One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street

by Joanne Rocklin

  Bunny/Bonita, struck by her own sudden thought—a thought that took her breath away, concerning squirrels and hummingbirds and ladybugs and other living things that foraged for food for their families (which, when you came right down to it, were nature’s equivalent of BUSINESS TRIPS!!!), all returning to find that their homes and families had disappeared off the face of the earth,

  drew herself up as tall as she could, then gave the same brave shout as that wonderful pioneer woman of long, long ago, the original Bunny Perkins.

  “AU-AU-AU-GUSTUS!” she hollered.

  And Bunny, brave, formidable Bunny, forevermore Bunny, her eyes smart and squinty in the morning sun, fearlessly kicked the orange cone out of her way as she streaked toward the orange tree, her purple hat falling to the ground behind her.

  “Hey!” yelled Sid.

  Then

  Ali, admitting to herself that Bunny had just had an amazing idea, cried,

  “You’ll have to debranch the tree with all of us on it!”

  And she followed Bunny.

  As did Robert, for the oranges, and the possibility of real magic, and other reasons he wasn’t quite sure about yet.

  As did Leandra, for every single one of the babies—in a nest, inside a mother, in a swing or a stroller, or inside a FedEx box.

  “Hey! Hey!” Sid continued yelling, and started after them.

  But Bunny, so skilled at climbing this particular tree, swiftly pulled herself up to a thick branch, straddled it with her legs, and continued pulling and straddling until she reached a high, thick limb on the south side. And Ali, and then Robert, settled on limbs below her. Then baby Bean was passed ever-so-carefully in its little lined dessert bowl from Leandra, up to Robert, up to Ali, up to Bunny, who placed it with its sibling into the nest as tiny as a walnut, on top of the Birdhouse of the Golden Arches.

  Then they waited. Waited and hoped. Would the mother come? they wondered.

  She did! She had been waiting, too. Twittering, the mother hummingbird darted to her babies and fed them with her long, pointed beak.

  And Bunny, Ali, Robert, and Leandra watched, hardly breathing.

  Then the unbelievable happened. Actually, several unbelievables:

  Larry Tilley, his arms crossed at his chest, his blue eyes wide open, stood facing the children in the tree. He walked over to Sid and said something only he and Sid could hear. But everyone heard what Sid said, which was, “Are you kidding?”

  Apparently Mr. Tilley wasn’t, because Sid picked up his orange cone, hopped into his truck, started up the engine, and drove his lethal weaponry away.

  There’s a little break in the amazing chain of events here, because that’s when time stopped. Well, that’s what it felt like to the kids in the orange tree.

  If joyful astonishment had a smell, it would smell like the perfumed air high up in that tree, among the most perfect oranges. The oranges hung like ornaments from old summers, great globes of hidden sweetness, touching the sky. So many things in the world seemed to be disappearing, so many sad, difficult things in life were impossible to stop, but, together they’d taken a stand (actually a climb) and stopped this one terrible thing from happening.

  That’s why they couldn’t have been more astonished if they’d stopped time itself, which, of course, they hadn’t, because at that moment, right on schedule, nobody noticed an airplane glinting across the ice-blue sky. Moments later, it would land, safely, without any help at all from Bunny.

  And then

  the amazing chain of events was set in motion again.

  Robert loved being so high up in the tree. Looking down at the fence where the bougainvillea vine grew, he could see the five hidden alis he’d composed using seeds and twigs and petals, not counting the one Ali had already discovered. What if she could see them, too? he thought. So what? Let her! Hifflesnuffling wasn’t a crime. And as long as he was way up there among the perfect oranges, Robert couldn’t resist picking one of the oranges for a future magic show, when he’d have a more attentive audience. Then he picked one more, as a spare.

  Just at that moment

  Harry Houdini finished gnawing the stem of another perfect orange, at the very top of the tree, the biggest one of all, still hanging after who-knows-how-many years.

  Purposefully targeted or not, that orange bounced off Robert’s head and landed in his lap.

  “OW!” cried Robert.

  He looked up and recognized Harry. Robert knew it was Harry because if you spend an hour or so in close quarters with a rodent, you notice individual differences, compared to other rodents of your experience. Also, he realized why that particular rodent looked familiar. Harry had the accusing, critical gaze of Mr. Pokrass, the principal of Robert’s school. Robert stared back defiantly, feeling happy and brave and not at all like an emotional lagger.

  And that’s when

  Robert got his own amazing idea, although it didn’t seem so amazing at the time. He had three perfect oranges in his lap. There was one dog and one person looking at him, needing to be wowed; he could just tell. It was as good a now as any to stay in, and try to juggle. He threw one orange up, caught it and—

  “Hey, look at me! I’m juggling!” Robert shouted. He added the gift of a perfect shark face to his performance, just to spice things up a bit.

  And one second later

  that’s when

  Robert was beamed by another orange. (He’d always say it was Harry.)

  And that’s when (because there can never be too much joyful astonishment on any one morning)

  Edgar laughed.

  And

  just before he fell from the tree, landing with a thud and breaking his arm in two places, Robert looked up to see Ali smiling, just for him. He could hear Ruff barking, and Edgar laughing and laughing and laughing, and something that sounded like a chorus of tiny angels, all the way down.

  ore tea?” Ms. Snoops asked Larry Tilley. “Another chicken salad sandwich? How about some more ambrosia?”

  Larry patted his stomach. “Couldn’t eat another thing.”

  “Much healthier than hamburgers and fries!”

  “Much healthier.”

  “Oh, it was so good to go back in time with you! I remember your house so well. The trim was painted chartreuse and the door was yellow. I remember Marisa’s boysenberry pie. I remember Cream. And the boys! Does Pug still like to draw?”

  “He does,” answered Larry.

  “And how is young Larry?” Ms. Snoops asked.

  Larry paused. He put his hand on Ms. Snoops’s cheek, as soft as crushed velvet. “He’s fine, Ethel,” he said.

  “Good. I am so glad you visited, Ralph. When you go home, make sure you kiss Marisa and the boys for me,” said Ms. Snoops.

  It has been such a nice morning, she thought, even though the details were fading quickly; only the feeling was left. But it was a peaceful feeling, the kind you get when a story is ending.

  et’s say you were a stranger, visiting Orange Street, after all of this happened.

  Maybe you’d wonder why three girls and a boy (two of the girls with very short hair, the other with dreadlocks) met regularly under that orange tree in the empty lot. You’d notice that kids from nearby blocks would join them every now and then.

  What were they all arguing about? Everything: their next letter to the president, for example; whose turn it was to weed and fertilize; how much admission to charge for the Great Rob-o’s Incredible Magic Show; and to which worthy cause he should donate the money. And they weren’t arguing, as Rob-o said in an e-mail to his old friend Nick. They were having a loud discourse (dis´ kors, v. to talk). Occasionally one of the kids would sprawl under the tree, or perch on a big branch, to read, or write, or draw, or just to think about this or that...

  (Nick e-mailed back, saying he missed his former street and former continent. And he missed Robert, of course.)

  And you’d probably be curious to know why the owner of the empty lot wasn’t developing it just yet, and
what it was that the elderly woman was reading to the group. And what all that digging was about.

  And then there’d be that business with names.

  You wouldn’t understand why Leandra called her baby sister “Bean.”

  Or why, for that matter, Bunny was Bunny. And why she waved at an airplane from the orange tree, every now and then, if she had the time.

  And maybe you’d wonder why Robert, long after his broken arm had healed, kept a frayed “Best Wishes for a Speedy Recovery” in his pocket, which he pulled out to look at, every now and then. Or why Ali had drawn a tiny heart over the “I” of her name, when she’d signed that card. (She often drew that heart, but sometimes she didn’t. The point was, that time she did.)

  And you’d probably be surprised to see Ali and her friends high-fiving one another, when she showed them the following note from her brother Edgar’s preschool teacher:

  Edgar is sometimes a tad too boisterous and doesn’t stop talking to his table neighbors. But all in all, coming along nicely.

  You wouldn’t understand any of this, unless, of course, someone explained it to you, or wrote about it in their memoirs or in a story.

  The kids of Orange Street always remembered that morning when everything connected in the glowing moments of the Magic Now, like juice and pips and pith inside the skin of an orange. When all that really mattered was an old tree, a baby bird in its nest, and a little boy’s laugh.

  They would look for those moments all of their lives. And they would find them.

  Author’s Note

  The orange industry thrived in Southern California for many years, and oranges have been called the other California gold. The Washington Navel, referred to in my story as a “miracle” orange without seeds, did, indeed, supplant most of the Valencia variety. Other industries, as well as suburban development, diminished the orange industry itself, but every now and then you will come across a beautiful, bounteous old Valencia in someone’s backyard, including my own.

  My tree inspired this story, as I began to ponder how the past can inform and inspire the future, and how the precious moments of the present connect us with every living thing. I imagined an orange tree growing in an empty lot—a space “empty” of structures and residents, but filled with neighborhood children, animals, insects, and plants. The lot contains many layers of history, both literal and figurative, as my character Ali discovers, digging in the dirt. I was moved to write two specific stories which represent two layers of that history, and also reflect achingly familiar modern issues.

  Gertrude and Ethel are children growing up during the Great Depression, a worldwide depression of the 1930s during which many people suffered the hardships of unemployment and severe poverty. There was great economic disparity; Ethel’s family is much more financially stable than Gertrude’s. Gertrude and her parents are from Oklahoma, a region where many farms were devastated by dust storms and drought during that period. Thousands of families migrated west, looking for work picking crops in the huge, fertile agricultural fields of California. But wages were very low and conditions in the migrant camps often unbearable, as described in my story. Gertrude is left with distant relatives, and though deprived of affection, she is at least guaranteed regular meals and schooling.

  In 1941, the United States entered World War II. Many warships were needed. Gertrude’s parents are hired by a shipyard in Richmond, a city in Northern California, and Gertrude is happily reunited with them.

  Young Larry’s story takes place in 1967 during the Vietnam War, a complicated conflict between communist North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The United States supported its anti-communist ally South Vietnam, hoping to prevent totalitarian domination of all of Southeast Asia. It was a long and deadly war. American advisors were first sent to the region in the 1950s; the war ended in 1975 with the capture of Saigon in South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese army. More than 58,000 U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese were killed in the conflict.

  During the time in which my story is set, men were drafted into the army. (Women did not fill active combat roles in those days.) Because he has a family to support, Mr. Tilley is not drafted. He enlists on his own to serve his country.

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest thanks to Will Wardowski, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Citrus Studies, University of Florida, for his careful reading of my manuscript and for leading me to John McPhee’s wonderful book Oranges. The PLGA and Sontag Foundations were invaluable for my understanding of cerebellar mutism, and Elizabeth Partridge’s Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange allowed me to “see” Gertrude’s world. To my editor, Maggie Lehrman, and my agent, Erin Murphy, thank you for your amazing guidance. And a huge thank-you to my family; you know what you did.

  And Sophie Beglinger, in your swing, as well as your family, you have been an inspiration.

  About the Author

  Joanne Rocklin is the critically acclaimed author of several books, including Strudel Stories, which was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an American Library Association Notable Book, and For Your Eyes Only!, which was a School Library Journal Best Book and a Bank Street Best Book. She lives in Oakland, California.

  This book was designed by Maria T. Middleton and art directed by Chad W. Beckerman. The text is set in 13-point FF Atma Serif, a modern typeface that incorporates transitional elements similar to those found in Baskerville. FF Atma Serif was designed by Alan Dague-Greene in 2001 for the FontFont type foundry.

  The interior illustrations were drawn in pencil by Chris Buzelli.