The Last Tree Town

by Beth Turley

  “I need to put sweatpants on,” I say, palms slick, heartbeat out of control.

  “Watch out for Luna.”

  The ghost-sister’s name was “Luna.” My skin crawls.

  “You’re the worst.” I walk up the stairs and into Jac’s room at the end of the hall. I look around, unsure of what I’m really doing in here, like the first time I snuck into Daniella’s room. There aren’t even sweatpants packed in my bag. I just wanted to get away from those ghosts.

  I sit on Jac’s camouflage comforter. Her walls are forest green, but the only place you can tell is on this one strip next to her bed. The rest is covered in posters. The poster with the castle is near the door, and the scribbled-up Ice Plex flyer is by her dresser. I climb off the bed and lie on my stomach in front of the one spot where you can see paint.

  “The Chordays” is written there, in bubble letters above our names. Daniella drew a flower next to hers. There’s a multiplication sign next to mine, a skull next to Jac’s, and a music note next to Ben’s. Doodles that show the way our minds work.

  “You missed the best part.”

  I look over my shoulder, still stretched out on my stomach. Jac is standing at the door.

  “Your dad was so mad, but he never made us paint over it,” I say.

  Jac pads across the carpet and sits cross-legged next to me.

  “I think he knew we were just having fun,” she says.

  I trace the tear-drop petals on Daniella’s flower.

  “Do you think she’ll ever be the same again?” I ask.

  Lesson Twenty-Three of Math Olympics: It’s okay to be scared of big numbers.

  Jac tips over so her head is on my back. I think of the square, sequined throw pillow on Daniella’s bed.

  “I know she will.”

  Spring

  41 Diamonds

  Daniella is eating a bowl of oatmeal in the kitchen when I get home from school. A tower of textbooks sits next to her. The Chemical Property of Life is on top. I blink to make sure I’m not seeing things.

  “There’s a letter for you,” she says, and points to the stack of mail on the counter.

  The off-white envelope is addressed to Cassandra May Chord, which makes it seem important. In the top left corner, there’s a shield with the words “Hispanic Society of Mapleton County” scripted inside.

  I open it carefully and pull out the letter.

  Dear Cassandra,

  Felicidades! You have been selected for an academic achievement award from the Hispanic Society of Mapleton County! Each year, educators nominate distinguished Hispanic students in each of the core academic areas. You have been nominated and chosen as an honoree for mathematics.

  We are proud of your accomplishments. You bring pride to the Society and the Hispanic community at large. Please join us for the award ceremony on May 1 at 5 p.m.

  Sincerely,

  Frank Mercado, President,

  The Hispanic Society of Mapleton County

  “Junk mail?” she asks.

  “I won an award.” I go to the table to show her. She sits at the blue jay place mat, which is usually Mom’s spot. “From the Hispanic Society of Mapleton County.”

  Maybe this will make her see. I’m Hispanic enough for springtime ceremonies and fancy envelopes and mysterious award nominations, even if I don’t look like I am.

  “Cool,” she says. She stirs a clump of cinnamon into her oatmeal. I wonder if she remembers asking me to be cool at the party. I wonder if she’s forgiven me for not being able to.

  The kitchen is quiet except for Daniella’s spoon swirling around in her bowl. I sit in front of the parrot place mat. I unzip my backpack and pull out my Math Olympics workbook slowly, like any sudden movement will scare her away. My eyes are pulled to her textbooks.

  “Which chapter are you on in The Chemical Property of Life?” I ask.

  The cover is a picture of a piece of coal. Daniella puts a hand on the book, and her fingers graze the edge of the rock.

  “ ‘Heat of Combustion,’ ” she says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “I haven’t really been paying attention.”

  Does she think no one has been paying attention to her? Does she think I don’t need her? Because if she knew, really knew, how sometimes I miss her so much that I can’t breathe, maybe it would be enough to bring her back.

  “Dani, I—”

  “I’m a little tired, Cass.” She puts her bowl in the sink and walks away without her textbooks. I hang my award letter on the fridge with a magnet and go back to my math problems.

  The lump of coal on The Chemical Property of Life stares at me. When coal is put under enough pressure, it can turn into a diamond. I sit at the kitchen table while the sun sinks lower in the sky outside, and wait for Daniella to come back for her books.

  I’ll tell her then. I’ll explain that I know about the wall in her chest, and the bad music at homecoming, and how the sensors on the school sinks don’t work. I’ll even tell her how I found out. She’ll be so mad at me for reading her diary, so mad that the whole house might fill with pressure. But maybe that’s what we need to end up bright and shiny.

  I breathe deep.

  “I’m going to do it,” I tell the parrot place mat. “I’m brave enough to do it.”

  Daniella doesn’t come back down for her books.

  42 On Paper

  Mr. G has his head down on his desk when I get to Math Olympics. Everyone who’s already there looks perplexed. I take my seat next to Aaron.

  “Is he sleeping?” I ask him.

  “It’s hard to tell,” he answers. “Emilio threw a balled-up piece of paper at him, and he didn’t even move.”

  I snap my head toward Emilio.

  “You threw something at a teacher?” I ask.

  “It was a desperate situation,” he answers. Markus nods in agreement over Emilio’s shoulder. Sage and Allie, in front, look nervous too.

  Suddenly Mr. G stands. He crosses the room and slams the door shut. The digits of pi on the wall shake. I grip my pencil so hard, I’m worried it’ll crack. We remain silent while Mr. G stands in front of the class, staring us down like a hawk. There’s a reason why we don’t have a hawk in our set of bird place mats. They’re intimidating.

  “I am very upset,” Mr. G says. In my head, Jac’s voice says, No duh. “Because I cannot teach you today.”

  “Why not?” Allie asks, her voice wobbly.

  Mr. G scoffs. He walks back behind his desk and crouches down. When he emerges, he has a box of cookies in one hand, and a bottle of lemonade in the other.

  “I cannot teach you”—he slams the snacks down onto his desk—“because we have to celebrate!”

  Last summer, I went to an amusement park with my family. Mom said the bumper cars gave her whiplash from colliding in so many different directions. This must be how she felt.

  “We’re going to Regionals!” He pumps his arm.

  I shoot out of my chair with everyone else. We spin and jump and shout. Even Sage hugs me like the Ice Plex never happened. I picture big stages and bright spotlights, a silk banner that says REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS.

  Mr. G doesn’t have us do any work for the rest of Math Olympics. Instead we polish off the cookies (somewhat smashed from Mr. G’s theatrics) and lemonade and play Rummikub in teams, because even if we’re taking the day off, we all still love games with numbers.

  Mr. G lets us out when the late buses arrive. I pack up my backpack, but slowly. There’s something I have to do. Aaron gets ready to walk out the door, but sees me hesitating.

  “Aren’t we going to Jac’s?” he asks.

  “I just have to talk to Mr. G for a second. I’ll meet you on the bus.”

  Aaron leaves, and soon it’s just me and Mr. G. He’s in the middle of erasing his unused lesson from the board. Lesson Twenty-Five of Math Olympics: Learn to simplify. Why make things harder than they need to be?

  “Mr. G?” I ask.

 
; He turns around. His tie is covered in bananas.

  “What’s up, Cassi?”

  “Did you nominate me for the Hispanic Society award?”

  He gives me two thumbs-up. “They sent me an email to say you’d won. Congratulations.”

  “How did you know I was Hispanic?”

  “It’s public information. On your records.”

  I deflate, like I wasn’t just part of a victory party with snickerdoodles and Rummikub.

  “Oh. I thought maybe you could”—my voice catches—“tell.”

  Mr. G hops up to sit on his desk and moves some folders over. He taps the spot next to him. I take it. We sit with our legs dangling like we’re way up high.

  “You know, whatever your nationality may be, it’s not about what you look like, right? Or what you are on paper. It’s what’s inside.” He puts a hand on his chest. “I’m sure being Hispanic has impacted you in lots of ways.”

  I think about the citadel, the cobblestone streets, Buela’s rice. The way I’m Buelo’s corazónita. The little figurines from Titi Celina. How warm I felt in Mayagüez. I can still feel it.

  “It has,” I say.

  “And winning this award, it’s one more way that being Hispanic changed your life.” Mr. G says.

  I scrunch up my forehead.

  “I think I’m just getting a certificate,” I say.

  “Okay. Admittedly, it might not change your life, but it’s still pretty awesome.”

  Something pounds against Mr. G’s window, and we both startle. Jac’s face is pushed up against the glass. Her nose is flat and her eyes are squished. She slides down the window, leaving a cloudy smudge behind.

  “That cousin of yours is something else,” he says.

  “That’s the simplified way to put it,” I reply, and point to the half-erased Lesson Twenty-Five on the board. Mr. G pretends to wipe a tear away.

  “My lessons are really making a difference.”

  43 Pudding Cup

  I sit in Buelo’s room with my family. Buela is in the rocking chair, Mom sits on the window ledge, and Daniella and Dad and I dragged chairs over from the sitting room. I’m working on my bio for the Hispanic Society award. It’s due next week, on the day of the Math Olympics Regionals.

  Name: Cassandra May Chord

  Nickname: Cassi

  School: Eliza T. Dakota Middle School

  Subject of award: Math

  “What are you working on?” Buelo asks. He takes a scoop of chocolate pudding. A new balloon hovers over the bedside table. It looks like aluminum foil and says BEST WISHES.

  “It’s a biography for an award I won,” I say.

  “My corazónita won an award?” His glasses lift when he grins.

  “From the Hispanic Society of Mapleton County, Papi.” Mom glances at me from the window ledge, looking proud.

  “That’s beautiful,” Buela says. She has two knitting needles in her hands, winding through blue yarn. She’s making a scarf for a donation drive at Saint Anthony’s. Last year she made socks.

  “What questions are on there?” Buelo asks.

  “Normal ones. My hobbies, what school I go to, my name,” I say.

  He laughs. Some pudding falls off his spoon back into the plastic container.

  “How would I answer that question? Pico or Eduardo?”

  Buelo, lively, eating a pudding cup + the Eduardo Story = Remembering.

  “What do you mean, Buelo?” I push my chair closer to the end of his bed. Daniella looks at me. Buela smiles over her knitting needles.

  “Haven’t I told you about the day my name was changed?” Buelo asks.

  “Will you tell the story again?” I ask. Buelo puts down the pudding cup. He straightens up in his bed.

  “Sí.”

  He tells the whole thing, not skipping a single detail. How he walked to school on dirt roads with Titi Celina. How after only an hour, he had a brand-new name. How he had to learn to write “Eduardo” on lined paper.

  He pauses in the same places to wait for our reactions. I look at Daniella, and she’s smiling. The silver Best Wishes balloon sways like the kite at the citadel.

  “That can’t be true, Buelo,” we say together.

  “I mean it.” Buelo nods. “I mean it, corazónitas.”

  44 Bye Bye Birdie

  I sit in the dark Eliza T. Dakota auditorium between Jac and Aaron, watching Ben become a different person onstage. His character is a music sensation who gets drafted into the army. My favorite part in any of Ben’s plays is when they end. Not because the shows are bad or anything. It’s the moment when the curtains swing back open and Ben takes a bow. His smile is big enough for the back row to see. I think that’s what it looks like when a person is doing exactly what they’re meant to be doing.

  When the show is over, we all file out of the auditorium. My parents were sitting in the row behind us with Uncle Eric, Leslie, and Mr. and Mrs. Chay. Yellow daylight fills the lobby, and I rush to shield my eyes. I forgot what day or time or year it was in the real world. I was still hovering somewhere in the 1950s with Ben/Conrad Birdie. The sun makes checkerboard shapes on the floor.

  “Wasn’t he stunning?” Mrs. Chay asks us. She has her camera strapped around her neck. I wonder if it’s hard for her that flash photography is forbidden in the theater.

  “He sure was,” Uncle Eric says. He takes Leslie’s hand.

  “PDA is not allowed on school grounds,” Jac says.

  “Okay, Jac.”

  “It isn’t! Consult the student handbook.” She looks around the circle for support but doesn’t find it. Leslie half smiles, her face full of patience. Maybe she’s gotten used to Jac’s commentary the way the rest of us have.

  Ben comes over to our group with his face caked in stage makeup. Someone made his thick, brown eyebrows even thicker with paint, so they look like giant pine cones. Mr. and Mrs. Chay smush him into a group hug.

  “My Birdie,” Mrs. Chay says. When his parents release him, Ben’s stage makeup is smeared on their shirts. They don’t seem to mind.

  “Good work, pal.” Dad fist-bumps Ben.

  We all take turns complimenting the star, and then the group separates in two—twelve-year-olds and adults.

  “You were really good,” Aaron says. His program for the play is folded into a paper plane.

  “Thanks, Aaron.” Ben is still smiling just as big as he did during the bows. I imagine him turning into a balloon and floating straight up to the ceiling.

  “I much preferred your performance as a sheep in Little Bo Peep,” Jac says.

  “That was in first grade.”

  Jac shrugs, but she doesn’t fool Ben or me. She has the programs from all Ben’s shows taped to her wall.

  “Daniella didn’t come?” Ben asks. At his last show, Daniella gave Ben a big bouquet of roses. She held them in her lap the whole time. I sat next to her, breathing in the sweet scent of the flowers.

  “She had to study. Sorry,” I say, though all she really said was no.

  “It’s fine.” His smile droops a little.

  Over Ben’s shoulder, I can see Mr. Kale walking toward us. At least I think it’s Mr. Kale. His beard is gone.

  “Is that your dad?” I ask.

  Aaron turns.

  “Yeah.” He stuffs his paper plane into his pocket and waves. “He wanted to pick me up. We’re going story hunting.”

  “What equipment is required for story hunting?” Jac asks.

  “A spear.”

  Mr. Kale joins our circle. The red Memoir Ideas notebook is tucked under his arm.

  “I remember you.” He points at Jac. “The honest one.”

  Jac bows like she was the one who just finished a performance.

  I introduce Mr. Kale to my parents and Uncle Eric, Leslie, and the Chays, and for a second I can picture it. Aaron and his dad never leave for another tree town. We set more places at the picnic table for our summer barbecues. Aaron sits with us at the edge of the pool at Lakeside Townhouses,
and we all watch the water glide over our shins. Daniella, too.

  “We’ll be off now,” Mr. Kale says. “Stories don’t write themselves.”

  I watch Aaron cringe and walk away with his dad. They’re headed for the door when Mr. Kale suddenly veers toward a woman in a long gray sweater. He taps her on the shoulder, and then stretches out his arms as if he’s going to bear hug her. The Memoir Ideas notebook drops to the floor.

  The woman in the gray sweater backs away from him, eyes wide. Her back presses into the wall. Mr. Kale stumbles into Aaron, who pulls him out the door. Mr. Kale’s mouth forms apologies as he fumbles for his notebook and they leave.

  No one else seems to notice. Jac is busy rubbing her thumb across Ben’s pine cone eyebrow until it looks like he has a black eye. And the adults are focused on their conversation.

  I don’t know who Mr. Kale imagined the woman in the gray sweater to be, but it messes with my head, because later I swear I see Daniella riding away from the lobby on a bike, curls lit up by the sun.

  * * *

  That night when I know she’s at Jenna’s, I sneak into Daniella’s room to read her diary. I keep the lights off. Her bed is all made up, the pillows stacked into their tower. The square sequined one sparkles on top. Daniella keeps the diary in the top drawer of her nightstand now, but something stops me before I make it there. I pick up the folded piece of paper on her bed.

  Eliza T. Dakota Middle School presents Bye Bye Birdie.

  She was there. She wanted to be there. Maybe we could be the Chordays again after all. There has to be something more I can do. To have her sit in our row of the auditorium again with roses in her lap.