by Julie Bowe
A sound comes from Jenna’s throat like a door creaking open. “But he did get born and now he’ll know I wished it!” She sinks all the way down and sobs into her sleeping bag. “He’ll hate me. Just like Rachel. Just like Brooke. Just like everyone.”
Biscuit whimpers and sniffs Jenna’s arm. She pushes him away.
“Tyler doesn’t even know how to burp yet,” I say. “He doesn’t know how to hate you. Neither does Rachel. Remember how she ran right to you when we found out your parents were at the hospital?” I pet Biscuit and let him lick my hand. “People hardly ever hug you if they hate you. Plus, I don’t hate you. I bet Brooke doesn’t either. Nobody does.”
Jenna cries louder. “J-just g-go away!” she stammers. “L-leave me alone!”
But I don’t go.
I stay.
And keep talking.
“I didn’t hear your parents fight one bit at the hospital. And I’m sure they’ll figure out the money part. Grown-ups are in charge of that stuff.”
Biscuit sniffs Jenna’s arm again.
She’s crying too hard to stop him.
“You’re Tyler’s big sister now,” I continue. “Rachel is too. Give him a chance. He’ll be crazy about both of you.”
Jenna buries her face deeper in the sleeping bag, sniffling and taking big jagged breaths.
I just sit there and rub Biscuit’s belly and listen to Jenna cry until they both fall asleep.
Chapter 14
Jenna and Rachel’s grandma comes just after the rain stops the next morning. I watch from my bedroom window as they drive down the wet street. One stop at Jenna’s house to drop off Biscuit and then they’re heading to the hospital.
I think about Jenna and Rachel having to watch no-sound cartoons and draw in scribbledup coloring books all day. Sometimes family stuff is no fun.
There’s something else I’m thinking about too. The secret in Jenna’s woods.
“It’s probably nothing much,” I say, glancing at George. “Just some old wind chimes hanging in a tree, right?”
George doesn’t answer. He just stares out the window, toward Jenna’s house.
I look out the window again and tilt my head so I can see the treetops in Jenna’s woods. The sun is peeking through the clouds now, but I still can’t see any secrets hidden underneath the trees.
“But if it’s just wind chimes, why would she promise to keep them a secret? It has to be something bigger. Big enough to share with her best friend.”
Her best friend.
“That’s not Brooke anymore, George. That’s me.” I think for a moment. About how things have changed lately, with Jenna and Stacey and the other girls. And all the time I’ve been spending with Jenna. And how much time Stacey’s been spending with Brooke. “Maybe Stacey isn’t my only best friend anymore. Maybe Jenna is too.”
I pick up George and study his smile. “I’m going to Jenna’s woods. It won’t be like I’m sneaking around, because she already invited me. Do you want to come along?”
George glances away. He’s not a big fan of nature.
“Okay then,” I say, setting him down. “I’ll go by myself.”
When I get to Jenna’s house I ring the doorbell to make sure they’ve already left for the hospital. Biscuit comes running and barking. His claws scratch against the door with each jump, like he’s trying to open it and let me in.
“It’s just me, Biscuit!” I call, cupping my hands against the door. “Ida May! Jenna’s friend? Calm down. I don’t need to come inside. I already know the way.”
Biscuit stops jumping and starts whining.
I scoot around back and head into the woods.
The crooked path looks more trampled than the last time I saw it. Like someone has walked down it recently. Maybe Jenna? But how could she? She’s been at school or my house or the hospital since Thursday.
“Probably just squirrels,” I say, darting my eyes back and forth between the sun-speckled trees.
“Or rabbits.”
I gulp.
“Or very small bears.”
I walk down the crooked path as quietly as I can, secretly wishing someone was with me. Even a stuffed monkey. Scary feelings are easier to take when you can share them with a friend.
I climb over a damp log.
And turn two corners.
Then I gasp.
“Oh wow,” I whisper.
And gasp again.
There’s a little clearing at the end of the crooked path. A big tree is in the center of it. It has four thick branches, like elephant legs, angling up out of the trunk. A tree house sits in the center of the branches, about halfway up to the sky.
It must be an old tree house, because the green paint on its walls is mostly chipped away. A branch is growing right through the mossy roof. Wind chimes clink in an open window. Another set hangs from a rung on the ladder that leads from the ground to a trapdoor in the floor. Bolts. Screws. Sticks. String. The same wind chimes Jenna made with me.
“A Little House in the Big Tree,” I say. “Jenna’s secret.”
An acorn falls from the open trapdoor. Shoots from it, actually. Like some rude squirrel spit it out. It ping-pongs down the ladder and then bounces to my feet.
I hear a swishing sound and look at the doorway again.
It’s not the swish of a squirrel tail.
It’s a bigger swish.
Much bigger.
Do bears have tails? Can they climb ladders? Suddenly, I can’t remember.
Swish! Swishhhh!
More acorns fly. Leaves. Twigs. Sticks.
I stumble back, my eyes glued to the tree house and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Run! My brain shouts to my feet. Runrunrun!
But the message only gets as far as the knot in my stomach. My eyes and my tongue and my feet stay put.
A shape flashes past the window. Tall, with long dark hair.
Bear hair.
I turn and make myself run. But not for long, because there are roots everywhere and one of them trips me. Trees can be like that sometimes.
I fall to the ground and taste wet leaves.
Randi was right.
They’re not so good.
“You’re trespassing,” I hear someone say.
I glance up, half expecting to see a talking bear standing over me.
Brooke frowns down from a window in the tree house.
“I . . . I . . . I . . .” I stammer, sitting up and spitting leaves. “I . . . thought you were . . . a bear.”
Brooke smirks, drumming her fingers against the handle of a broom. “Relax, Goldilocks,” she says. “It’s just me.” She flicks her wrist toward the tree house. “Welcome to my humble home.”
“This is yours?” I say, standing up and brushing twigs off my shirt.
“Technically? Mine and the FBF’s. Former Best Friend? As in Jenna Drews. We found it last fall before she ditched me. Which, thankfully, she did, because I see she can’t keep a promise.”
“What promise?” I ask.
“To keep this place a secret.” Brooke leans the broom against the windowsill and crosses her arms. “Our secret,” she adds. “But here you are, so there you go. Jenna Drews is a big fat blabber.”
“No she’s not,” I say. “Not a big fat one. She only told me that there was something in her woods.”
Brooke snorts and spins her hands like pinwheels. “See? This is what I mean. Everyone says I talk behind people’s backs, when it’s Jenna who can’t keep her mouth shut.”
“Your back is the only one Jenna talked behind,” I tell Brooke. “And she only did it because she thought your promise was worn out.”
Brooke breaks a stick off the tree and throws it out the window.
I duck.
“Promises never wear out,” she snaps, “even if friendships do.”
I stand still and hope I won’t have to dodge a broom.
“I’m just saying,” Brooke continues, “people shouldn’t automatically think you’re
one thing and nothing else.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, keeping an eye on the broom. “Makes sense.”
Brooke smoothes back her hair and takes a deep breath, like she just swam up to the surface.
Then she gives me the once-over.
“Well, as long as you’re here,” she says, “you might as well come up.”
The inside of the tree house is a lot like the outside, only no green paint. Just plain wooden boards for walls. Same for the floor and the ceiling. It’s mostly empty except for a paper plate seed collage tacked to a wall and the broom Brooke was using. A pink plastic chair is shoved in one corner. Something is lying on the floor next to it.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say, turning in a circle.
Brooke squints. “Ha-ha. If I had my way, it would be totally smooth.” She turns in a circle too, arms stretched out so her hands make a little frame she can look through. “Posters on the walls. Beads in the windows. Bright pink rugs on the floor. A beanbag chair or two.”
“So how come it’s not, you know, smooth?” I ask.
“Because of the big fat fight.” Brooke plops down on the plastic chair.
I sit on the floor, crisscross applesauce, in front of her. “What fight?”
“The one that happened after Jenna and I found this place. We were taking Biscuit for a walk.”
I blink. “In the woods? You? And Jenna?” “Not in the woods,” Brooke says. “Down her path to the park. Only, Biscuit got away from us. We chased him around in circles forever until his leash got caught on something right underneath the tree house. Weird, huh?”
I nod. “I’ve got goose bumps. Go on.”
“We decided to make this place our secret hideout. So we ditched Biscuit at Jenna’s house and planned a whole ceremony to make it official. We came back the next day to do it. I even brought friendship necklaces for each of us.”
Brooke pulls a necklace chain from under her shirt collar. Half of a broken heart hangs from it. Two words are written on it:
ENDS
EVER
I frown. “Ends ever? That doesn’t sound very friendly.”
“Jenna’s half said FRI FOR,” Brooke explains. “When we fit the halves together it spelled FRIENDS FOREVER. Get it?”
I nod. “So how come you’re still wearing your half if you and Jenna aren’t friends anymore?”
“Duh, Ida,” Brooke says. “It has a real diamond chip.” She holds the half heart closer to me. A tiny dot sparkles on the tip.
“Point zero five karats,” Brooke says, tapping the diamond. “It said so right on the wrapper. Jenna’s half had one too.”
“Wow,” I say. “The only carrots I’ve ever owned are the crunchy kind.”
Brooke sits back, twirling her chain. “Diamonds last forever, so we swore an oath over them to be friends forever. And to keep the tree house a secret forever too.”
“So far so good,” I say. “When do you fight?”
“I’m getting to that,” Brooke says. She leans in. “After we said the oath, we sealed it with blood.”
I gulp. “Whose blood?”
“Ours, silly,” Brooke says. “Jenna brought along a needle and a photo of the two of us. We pricked our fingers and pressed the blood onto the picture. I practically fainted, but I did it. Jenna too. Then we hung the picture right over there.”
Brooke points to the wall where the seed collage is hanging. An empty noodle frame is lying on the floor beneath it.
I pick up the noodle frame. “So where’s the picture now?” I ask.
Brooke flicks back her hair. “We finished the ceremony and then started making plans for the tree house. Well, I started making plans. But Jenna just pooh-poohed every decorating idea I had. She said bead curtains and movie posters and neon rugs would damage the natural integrity of the place.”
Brooke does invisible quote marks with her fingers when she says that last part. “Whatever. Jenna made a rule that we could only decorate with things we made ourselves, or that came from nature. Sticks. Seeds. Flowers. Ugh. I swear, she’d only allow a rug in here if we wove it out of grass and mud.”
“But you like making stuff just as much as Jenna does. Remember?” I wiggle the noodle frame in front of Brooke. “You taught her how to make these.”
“Noodles are different,” Brooke replies. “They come from the store, not off the ground. Rhinestones . . . sequins . . . beads, fine. But sticks and seeds and mud? No thank you.”
“So what did you do?”
“I, very logically, said that we should put it to a vote.”
“A vote? But there were only two of you, so—”
“And since I was older,” Brooke cuts in, “I should get two votes.”
“And then?”
“And then Jenna basically had a fit. She said if I got two votes, then she got three because the woods belonged to her family.”
Brooke fiddles with her necklace. “So I said, ‘What family? Your parents hate each other and Rachel hates you.’”
My eyes go wide. “You said that?”
Brooke does a quick nod. “I know it came out sounding mean, but sometimes the truth hurts.” She glances away. “I hear my mom and her friends talking about Jenna’s family all the time. They call Jenna’s dad driftwood because he’s always looking for work and her mom Herr Drews.”
“Hair Drews?”
Brooke shrugs. “Probably because of her long braids. But it’s more the way they say it. Like the Drewses are a big fat joke, you know? So I told Jenna the whole town is laughing at her family.”
“What did Jenna say?”
Brooke snorts. “She didn’t say anything. She shoved me into the wall—that wall.” Brooke points to the only wall that doesn’t have a window on it. “I slammed against it so hard I practically broke my back. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The wall was covered with spiderwebs. Millions of them. And every sticky strand was gobbed with ancient spider eggs. My shirt, my hands, my hair—my entire body was covered with them.”
Brooke shudders. “Jenna knows how I feel about spiders. She shoved me into them on purpose. I saw it in her eyes.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you think?” Brooke replies. “I shoved her back. We kept shoving each other back and forth until I accidentally grabbed her diamond chip necklace. The chain broke. The half heart flew.”
I glance around the tree house. I don’t see Jenna’s half heart anywhere.
“Jenna accused me of breaking it on purpose. So I called a five-minute truce to prove I hadn’t. We looked everywhere—inside, outside—but it had completely disappeared.”
Brooke glances at the empty noodle frame in my hand. “That’s when Jenna yanked our picture off the wall and tore it up. She threw all the pieces out the window. Then she told me that I was the joke of our whole school. That kids call me tinsel brain behind my back. Because of all my pageant crowns. I stormed out of here and ran all the way home. That’s the last time I came to this place.”
“But you’re here today,” I point out.
Brooke tucks her necklace back under her shirt. “Only because of what your parents said at the Purdee Good last night. About Jenna’s baby brother and how nobody knows for sure if he’s even going to . . . you know . . . live.”
I nod.
Brooke sighs. “It just made things like diamond necklaces and pink rugs and getting your own way not seem so important anymore. Plus, when we got home from the Purdee Good my mom started calling everyone she knew. The school carnival committee. The PTA. She even called Mr. Crow and our principal. She told them what was going on with the Drewses and that something had to be done.”
Brooke leans in. “But remember? My mom thinks Mrs. Drews is a joke. She always complains when they have to work together on a committee. So I finally just blurted out, ‘What’s the point of helping someone you hate?’”
Brooke sits back. Her chair creaks. “You should have seen the look on my mom’s face after
I said that.”
“Bad?” I ask.
Brooke nods. “Scary bad. She grabbed my shoulders and said, ‘I don’t hate Mrs. Drews. We just disagree sometimes. Helping people is what we do in this life. No matter how we feel about them.’”
Brooke studies the floor. “So . . . I don’t know . . . I felt . . . bad. For the mean things I’d said to Jenna. For fighting with her. For not telling her I was sorry a long time ago. I thought maybe if I came here . . .” Brooke’s voice trails off as she looks around the tree house.
“Maybe you could think of a way to help her too?”
Brooke looks at me and nods. “So this morning, I dragged a broom up here to de-spider the place. And my old time-out chair because no way was I going to sit on this disgusting floor.” She kicks at an acorn. “Then, just as I was getting ready to think things through, you showed up.”
“Should I leave?” I ask.
Brooke blinks at me. She shakes her head. “No. Stay. Maybe we can think of something together.”
I think about all the mean things Brooke has said and done to Jenna lately. Teasing her about Tom right in front of him. Telling her the school carnival will be a lot better now that Mrs. Drews isn’t in charge. Splitting up our group instead of doing Jenna’s playground good-byes.
What could Brooke do that would make up for all of that?
“Any ideas?” Brooke asks, fiddling with her necklace again.
“We could find Jenna’s half heart and you could give it back,” I offer. “That might help.”
“I thought of that already,” Brooke replies. “I searched again this morning, but it’s no use. Some squirrel probably carried it off.” She looks out the window.
I nod. “A girl squirrel who likes sparkly things.”
Brooke turns back to me, her eyes bright with an idea. “I could give Jenna one of my tiaras,” she says. “My biggest, sparkly-est one!”
“Um . . .” I say. “I don’t think Jenna is much into tiaras. She’s more of a tagboard and glue kind of girl.”