Kirsten
Kippy is sitting outside. We are both home with . the flu, though she has a temperature and I don't. She has her new book, The Gardener's Guide to Happy Trees, on her lap and she is reading in a little chair.
The tree guy put some kind of poison on the stump to make it rot so it will be easier to dig out. Kippy cordoned off the stump and the new tree in its pot using an elaborate system of duct tape and bungee cords. She treats the whole area like a Native American burial ground.
"Come on," I tell her. "Mom's going to kill me for letting you sit out here. It's freezing."
"The tree should not still be in the planter," she tells me. "It says right here we could stunt its growth if we don't plant soon."
I shrug. "Maybe it will just be like a bonsai or something."
Kip rolls her eyes. "Does this look like a bonsai?"
"No."
"I'm tired of waiting," she tells me.
"Yeah, me, too. But you know what? It's been better lately. Mom's calmed way down. Dad's home more. They're gonna plant that tree, Kippy. I really think so."
Sixty
Walk
Walker Jones
November 30
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
Yes.
Ms. Scrushy comes by and taps on Brianna's notebook. "At least two paragraphs," she reminds her. Walk keeps writing.
Sorry, Ms. Scrushy, but this question is pretty stupid. Trees don't change. They make the sounds they do whether anyone is out there hearing or not. But to say to a tree: "Hey, tree, you don't exist if nobody hears you..." That's just plain dumb.
A tree is a tree with all its sounds, sticks, leaves, dirt, roots, whatever. Anyone tells you otherwise, they're wrong.
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank the kids at Charles Maclay Junior High (now Charles Maclay Middle School) in Pa-coima, California, for teaching me what I needed to know in seventh grade so long ago. I'm especially grateful to Florence Vivian Hamilton, who never gave a whit what color I was.
I'd like to thank Stephanie Lee, Leah King, Wendy Pitts, Derek McDonald, and Alicia Bell for giving me their frank thoughts on drafts of this manuscript, and members of my Mill Valley Crit Group for their continual help and encouragement with this book.
I'd also like to express my deepest gratitude to my family—Jacob, Ian, and Kai—for giving me what I need every hour of every day.
—G. C.
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If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period Page 13