There is nothing out here. I have two friends at school, and we never see eachother outside of recess. They live too far away. There is nothing there too.

  Kids in the city always live close together, so they see eachother a lot. TV shows on at seven and six always have a bunch of kids that look like grownups hide together in some secret place for everyone they know; where they hang out and do stupid things that would get them in trouble if it weren’t a secret place. Those things aren’t really all that cool since they’re not real. I mean, it seems nice, but I don’t know one place that’s really secret. I wish I did, but nothing’s secret because wherever you look, you know what’s there: corn and soy beans, all lined up.

  I’ve never seen a secret place for everyone. There aren’t any.

  They tried. Everyone else thought that a city-like secret place would be cool, so they’re always deciding on places in the schoolyard to be “the spot”. Yard-duty teachers hate when kids hide from them, so they do all sorts of stuff to get back, like suddenly saying a buncha odd things like “the baseball diamond is off limits”, and yell at us whenever we go there. Then they get big guys with chainsaws that look like the ones from comic books to come and take down all the trees and shrubs that we all liked to sit around and…

  …

  Soon the entire yard will be plain-lookin’ and bare, so all the secret hiding spots for everyone won’t be secret anymore.

  And they were never for everyone. They weren’t for anyone. You can’t just pick any spot to go and chill out, because if the guys who claimed it didn’t like you, they get all rough and mean, and can bruise you up a bit.

  Nobody liked me very much.

  It was stupid. Real dumb. Maybe it was because everyone tried doing it in the schoolyard where everyone would be anyway, but… I dunno. It was still dumb; they’re a buncha ruggy farm kids hoppin’ to some grand idea because all the cool look-like-kids from the city on TV do it. I don’t know why we liked their shows; nothing they did ever made any sense.

  … but, it still would’ve been cool. Everyone except my two friends hates me and thinks I’m weird. My friends are nice, and I really wish we could always get together without any of the other kids there, or our parents trippin’ over us every moment, but between all our houses is nothing but walls of corn that grow taller than Dad. I would’a gave anything for a spot the three of us could reach and hang out together - a spot we could claim and keep all the other bad kids away from - but it just would never happen.

  I should’a taken all this as a warning about her. At least I wouldn’t ‘ve cried so much.



  I failed the first social studies test in September. Teacher was getting mad at me since by now I couldn’t get my mark any higher than a C- until the next unit, and I was making her look bad because all the other teachers thought Teacher played favourites with the kids who played a lot of sports who kept getting better marks because they cheated a lot, but Teacher didn’t know that and if I tattled all the kids would beat me up.

   “Go home and get this signed. Your parents should know about this.”

   “While we’re at it, I’d like to inquire about your homework habits. I refuse to believe your claim that you’re ‘just not good at algebra’. You need to get practice now, otherwise you won’t survive two minutes in high school.”

   “And no more whining about me being boring. I’m only allowed to give art classes on fridays, the rest must be given to more required subject and… are you even listening to me? Ugh! Go sit down! Just get this near-fail signed! Your parents must know about this!”

   I stopped caring about school this year when Teacher gave assigned desk seats, and put me next to that weirdo who keeps stealing all my pencils. He says I’m more of weirdo than him so I should shut it ’cause I deserve it. Then he complains about having to sit next to me.

   Teacher marked the tests during lunch recess and we got in around 13:00. I waited a really, really long time until 14:30 when there was a 20 minute recess, and then an even longer time until 15:30 when the buses showed up. I didn’t hear the P.A. System call out my bus number and I ran out the front door and tried to catch it just as it was leaving. Principal saw me and yelled “try being more punctual from now on!” and I don’t know what that word means.

   I’m the last one off on my bus. The ride lasts about 55 minutes. I always ask if we could do the bus route backwards, but Bus Driver just tells me to sit back down. I really live only 5 minutes from the school, but everyone else has to be dropped off first and I’m last. I used to be fifth-last, but one kindergartener’s mom complained about him getting home before her, and Bus Driver made his road – my road – the last stop. Sometimes it lasts about 65 minutes because of that.

   55 minutes is a lot of time. When I don’t have my Gameboy, I spend it by thinking about stuff, so it really seems like 555 minutes instead. That school day was a bad day, so I spent it by thinking about bad stuff like how bad that day was. All days at school are pretty bad, since school is very icky, but that day was even more icky than normal icky. One of my friends was sick and I was jealous because that meant he didn’t have to go to school. The other, she had recess yard-sitting with the kindergarteners in their pen. She likes doing it, but I wish the teacher there would let me come with her.

   After 278 minutes of the 555, I thought about what to do with the social studies test. Since Teacher hates me just as much as everyone else does, I couldn’t just not do anything about it. Teacher would definitely ask about the test tomorrow, but Mom is bad because she’s un… great-full. She ain’t full of great like breakfast cereals say they are, because if I get an A on a test, she says nothing, but if I get a D, she freaks out.

   I got an idea. I took out a pencil and wrote “sign this” on the top of the page. When I got home, I was gonna put it on the kitchen table, pack up a snack into my bristol box, and hide somewhere until after dinner. That way, she would be more mad about me missing dinner than she would about the test.

   When I wrote it, it looked more like “sigh this” instead because I messed up on the n. The weirdo kid already stole all my erasers, so I had to leave it like it was.

   When the bus finally dropped me off, I ran inside, left the test on the table, and packed up six bags of chips and three cans of pop. But then I ran into trouble since I didn’t know where I was gonna hide. I didn’t think that far ahead, I guess.

   I couldn’t hide inside, since Mom would find me too easy. I couldn’t hide in the backyard, since Dad always loves to cut the grass and keep it nice and short even though tall grass would be more fun to play in. If I did, I would be spotted too easy. I needed to go where she would never find me.

   So I ran into Neighbour’s yard. I got in trouble once because I ran into Neighbour’s yard, but that was only because I admitted to it. If I didn’t say anything, it wouldn’t matter.

   But, once I got there, I saw Neighbour was mowing his lawn. I couldn’t hide in there, because if he saw me he woulda kicked me out. I was sorta caught where I was. Waiting for him to go back inside would’ve taken too long, and mom would be back from work by then.

   It didn’t make much sense though. After about two bags of chips I saw that it only looked like he was moving the lawn, but he sorta wasn’t. He kept going in circles, cutting grass that he already cut. He also had this sullen look on his face like he just lost a game of soccer to the test-cheaters in my gym class. He doesn’t have any soccer balls, so it didn’t make much sense.

   After another bag of chips, - I hate sour cream and onion, why did I pack sour cream and onion - his friend came out from the house and started talking with him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she looked all sad too. Neighbour turned off the lawn mower and talked to her for a bit, I guess about some stuff neighbour-business that neighbours like talking about, but Neighbour got all mad at his friend and started waving his hands up in the air. I never saw a grownup have a hissy-fit before. He tried not listening to her and to start the lawn mower back up, but it made a bunch of put-put-put sounds and wouldn’t. He got all mad and started kicking it while yelling out a few bad words that started with F, S, and Y. I never heard of any bad words that started with Y, but he said a few anyway.

   I saw this as my chance to run across their yard while he was busy yelling at his lawn mower and his friend was busy shaking her head at him. I ran as fast as I could and hid in the shrubs on the other side of his backyard. I thought I was okay there, but I heard his lawn mower start up again. I jumped into the corn field on the other side of the tree-fence, and hid there.

   Even though there is a lot of corn here, I’ve never been inside a corn field. The stalks are very tall – at least, taller than I am - so it was pretty hard to look around. I could only move one way or another down a row. I wanted to stay where I was, but a few grasshoppers didn’t seem to like me very much and they bothered me out of my spot.

   They annoyed me all the way down the first row until the corn just stopped in front of a bunch of trees. … a lot of trees. More trees than I thought were around here. They weren’t the kind with needles all over, but actual leaves. Then I found that there were more trees behind those trees, of the same kind too.

   I knew there were a few trees back here. I could see them from the window in my bedroom, but I just thought they were another tree-fence used to separate the corn fields from the soybean fields. I didn’t know it was an entire forest.

   … and I thought for sure nobody would find me if I went in.






   The forest was outside, but being inside the forest sorta felt like what being inside would be like if you took inside outside, but it doesn’t feel like being inside-out. It’s kinda weird.

   The ground was covered in leaves that made a srunchy sound whenever I walked. They were all dry and breaky, and felt like warm snow, but I didn’t leave any footprints. Since the sun was still out, I could see inside, but all the leaves barely let any of the light in. Sorta dark, but I could still see.

   All the trees were very tall, much taller than the corn, but I couldn’t touch any of the branches since they were up too high. I could at least tug on the leaves the cornstalks had, but none on these trees.

   I felt… tiny.

   What was even weirder were that all the trees were close together. There was one new tree every ten steps from another tree, and that isn’t a lot since my steps are pretty small. All the trees were jam-packed right next to eachother. Then big, thick vines always came around one tree and jumped off its branches and onto another tree.

   The trees must be pretty happy. They like one another so much that they grow vines to keep them together.

   Just a bunch of trees hugging.

   I don’t think I know this many people who hug eachother.

   All of this was pretty unreal. There were probably as many kids in my school as there were trees in this forest. Nobody could have this many people here and be really happy.

   I was quiet, and listened for the sound of the trees talking. Some of them had to be fighting or angry with another tree.

   They were talking up in the leaves, so high up they probably didn’t even know I was down there. They made all their leaves move to speak treespeak. It sounded like “sh. sh. sh. sh.” said really fast while everyone was saying something at the same time.

   It sounded nice.

   I wished I could speak treespeak. I said “sh. sh. sh. sh.” up at them a few times, but they mustn’t have heard me.

   The bugs did.

   Just then all sorts of mosquitoes came and started buzzing all around! I flipped out and started runnin’ to get away from them, but they were good chasers. They ran me all the way to the other end of the forest until I fell out of the place and into a soybean field – on my face – and then the little vampires got scared of the sun and flew back in.

   Landing on your face hurts. I cried there for a bit.

   But when I looked up, I met her for the first time.






   She was huge. Just as tall as the other trees, but her trunk was much thicker than the rest of them.

   She stood there in the middle of the small soybean field. This place was a meadow, and the forest actually kept going on both sides until it gave away to be an entire soybean field. It was just a little grove, and she was in the center of it, as big as can be.

   In the center of the field, alone from all the other trees with no vines wrapped up around her.

   Why was she alone? All the other trees were together and were happy. Why her? She looked as nice as any of the other trees did.

   “Sh. Sh. Sh.” I said. I thought it would be treespeak for “hello” or something.

   There was a wind. All the other trees answered, but her.

   I got up on my feet and jumped over some of the soy. I tried some treespeak again, but she still didn’t answer.

   “Hello?” I tried without, “What’s your name?”

   She answered that time. I saw a leaf fall from a branch and flutter towards me. She didn’t say her name, though.

   …

   “Why are you here alone?”

   I listened as close as I could, but I couldn’t hear her. She was talking – I know that – but the other trees started talking too. They were all saying “sh. sh. sh. sh.”

   … were they laughing at her?

   I looked to the other trees. “Stop it! Stop laughing!”

   The wind picked up stronger, all the shshing became a roar. It was hard to stand up in the gust. They all were waving around, forwards and backwards, while she knelt over, and hung her head.

   The wind lasted for a long time. I stood up as strong as could, but it still blew me over, and then it soon stopped.

   It was surprising. I got on my hands and looked at the trees for a very long time; they were just so… so… ugh. I couldn’t believe them anymore.

   “Nobody likes you very much, do they?” I asked her.

   …

   “That’s okay. Nobody likes me very much either.”

   …

   “We can be not liked together.”

   She let me sit on her trunk, and I lied down low just under the soybean so nobody from the back road on the other side of the field might see me. My hay fever was starting to act up, so I was sneezing a bit. Usually I can’t spend too long of a time outside or else I sneeze like crazy, but this time I didn’t mind, because she was there.

   Her branches were bigger than my house, and she had more leaves than there were people in the town. She let them blow everywhere in the breeze, so it was nice and shady where I sat. She did that for me.

   She is such a nice tree. I said hello to the others and they threw bugs at me. She didn’t do any of that at all.

   I stayed with her for as long as I could. The only time I left her alone was when I had to go pee in some bushes on the side of the meadow, other than that I made sure I was always there for her.

   She was glad that I was there. The entire time you could still hear all the whispers and murmurs from the rest of the forest. The other trees were still talking about her; about us. It’s kinda like how the older kids like acting in school. They think being all rough is too young for them, so they just say mean things all the time. They don’t fool anyone, since they still get rough, but that’s what they do.

   I knew what it was like. I told her to just not listen to any of them. I told her to ignore all of it as best she can, and not to even let herself hear one single word of it. I told her to shut her ears off if she really had to, even if it meant she couldn’t hear me. Then I wondered if trees really have any ears they could shut off, because shutting your ears off would be pretty hard if you don’t have any ears. So I took that back and just told her not to listen anyway.

   She didn’t talk very much while I was there, but she didn’t have to. I didn’t feel like talking much either. I just sat there next to her, and it was okay.

   After a while I had ate everything in my bristol box and I was getting hungry again. She didn’t have anything to eat, so I knew I had to go back home soon. I didn’t want to leave, but I kinda had to. I didn’t have a watch so I don’t know how long I was out there for. It was a long time, I guess.

   I waved goodbye to her, and told her again not to listen to the other trees whispering. She waved goodbye to me too.

   The walk home seemed longer than the walk there. I came out at a different end of the forest and thought I was lost, but I saw my road and a house I recognized, so I walked that way and back home.