I nodded. How could I forget? It had been a big deal in Meadow Park, Sarah’s townhouse complex, for a long time.
“He made a presentation.”
“Presentation?”
“Yup. In front of the entire council. A PowerPoint presentation. He practiced on me ahead of time. I forget most of it because it, was so long and boring—all ‘environmental statistics’ and ‘technical details.’”
Sarah’s dad and stepmom were always trying to reduce their carbon footprint. A while ago, they got on a kick about hanging their clothes outside to avoid using the dryer. Problem was, there was a bylaw against clotheslines in their townhouse complex. And there still is a bylaw against clotheslines in Meadow Park because people who live close together don’t want to see each other’s underwear flapping around in the wind. Or something like that. Obviously, the presentation hadn’t done much good.
“I don’t know if I could do a presentation,” I said. “Not in front of the entire council. That’s like, what? Six or seven grown-ups?” The thought of it made me feel sick to my stomach. I pushed away the rest of my so-called lunch.
“So what are you gonna do then?” Sarah asked, digging into her chocolate pudding.
“Maybe I could just talk to the president of the council?” I said, thinking about Ethan’s mom, Ms. Matheson.
“Worth a try,” Sarah said as the bell rang. “Let me know how it goes.” She gathered her stuff and darted away to class.
I headed off to homeroom, happy to have a plan. I knew I had to do something about the bylaw, but I was a bit nervous. Talking to Ms. Matheson would certainly be easier than giving a presentation to the entire council. She was a mom, after all, and she worked hard to give Ethan a good life. Extra hard because there was no Mr. Matheson. Still, I was just a regular eleven-year-old and Ms. Matheson was a president. Even if she was only president of the Neighborhood Council, she was still a president.
I decided not to put it off. As soon as my homework was finished, I summoned up all my courage and knocked hesitantly on the Mathesons’ front door, Unit 49.
When Ethan answered, he was holding something against his elbow. It took me a moment to realize that it was one of those Magic Bags. According to the ads, they have some kind of grain inside that can be cooled in the freezer or warmed in the microwave. Relieves pain, helps you relax, takes away stress…blah, blah, blah. As soon as Ethan saw me, he tried to hide the bag behind his back. I made a mental note to ask him about it after I finished talking to his mom.
“Oh, hi, Ethan. Could I, uh, speak to your mom?” I stammered.
“Sure, Bree,” Ethan replied. “Do you wanna go out and play catch after?”
“Maybe,” I said, trying to look past Ethan into the house. I’d been here lots of times. I’d probably been inside every townhouse in Cedar Grove. The ones with kids anyway. But I’d never felt nervous about it. Until now.
Ethan gave me a funny look and then yelled up the stairs, “Mom!”
“Don’t yell at me, Ethan!” Ms. Matheson yelled back.
“Bree’s here and she wants to talk to you!” Ethan yelled again, louder this time.
“Who?”
“BREE!”
“Okay. I’ll be right down.”
Ms. Matheson clomped down the stairs, wearing her work clothes—a suit and uncomfortable-looking high-heeled shoes. Poor Ethan. Not only was his mom the president of the council, she was also the principal of the local high school.
“Hi, Brianna,” Ms. Matheson said. She didn’t look very welcoming, but she didn’t look like she would bite either. “What can I do for you?”
I cleared my throat. “Um, Ms. Matheson, it’s about the, um, ban on tree climbing?”
“Yes?” As she lowered her chin and narrowed her eyes, Ms. Matheson suddenly reminded me of our school principal, Mr. Lee. How she managed it, I don’t know. There could not be two people on earth that looked less alike than Ms. Matheson and Mr. Lee.
“I’d really like to talk to you about the, um, the tree-climbing bylaw,” I mumbled.
“Okay, Brianna,” Ms. Matheson replied with a sigh, “but I don’t have time right now. Why don’t you come and speak to the council? Our next meeting is on Tuesday night at seven thirty. I’ll set aside ten minutes to address your concerns.” And with that, Ms. Matheson turned and clomped back up the stairs.
I stood there in silence. An image of me standing in front of a huge crowd of grown-ups, giving a PowerPoint presentation full of statistics and technical details, flashed through my head. What had I gotten myself into?
Ethan’s voice brought me back to earth. “Can we play ball now, Bree?”
“What?” I looked at Ethan, who was still standing by the door. At some point, he must have dropped the Magic Bag. Now he was holding his ball glove and looking at me expectantly.
“Ball. Do you want to play ball?” Ethan said loudly.
“No baseball, Ethan!” Ms. Matheson yelled down the stairs again. “Your elbow hasn’t healed yet!”
“Elbow?” I looked at Ethan, my eyebrows raised.
“It’s no big deal, Bree,” Ethan said quickly. “Guess I gotta go.”
And before I could say another word, he shut the door in my face.
Chapter 4
The next week was torture. The prospect of making a presentation to the Cedar Grove Neighborhood Council turned me into a nervous wreck. And I couldn’t climb trees, which is what I normally do to relax.
It wasn’t just the size of the council that made me nervous. Or the fact that it was made up of grown-ups who didn’t seem to like kids. Or even the fact that my favorite pastime was at stake. Truthfully, the thought of giving any presentation filled me with dread, no matter who was watching or what was at stake.
Part of what made me nervous was the accent I’d picked up from Mom, who immigrated to Canada a year before I was born. She’d met Dad while he was in England playing hockey with the Sheffield Steelers. Mom had always dreamed of leaving England, so she asked her engineering firm for a transfer to their Canadian office. By the end of that hockey season, Mom and Dad were married and living in Cedar Grove. Now my dad was a hockey scout for the NHL.
Mom’s accent was so strong when I was baby that I ended up sounding British too. My accent, like Mom’s, had slowly disappeared, but there were still times when I pronounced things like a proper English schoolgirl. I got teased about it a lot, and when it came to presentations, the accent was harder to control. I wasn’t sure whether the nerves created the accent or the accent created the nerves.
In grade three, I got so nervous about presenting my science project that I couldn’t sleep the night before. When I talked to Mom about it, she suggested that dressing up might help me feel more confident.
I arrived at school the next day wearing khaki capri pants with a blouse and sandals instead of my usual T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. I think I even wore my hair loose instead of pulling it back into a ponytail or stuffing it under a baseball cap.
But it didn’t make me feel more confident; it made me feel like I was pretending to be someone else.
Halfway through my presentation, the fire alarm went off. I felt so relieved as I marched across the schoolyard that I forgot I was wearing those stupid sandals instead of my running shoes. As soon as we were far enough from the building to see that it wasn’t on fire, everyone in the class started running around the baseball field. As I turned to try and catch Sarah, I slipped on the wet grass and landed in the batter’s box, which had been transformed by a spring shower into a huge mud puddle.
As soon as I stood up, I heard one of the boys shout, “Look! Bree’s crapped in her capris!” The entire class rushed over to see. It seemed everyone in the class had something to say about my muddy bum.
And then, to my horror, the teacher made me finish my presentation when the fire drill was over. For the rest of the year, the chant “Bree, Bree, crappy capri” followed me through the playground. Just when I thought everyone had forgo
tten, someone would start the chant again. I hadn’t heard it for a while, but I sure didn’t want to give anyone another reason to make up a stupid rhyme about me.
Even so, Sarah still couldn’t understand why I was so anxious about the presentation I had to give to the council. Nothing made Sarah nervous, because she truly didn’t care what other people thought of her. I wished I could be more like that.
Sarah said I would feel better if I was well-prepared. So I did some research. I googled tree climbing and found a cool website for a group called TCI, which stands for Tree Climbers International. I found out that tree climbing is an actual sport that people compete in all over the world. And that lots of other people— including adults—think it’s an awesome recreational activity. The website had tons of pictures of kids using ropes, harnesses and helmets to move from tree to tree up in the canopy. How cool is that?
The TCI website also had lots of great information about tree-climbing classes and a climber finder, so you could find a place to climb and even a buddy to climb with. But there was nothing about tree-climbing bylaws and how to have them overturned. I’d have to figure that out on my own.
Sarah and I also came up with the idea of interviewing the other kids in Cedar Grove so I could prove that I wasn’t the only one upset about the bylaw. Unfortunately, this didn’t get me very far either.
The first person I talked to was Ashley, the unofficial leader of the Cedar Grove Girly-Girls.
“So what do you think of this new bylaw?” I asked her.
“What bylaw?”
“You know. The new one that makes it illegal to climb trees in Cedar Grove.”
“Oh, that,” Ashley said as she straightened her pink dress. “I guess the Neighborhood Council thinks that tree climbing is dangerous.”
“But what do YOU think?”
“Well, they would know. So I guess I agree. Tree climbing is dangerous.”
“So you have no problem with all these restrictive new bylaws that the council keeps passing?”
“No, not really, Bree.” She fiddled with one of the fancy clips in her hair. “I don’t think there can be too many bylaws. Bylaws are important when so many people live so close together.”
I was stunned into silence. Had Ashley been talking to my mom? That was totally something she would say.
“Sorry, Bree, but if you don’t have any other questions I should go. It’s skipping time.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” Wasn’t it always skipping time? “Have fun!” Somehow I managed to say this without rolling my eyes.
The next person I ran into was Ethan. He was sitting on the small patch of grass in front of his townhouse, reading a book.
“What’s up, Ethan?” I asked as I plopped myself down on the grass next to him.
“Not much,” he replied. That’s when I spotted the Magic Bag. Ethan must have realized I was looking at it, because he immediately tried to cover it with his book. But it was too late. I forgot all about my original line of questioning.
“So…how come you’re not playing catch? Or street hockey?”
“Well,” Ethan said slowly, refusing to look me in the eye, “I have to read this book…you know, for school.”
“They make you read A Brief History of Time in grade four?”
Ethan’s face turned bright red. “Well, they don’t make you read it, but I kind of wanted to.”
“Come on, Ethan, tell me what’s going on. What’s with the Magic Bag?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Oh, it’s just a relaxation thing.” Ethan picked up the bag and tossed it over to me. “Want to try it?”
“No.” I tossed it back. Ethan winced as he caught it.
“I don’t believe you, Ethan. Why were you holding it on your elbow the other day? And why wouldn’t your mom let you play ball?”
“Oh, you know my mom. She’s always worrying about something.”
“What exactly was she worried about?” I asked. This was like trying to get information out of the mime at the Granville Island Public Market.
“Well, I kind of hurt my elbow.”
“Duh. I figured that out already. The question is, why is it such a big secret?” Kids were always getting hurt. It was part of being a kid. And despite being a bit of a bookworm, Ethan was as active as the rest of us.
And then it hit me. “How did you hurt your elbow?”
“Um…I, uh, I fell,” Ethan stammered.
“Fell how?”
“You know. I fell. From somewhere high to somewhere much lower. I landed on my elbow. But it’s almost better.”
“Did you fall from a tree, by any chance?”
“Maybe.”
“Yes or no, Ethan.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
I was silent for a minute. My brain needed time to catch up.
“Does anyone else know?” I finally asked.
“No,” he replied. “And I really don’t want them to find out. They already sort of blame me for all the new bylaws because my mom is president of the Neighborhood Council.”
Ethan was right. It wasn’t going to look good if kids found out that Ethan had been injured tree climbing. “Did your fall have anything to do with the new bylaw?”
“I honestly don’t know. But Mom was pretty worried when she found out how far I had fallen. She took me to the hospital for X-rays and everything. There was a council meeting that night. The notice about the bylaw came out a few days later.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t hurt too badly,” I said. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thanks, Bree.”
And that was the end of my interviews.
Chapter 5
By the time Tuesday evening finally arrived, I was a nervous wreck. I could hardly eat dinner even though Dad made his famous portobello mushroom burgers. I just nibbled on the bun until Mom told me I’d better get going. My butt felt like it was glued to the chair. I really didn’t want to go. But I didn’t want to be late either. Late would be bad.
“Good luck, Bree,” Dad said as he walked me to the front door. “I wish I could come with you. If it was any other time of year—”
“I know,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s okay, Dad.”
I knew even before I’d asked Dad to come to the meeting that he’d probably have a game to go to. It was almost the trade deadline, a busy time for hockey scouts in the NHL. Mom had volunteered to come in his place, but I said no because I was worried she might make me even more nervous.
The smell of barbecued mushrooms was still floating in the air as I walked over to the common room at the far end of our complex. It made me feel a little better, so I tried to think about other happy things. Happy summer things like barbecuing and picnics at the beach. The days were starting to get longer and the rain was getting a little less cold. Spring in Vancouver lasted forever. But summer was coming. And I wanted to be able to climb trees!
Ms. Matheson greeted me at the door. “Good evening, Brianna,” she said. “Glad you made it.”
“Of course,” I said as if it were no big deal. Just another council meeting!
“Your item is second on the agenda. You’ll have to sit through the start of the meeting.”
“Okay,” I replied. Ms. Matheson waved me toward a chair at the big long table in the middle of the room. I sat down hesitantly. Last time I was in this room we were celebrating Sammy’s first birthday.
That was three years ago, just after the Ambrosia family had moved to Cedar Grove. Sammy was just a baby, and supercute, but his older sister, Salina, couldn’t stand him. So I treated him like he was my little brother, which was great because I’d always wanted one. That’s why it was me, not Salina, who decorated this room with balloons, toy cars, streamers and a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner.
Now the room looked very cold and businesslike.
“Let’s get
started,” Ms. Matheson said, addressing the six council members who were standing around in little clusters. Probably chatting about the price of gas, their kids’ report cards, how bad it is to put plastic in the microwave…you know—the weird stuff grownups care about.
“I now call this meeting to order. Thank you for coming,” Ms. Matheson said once everyone was seated. “We’ll begin with the formalities.”
There was a bunch of chatter about motions and minutes. I was too nervous to pay attention, but I dutifully turned my head in the direction of whoever was speaking. I recognized a couple of the other parents, which made me wish that Mom had insisted on coming.
After a lot of back and forth, Ms. Matheson finally said, “Let’s get started.” She turned toward the opposite end of the table, where Mrs. Leary sat. I hadn’t noticed her until that moment. She’s Cedar Grove’s oldest and grouchiest resident. She lives next door to Tyler. I was glad she didn’t live next to me.
“The first item on the agenda has been brought forward by Noreen Leary, Unit 31.” Ms. Matheson looked at her and said, “Please be brief, Mrs. Leary.”
Mrs. Leary cleared her throat. “Well, thank you in advance for hearing me out,” she said slowly. I sank down into my chair, grateful for the opportunity to observe for a while.
“I’ve come here tonight to ask the council to consider implementing a new bylaw.” Even though no one made a sound, I could feel the room groan as Mrs. Leary said this. She went on. “It’s about pets. I am sick and tired of cleaning up doggie doo-doo in my backyard.”
Laughter tickled the back of my throat when I heard Mrs. Leary say doo-doo. I had to suck in my cheeks, hard, to prevent the laughter from erupting. I knew that laughing at a council meeting would be bad. It was just so funny to hear a woman who must be close to a hundred talk about dog poo. Even funnier was the fact that everyone else at the meeting seemed to be taking her so seriously.
“What exactly are you proposing?” Ms. Matheson asked.
“There should be a limit on how many pets are allowed per unit.”
No one said anything. Mr. Morrow, Michael’s dad, was busy scribbling notes. He’d been writing since the meeting began.
Trouble in the Trees Page 2