by Jaco Jacobs
‘The tree was here first!’ shouted Leila.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Venter, as soon as I have my team here, one of them can climb up with a ladder and get the girl down from there,’ said the thin man with the rat face. His tone of voice was threatening.
‘No one touches me,’ came Leila’s voice from above us.
I looked up into the tree. Strips of light flashed blindingly among the leaves, almost like when the sun plays on water. An unexpected dizziness made the light swim in front of my eyes. It looked as if the tree was slowly turning round and round. For a moment, I shut my eyes tightly.
I thought of my eldest brother, who was going to spend the entire day lying beside the pool again and threaten to give me wedgies if I didn’t wait on him with cold drinks.
I thought of my little brother, the snotty-nosed slave driver who ordered me to make his bed every morning and tidy his room in exchange for pocket money.
I thought of the doorbell playing ‘Jingle Bells’ and the girl with the braces who’d paid to have my brother kiss her.
I thought of my school report. In the final exams I’d scored seventy-seven percent for maths – more than ten percent better than the previous term – and I was top of my class in Afrikaans. Mr Fourie said it was because I wrote such good compositions. But my dad hadn’t even noticed my report because he was too busy giving Donovan an earful about his rotten marks and praising Adrian for his brilliant report. No matter what happened, I always disappeared somewhere between my two brothers. Always somewhere in the middle, where no one ever saw me.
When I opened my eyes, I looked down and noticed the red and white dishcloth over my shoulder. I had completely forgotten about it – I had actually walked all the way here, three blocks from home, with a dishcloth over my shoulder. It felt like the kind of strange thing Leila might do. Maybe her strangeness was contagious.
I thought of the piles of dishes waiting for me at home.
Above my head, Leila’s two dirty feet were dangling to and fro among the green leaves.
Somewhere a turtle dove was cooing.
The red-faced man from the municipality was blowing his nose.
I think you sometimes do things in the blink of an eye, without thinking – things that change your life.
You ask someone to marry you in the middle of a horror movie, like my dad asked my mum.
You decide at five in the morning that you feel like ice cream, like my dad’s sister, Aunt Karla, did last year, and then you’re paralysed in a car accident at the crack of dawn.
Or you follow a weird girl into a tree with a dishcloth over your shoulder.
3
A Lady in Pink
‘You can’t stay up there all day. You’ll have to come down sometime.’
I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the red-faced man from the municipality. He had unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and, by this time, his handkerchief was full of sweaty stains. It looked as if he was wishing he was lying by a pool with an ice-cold drink in his hand rather than having to talk to two children sitting in a tree.
I didn’t know how long we’d been sitting up there but it felt like at least an hour or two.
‘He’s right,’ I whispered to Leila. ‘We’ll have to get down sooner or later.’
Leila smiled at me. The tree was throwing dappled green shadows on her face. ‘You’re braver than I thought,’ she said.
I didn’t feel brave at all. I was thirsty and my bum was hurting from sitting on the hard branch. On top of that, I was sure I would need to go to the loo pretty soon. And I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that we were in trouble.
In the meantime, two more municipal pickups had arrived. On the back of one of the pickups were men with chainsaws and other equipment. They were sitting around, bored and waiting for us to get down from the tree.
‘I still say we should just get them down from there,’ growled Rat-face.
‘We can’t use violence,’ said Red-face. ‘They’re two kids. Can you imagine what the press would say?’
Leila and I grinned at each other. Didn’t they realize that we could hear every word?
Like Leila, I lightly kicked the air with my bare feet. I had taken off my sneakers and put them in a fork in the branches. I was hoping Leila couldn’t smell my socks. At least it was nice and cool up in the tree. It smelt like the small shed on my grandfather’s farm, where he kept the firewood for winter. Somewhere above us a bird was chirping among the branches.
I smiled when I suddenly thought of something my dad sometimes said. When he was feeling down in the dumps or when things went wrong, he would say, ‘Yep, today’s a good day for climbing trees.’ Lately my dad was down in the dumps quite often.
Suddenly the calm was shattered by some ear-splitting yapping.
‘Trixi, Georgie, pipe down, my darlings,’ said a voice somewhere below us. A voice that sounded vaguely familiar. ‘What’s going on here?’
My stomach flip-flopped and I pushed some leaves out of the way to see who the voice belonged to.
‘It’s Mrs Merriman,’ I whispered to Leila in alarm. ‘She lives in the same street as us. If she sees me, she’s going to call my mum and dad.’
My mum said Mrs Merriman was eccentric. I thought that was just a nice word for ‘freaking weird’. She always wore pink clothes and even her grey hair had a touch of pink in it. She came to this park every day to walk her two poodles, George and Trixibelle. At least once a month she rang our doorbell to collect money for the SPCA, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. My mum always told us to ignore her but my dad always opened the door and patiently listened to her descriptions of the dire needs of the poor animals.
I heard Red-face explain about the tree that had to be felled to make place for the pipeline.
‘What a pity,’ said Mrs Merriman. ‘Such a beautiful tree.’
‘It’s going to be even more of a pity if people don’t have water to drink,’ Red-face replied gruffly. ‘Nor doggies like these. Can’t do our job. Two kids sitting up there in the tree. Refuse to get down.’
‘Strange,’ said Mrs Merriman. She shaded her eyes with one hand and peered up.
I quickly let go of the leaves so that she couldn’t see my face.
The rustling of the leaves made George and Trixibelle growl suspiciously.
I was starting to get worried. If Mrs Merriman thought this was strange, it wasn’t a good sign. After all, she had pink hair.
A mobile phone rang.
‘Hello?’ answered Red-face.
Leila and I looked at each other.
‘His ringtone is Justin Bieber?’ Leila stifled her laughter with her hand.
I shrugged. Maybe Red-face had a teenage daughter at home. Donovan once uploaded a heavy-metal ringtone for my mum. I wish I could’ve seen the look on the faces of her stiff-lipped colleagues when they heard her phone ring for the first time.
‘The office,’ said Red-face to Rat-face after ending the call. ‘We have to go back.’
Surprised, Leila and I watched the men get into the pickups.
‘Don’t think you’ve won!’ Red-face shouted through his open window as he drove off. ‘We’ll be back!’
When they were gone, Leila and I gave each other a high five. Her hand was soft and cool against mine. She was grinning from ear to ear.
‘So, what now?’ I asked, stretching out my arm that was getting stiff by then. ‘Shall we get down?’
‘You heard what that man said,’ said Leila. ‘They’ll be back.’
I said nothing. I’d guessed she was going to say that.
We jumped with fright when a voice suddenly spoke right below us. I grabbed hold of the branch to stop myself from falling off.
For a moment I’d forgotten all about Mrs Merriman.
‘Could I perhaps bring you two darlings some cold drinks?’ she called. ‘You must be thirsty by now.’
4
The Bowling Club
; For a long time Leila and I sat in the tree without talking to each other. The silence didn’t seem to bother her. She sat with her head tilted to one side, as if she was listening intently to the chirping of the birds and the drone of distant traffic.
After a while, I cleared my throat. ‘Erm…I need to get to a toilet sometime soon.’
My cheeks felt warm. Why did it feel so awkward to say the word ‘toilet’ in front of a girl? After all, girls also go to the toilet. Maybe it was because I didn’t have a sister.
‘Try the bowling club,’ said Leila.
She pointed to the other side of the lawn, where some cars were parked. From where we sat, I could see elderly men and women in white clothes standing around on the bowling green, and from time to time the balls hit each other with a sharp click-click sound.
‘My grandma always said, “The older you get, the weaker your bladder gets.” I think most bowls players are old, so I bet you there are toilets there. But hurry – before the people from the municipality come back.’
I suddenly realized she expected me to stay up in the tree with her. Who said I didn’t have better things to do? This should have made me angry but for some reason it made me feel rather…proud. It felt as if she trusted me.
Carefully, I climbed down. My legs were feeling a little wobbly when I finally stood on firm ground. How long had I been up in the tree for? My watch was lying on the kitchen table because I’d taken it off before I started doing the dishes. My mobile phone was in my room. If Donovan and Adrian dared read my texts, I was going to kill them.
‘Aren’t you coming down as well?’ I asked Leila. ‘There’s no one here.’
‘Rather not,’ came her voice from above. ‘I think it’s better if one of us stays up here all the time. Just in case.’
In case of what? I preferred not to ask.
The sun was grilling the back of my neck as I walked in the direction of the bowling club. I tried not to think too hard about what Leila was doing. Maybe Red-face went to fetch the police to get us out of the tree. Maybe they were going to use tear gas or rubber bullets, like on TV. Donovan and Adrian were going to be so jealous.
The gate to the bowling club was open. It was quiet, apart from the sound of balls click-clicking against each other every now and then, each time followed by polite applause. A sign above the fence said, Private property. No entry. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
I tried my best to look like I wasn’t a trespasser. It was harder than it sounds. When you’re thirteen years old, and wearing a Quiksilver T-shirt with a red and white dishcloth over your shoulder, it isn’t easy to walk into a bowling club without being noticed by anyone. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t leave the dishcloth in the tree.
But, miracle of miracles, no one spotted me.
I had no trouble finding the signs with the little man and woman. I slipped into the men’s toilet.
It was nice and cool inside, and it smelt good. Crisp white towels were draped over wall rails and a small bottle of soap had been placed on every washbasin. I quickly locked myself in a cubicle, in case someone walked in and discovered me.
When I was done, I washed my hands while looking at myself in the mirror above the basin. I was almost disappointed to see that I still looked exactly the same as when I got up that morning – mousy brown hair that was slightly too long and refused to lie flat, green eyes, slightly protruding ears. That wasn’t really how I thought someone who was breaking the law should look. I was sure that it was illegal to sit in a tree to prevent the municipality from chopping it down. My mum would know for certain. And being in this men’s room was definitely illegal. The sign at the gate said so.
‘What are you doing here?’
The gruff voice made my tummy turn and my legs became jelly.
For some reason, the man filling the entire door frame made me think of a gigantic Lego man – he was sort of round and square at the same time. His shoulders were broad and his chest looked like a wine barrel under his khaki shirt. His head was shaved and shiny, and his brown face was full of large freckles that looked as if they had been painted on. Even the hands hanging by his sides looked like a Lego man’s pincer hands.
‘Erm…my grandpa plays bowls here?’ I stammered. I immediately wished I could erase the question mark at the end of my sentence.
The man made a rumbling sound that came from deep inside his chest. ‘Look, boy, I’ve been the caretaker at this club for years. I know every member’s children and grandchildren. I even know the names of most of their dogs. So, why don’t you rather own up?’
I swallowed. There was no way I could get away – Lego man filled the entire door.
‘I…Well…It all began when I was doing the dishes this morning…’ I started telling him. At least the dishcloth over my shoulder should have convinced him that this time I was telling the truth.
He remained expressionless while I told him about Leila and the tree and the men from the municipality.
‘And then I needed a loo,’ I concluded.
For a moment his facial expression remained frozen, like that of a plastic figurine. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘I know exactly which tree you’re talking about. Walk with me. I have to meet this Leila girl.’
5
On an Island
By the time the caretaker and I arrived at the tree, Mrs Merriman and her two poodles were sitting on a picnic blanket underneath.
Above their heads Leila’s feet were still dangling from the leaves.
‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am,’ said the caretaker with a nod of his head. If he was surprised to see a lady with pink hair and two pink poodles sitting under the tree on a pink picnic blanket, he was too polite to show it. ‘I’m John Carelse, caretaker of the bowling club.’
Mrs Merriman held out her hand. ‘Theresa Merriman,’ she said. ‘And these are George and Trixibelle.’
‘Erm…and this is Leila,’ I said and pointed up in the tree.
Leila peeped out from behind the leaves and smiled at the caretaker. In one hand she held a cold drink can.
‘Marnus, Mr Carelse, how about something to drink?’ asked Mrs Merriman. ‘I brought enough. They’re nice and cold.’
‘Please call me John,’ the caretaker said to Mrs Merriman. ‘Or Caretaker or Uncle John,’ he said looking at me and Leila. ‘That’s what most people call me.’ He took a can from Mrs Merriman. ‘Thanks a lot.’
Mrs Merriman moved aside a bit and gestured for us to join her on the picnic blanket.
The caretaker plonked his big body down on the edge of the blanket.
I remained standing, feeling awkward.
‘So, the two of you are going to try and save this tree?’ the caretaker asked and cracked open his can.
‘Actually, Leila came up with the plan,’ I said.
‘They can’t chop down the tree while we’re sitting in it,’ Leila said.
The caretaker leaned back, propping himself up on his hands on the grass, and stared up into the tree. ‘This is a good tree,’ he said in a calm, peaceful voice. ‘A tree like this should be for ever.’
Leila and I said nothing.
But Mrs Merriman leaned forward and placed her hand on top of one of the caretaker’s hands. ‘What beautiful words, John,’ she said. ‘A tree like this should be for ever.’ It looked as if she’d sipped the words through her straw and was tasting them.
The caretaker sighed. ‘There are many things that should be for ever. I grew up in Cape Town. District Six. Those were good times. District Six was the kind of place that had its very own sounds and smells and tastes. But in another way, those were bad times. In the seventies the government decided all the non-white people had to move away from the area. By that time I was already married and working in Johannesburg. But my younger brother was still living at home with my mum and the rest of the family. On the day the bulldozers came to demolish the houses, he and his friend lay down in front of them.’
I tried to imagine what it
must feel like to lie on the ground while a huge bulldozer is thundering towards you.
‘And did it work?’ I asked.
‘Of course not, silly!’ Leila said impatiently. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of District Six?’
Uncle John smiled at me. ‘No one could be bothered with my brother and his pal. The police chased them away with sjamboks, and the houses were flattened. But then again, we live in different times now. I’m glad that someone is still prepared to fight for a tree.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I must be off. There’s a big tournament today, and I don’t get paid to lounge around in the park. Thanks a lot for the cold drink, Mrs Merriman.’
‘Theresa, please,’ she said.
The caretaker nodded. Then he looked at me, and up into the tree. ‘I’ll drop by again later,’ he said.
When he was gone, the three of us were quiet for a while. I think Leila and Mrs Merriman were also thinking of the caretaker’s story. It must have taken a huge amount of guts to lie down in front of a bulldozer. If Rat-face or Red-face returned in their municipal pickup and came at us with sjamboks, I’d be out of there like a shot, but I wouldn’t tell Leila that.
My eyes wandered to Leila’s branch.
I couldn’t decide whether I was supposed to sit on the picnic blanket with Mrs Merriman, or climb back into the tree. Maybe Mrs Merriman saw that I was uncomfortable because she winked at me and pointed up into the tree.
Relieved, I scrambled back up.
Leila smiled when I sat down again next to her on the branch. ‘I was wondering whether you’d come back.’ The leaves were still casting green shadows on her face.
I shrugged. ‘This is a good day for climbing trees,’ I said.
Leila gave me a puzzled look but I didn’t quite know what my dad’s saying meant, so I didn’t try to explain.
‘I wonder how long it will take those people from the municipality to come back,’ said Mrs Merriman.
Neither Leila nor I tried to guess. We just sat there and watched one of Mrs Merriman’s doggies get up and lift its leg against the tree.