The Great Treehouse War

by Lisa Graff

  How to Floss Your Teeth the Right Way

  A Very Exciting Instruction Manual

  (with tooth-friendly fun facts!)

  by Lyle Stenken

  Step #1

  Wind about a foot-and-a-half of floss around your two middle fingers, with a couple inches stretched between your hands. Pull the floss tight, but not so tight you cut off circulation to your fingers. Fingers aren’t as cool as teeth, but they’re still important.

  Fun Fact #1:

  Teeth can be valuable for more than just chewing! A molar of John Lennon’s, that dude from the Beatles, sold for $31,000! Isaac Newton’s sold for even more! (Someone made it into a ring. Like, one that you can wear.)

  Step #2

  Insert the stretched floss between two of your teeth and slide it up and down a little. Be gentle! Gums are delicate.

  Fun Fact #2:

  The Historical Dental Museum in Philadelphia has a necklace made from 357 teeth! An old-timey dentist named Painless Parker (that was his real name—he changed it from Edgar) pulled them all himself. Painless Parker traveled around the country pulling people’s rotten teeth for fifty cents a tooth, while a marching band played next to the dental chair.

  Step #3

  Curve the floss all the way around the base of your tooth, getting underneath the gum line. That’s where nasty bacteria like to hide.

  Fun Fact #3:

  Dental floss isn’t only good for oral hygiene! In 1994, an inmate escaped a West Virginia prison by braiding dental floss into a rope and using it to climb an eighteen-foot wall!

  Step #4

  Stretch a new section of floss between your fingers, and floss some more teeth! (This step is super important! If you use the same section of floss for each tooth, you’re just spreading the bacteria around, which is gross.)

  Fun Fact #4:

  Before we had modern dental care, there were some pretty strange ideas about how to cure toothaches. In medieval Germany, people would kiss donkeys to try to get rid of the pain! And in Ancient Rome, they thought it would help to catch a frog under a full moon and spit in its mouth!

  TRANSCRIPT

  The following is what was said on the Channel 10 Action News special report that aired the night of Sunday, April 16th—the same day the Tulip Street Ten joined Winnie in her treehouse.

  Amanda Howard, Channel 10 Action News Correspondent: This is Amanda Howard, live from the site of a local treehouse, where a girl named Gwendolyn Magadi-Mirage, or “Gwinnie,” has taken up residence with the rest of her classmates.

  Frank Quijata, Channel 10 Action News Cameraman: [voice heard off camera] Psst! Psst, Amanda! That’s not the girl’s name. It’s Win—

  Amanda Howard: Frankie, quiet, we’re live! People can hear you! [smiles to camera] As I was saying, little Gwinnie and her friends have decided to live in this treehouse. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them. You see, this tree was planted years ago on the site of a consulate, so now the treehouse belongs to the country of Fabrizio.

  Frank Quijata: [voice heard off camera] Psst! Amanda! It’s called the Repub—

  Amanda Howard: [very angry] Frankie, if you think you can do my job, just let me know, I’ll be happy to hold the camera. [smiles again] I have with me Edward Ragu, the local police chief. He’s also the father of one of the little kids in the treehouse, Josie Ragu.Mr. Ragu, what are you doing to get these children down?

  Police Chief Ramundo: Uh, thanks, Amanda. Uh, well, to be honest, there isn’t a whole lot we can do to remove the kids at the moment. A lot of smart folks are looking into the situation, but according to our best intel, the law seems clear. As long as the children are in the treehouse, they’re not on American soil, so they’re not bound by American laws. Which means they can stay up there pretty much as long as they want and do pretty much whatever they feel like. [clears throat] Not that my team and I aren’t developing some, uh, tactics to try to urge them down more quickly.

  Amanda Howard: I see. But aren’t you terribly worried, as a parent, that your delicate little girl Josie is up there without you? Don’t you worry she might get into some sort of trouble?

  Police Chief Ramundo: Well, Josie—I mean, Joey, my son—he’s a very good kid. He might spend far too much time on that phone of his, but [clears throat again] . . . Anyway, yes, of course I worry. I think all the parents here are worried about their kids.

  [The camera zooms out to show lots of other parents milling about on the grass. There are several other reporters and news crews as well, along with a handful of bystanders filming with their phones. Policemen are busy setting up barricades around the tree. Winnie’s mother and father are nowhere to be seen.]

  Police Chief Ramundo: But my job is to uphold the law, even if I don’t always agree with the law itself. Right now we’re mainly concerned with keeping the children safe inside that treehouse, which means not allowing anyone through unless the children say it’s okay.

  Amanda Howard: You heard that here, folks. Not even the head of police can get these tiny tots out of their tree. For Channel Ten Action News, this is Amanda Howard, signing ou— Oh! Frankie! Zoom in there! Folks, it looks like the kids are lowering something on their mailbox platform. It looks like . . . a letter! Frankie, you got it? Can you see it, Frankie? Let’s get closer! [talking to camera, while rushing nearer to the treehouse] It seems these desperate kiddos are trying to communicate with us. What could they possibly be trying to—?

  [Amanda’s head grows blurry as she gets too close to the camera. She soon collides with it. There is a shriek, then the feed cuts out.]

  THE VERY SERIOUS DEMANDS OF THE TULIP STREET TEN!!

  (Hey, everybody down there! We’re not coming out of this treehouse, ever, until we get every single thing on this list. The stuff about the teeth is extra important!)

  Here’s what we want demand:

  Lyle: If anyone messes with our most prized possessions (like valuable TEETH in an expensive display case!), then that person has to find somewhere else to visit and can’t stay in our house anymore, even if they are just a toddler (STOP EATING MY STUFF, PARKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Also I would like a special shelf for my display case, where no one can get it but me. And if we ever buy a new house there should be a whole ROOM to display my teeth. I’m serious!!

  Aayush: All of us get to work on whatever experiments we want for the science fair, even if we did accidentally burn the trunk of Ash’s stuffed elephant, which by the way she never cared about before even if she’s totally crying and acting all bothered about it now.

  Tabitha: A pet lizard for a graduation present. A red ackie, to be exact! Lizards are NOT gross, Grandma!

  Joey: More Unlimited screen time.

  Greta: We all get to go to Joey’s whenever we want, to play phone games and read comic books. (Joey has a really good comic book collection!)

  Brogan: We get to watch Dragon Destroyers, which is totally not that violent.

  logan: what brogan said. kyle gets to watch the show, and we’re just as mature as he is! and if anyone says we’re not, we have tons of water balloons to prove them wrong.

  Squizzy: As much time as we want to read, no matter what our grades are. NO MORE GETTING GROUNDED FOR READING!

  Jolee: Our parents have to play Scrabble with us whenever we want, even if our annoying little sisters have gymnastics or swimming or piano or are just “being cute” or whatever. And if we think our little sisters are being annoying, we get to lock them in their rooms.

  Winnie: My mom and dad have to come to the treehouse together and talk to me at the same time.

  A Stack of Surprises

  3 days after what happened happened

  Guys!” Aayush called from the east-facing window first thing Monday morning, when Winnie was brushing her teeth. “You have to see this!”

  Winnie rushed to the window, her toothbrush wedged in her mouth.

  “Wow,” she sa
id, around her toothpasty spit.

  Her parents’ two lawns were completely covered—jam-packed—with parents and reporters and random people milling around. The thick patch of dirt that circled the linden tree was still surrounded by barricades, manned by Glenbrook’s local police force. (“Hi, Dad!” Joey called down to Police Chief Ramundo, when he joined Winnie at the window. Joey’s dad offered a weary wave.) Even beyond Winnie’s parents’ homes, Circle Road was bursting with vehicles and news crews.

  “You think all these people are here because of us?” Brogan asked, rubbing his eyes at the crowd below.

  “Nah,” Logan teased. “They’re probably watching the kids in the treehouse next door.”

  “There is no treehouse next door,” Tabitha chimed in.

  “Hey, Winnie,” Aayush interrupted. “I think someone’s trying to get your attention.”

  “Uncle Huck!” Winnie hollered, spotting her uncle in the crowd. “Hey!” She waved wildly, leaning out over the windowsill. Down below, the news reporters clamored to get a good shot of her.

  “Can I come up?” Uncle Huck shouted back. “The police say no one can visit without an invitation!”

  “Of course!” Winnie stuck her hands on either side of her mouth, making sure Joey’s dad heard her loud and clear. “Let him up!”

  Police Chief Ramundo shifted one arm of the barricade, and Uncle Huck made his way through to the rope ladder, as cameras continued to flash.

  “Did you really just invite a grown-up into our treehouse?” Logan asked Winnie, tugging closed the curtains.

  “Uncle Huck’s not a grown-up,” Lyle informed Logan, as he poured himself a bowl of sugar-free cereal at the sink. “He’s Uncle Huck. And anyway, it’s Winnie’s treehouse.”

  Knock-knock-knock!

  Winnie raced to the trapdoor and spun the lock, then pulled the door back to let in her uncle. As soon as Uncle Huck climbed inside, Winnie tackled with him with a hug. He tackle-hugged her right back.

  Uncle Huck was Winnie’s mom’s brother and Winnie’s dad’s best friend from college. He was the reason Winnie’s parents had met in the first place, although they both liked him so much they tried not to hold it against him. Uncle Huck was hands down Winnie’s favorite relative. He’d been there for every one of her birthday parties, he volunteered for school field trips, and, of course, he’d built the treehouse.

  “It’s good to see you, Winnie,” Uncle Huck said, taking in the scene around him. The sleeping bags scrunched into every corner. The dirty dishes piled in the sink. The art supplies and books and empty dental-floss containers littering the floor. “Looks like you guys are having a good time up here.”

  Winnie smiled. “You want to meet everyone?” she asked.

  “The famous Treehouse Ten?” And when Winnie looked confused, he explained, “That’s the name the world has given you.”

  “The world?” Jolee asked, peering down from the loft.

  Uncle Huck nodded seriously. “Didn’t you know? You all have gotten pretty famous overnight. Blogs and newspapers all over the world are picking up the story of the ‘Treehouse Ten.’ ‘Kids with a cause’—that’s what they’re saying about you. You want to see?” He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  “Do I?” Joey exclaimed, snatching the device from Uncle Huck’s hand. (Secretly, Winnie thought Joey was just glad to see a working phone again.) Immediately he got online to discover what Uncle Huck was talking about. The others gathered around to discover, too.

  Video after video, that’s what they discovered. Post after post. Tweet after tweet. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. All about the Treehouse Ten.

  “We really are famous,” Lyle said, stunned.

  Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion about Winnie and her friends.

  Some folks—grown-ups, mainly—were horrified by the idea of children living in their own country, with nothing to stop them from doing whatever they wanted. They said Winnie and her friends were a bunch of “rabble-rousers.” Around the globe, adults seemed to agree that kids were kids and that they had to listen to their parents’ rules, no matter what those rules were. The Treehouse Ten, these adults said, couldn’t just run off and hide in a treehouse until they got whatever silly thing they demanded.

  Other folks—kids mainly—saw the Treehouse Ten as heros, standing up for what they believed in and fighting back against the “cruel power of parental injustice.” From every corner of the planet, children were cheering on the Treehouse Ten, urging them to stay in the linden tree as long as they could. “For kids everywhere!” they wrote.

  Until that moment, Winnie had never thought of herself as either a rabble-rouser or a hero. She’d just been a girl in a treehouse.

  As Joey and the others hunkered over the phone, Uncle Huck pulled Winnie away from the group to talk to her.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. “I mean, really?”

  Winnie turned on her Artist Vision, observing her uncle Huck in the shifted light.

  His hands in his pockets.

  His mouth a thin line of worry.

  His eyes lit up with the slightest twinkle.

  Uncle Huck was concerned about her, Winnie observed. But he was proud of her, too.

  “I’m good,” she told him. “Really.” And then she stuck her hands in her own pockets. “Have you, um, talked to Mom and Dad?” she asked.

  Uncle Huck plopped down in one of the chairs by the kitchen table and let out a deep sigh.

  “What did they do now?” Winnie said.

  There was a quiet thumping of cat paws as Buttons hopped down from the loft above, just roused from his morning snooze. He made his way over to Uncle Huck, to receive snuggling. Uncle Huck pulled Buttons into his lap and scratched under his kitty chin.

  “Your dad,” Uncle Huck said slowly, “wanted to know if you’d left your note under your mom’s door before you left the one under his.” Buttons purred as Uncle Huck scratched a little harder. “And your mom just wanted me to confirm that the two of them had an equal number of trespassers on their lawns.”

  Winnie couldn’t help it. She snorted. Uncle Huck allowed himself a snort of his own. But he soon got serious again. “You know I’m always here for you, Winnie. Whatever you need. Any time of day.” He jerked his chin toward the window that faced his house. “I’m only a zip line away.”

  “Thanks,” Winnie said. And she meant it. “But I don’t want to leave. Not until my parents do what I asked.”

  “You mean, your very reasonable request that they agree to come up here together, at the same time, and talk to you like levelheaded adults?” Uncle Huck asked.

  For the first time, Winnie worried that maybe her demand, more than any of her friends’, would be absolutely impossible to achieve. “You think they’ll ever do it?” she asked her uncle hopefully.

  Uncle Huck thought awhile, scratching away at Buttons’s favorite spot. “I think,” he said at last, “that you’re going to need more Froot Loops.” And then the twinkle returned to his eye. “Luckily, I have a good idea where you might find some.” He nodded toward the mailbox light on the wall, which Winnie now noticed was glowing red.

  “You brought supplies!” Winnie cried.

  “Not just me. Take a look.”

  Sure enough, when Winnie checked the mailbox platform, she found a towering stack of packages. Boxes of all sizes, enough to fill a car trunk. “But who . . . ?” She turned back to her uncle.

  “I told you,” he said. “You’re famous now. The only person allowed past the barricade without an invitation is the mailman, and apparently he’s been very busy.”

  Winnie managed to drag her friends away from Uncle Huck’s phone long enough to help with the surprise delivery. The group tugged and tugged, and when the tower of heavy boxes at last appeared above the window, Logan hooted with such shock that they nearly lost hold of the
rope, sending everything tumbling back down to the ground. “To the Treehouse Ten” was written on the address label of each package, with OVERNIGHT MAIL stamps plastered all over.

  “Listen to this,” Jolee said, pulling a sheet of paper from the first box. “It’s a letter, to us. From some sisters in Tennessee. They wrote, ‘Use this stuff to stay up there as long as you can. We’re all rooting for you!’” Jolee flashed them the note. “They underlined ‘rooting’ and drew a tree with big roots underneath.”

  “Did a bunch of strangers really just mail us stuff?” Aayush wondered, unloading the contents of the box. “Isn’t that kind of weir— Ooh, Cheetos!”

  A bunch of strangers, had, indeed, mailed them stuff. In fact, dozens of strangers, from all over the world, had sent them things. The Treehouse Ten spent a large chunk of their day opening packages and breaking down boxes and finding space to store all the supplies they’d been given. Some of the things were helpful—blankets, paper plates, cat food. Some were not—squash rackets, a package of green toe socks, and even a dictionary with a broken spine. Winnie and her friends unpacked it all. But Winnie’s favorite box was the one from Uncle Huck. It was crammed with Froot Loops and hot cocoa (the kind with the mini marshmallows, Winnie’s favorite) and bread and peanut butter, and tons of practical things like toothpaste and toilet paper and hand soap. And buried at the very bottom was a new helmet—turquoise and purple zigzags, much more stylish than her old one—for the zip line.