by Kaye Umansky
KAYE UMANSKY
I Am a
Tree
illustrated by Kate Sheppard
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
The Cast
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
A Word From the Author
Imprint
Thank you, Perse Prep School —
this is for you.
The Cast
THE KIDS
Me — A tree
Flora Ferguson — A leaf
James Shawcross — Robin Hood
Charlotte Francis — Maid Marion
Wendy Wallace — Handmaiden 1
Shanti Kitimuru — Handmaiden 2
Fatima Lewis — Handmaiden 3
Little Thomas Kite — Little John
Ben Okobi — Will Scarlet
Rakesh Patel — Alan Adale
Sean Boyle — Friar Tuck
Dillon Gordon — Sheriff of Nottingham
Josh Mahoney — Prince John
Tariq Azziz — King Richard the Lionheart
Zoe McDonald — Peasant 1
Rachel Moss — Peasant 2
Karl Kaplinsky — Peasant 3
Jason Shaw — Peasant 4
THE TEACHERS
Mr Cunningham — head teacher and playwright
Mrs Axworthy — director
Miss Joy — music
Miss Steffani — dance and fighting
Mr Huff — backdrop and interval drinks
Old Mr Turnbull — keeper of order
TIM’S FAMILY
My mum
My dad
Kenny, my little brother
THE ANIMALS
Alf, our cat
Duke the rottweiler
Chapter One
I’m a tree! I thought, as I walked slowly home, feet dragging and heart in my boots. A tree! They’ve cast the school play and I’m a tree!
I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I always get a good part. I’m great at drama. I’m an ace actor.
A tree?
I had gone and tackled Mrs Axworthy, of course, right after the list went up. I thought there had been a mistake. Well, there had to be. Me? Timothy Brown? The shining light of the school drama club? A tree?
‘Excuse me, Mrs Axworthy,’ I said, almost tripping her up as she came bounding out of the staff room.
‘Yes, Tim?’ said Mrs Axworthy, looking at her watch, clearly in a hurry. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just seen the cast list for Robin Hood.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘I’m down as a tree.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘Well, I thought...’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought, maybe, you’d made a typing error.’
‘I don’t think so. I know how to spell tree.’
‘No, I mean...’ Oh well. Might as well say it. ‘I mean I auditioned for Robin. Failing that, the Sheriff of Nottingham. Or Friar Tuck.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘It says James Shawcross is Robin and Dillon’s the Sheriff. And Sean Boyle’s Friar Tuck.’
‘Yes. And?’
A little silence fell, while the shocking truth slowly sunk in.
‘So I didn’t get any of them.’
‘No. Look, I know you’re good, Tim. You know that. We all know that. But you can’t always have a starring role, you know.’ Mrs Axworthy was rummaging in her handbag for her car keys. ‘We have to give everyone a chance, don’t we? You were God in Noah’s Ark last year, after all.’
Yes, I was. And a jolly good God I’d been, too. I was in a sheet on a rostra block, towering over everybody, wagging my flowing beard, brandishing my lightning bolt and thundering like mad. I even had the megaphone we use for sport’s day, disguised as a small, fluffy cloud. Nobody got a look in when I was on stage.
‘And,’ went on Mrs Axworthy, ‘you were Hansel in Year Four. That’s two main parts two years running.’
‘So I’m a tree,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
It’s my last year in primary school. This would be my last ever school play. My final chance to shine. I must have looked a bit crestfallen, because she took pity on me.
‘It is a talking tree,’ she said. ‘You do have lines to say.’
‘I do?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘Goodness, I don’t know. I haven’t got the script with me now. I haven’t even finished marking up the parts. Do you really want to know?’
Yes. I did. I had a thousand questions. How big a role was it? Was I on stage much? Was I evergreen, or the sort that moults? Was I a good tree? A bad tree? A funny tree? A funny tree would be good. I can do comedy. Although I’m all right with the tragic stuff, too. You should have seen my Hansel, when I was lost in the wood with Gretel (Wendy Wallace). I made grown men weep. Well, that’s what Dad said.
Hey! Perhaps I was a wise tree! Rugged, ancient, full of sage advice learned over the years. Anyway, I needed to know.
‘I just wanted to know if it’s something I can get my — um — branches into,’ I explained. I thought she’d enjoy a little joke and tell me. I added a winning smile, although I didn’t feel like it. ‘You know me. Can’t wait to get into role. Practise my swishing.’
A tree. I still couldn’t get over it.
‘Well, I can’t discuss it now. There’s a meeting at lunchtime tomorrow, you’ll all get your parts then. Whatever it’s like, I’m sure I can rely on you to make the most of it.’
And with that, she found her keys and was off and away, leaving me stunned. There was nothing left to do but go home.
•
Flora caught me up as I dragged myself along the pavement, thinking about being a tree. She was eating an ice cream. Flora lives at the end of our road, in the corner house. She wears glasses and has her hair scraped back with an elastic band. She has braces on her teeth too, and her mum buys her weird shoes with buckles.
Flora’s all right, actually. She helped me make my beard when I was God last year. And came up with the idea of the cloud megaphone. (We are expected to provide our own costumes, unless there’s something suitable in the school dressing-up box.) What would she say if she knew I was a tree? What a comedown.
‘Hello, Tim,’ said Flora. She spat some ice cream in my face. She can’t help it — it’s the braces. ‘Sorry.’
‘Hi,’ I said, glumly, wiping it off.
‘I hear you’re a tree,’ she said.
Oh. She knew.
‘Mmm,’ I said.
‘I thought you tried for Robin.’
‘I was going to,’ I said. ‘But then I thought about it. I felt I should let somebody else have a chance. I can’t always get the main part. It wouldn’t be fair. So I asked Mrs Axworthy to let me be a tree.’
‘That was noble of you.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’
‘It’s not true, is it?’
‘No.’
We walked along the road in silence for a bit.
‘I nearly drowned in a bowl of muesli this morning,’ said Flora, suddenly.
‘You did?’
‘Yep. A strong currant pulled me in.’
Flora collects jokes. She was only trying to cheer me up. I gave a dutiful little chuckle. Then another silence fell.
‘James Shawcross won’t be as good as you,’ she said, finally.
Too right he wouldn’t. James Shawcross can’t act his way out of a paper bag. I don’t know why he goes to drama club. Probably for the orange juice and biscu
its. He’s good at learning lines. I’ll admit that. It’s just that he delivers them all bored-sounding, with no expression and hardly any pauses, like chanting multiplication tables. He’s got a bleaty voice, too, like a sheep.
‘No, no,’ I said, airily. ‘He’ll be OK. A bit wooden, perhaps.’
‘Not as wooden as you, though,’ said Flora. ‘You’re a tree.’
How those words hurt!
‘I expect you’ll have a bull’s-eye painted on you,’ she went on, cheerily. ‘The Merry Men will use you for target practice.’
Oh heck! I hadn’t thought of that. She could well be right. I could accidentally get shot in the head with an arrow! Surely the school’s health and safety regulations wouldn’t allow it? I certainly hoped not.
‘I do have lines to say, you know,’ I said, slightly miffed.
‘How many?’
‘I don’t know. Miss wouldn’t tell me. Quite a few, though, I think.’
‘I see Charlotte Francis is Maid Marion,’ said Flora, looking at me sideways. She knows I’ve got a bit of a thing for Charlotte Francis, who has curly hair and socks with little stars on. I don’t talk about her to Flora. They’re not very friendly.
‘Yeah,’ I said, kicking a can. Then I whistled through my teeth a bit, in case she thought I cared. ‘She’ll be good.’
‘I’m in the play,’ said Flora, suddenly.
‘You are?’ I stopped in the road, feeling a bit guilty. I had been so anxious to find my own name, I hadn’t taken in all the names on the cast list. Did Flora have a big, important part? Surely not. She doesn’t like to open her mouth because of the braces. She’s scared she’ll spit and people will laugh. In assembly, if she has to say something, it’s always an inaudible mumble.
‘I’m a dancer. I do a leaf dance in the forest.’
‘Oh, riiiight. Well — great.’
Now, don’t spread this around, but personally I don’t consider dancers to be very important. Dancing in a play is a waste of time, in my opinion. It’s just there to give the girls something to do and kills time in between scene changes. I was about to dismiss it as something not worthy of more comment, when I suddenly remembered that I was a tree. They would more than likely be dancing around me. Oh, the shame!
‘That’s great,’ I repeated, trying to sound upbeat. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very — leafy.’
We had reached Flora’s house. She went in and I went on my weary way.
•
It wasn’t a good evening. There were beans on toast for tea and Dad burnt the toast, setting off the smoke alarm. The only way you can stop it is to stand on a chair in the hall and wrap a towel round it. That’s my job. By the time I managed to stop it, I was deaf as a post and my arms were dropping off.
Mum got home late because the car had broken down. She told us a long story about an AA man who she called a ‘knight of the road’. Dad said he’d told her not to take the car until he’d changed the plugs. Mum said she’d wait ’til Doomsday if she waited for him. Then Kenny fell off his chair and cut his lip on the edge of the kitchen table. Kenny’s my little brother. He can be very annoying, although I was sorry about his lip.
The TV was on the blink so I had no option but to draw a map of Australia, which I’d been putting off. I did it on the kitchen table, surrounded by blood, while Kenny wept and Mum and Dad argued about whether you should give an AA man a tip. I didn’t mention that I was a tree. In fact, I kept very quiet, but nobody noticed.
After Australia, I played cars with Kenny, to console him after his lip incident. Then I read him a story about Chip the Potato, who loves diving into boiling fat. What kind of story is that for a two year old? Then I went to my room and read comics and stroked Alf until bedtime. Alf’s our cat. He lives in my bedroom, to get away from Kenny.
My last thought as I drifted off with Alf purring away in my ear was: I’m a tree.
Chapter Two
We met in Mrs Axworthy’s classroom, like we always do at the start of a play. Mrs Axworthy teaches Blue Class but takes on responsibility for all school productions, because she runs the drama club, of which I am a keen member.
She had a big sheaf of scripts on her desk. All the drama club members were there. Charlotte Francis was there, the stars on her socks twinkling away. So were Wendy and Zoe and Fatima and that lot. So was James Shawcross, and Little Thomas Kite and Dillon. And Josh, and Benny and Sean, and Tariq and Jason and Karl. Everyone looked flushed and excited. It’s always fun when the parts get given out.
Well, it is usually.
Today, I felt more anxious than anything. Now was the moment of truth. I hoped it would be good news. I’d had a bad morning. Mr Huff hadn’t been too impressed with my Australian map, although I’d tippexed out the worst of the blood and sellotaped the tear (which Kenny did at breakfast). Mr Huff’s my teacher. He’s from Australia. That might have had something to do with it.
‘Right,’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘I’ve put your names on your scripts, so don’t lose them. Thomas, dear, you’re Little John, aren’t you? And Benny, you’re Will Scarlet...’ And she proceeded to hand out the scripts to eagerly waving hands. ‘Right,’ she said, finally. ‘I think that’s all the speaking parts.’
‘Um — excuse me?’ I said, sticking up my hand.
‘Yes? Oh, yes, Tim. The tree. How could I forget?’ She picked up the last sheaf of stapled papers and handed them to me.
Hastily, I scrabbled through. Mrs Axworthy always marks our lines with yellow highlighter, to make them easier to read. I was on page 16 before I saw any. Yes! There they were! My lines! All four of them! They were written in rhyming couplets, of all things, and were as follows:
TREE: So Robin and his merry men
As happy as can be
Now spend a night carousing
Beneath the greenwood tree.
INTERVAL
Hmm.
Anxiously, I leafed through, looking for more yellow. Aha! Yes! There was another bit, on page 32, the last page. It was the final speech, the one that ended the play. All of two verses this time.
TREE: And now the winter’s over
And spring will not be long.
O hark! The bells are ringing
A happy wedding song.
And so, farewell to Robin
And his merry greenwood throng.
How joyfully the bells ring out!
Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong!
THE END
WHAAAAT?
‘Right,’ said Mrs Axworthy, briskly. ‘Let’s have a read through from the top. James, you start. Act One, Scene One. Enter Robin. Off you go.’
I peered over James’s shoulder. His script was a riot of yellow. There didn’t seem to be a single second when he wasn’t saying something.
And I was a tree. A tree with nothing to say apart from a couple of rubbish remarks about carousing and weather and merry greenwood throngs before bursting into bell-speak. And it was all in rhyming couplets!
I stuck my hand up again, before James could start.
‘Yes, Tim?’ asked Mrs Axworthy, with a little sigh.
‘I was just wondering who wrote the play this year, Miss,’ I said.
Well, I was. Mrs Axworthy always does it. She does a pretty good job, too. She lets us add bits of our own, called improvisation, which is fun. She believes in teamwork. There are always plenty of jokes in our plays, which go down well with the mums and dads.
‘Why?’ asked Mrs Axworthy, sounding interested.
‘Because — well, we don’t usually do it all in rhyming cutlets.’
‘It’s not all in rhyming couplets. I take it you mean couplets, as opposed to lamb chops?’
This got a laugh from one or two, but went way over most people’s heads.
‘So who speaks in rhyming couplets, then?’ I persisted.
‘The tree does.’
‘Only the tree?’
‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’
‘No,’ I said, pol
itely. ‘I was just wondering who wrote it, that’s all.’
Mrs Axworthy gave a funny little smile. ‘If you really want to know,’ she said, ‘It was our very own Mr Cunningham.’
Mr Cunningham? Our head teacher? What was he doing writing plays when he should be busy ringing up celebrity chefs to come and improve our school dinners?
‘Why not you?’ asked Dillon.
‘Because he suggested having a go this year. In fact, he was very keen. He’s a bit of a playwright in his spare time, it seems.’
Did I detect a slight air of annoyance there? A tightening of the lips?
‘I didn’t think it was your style, Miss,’ I said.
‘No. Well, we all have different styles. Mr Cunningham has his own ideas. Apparently, he felt last year’s Noah’s Ark was a little ... frivolous. I think that was the word he used.’
‘What’s frivolous mean?’ asked Little Thomas Kite, who had somehow landed the part of Little John. Poor casting, in my opinion. Little John is huge, everyone knows that. Little Thomas is little. It defeats the point, somehow. I don’t know what Mrs Axworthy was playing at.
‘It means light hearted. Fun. He felt that Noah’s ark was a serious subject. I don’t think he liked the disco dance.’
‘The disco dance was the best bit,’ remarked Wendy (Handmaiden 1). She was right. The audience loved it. Some of the mums and dads got up and joined in!
‘Well, I’m only passing on Mr Cunningham’s comments,’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘He feels the story of Robin Hood has a lot to teach us about social inequality. Less jokes and more education, in other words.’
‘So we can’t add funny bits?’ asked Josh (Prince John).
‘No. It’s his vision. We mustn’t interfere with a man’s vision. We will perform it exactly as it flowed from the pen of Mr Cunningham. So if you have any comments about rhyming schemes, Tim, I suggest you run them past him.’
Not likely. You don’t make negative comments to Mr Cunningham.
‘Anyway,’ went on Mrs Axworthy, ‘I’d like to get started, if it’s all right with you. Fire away, James.’
James finally found his opening line, and kicked off with as much animation as a plank. Well, a plank that bleats like a sheep.