Day 51

Something

The Queen of the Trees made me fall. She summoned me out of the whiteness, and I fell, before I knew what falling was, or what trees were, or that falling out of trees hurt, I fell, all the way down to the ground. She had a book but wasn’t really reading, I could tell, she just stared at the book, not looking left and right like people do. And then she noticed me, she didn’t notice me fall, but she noticed me after I did, like, I don’t know, like she was too mad to think about falling people.

I stood up and brushed the leaves off my pants, and tugged at the pantlegs so that I wouldn’t step on them. I ran my hands over my hair and she closed her book tight.

“Your clothes are all too big.” Is what she said.

“Yes they are.” I said back. “You are reading a book.”

“Yes, I am.” And for one second the Queen looked up and away to the pine side door to the big brown house. “He told me to go outside. So I’m reading outside. I was reading inside.” She looked up at me. “I just wanted to read inside.”

“Reading inside it better.” Is what I told her and then put out my hand.

“My name is Horace. I fell from this tree.”

She looked at my hand and then stood up too.

“My name is Shoshanna.” She shook my hand hard, like a crab claw and nodded. “But you can call me Shoshie, Queen of the trees."

I nodded back and we kept shaking hands for a solid minute before letting go.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” She took her hand away and put it on her hip.

“About what? That book.” I had to roll my sleeve up to my elbow in order to point to the hard cover laying by her feet.

“No, why they call me the Queen of the Trees.”

“Oh,” I said, “Why do they call you the Queen of the Trees?”

She laughed, I remember it really well, she laughed like I had told her underneath the basement steps like we would later, where Dad couldn’t hear all the noise. She laughed a whole lot.

“Because I’m so good at climbing that all the trees made me their Queen.” She lifted her hands up in the air and made hands at the elm.

“Oh.” I said,” That makes sense. Wanna race to the top?”

“Okay, but get to the other side.” And we both ran to opposite side of the tree, with hands on lower branches, I could grab up higher because I was taller and older, by just five years, so it wasn’t anything much. And then she shouted “Go,” but it was after she had already got a leg up on a branch.

She climbed faster than I could, especially with my clothes getting in the way, and my hair getting in my eyes. She tore up the side of the tree, to the second highest branch that curved back in and you could sit on it. Her knees were all scraped up and she took in big breaths. I took in big breaths too from a few branches below. It was cold in the guts of the tree, not much sunlight got through.

“Your knee is cut.” I point to it, and Shoshie looks. And she looks like she might hit the tree.

“Dad told me be careful. I got in trouble last time. He says I’m going to get infected and my knees will fall off, and he won’t clean up my messes anymore.” She looked down at me. “He doesn’t say that to Daisy. Daisy cut her finger with a steak knife and it bled all over the kitchen and he put a cotton ball on it and wrapped it up. He doesn’t do that to my knees.”

I nodded.

“I think Dad has the wrong idea. Your knees.” I pointed again. “Your knees are like badges. Each time you climb is another badge, its another time you get to show everybody you are the Queen of the Trees. I would wear them proudly.”

Now Shoshanna nodded.

“I guess.” She said. And then the sound of the side door opening and her Dad stepped out.

“Shoshanna? You have to come in now, dinner.” He looked wide left and then right, scanning the yard.

“You have to be quiet Horace. I’m not supposed to be in the tree.”

Dad had a rag in his hand and he curled it in his fist.

“Shoshanna?” he waited. “Shoshanna? Where did you go? I sweat to God.” And he stopped and rubbed underneath his moustache with his non-rag hand.

I told Shoshanna she should go down and moved out of good climbing path. She looked through the leaves at her Dad and then at me and nodded. “I guess. You going to be around.”

I nodded. “This is my tree, I live here.”

“Oh,” She said and started to slide down past me. “Well, stay here for a while. I want to race again.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah”, she said and her feet hit the ground. She walked stiffly towards her Dad with her hands in her pockets.

“Shoshanna,” he said low. “I asked you not to go up in that tree anymore. I asked you nicely didn’t I?”

She nodded and I sat on the branches and tried to make myself comfortable.

“Why do you have to do the opposite of what I say all the time? Why do you-“ And he stopped himself again and rolled around his tongue in his mouth. “Come inside for dinner. “

And she did, and they shut the door behind them. I sat in the tree for a little while, until the sun set, as it was setting when I met the Queen, and then I fell asleep.