turning her eyes east, watching the curtains of Uncle Huck’s windows flutter in the breeze, one block away.
When the sky outside grew dark and the air grew still, Winnie and Buttons tucked themselves under the soft, ratty quilt on top of the beanbag bed in the upstairs loft. And together they gazed out the skylight above them, watching the leaves and the stars and the world, keeping each other company in comfortable quiet.
Maybe, Winnie thought as she drifted off to sleep, everything would work out just perfectly after all.
To:
[email protected]
CC:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Saturday, April 15th
Subject:
Winifred’s future absences
Mr. Benetto:
This email is to inform you that my daughter, Winifred, is not likely to attend school on Monday. In fact, i
t is possible that she will be absent for several days or even weeks to come. Please be assured that she is the model of good health; however, Winifred has decided to live inside her treehouse. (I am attaching here a letter from one Mr. Maurizio Squizzato about the legality of the situation.)
Dr. Varun Malladi
P.S. I would like it noted that I sent you an email concerning this predicament before Winifred’s mother did.
ATTACHMENT: mauriziosquizzatosletter.pdf
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Saturday, April 15th
Subject:
FWD: Winifred’s future absences
Dear Chief Ramundo,
Thank you for speaking with me on the phone earlier. As discussed, I’m forwarding the email I received from Winifred Malladi-Maraj’s father this afternoon, including the attachment of the letter about the legal implications of Winnie’s treehouse. As you and your team investigate further, please do keep Principal Brandon and myself informed about what, if anything, we can or should do to resolve the issue as soon as possible. I do hate the idea of that poor girl staying all by herself up in that tree.
Sincerely,
Hector Benetto
P.S. I will be sending you and your wife a separate email later in the week about Joey’s missing homework assignments.
ATTACHMENT: mauriziosquizzatosletter.pdf
A Stupendous Slumber Party
2 days after what happened happened
When Winnie woke up Sunday morning, with the mid-April sun shining a bright wedge onto her face and Buttons purring in her ear, she was happier than she ever remembered feeling. Her parents hadn’t tried to come talk to her once the day before (which had been surprising, but nice, too), and she’d made a good dent in her local history report. Winnie didn’t have anywhere to be or any weird holidays to celebrate. She was all alone in a country that was just hers, and she was happy.
Knock-knock-knock!
At first Winnie thought the pounding on the trapdoor must be her parents, coming together to talk to her at last. So she didn’t exactly jump out of her beanbag bed to answer—not until she heard the voices on the other side.
“Winnie!” Lyle called. “It’s me! Can I come up?”
“Me too?” shouted Squizzy.
Winnie leapt down the loft stairs two at a time, with Buttons right behind her. Still in her blue polka-dot pajamas, Winnie spun open the lock as quickly as she could. “I can’t believe you guys are here!” she squealed, as her two best friends popped through the trapdoor entrance one after the other. “How did you know where I was?”
Squizzy dumped a bulging backpack on the floor. “My dad’s been on the phone since six this morning with Mayor Asad,” Squizzy told Winnie. “And I’m a good eavesdropper. Especially when I’m grounded from reading.”
“As soon as Squizz told me what you did,” Lyle said to Winnie, “I said we had to come. Not that I was too sad to get away from my tooth-eating cousin. I can’t believe this is your own country!” Lyle spread his arms wide, and his own enormous backpack thumped to the floor. “You are so smart. This is so cool!”
Buttons meowed in agreement, then took it upon himself to inspect the bags Lyle and Squizzy had brought.
“It is pretty cool,” Winnie agreed, a smile working its way onto her face. “I’ve been doing lots of good work on my local history re—”
“Buttons, no!” Squizzy shouted when she spotted the cat nudging open her backpack zipper with his nose. “Those peanut butter crackers aren’t for you!” She snatched her backpack off the floor.
“You guys brought me snacks?” Winnie asked, suddenly appreciating her two best friends even more.
“Well,” Squizzy said, piling the contents of her backpack on Winnie’s kitchen table. Peanut butter crackers, granola bars, potato chips . . . and books. Lots and lots of books. “The snacks are for everybody.”
“Everybody?” Winnie asked.
“We called the whole gang,” Lyle said, dumping out his own backpack. Sugar-free hot cocoa. Sugar-free gum. Celery sticks and carrot sticks and packs and packs of dental floss. “They should be here any minute.” And before Winnie had even a second to process what he meant, Lyle pulled out his precious velvet-lined tooth case. “Where should I hang this?” he asked. “By the window maybe, where it’ll get the best light?”
Winnie blinked once. Then twice. “You . . . you guys want to stay?” she said. “Here?”
“In the Republic of Winnizio?” Squizzy asked, and Winnie had to laugh at the new name for her treehouse. “Of course! You get to make up all your own laws, right? Like how a person can read as much as she wants?”
Lyle polished a scuff from his display case with the elbow of his shirt. “And how toddlers should be forbidden to vandalize teeth?”
“Well . . . ,” Winnie said slowly, thinking things over. “I guess. Yeah, I mean . . .” It had never occurred to her that anyone else might want to join her in the treehouse. It had never occurred to her that her friends might have their own reasons for leaving the country.
Knock-knock-knock!
“Winnie?” came a voice. It was Aayush. “Are you in there? It’s me! Squizzy and Lyle said I could stay with you until my parents change their minds about my science project.”
“And me!” That voice sounded like Logan’s. “Me and Brogan aren’t coming down until we get to watch Dragon Destroyers just like Kyle!”
“I’m here, too!” Winnie was pretty sure that voice belonged to Joey. “I had to sneak out when my dad wasn’t looking. I told him I need more screen time, but he won’t listen.”
“I think Joey’s so brave for sneaking out!” That was obviously Greta. “And I want to live in the treehouse, too!”
When Winnie whipped back the trapdoor again, she found all of her remaining classmates from Tulip Street Elementary, stacked like blocks, one on top of the other on the treehouse ladder.
“We want to join your country!” Tabitha called up.
Her friends, Winnie noticed, were all carrying backpacks stuffed to bursting. She glanced at Squizzy and Lyle, not quite sure what to make of everything.
It was in that moment that Lyle lifted his gaze from his display case and looked at Winnie, very serious. “Is it okay if we join you, Winnie?” he asked. “I mean, we all have reasons for wanting to be here, too, but it’s up to you, obviously. It’s your treehouse. Whatever you say is fine.”
Squizzy nodded from her spot on the floor, even though her nose was already deep in her copy of Anne of Avonlea. “Whatever you say!” she agreed.
Winnie looked at her two best friends, sitting there in her treehouse, and she looked down at her seven other classmates, squeezed onto her treehouse ladder, and she knew immediately what her answer would be.
“Come on up!” she shouted to the others. After all, why wouldn’t she want the Tulip Street Ten to join her in her very own country? Buttons purred in agreement.
It turned out that having ten kids in a treehouse, without any adults to tell them what to do, was even better than Winnie could have imagined. It was like being at the world’s most stupendous slumber party, where everyone got to spend the day doing exactly what they wanted to do most.
Joey played games on his phone—as many as he felt like, with no limit on screen time—until the battery died. (He hadn’t thought to bring the charger, but that turned out to be okay, because his dad kept calling and shouting at him to come down this second, and that was getting old.) After that he joined the others in any game they could dream up—charades and G.H.O.S.T. and twenty questions and Act Out Your Fav
orite Scene from Dragon Destroyers. (Logan and Brogan made up that last one.)
They ran relay races, jumping from the loft onto the couch, and no one even broke an arm or anything.
They debated whether or not they should throw all the water balloons Brogan and Logan had brought out the window at the parents gathering outside, who were blocked from entering the treehouse by a growing police force. But Logan and Brogan didn’t want to use up their whole stash at once, so in the end they threw only half.
Greta taught everyone how to make friendship bracelets. Tabitha talked about the lizard she wanted, and Aayush talked about his dream experiment for the science fair. Winnie worked on her local history report in her loft, with the cheerful sounds of her friends drifting up from the floor below. And when she’d done as much work as she wanted, she climbed down the steps to join them, knowing she could get right back to work the next day.
They sang songs. Squizzy read books. Lyle polished his tooth collection. Greta followed Joey around everywhere. Jolee played travel Scrabble with anyone who’d join her. Everyone paid lots of attention to Buttons, giving him more snuggles and smooches than he’d had in a long time. And when he wanted to curl up and be alone, they let him do that, too.
They ate the last of Winnie’s Froot Loops for dinner and peanut butter crackers and celery and carrots. Afterward, Lyle lectured them all about proper flossing technique. (Luckily, he’d brought enough dental floss for everyone.)
And even though Winnie found herself glancing out the windows every once in a while, watching to see if her parents would come try to talk to her, she was glad they didn’t. She’d have hated to leave the world’s most stupendous slumber party.
As the sun began to set and the swarm of parents outside grew louder and angrier, the Tulip Street Ten got to the very important work of writing up a list of demands, so everyone back on U.S. soil would know exactly what it would take to get them to leave the Republic of Winnizio for good—although at that point, it was hard to imagine they’d ever want to.