by Jaco Jacobs
2 The fact that the sports shop’s finances were looking so dire. (Dad: ‘It’s because our sign is too small. People walk right past the shop without seeing it.’)
3 The motor of the electric gate in our driveway that had conked out.
4 Empty beer cans in front of the TV.
5 Donovan’s school report.
6 The fact that my dad had borrowed money from Adrian to order pizza.
7 A turkey. (Mum: ‘OK, if you want to eat turkey on Christmas Day, go ahead and buy one and start stuffing it, because I certainly won’t be. Obviously no one in this house has any appreciation whatsoever of the fact that I’m busy with a Very Important Court Case.’)
8 The fact that my mum was so busy with her Very Important Court Case.
9 Who the best newsreader on TV was.
Before I could think of a tenth thing, I saw the caretaker approaching from the bowling green.
Exactly like the previous two mornings, he had a tray with coffee mugs in his hands. And exactly like the previous day, he was pinching a newspaper under one of his arms.
Maybe it was the smell of morning coffee that woke Leila and her mum, because by the time Uncle John had put the tray down under the tree they were both on their feet.
‘Morning,’ said the caretaker. His voice was light and happy, as if he had forgotten the horrible story he had told us the previous evening about his brother. ‘I brought the three of you some coffee too!’ he shouted towards the sleeping students.
The sleeping-bag caterpillars started to stir. First Killer’s head popped out from one of the sleeping bags, and next to her two other girls were sitting up. One of them was the girl who’d fought with the red-headed guy. They scrambled out of their sleeping bags, joined us, stifling yawn after yawn, and gratefully accepted a mug of coffee each.
‘Actually, I only drink organic coffee…’ one girl said but then gave the caretaker a somewhat apprehensive look. ‘But this smells delicious,’ she quickly added.
Rather stiffly, I got out of the tree.
Seven mugs of coffee were steaming in the early-morning air.
‘Sorry about last night,’ said Killer.
I wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to.
‘What’s your real name?’ asked Leila in that strange, out-of-the-blue way of hers.
Killer choked on her coffee and looked at her wide-eyed. ‘Who says Killer isn’t my real name?’
Leila shrugged. ‘You also started out as a baby. Who calls a little baby Killer?’
Killer’s nose rings flashed in the morning sun. She looked up into the tree as if she had forgotten her real name and was hoping that it would be carved somewhere on the trunk. ‘My real name is Joy,’ she said. ‘Joy Meintjies. And you’re right. My mum and dad are teachers – they would never have called their little girl Killer.’
I stared at Killer. Or Joy. I couldn’t decide which name suited her best. You could see she was trying to look like Killer but it felt to me as if she could be a Joy as well.
‘But little girls grow up,’ said Killer. Again I wasn’t sure which of us she was addressing. ‘And I guess sometimes they turn out different from what everyone had hoped.’
‘Did you really kill someone?’ asked Leila.
‘Leila!’ scolded her mum.
Killer laughed. ‘Not yet,’ she said and raised one eyebrow in a mock threat. ‘I only killed my mum and dad’s dream. A real killjoy, that’s me. They had other plans for me, and I spoilt their fun. Actually, that’s what my name should be: Killjoy.’
The caretaker cleared his throat. ‘Well, I hate to be the killjoy now but I have to get to work. Here’s the paper. I suspect you’re going to have a busy day.’
He gave the newspaper to Leila and started collecting the empty coffee mugs.
My mouth dropped open when I saw the front page. The headline read: More support for tree children’s protest.
Under the headline was a photo of the students demonstrating under the tree.
‘Facebook and Twitter are buzzing about the two children who are trying to save a tree in their local park,’ I read out loud. ‘By last night a Facebook group that had been started in support of the two green soldiers already had more than 3,000 members. Also thanks to the two children, a stray dog and her puppies were discovered and subsequently saved by the SPCA.’
I looked at Leila. She shuddered slightly and I didn’t understand why.
15
The Best of Mother Earth
The first people to show up, at eight that morning, were a man and a woman wearing garish clothes and headbands in their long hair. They waved at us merrily and made themselves comfortable on the grass, a little way from Leila’s mum’s blanket. They looked up at Leila and me, and smiled as if they expected us to start giving a concert up in the tree at any moment.
Hot on their heels was a group of five cyclists with sunglasses and tanned calves. They propped their bikes up against the blue gum, next to the students’ posters, and stood around chatting while gesturing towards us. One of them took a picture of us with his mobile phone.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Leila.
More and more people were arriving.
People walking their dogs.
Mothers with prams.
Joggers.
A choir started singing ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Away in a Manger’. The choir mistress had a sign around her neck that said they needed money for their overseas tour the next year, and in front of them on the lawn was a jar in which people could drop money.
A man with a Santa Claus hat.
Someone from a radio station.
An ice-cream seller on a bicycle.
Killer and the two students started handing out posters.
Before long, the choir switched from Christmas carols to singing: ‘The tree must stay! The tree must stay!’
More coins tinkled in the donation jar.
A pink lady with two poodles was struggling to make her way through the crowd.
‘Good grief, this looks like a church fete!’ Mrs Merriman called out. She was the only one who dared come close to us; the others all kept a polite distance. ‘Good morning, you two,’ she greeted us, slightly out of breath.
She and George and Trixibelle settled in next to Leila’s mum on one of the blankets.
‘Gosh, look at all the people. Marnus, Leila, the two of you are becoming famous!’
She took a Tupperware container out of her bag and opened it. It was full of muffins. She offered Leila and her mum and me some.
‘You know, Milly and her pups are doing very well,’ Mrs Merriman said. ‘Milly seems to like her new name a lot. You should think of names for the puppies as well. After the story in this morning’s paper, loads of people will call the SPCA and offer to take in Milly and her little ones and give them good homes.’
The crowd around the tree grew even larger. By ten o’clock it looked as if there was a flea market in the park.
When Leila wasn’t looking, I tried my best to wet my hair from my water bottle and comb it, even though I didn’t have a mirror. Imagine having to go on a stage and stand in front of 107 people without having combed your hair, washed your face or brushed your teeth! A few minutes ago, Mrs Merriman had tried to count the people and that’s what she got: 107.
The tree felt increasingly like a stage, with Leila and me in the leading roles, even though we had no idea what to say or do.
It looked like Leila was starting to get stage-fright. She was biting on her bottom lip and staring intently at the branch in front of her.
Until then I had always been the dancing gnome or the innkeeper in school concerts. I had never been given an important role. This was the first time I knew what it was like to feel everyone’s eyes on me.
When Junior du Toit arrived to take pictures of us again, I grinned and pumped my fist in the air like the demonstrating students. I thought that would look cool in a photo.
Leila sat as if carved from stone.
The girl smiled and waved at us. ‘Is this really your brother?’ she shouted at me over the singing students and choir, and pointed at Donovan.
I nodded.
The girl looked surprised, grinned and took Donovan’s hand. ‘I’m Melissa!’ she called at me.
I waved to her. ‘Hi, Melissa!’
Everyone looked at my brother and the girl.
Donovan grinned as if he had just won the Lotto. It looked like he would have only one student coming to his kissing lessons for the rest of the holidays.
‘I have to go to the toilet,’ I said to Leila when my brother and his girlfriend walked off.
She just shrugged as if to say, So? Go. Does it look like I’m trying to stop you?
Feeling offended, I took my toiletry bag and started climbing down. Why was Leila in such a weird mood?
‘What’s going on?’ a worried voice shouted when I reached the ground.
Suddenly, the students and the choir stopped singing.
‘Oh no, is that little boy giving up?’ asked a lady with a grocery bag in her hand.
‘Don’t worry. He just needs to leave the tree…to take a leak!’ someone else called.
Laughter rippled through the group of people.
My ears were burning. I walked off as fast as possible towards the bowling green.
There were no players on the green yet. I slipped in at the gate. There was no sign of the caretaker.
The restroom was cool and rather dark. I switched on the light and closed the door behind me. I could no longer hear the singing around the tree.
After doing my business, I stood in front of the washbasin and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was all over the place, exactly as I had suspected. I opened the tap and held my head under the streaming water. Then I rubbed my hair dry with one of the small sparkling-white towels and tamed the worst cowlicks with my comb. I hung the towel neatly back on the rail and brushed my teeth.
When I was done, I dawdled a bit in the restroom. I thought maybe that was how an actor felt during the interval before the next act started, or a famous rock singer before having to go on stage.
I zipped up my toiletry bag, took one last look in the mirror and winked at myself.
Then I opened the bathroom door – and bumped into a man who came rushing in.
‘Marnus!’ He sounded concerned. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered as my hand flew up to my stinging nose. My eyes began to water.
I didn’t really know why I said sorry – after all, I was the one who got hurt. I cautiously touched my nose. Fortunately it didn’t feel as if it was broken and it wasn’t bleeding either.
The man held his hand out to me. ‘You’re just the guy I was hoping to bump into!’ he said jokingly. ‘Dimitri Giorgiou. Pleased to meet you.’
I shook his hand. My eyes were still watering a little from being hit on the nose.
The man who was shaking my hand had dark hair and a stubbly beard, but not the kind of creepy tramp stubble that my dad sported during holidays when he refused to shave – this guy had stubble like the male models in aftershave ads. I wondered whether he was hot in his suit but it looked as if he had just stepped out of an air-conditioned office.
‘Hot, eh?’ he asked, as if he could read my mind. ‘How about a cold drink?’
He shoved a canary-yellow can into my hand.
I looked at it in surprise. My mum had told us a thousand times not to accept gifts from strangers.
‘Er…no, thanks,’ I said.
‘Come on!’ he said with a broad smile. ‘Surely a man gets thirsty when he sits in a tree all day? I just want to say, I think what you and that girl are doing is absolutely fantastic. Green issues are on everyone’s lips these days but few people are actually prepared to do something about global warming and pollution and the disappearance of our forests. That’s why I’d like to be your sponsor.’
I frowned. Dimitri Giorgiou spoke so fast that my head was spinning.
‘Sponsor?’ I asked.
‘That’s right, yes.’ He pointed at the can. ‘What you’re holding in your hand isn’t just another ordinary cool drink. Let’s start with the can – it’s made of one hundred percent recycled metal. Minimum damage to the environment. But wait until you open it…’
He looked at me expectantly.
I opened the can.
The man kept looking at me, so I carefully took a sip – even though my mum would have had a fit.
‘What does it taste like?’ Dimitri asked.
Before I could decide if it would be rude to say it tasted a bit like cheap cordial that was too weak, the man answered his own question.
‘It tastes like the best Mother Earth has to offer. That’s where the name comes from – Nature’s Gift. It’s good for nature and it’s good for you. No preservatives. No artificial flavouring or colourants. No extra sugar.’
I suspected all those things he had just mentioned were exactly what made ordinary cool drinks so great but I kept quiet.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ said the man. ‘One you definitely can’t say no to…’
16
Run
‘I have good news,’ I told Leila when I got back into the tree, slightly out of breath.
Getting from the bowling green to the tree took quite an effort. By then there really were a lot of people. Some of them stopped me to speak to me. A girl even asked for my autograph. She was quite pretty too. I thought Donovan would be jealous if I asked her for her mobile number.
Leila seemed not to have heard me over the crowd’s noisy chattering and singing.
‘I said, I have good news!’ I said louder.
Leila didn’t react – she just stared into nothingness. She didn’t even notice my T-shirt. I was about to repeat myself even louder when she turned to me.
‘He’s here,’ she said. It looked as if she had just heard that someone was on their way to flatten the tree with a bulldozer, the way they had demolished Uncle John’s parents’ house in District Six.
I frowned. ‘Who?’
She was staring off into the distance again.
Confused, I looked at the people in the park. I reckoned there were about two hundred of them now, but oddly enough, my eyes were immediately drawn to a man at the back with blond hair. He was standing on the edge of the crowd. He was the only one who wasn’t singing or chatting or gesturing wildly. His shoulders were slightly hunched as if he was carrying a heavy load, and he stood with his hands in the pockets of his three-quarter pants, staring at us. Something about his face, and his intent gaze, seemed familiar to me. I looked at Leila again.
‘Is that…?’ I started to ask.
But before I could continue, Dimitri Giorgiou approached us. Under his arm was a rolled-up banner. He unrolled it and used rope to tie it around the trunk of the tree.
‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’ Mrs Merriman called, sounding annoyed.
George and Trixibelle growled.
‘From now on, Nature’s Gift is the official sponsor of The Tree At The Centre Of The Universe,’ Dimitri announced in a proud voice. ‘We’re going to help save this tree. Nature’s Gift is a refreshing, one hundred percent natural soft drink, free of any preservatives or…’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Leila asked me. ‘How does he know about The Tree At The Centre Of The Universe?’
She sounded quite calm but I still wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not.
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you!’ I said. ‘We now have a sponsor.’
It felt surprisingly good to say that. My dad sponsored Donovan and the rest of the first team’s rugby togs, and a well-known manufacturer of swimming trunks had offered to s
ponsor Donovan the following year when he competed in the national swimming championships. No one had ever offered to sponsor me for anything.
At that moment I felt far from invisible.
‘Dimitri – that’s the guy putting up the banner – is going to pay for pamphlets so that people can force the municipality to leave the tree alone and save this park,’ I explained in one long, breathless sentence. I held one of the yellow T-shirts out to Leila. ‘Look – this is your T-shirt. Dimitri is going to give all the people in the park one of these. I…’
Leila slapped the T-shirt out of my hand. It fell on to the ground like a dead canary. Her eyes were icy blue.
‘What’s with you?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I thought…Hey, where are you going?’
Leila started climbing down.
‘Leila, come back!’
She didn’t bother climbing down the last bit and just jumped to the ground.
Surprised, Dimitri Giorgiou stepped back when she landed next to him. The people close to the tree gasped and the ones behind tried to push each other out of the way to see what was going on.
Leila started to run.
‘Leila?’ her mum called. ‘Leila!’
But it seemed Leila wasn’t seeing or hearing anything. She stormed into the crowd. Taken aback, they made way for her. Leila’s hair was flying behind her.
She ran past Killer and the choir members.
She ran past the ice-cream cart.
She ran over the road. A car hooted and tyres screeched on the tarmac.
She ran until I could no longer see her.
Slowly but surely, the people turned around. It felt as if everyone’s eyes were burning a hole through me.
I swallowed.
It was as if a bulldozer had just run me over.
Slowly, I started climbing down.
My hand slipped and I scraped my leg raw on the tree bark. There were more shocked gasps from the onlookers.
I clenched my teeth, and when I got to the bottom I took a deep breath.
For a moment I looked at Mrs Merriman and Leila’s mum.
I pulled the stupid yellow T-shirt with the Nature’s Gift logo over my head and chucked it aside.