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“Permission! Permission to do what?” I flew back to the window. “He's digging a hole.”
“That's right. I told him he could.”
“But why?”
“I think the boy has a very good idea, that's why.”
“But—”
“It's not going to kill your grass, Julianna. Just let him do what he's come to do.”
“But what is it? What's he doing?”
“Watch. You'll figure it out.”
It was torture seeing him dig up my grass. The hole he was making was enormous! How
could my father let him do this to my yard?
Bryce knew I was there, too, because he looked at me once and nodded. No smile, no wave,
just a nod.
He dragged over some potting soil, pierced the bag with the spade, and shoveled dirt into the
hole. Then he disappeared. And when he came
back, he wrestled a big burlapped root ball across the lawn, the branches of a plant rustling
back and forth as he moved.
My dad joined me on the couch and peeked out the window, too.
“A tree?” I whispered. “He's planting a tree?”
“I'd help him, but he says he has to do this himself.”
“Is it a …” The words stuck in my throat.
I didn't really need to ask, though, and he knew he didn't need to answer. I could tell from the
shape of the leaves, from the texture of the trunk.
This was a sycamore tree.
I flipped around on the couch and just sat.
A sycamore tree.
Bryce finished planting the tree, watered it, cleaned everything up, and then went home. And
I just sat there, not knowing what to do.
I've been sitting here for hours now, just staring out the window at the tree. It may be little
now, but it'll grow, day by day. And a hundred years from
now it'll reach clear over the rooftops. It'll be miles in the air! Already I can tell—it's going to
be an amazing, magnificent tree.
And I can't help wondering, a hundred years from now will a kid climb it the way I climbed the
one up on Collier Street? Will she see the things I
did? Will she feel the way I did?
Will it change her life the way it changed mine?
I also can't stop wondering about Bryce. What has he been trying to tell me? What's he
thinking about?
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I know he's home because he looks out his window from time to time. A little while ago he put
his hand up and waved. And I couldn't help it—I gave a little wave back.
So maybe I should go over there and thank him for the tree. Maybe we could sit on the porch
and talk. It just occurred to me that in all the years we've known each other, we've never
done that.
Never really talked.
Maybe my mother's right. Maybe there is more to Bryce Loski than I know.
Maybe it's time to meet him in the proper light.
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Don't miss Wendelin Van Draanen's
newest novel, Swear to Howdy,
coming in October 2003!
