Where I Belong Read online

  A whistle blows for the Riverside crossing, and I realize all I need to do is follow the sound of trains to find my way back.

  I decide to go a little farther. Slowly, cautiously, I take a few steps, watching and listening for signs that something is following me. After a few minutes, I glimpse light through the trees. Have I come to the end of the forest already? Did Mrs. Clancy lie about its size?

  I brace myself for the sight of a road and the end of the woods, but instead of utility poles and cars and stores, I find myself in a clearing. In its center is the biggest tree of all, the king of trees, rising from the earth like a huge dancing giant. Its spreading trunk forms the giant’s legs, its branches thrust upward like arms.

  Awestruck by its size, I touch the tree’s bark, warm in the sunlight, rough against my hand. I feel its magic, its age, its power, its sap rising like blood. This tree must belong to the Green Man. Like him, it’s as ancient as the earth itself.

  I tip my head way back and stare up into the branches. I long to climb all the way to the top, but the limbs are out of my reach. I walk around the trunk and discover a hollow big enough for me to walk into. Inside I see daylight far above my head. Finding a handhold here, a foothold there, I inch my way toward the sky. Wood dust and crumbling fungus tickle my nose, spider webs stick to my face, beetles scurry out of my way, but I keep climbing.

  At last, I wiggle out of the hole and climb higher. I look over the tops of trees and see East Bedford pressed against the foothills. Clouds cast moving shadows on buildings and hillsides. If I raise my hand, I can block the whole town from sight. It’s no bigger than a village under a Christmas tree. Tiny buildings, tiny cars, tiny people, tiny minds.

  The ground is far below me, but I’m not scared. I sit on a limb and swing my feet in space. If only I could live here. I’d be happy, I know I would. And safe.

  Slowly an idea comes to me. What if I build a tree house here, a secret place only I know about?

  A wind stirs the leaves. For a moment I think I see a face among them. Pressing my lips against the bark, I whisper to the tree, “It’s me, Brendan. Please allow me to build a house in your branches. I mean no harm.”

  The wind blows again. My branch sways and the leaves around me quiver. Is it a yes or a no? I’m not sure, but I think if it were a no, the wind would blow me out of the tree.

  Slowly and carefully, I make my way down to the ground. It’s time to face Mrs. Clancy.

  THREE

  MRS. CLANCY MEETS ME at the kitchen door. “Where have you been? School let out hours ago and your dinner’s sitting here getting cold.”

  Lit by the late-afternoon sun, her face is wrinkled and her hair is a dull reddish orange. She colors it with dye she buys at the grocery store. I’m not supposed to know that—nobody is, not even her girlfriends. But I’ve seen the empty boxes in the trash and I know her hair is supposed to be the color of autumn sunset.

  A real mother would smile and say something like Sit down, honey, I’ll warm up your dinner.

  But foster mothers aren’t real mothers. The county pays them to take care of you, so you’re just part of the job. And besides, what do I know about real mothers? Mine walked out and left me in the hospital and never came back. What did she want with a baby like me? Most likely I was weird and ugly the day I was born.

  One look and off she went. She didn’t leave her name or a forwarding address. Didn’t tell anyone who my father was.

  Once I overheard a social worker say I was a crack baby. I wish I hadn’t heard that. I hope she didn’t really say that, I hope it’s not true, my mother didn’t take drugs, she didn’t, she didn’t.

  But maybe that’s why no one adopted me. Maybe that’s why I’m weird. And why I never fit in anywhere.

  But what difference does any of it make? Here I am in Mrs. Clancy’s house, and she’s saying, “Where have you been? You should have been home over an hour ago.”

  When I don’t answer, she takes a closer look at me. “There’s blood on your shirt and your jeans are torn. Have you been in a fight?”

  “No, I just tripped on something, a root or a bump in the sidewalk, I don’t remember what.”

  Mrs. Clancy sighs. What’s wrong with this kid, why can’t he behave like a sensible person, what am I going to do with him? Maybe I should send him back to Social Services. Out loud she says, “Go clean up.”

  In the kitchen, she plops my dinner down in front of me. Chicken. She knows I don’t eat chicken. It was a pork chop last night, and meatloaf the night before. Growing boys need protein, she likes to say. Eating nothing but vegetables will stunt your growth and turn you into a weakling.

  With a loud sigh, Mrs. Clancy sits down across from me, a cup of coffee at her elbow. She picks up a pen and studies the crossword puzzle in the evening paper. “Do you by any chance know a word that starts with an m and means ‘messenger of the gods’?”

  “Mercury,” I tell her. If she read a book once in a while instead of watching TV every night, she’d know a lot more.

  After I’ve hidden my chicken in my paper napkin—easy when she’s doing a crossword—I go to my room and shut the door.

  “Have you done your homework?” Mrs. Clancy calls.

  “Yes,” I lie as easily as I answered her question about Mercury.

  “Do you want me to check it?”

  “No, thanks. It was easy.” Too easy to do.

  “Well, I better see improved grades on your report card. You don’t want to fail sixth grade.”

  In the living room, Alex Trebek introduces the guests on tonight’s Jeopardy! show. Television will keep Mrs. Clancy occupied until the eleven o’clock news is over. I open a drawing pad and begin working on a plan for the tree house.

  The next day, after school and after I report to Mrs. Clancy, I run down the hill behind the house, stopping long enough to pull a rusty old wagon out of a clump of honeysuckle. I don’t know who it belonged to or where it came from, but I’ve had my eye on it for a long time, thinking I might have a use for it someday.

  Dragging it behind me, I cut down a couple of alleys and come out at a construction site. New fancy houses are going up where the skating rink and bowling alley used to be.

  It’s past four, and the workmen are gone. I gather up as many old boards and two-by-fours as I can manage and head for the woods. It’s not stealing. Nobody wants muddy boards with nails sticking out of them.

  It takes a lot of pulling and jerking, but I get the wagon across the tracks and into the woods. At first I can’t find the clearing. I drag the wagon through trees and underbrush, over roots and stones, bouncing out boards and stopping to pick them up. I begin to think the forest has tricked me. I’ll never see the tree again. Maybe I imagined it.

  Just as I’m about to give up, I stumble into the clearing and see it, my tree, the king of the forest, tall and broad, a dancing man, a Green Man in disguise, his face hidden.

  I stare up into the tree’s massive branches and search the leaves with my eyes and ears for him, but he’s not there. If I listen hard enough, maybe I’ll learn the language of trees and hear the Green Man’s voice.

  But all I hear today is the rustle of leaves and now and then the creak of a branch. I unload the wood and go back to the construction site for more. After four trips, I’m sure I have enough boards.

  But before I can begin building, I need tools. I think I know where to find them.

  After school the next day, I sneak into the basement and raid the late Mr. Clancy’s workshop. Nails, hammers, saws, drills—all the tools I need to build my tree house.

  I spot three plastic milk crates in a corner. No telling where he got them, but it’s my guess he found them behind the 7-Eleven. I also discover a pile of musty old tarps he must have used for drop cloths. I can use them for a roof until I come up with something more permanent. Last of all, I help myself to a long, thick coiled-up rope—perfect for hoisting things into the tree.

  Taking care not to be seen from the
house, I fill the wagon, head for the woods, unload, and go back for more. After three trips, it’s time for dinner. For once I’m glad to leave the woods. I’m really hungry. And really tired.

  The next day is Saturday. I wake up early, tell Mrs. Clancy a story about needing to use the computers at the library, and disappear for the day. First I rig up a simple pulley system by climbing the tree and hanging the rope over a limb. Back on earth, I tie a two-by-four to one end and pull as hard as I can on the other end. Up she goes. Slowly slowly slowly. The rope hurts my hands and breaks more than once. The two-by-fours crash down through the leaves and hit the ground hard. At last I manage to nail a framework to the tree, so high up that you wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know it was there.

  The whole time I’m working, I feel like somebody is watching me. I stop pounding nails every few minutes and listen. I don’t hear anything. I don’t see anything. But still the feeling persists. What if Sean Barnes followed me that day after all? What if he and T.J. and Gene are hiding somewhere, waiting to jump me? I expect them to step out from the bushes at any moment, jeering, cussing, making threats.

  My hands shake and it’s hard to concentrate on nailing down the boards. I tell myself it’s my imagination. It’s rabbits and squirrels I hear. Nothing more.

  Then another thought creeps into my mind. Maybe my hammering has gotten the Green Man’s attention. He’s watching me from the dense shade and thickets below. Am I a threat to his forest? Will I harm his tree?

  I clutch the hammer and stare down into the green world. Leaves stir in little gusts of wind and shadows shift their shapes, hiding whatever lurks in the tangled branches and vines. The Green Man—violent and unpredictable, like nature itself.

  I whisper to him, “Green Man, are you there?”

  No one answers. The shadows continue to shift and change and dance across the leaves. Something stirs in a thicket and then it’s gone and so is the feeling I’m being watched.

  I pick up a nail and place it carefully. Bang bang bang goes the hammer. It echoes through the trees. Bang bang bang. I hate making so much noise, but there is no quiet way to pound a nail into a piece of wood.

  By dinnertime, I’m so tired I can hardly walk, my arms ache from using the pulley, and my hands are blistered from the rope. Luckily Mrs. Clancy doesn’t notice the blisters, probably because her head is bent over the crossword. She looks up only to eat and to ask me for help. A five-letter word ending with e that means “furious.” A four-letter word beginning and ending with o that means “grab bag.” I mutter the answers and stagger off to bed. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer, and my hands hurt so bad, I think I might cry.

  On Sunday I take some of Mrs. Clancy’s Motrin and cover my hands with thick white socks. Wincing with almost every movement, I saw and hoist and nail, saw and hoist and nail. Slowly the boards cover the platform, but it’s hard work, especially considering how my arms and hands feel.

  Only occasionally do I sense that I’m not alone. It can’t be Sean. He would have done something by now. Torn down my tree house or yanked me out of the tree by my hair. So it’s either my imagination or the Green Man. Or one of those drunks and crooks and perverts Mrs. Clancy talks about.

  During the next two weeks, I finish the platform and stretch the tarp over a rough frame. Later I’ll build a wooden roof and cover it with the tarpaper I found in the garage, probably left over from one of Mr. Clancy’s projects. But for now, the tarp will do. Although it probably won’t keep out the rain, I like the patterns of light and shadows on its surface, always moving and changing as the wind blows the leaves.

  To make the tree house comfortable, I find a rug and an old broken-down lawn chair left by the curb for the trash men. I store books, drawing pads, and art supplies in a plastic tub with a tight lid. I don’t think Mrs. Clancy will miss it. The milk crates from Mr. Clancy’s workshop hold bottles of water, cans of soup and vegetables, and a flashlight, a can opener, candles, and matches in a glass jar. Food, water, and a ratty army blanket tucked away in another old plastic tub—I can live in my tree house a long time if I have to.

  When everything is done except the roof, I prick my finger and press my blood into the tree’s bark. Its sap blends with my blood and makes us one. I lean against the trunk and close my eyes. Peace and silence surround me. At last I’ve found the place where I belong.

  A couple of days later, I stay in my tree house way past suppertime. It’s bingo night, and Mrs. Clancy won’t be home until after ten. I’ve been carving swords to protect myself from Sean and Gene and T.J. Or anyone else who threatens me. I find branches of the right size and shape, scrape away the bark, and carve a hilt and pointed blade. At first they looked like clumsy sticks, but I’m getting better. Eventually I hope to cut Celtic designs and runes into the wood.

  When it’s too dark to see what I’m doing, I stow my tools and climb down. Even though I know my way in the daylight, nothing looks the same at night. The trees seem taller and closer together. Boulders hide in shadows. Dampness rises from the mossy ground. Branches snap and break, leaves stir and rustle. I want to run, but I’ll make too much noise, so I force myself to walk slowly.

  Sure something or someone is following me, I look behind me. My chest tightens. What if it’s Sean?

  Finally I see a glimmer of light through the trees. Just ahead are the train tracks and the ordinary world of roads and houses and cars and stores and school. I turn my back on the woods, slide downhill, and run across the train tracks. About a mile down the line, I see the headlight of a train coming toward me. When I’m halfway up the hill on the other side, the engine roars by, hauling a long line of boxcars, hoppers, and gondolas, rattling and bouncing, sparks flying from their wheels.

  When the train’s gone, I look across the tracks at the woods, dark against the sky. Something moves on the edge. For a second, I think I see a man staring at me.

  It might be the Green Man. I’m tempted to call out to him, but I’m afraid. What if it’s not him? What if it’s someone who doesn’t want to be seen, one of those men Mrs. Clancy always warns me about?

  So I say nothing and head up the hill for home.

  At the house, the kitchen light is on. Mrs. Clancy has left a note on the kitchen counter telling me there’s a chicken pot pie in the freezer. “Put it in the microwave on high for five minutes,” she wrote, “and don’t make a mess. I just cleaned the kitchen.”

  I fix myself a peanut butter sandwich without making a mess. All around me the kitchen glitters and gleams. Fluorescent light shines on white cabinets and bounces off white countertops. The stainless-steel appliances are sharp-edged and as cold as ice. Not a fingerprint, not a smudge, not a crumb. No dirty dishes except my own. It’s like eating in an operating room.

  I clean up and go to bed. I should do my homework, but why start now? The school year’s almost over, and who cares if I flunk sixth grade. If I flunk enough times, I’ll be so much bigger and older than the other kids that no one will dare to pick on me.

  Not that I like elementary school. It’s just that middle school will be so much worse.

  So I slide under the covers and open The Hobbit. I’ve read the whole series three or four times, but it’s still my favorite book. I wonder what I’d do if Gandalf showed up at my front door with a band of dwarves. I’d be like Bilbo, I guess—not really sure if I dared go on an adventure.

  Tonight my mind wanders. My window is open and I hear the wind blowing. Rain is coming, traveling on the back of the wind. I can smell it. Tree toads are making a racket in the woods.

  I get out of bed and go to the window. I should close it. Mrs. Clancy will be mad if rain blows in (Look at this mess, water everywhere). Instead I stand there and let the wind blow in my face. Come, wind; come, rain. I open my arms to the night and the wind and the first few drops of rain. Dark clouds scud across the sky. Branches toss.

  I wish I were in my tree house, high up, close to the clouds, swaying with the wind. I imagine I hear t
he ancient oak’s limbs creak and groan and scrape against each other. The woods below me are dark, no colors, just black and white. Everything moves and rustles and sighs. The Green Man stalks the shadows. I see him, he sees me. He holds out his hand, and I go with him into the Green Wood.

  Headlights sweep across the yard, illuminating Mrs. Clancy’s carefully tended shrubs, barbered and shaved until they look artificial, something you’d buy in Walmart. Blinded by the sharp glare, I close the window and jump into bed, glad my light is off.

  Her key turns in the back door. She switches on the kitchen light and opens the refrigerator. Time for wine (One glass is all I have, it’s good for the digestion). She turns off the light (Don’t waste electricity) and heads for the living room to drink her wine and watch the evening news. So many opinions she has, so many rules, so little love for anything except her house and her yard.

  I hide my reading lamp under the covers (You won’t be satisfied until you burn the house down) and return to Middle-earth. This time my mind stays with the story. I’m still reading when she turns off the TV and goes to her room (A good night’s sleep, that’s what you need. Look at the dark circles under your eyes).

  FOUR

  SCHOOL IS THE SAME, day after day after long, boring day. Mrs. Funkhauser picks on me about everything. No homework, failing tests, daydreaming, drawing, reading library books in my lap. The trouble I get into is endless.

  Mrs. Funkhauser calls Mrs. Clancy and makes arrangements to see us after school (Why can’t you do what you’re supposed to do? Are you stupid or just plain lazy? I am so fed up with your behavior).

  While Mrs. Funkhauser recites my failures, I daydream about the woods. It’s June—two more weeks of school and I’ll be free to spend every day in my tree house. In the meantime I have to survive this day, and the wrath of Mrs. Clancy.

  “What do you mean he has to repeat sixth grade?” Mrs. Clancy asks in a voice loud enough to get my attention (He’s even dumber than I thought).