THE WHITE TREE

When I woke up in the middle of the night, I knew something had happened to wake me up. I’m the kind of boy who sleeps though almost everything and I don’t wake up in the middle of the night just for the fun of it. That is why I put myself on red alert and waited for the next sound. The next sound was not long in coming. It was a strange combination of a rumbling and whooshing sound that made my whole body feel that it was humming. At the same time, I thought my bedroom tilted, but the plastic space monsters on my shelf didn’t rattle or shift, so I decided the tilt was in my head. I felt dizzy enough for something to have tilted in there. Something was up, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough to bring my younger sister, Leah, scampering into my room—at least not yet. And Leah is the kind of kid who would have come running to me if this strange sound had woken her up, too. Why that hadn’t happened was a mystery to me because, like me, Leah will wake up if you drop a feather on the floor anywhere near her bed. With Leah, my older sister, Rachel, and my mom being the only people around, I’m the only man in the house at the ripe old age of eleven.

The tilting feeling had stopped, but the strange rumbling, whooshing sound kept on going and so did the humming inside my body. It didn’t sound like it was coming from inside the house. That was a relief, provided I could keep whatever was making the sound out of the house. I sat up and dropped my feet over the side of the bed. The red readout on my trusty digital clock told me it was 2:33 a.m. Not the time I’d get out of bed just for the fun of it. I slid my bare feet along the floor until they found my slippers. Then I shuffled over to my window. All I saw was the dark outline of our garage and a big splotch of moonlight on the backyard. Nothing to worry about. The humming inside my body still showed no sign of stopping and it was starting to feel like soda pop bubbles foaming all through my guts and pouring out my ears. Once I’d started looking out the window, I was too tired to turn away anytime soon after concluding there was nothing out there. That’s why I kept my eyes fixed on the garage and the moonlight until I saw something else.

A tree, white as a ghost, that I’d never seen before was growing in the corner of our back yard. The moon shining on it made it’s branches look silver fingers reaching up to the moonlight. Gosh! Writing about that tree is making me sound like a poet! And I don’t even like poetry! My only saving grace is that the friends I’ve got now probably won’t skin me alive too much for that if the read the way I’m writing this story. The friends I hung out before all this started would have tossed me into a pot of boiling oil to teach me a lesson. I knew the tree wasn’t really silver. I’m not that dumb, even if I am at the age when everybody expects my brains to rot out. Some six or seven weeks before my eleventh birthday, I started putting my brains in a jar every night so that no vampire could suck the blood out of them while I sleep. That’s kept them safe so far. There was something else I knew that was a lot more important than knowing the tree wasn’t silver just because the moonlight made it look like that. I also knew that this tree couldn’t possibly be in my backyard no matter how much it looked like it was there. It wasn’t that big a tree; I guessed that its lowest branches would be at about chin height on me. It wasn’t terribly thick either. But the tree was kind of big for someone to have transplanted in the middle of the night without waking anybody up sooner than this. When I looked at the tree a little longer, I came to the conclusion that the tree was right where our lot meets our neighbors’ lots. The humming in my body was feeling more like a current of electricity. I was sure the humming was coming from the tree. Don’t ask me know how I knew that. Sometimes I just know something and that’s that. I don’t remember anything else from that night.

*****

Next thing I knew, somebody was a banging on my door. Same as every morning.

“Sa-a-a-a-mmy! Morning!”

That was Rachel, my yucky older sister. She save me the work of setting my alarm, but I’d rather set my alarm than have her banging on my door, but I’d learned from experience she was going to do that no matter how much my alarm went off. It’s a law of the universe that older sisters have to boss their younger brothers around. Now you know my name. My first name, anyway. My last name is Jeffers. That makes me Sammy Jeffers, and I’m coolest sixth-grader in town.

When Rachel so rudely woke me up, I was strung out all over my bed, on top of my blankets and sheets. That got me wondering. Nothing like having to use your brain first thing in the morning when nobody thinks you have one. My odd sleeping position reminded me of a dream I’d had of a silvery tree that plopped itself in my back yard. Or was it a dream? As I became somewhat conscious, I felt the same humming electric current in my body that I’d felt last night. I rushed to the window and looked out.

“Crispy Critters crushed on the craters of the moon!” I cried out in a whisper.

That’s how amazing he tree in the corner of the backyard where I’d seen it before with a cloud of mist hanging around it. It was a perfect image for a creepy story if my English teacher makes me write one. The mis made the tree look pale white and not silvery at all. And spooky. Like a ghost tree. It couldn’t have looked whiter if it was all covered with snow, but there couldn’t be any snow on it in the middle of May. As far as I could tell, the tree was as bare of leaves as a tree in winter. But like I said, it was the middle of May. Another thing that made me nervous was the sneaking suspicion that the tree was a bit taller than it was last night. Looking at the tree seemed to make the humming I was feeling stronger. That convinced me that the humming was coming from the tree. Thirty seconds later, I had some clothes hanging on me, a jacket hanging over my clothes, and my feet on the back steps.

The closer I got to the tree, the slower my steps got. I think I was kind of scared. I know I was kind of scared. This tree didn’t look like it belonged in my world. I’ve read too many stories and seen too many movies about kids stumbling into some other world not to be careful about where I was going when I saw something as strange as this. With each step I took through the dewy grass that was soaking my shoes, I looked back at the house and then over to the garage. I was ready to run back at the first sign I was stepping out my own world. By the time I was halfway to the tree, I could see that it was in the corner of my backyard. What I mean is that it was exactly where our four lots meet. The reason I knew that is because the tree had mangled all four fences aside when it grew up right between them. The electric humming feeling was getting stronger. That scared me even more, but the humming also felt good. I kept on going until I got to within touching distance of the tree. I looked back. The house and the garage were still there. I could even see the shadowy outlines of my neighbors’ houses in the fog. By this time, my whole body was humming like a live wire.

I had been guessing that the tree was a birch, but seeing it up close, I could tell it wasn’t. The trunk was much too smooth for that. More peculiar, there was not a leaf on the tree. There wasn’t even a bud. The branches were slender, maybe strong enough to hold me, maybe not. Something about the tree made me feel very still. That’s a real miracle for a hyper-active eleven-year-old. I’m hyper-active because I’m twelve; not because I’ve got ADHD like half the kids in my school. My heart could have stopped for all I knew. My nerves took a vacation. The lowest branch stroked my cheek. It was soft as velvet, soft as peach fuzz. That got my heart beating again and my nerves jolted back to work. But I didn’t run. I don’t know why. That would have been the sensible thing to do. What should have scared me is that it was the branch that had moved to my cheek. I hadn’t put my cheek against the branch. But a strange humming from a tree that feels good can do things to you. I reached up and touched the branch with my hand. Then I touched the trunk. Sure enough, it was smooth as silk, smooth as peach fuzz. And the trunk was vibrating. That’s when I knew what I’d sort of known all along. The tree was sending out these vibes. Good vibes. Good enough that I kept my hand on the tree’s smooth white trunk for a good long time. I decided then and there that this was The White Tree. With capital letters.

My quiet moment with The White Tree was broken when a dark figure loomed out of the mist. Before I had time to get scared, I recognized Dorian Maxwell. Nothing to be scared about, but just the person to spoil a good moment. Dorian is the stuck-up kid who lives behind me, so stuck-up he won’t go to school like everybody else. He has to have his own teacher just for him. That’s why I hardly knew him and didn’t want to. Seeing Dorian put his prissy paws on the tree was enough to make me head back to the house. But I didn’t. I guess I kind of wanted to know what Dorian, the kid-who-is-so-smart, thought of The White Tree. It seemed to tie up his tongue as much as it did mine. That gave me some satisfaction. The last thing I wanted was some wise crack from a kid like him. Dorian frowned at the tree like he was trying to convince the tree he was so smart that he could figure out what it was and where it came from. His frown made Dorian’s nose more pointed than ever. He had black hair as long as a girl’s. At least it wasn’t as long as his mother’s. She wears hers down to her waist and that makes her look the part of a painter. I don’t mean houses, I mean pictures. I see her a lot working on her canvases in the backyard in warm weather. Just the kind of mother a kid like Dorian would have, and Dorian is the kind of kid his mother would have. Dorian squatted down and looked at the roots. I hadn’t done that. So I looked down, too. The roots were just as smooth and white as the rest of the tree. Dorian stood up and the branch brushed across his cheek just like it did to me. The amazed look on Dorian’s face as he backed away normally usually would have made me laugh, but not this time. Another shadow came out of the mist. It was Kirsten Park, a girl who lives next door. I didn’t know her very well, either. That’s because she’s a girl and a year younger than me. She didn’t look at me or Dorian. She only had eyes for the tree. The lowest branch brushed itself against her cheek just the way it had done with me and Dorian. Being a girl, she loved it. With her cute face and light brown hair she looked like a cat in seventh heaven.

I put both hands on the tree trunk to take in The White Tree’s vibes. Dorian and Kirsten were doing the same, so I didn’t feel too self-conscious about it. The vibes felt good. Good in a way that nothing else had felt good in all my tumbling and turning and twisting life. The vibes felt like music. I wasn’t quite hearing any music; I was just feeling it. It was pretty obvious that Kirsten and Dorian were feeling much the same thing from touching the tree. At least I wasn’t the only freak in my neighborhood.

A funny thought came to me then. This was a rare moment where males had females outnumbered. Kirsten has two sisters older than her. You already know I’ve got two sisters. My mom is a single parent. Dorian is an only child, and his mother is another single parent. The fourth house that’s catty corner to mine has an old witch living in it. Her name is Mrs. O’Mally. How do I know she’s a witch? She’s old and she looks like one. What more proof do you need?

A soft humming was coming from the tree that was starting to sound like music as well as feel like it in my bones. Was this a singing tree? Kirsten and Dorian looked at me strangely. The humming stopped, but I still felt the vibes from inside the tree. I turned every shade of red in the rainbow when I realized that the humming hadn’t come from the tree; it had come from me.

“Kirsten! The Darling Little Girl Express is ready to take you to school!” Kirsten’s dad shouted from the back porch.

That broke the spell. Kirsten’s dad was always spoiling his youngest daughter like this. As for me, I didn’t have a ride to school unless you call the bus a ride. I had to get going if I wasn’t going to be late. Dorian didn’t have to go anywhere, but he turned around and went back into his house anyway.

*****

The vibes I’d felt from the White Tree stuck with me all day while I was at school. I knew they would. I liked that, but it made it hard for me to pay attention in class. Two of my teachers hassled me about that. The only surprising thing was that I didn’t even feel like sassing them for bawling me out. At lunch, my friends were too busy chattering about nothing to notice that I didn’t have much to say. They did notice when I kept missing easy plays during our customary tennis ball hockey game during lunch break and I heard about it big time.

As soon as the bell rang, I was out the door before my friends could recruit me for the afternoon’s mischief. The closer I got to my house, the stronger the tree’s vibrations felt. When I got home, I didn’t even go through the house to pick up some cookies or drop off my backpack because I didn’t want to wait a second longer than I had to before checking up on the White Tree. It was still there! Not only that, but even from the front driveway, I could see it had gotten taller and thicker than it was in the morning. Not that I needed that to convince me that the White Tree was no ordinary tree. Its white trunk and its branches stood out against all the greenery around it. Now its vibrations were overwhelming. As I got closer to the White Tree, I could see that it had pushed our fences back even more to make room for it. Bad for the fences. I was almost in touching distance of the tree when seeing somebody sitting in the White Tree stopped me in my tracks.

I should have known Kirsten would spoil the White Tree for me. If Kirsten hadn’t, Dorian would have. There se was, sitting on a lower limb and humming to herself. I froze with indecision. After looking forward all day to getting back to the White Tree, I didn’t want to walk away from it. But I didn’t want to climb a tree that already had a girl sitting in it. And I didn’t want to just stand there, looking like an idiot. The vibes felt stronger, and they fit the rhythm of the strange tune Kirsten was humming. Then I heard another voice humming. Yikes! That was me! The tree made up my mind for me. One second I was standing on the ground, frozen like an idiot, a second later, I was sitting on another branch of the tree before I even had time to cry out. Kirsten looked at me. I looked away. I didn’t need her gloating at me for getting strung up in a trap she’d set.

“It did that to me, too” she said.

She wasn’t gloating after all. That was an even bigger surprise than getting snatched up into the tree by one of its branches.

“Why would this tree do something like that?” I asked.

That was a stupid question and it made me feel like an idiot. I hate feeling like an idiot in front of a girl.

“I don’t know,” Kirsten answered. “This tree seems to just do what it wants.”

I have it hand it to Kirsten. She’d made me stop feeling like an idiot real fast. Not many kids I knew would have done that.

I looked down and figured I was seven or eight feet above the ground. There was no way I could have climbed up there myself without knowing I had done it. I was high enough to see Ms. Maxwell, Dorian’s mom, slowly moving a brush across a canvas in her back yard. The White Tree’s vibes were working all through my body. They felt good. I maneuvered myself into a comfortable position. I felt so secure I almost didn’t realize how odd it was to feel secure on a branch of a tree. I’m not usually good with heights. Maybe it was the vibes that did it. Kirsten was still wearing her school dress, but that didn’t seem to stop her from sitting comfortably, either. I started humming again. Kirsten was humming, too, so I didn’t feel too stupid about it. Good thing I had the sense not to ask any of my friends to come home and see the White Tree. But then the way they treated me while playing tennis ball hockey didn’t make me want to have any of them over. As I hummed, I moved my hand along the branch that was holding me. When something bumpy stopped my hand, I whisked it away. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there a second ago. It was a little knob sticking out of the branch, just as white as the rest of the White Tree. It looked like a bud, but tree buds are green, not white. It almost looked like a pussy willow, but it wasn’t fuzzy to the touch; it was just soft like the rest of the White Tree’s branch. It felt like a bud getting ready to turn into a leaf. As an experiment, I ran my fingers further along the branch. Nothing. I did it again and hummed along. Bull’s Eye! Another bump. Another bud. If tree buds are ever white, anyway.

“Cool!”

That was Dorian. I already assumed he’d come along and spoil everything, but that didn’t make me less upset when it happened. But before Dorian had a chance to make some remark to make me feel like the dumbest worm that crawled on the earth, he yelped. Score one for the White Tree! A branch caught him and swept him up to about the same level as Kirsten and me. He looked around with the kind of quizzical expression you see on chimpanzees at the zoo. It was nice to see him put in his place for once

“It did that to me, too.”

I said that. I couldn’t believe I’d been as nice to him as Kirsten was to me. That nerdy creep didn’t deserve it. I began to think that the White Tree was making me act out of character in lots of ways.

“Hmm. So I see,” said Dorian.

He made a quick enough recovery to look the part of his usual smart-as-a-professor self again as he looked at the buds on my branch, or whatever they were.

“What are these?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “They look like buds, but they’re white. I haven’t heard of a tree having white buds on it.”

Dorian looked at his own branch and frowned.

“How come I don’t have any?”

“I don’t have any, either,” said Kirsten.

“I’ll show you what to do,” I said.

I wasn’t about to pass up this chance to show off to the showoff. I started to sing again, just daring Dorian to make a wisecrack about it, and ran my fingers further along my branch. Two more buds popped out. That got Dorian’s attention. Kirsten’s, too. I lifted my hand to the branch above me and moved my hands along that branch. This time I just let the White Tree sing through me all it wanted. The White Tree’s song sounded like wind blowing through its branches. It sounded like rain watering its leaves. Sheesh! What is the world coming to? I was singing my head off and now I’m sounding like a poet writing about it. I braced myself for the withering looks I expected from Dorian and Kirsten. But that’s not what I got. Instead, both were looking at me with the most amazed looks on their faces you ever saw.

“I heard a boy sing a solo at a concert last fall,” said Dorian. “He was awfully good, but you take the cake right out of his mouth.”

“I didn’t know boys could sing like that,” said Kirsten.

“Some boys can sing like that,” said Dorian. “I’m not one of them.”

That was one of the most amazing moments in my life, even more amazing than seeing the White Tree pop up behind my house or even getting those white buds to break out by singing. I had never thought that a kid would admit to liking my singing, or the singing of any other boy for that matter. Sheesh! My music teacher at school never said anything about my being any good. You can bet your whole baseball card collection I’d never sing for a talent show there. I wouldn’t be caught dead from a vampire’s bite doing that. I was learning fast that Dorian and Kirsten lived in a different universe than all my classmates and teachers.

“That was the White Tree singing,” I admitted.

“Yes, the White Tree was singing,” said Dorian, “but it was singing through your voice. I’ll bet the tree can’t make my voice sound as good as yours.”

To prove his point, Dorian moved his hands over and under his branch in wavy motions like a comic magician and sang. It wouldn’t be nice of me to tell you what Dorian’s singing sounded like. The tree appreciated his effort, though, and sent out buds where he touched it while he was singing. Kirsten did the same thing to her branch with the same result. She was actually a pretty decent singer. After the performance I’d just put on, I wasn’t about to sit there and just listen to them do all the singing. The White Tree’s vibes were getting pretty insistent about getting on with the job, so I burst out into another song and coaxed more buds to come out further up the tree. Each bud that came out choked me up a little—I was so thrilled by it all—but somehow the White Tree kept me singing smoothly over the lump in my throat just as my hand moved smoothly over the lumps made by the buds.

While this was going on, my eyes strayed over to Mrs. O’Mally’s house. Mrs. O’Mally was sitting in a rocking chair in her back yard, looking at the tree! With her face all wrinkled, rusty white hair thinning, and nose out of joint, I just knew she was a witch. That stopped my singing.

“What’s wrong?” Dorian asked me.

“Just look in the yard next to yours,” I whispered.

Dorian didn’t bother to look.

“That’s Mrs. O’Mally. She really likes this tree. She told me it must come out of a Celtic myth lost in the mists of time.”

That overthrew my universe in lots of ways. To think that Dorian actually knew Mrs. O’Mally and spoke to her when he simply had to know she was a witch was too much for my feeble brain to comprehend.

“Do you think she’s right?” asked Kirsten.

“She’s on the right track,” Dorian replied.

Yikes! Kirsten didn’t seem to know that Mrs. O’Mally was a witch, either. I thought of warning them about her, but I was afraid they wouldn’t listen to me and, besides, Kirsten and Dorian weren’t my friends, so why should I warn them? I thought the wise thing to do was change the subject and let them find out about Mrs. O’Mally for themselves.

“What do you think these bumps are?” I asked. “They look like buds, but I’ve never heard of buds being white before.”

“My current hypothesis is that these are white buds and the White Tree comes from a world where trees have white buds.”

That’s what I mean about Dorian being so smart nobody can stand it.

“I think they’re song buds,” Kirsten suggested.

“Hmm,” Dorian grunted. “Fits the evidence so far.”

“Get down from there! You haven’t finished your math work.”

That was Mr. Keyes, Dorian’s tutor. He’s a washed-up gray-haired man with wire rim glasses. He looks like a scarecrow who wouldn’t dare show his face to a class of real kids like me and my friends. He ‘d sure done a good job of breaking the spell the White Tree had cast on us.

“The White Tree has grown about ten feet since lunch,” Dorian said to his tutor.”And look! White buds are breaking out! How curious!”

Mr. Keyes frowned and tried to put his brains to work.

“Those aren’t buds; they’re just knobs on the branch,” Mr. Keyes scoffed.

“But they look like buds and they feel like buds,” Dorian replied. “Now I know this tree comes from Middle Earth.”

“Don’t confuse science fiction with science,” said Mr. Keyes, sounding like the stuffiest professor in the stuffiest university in the world.

“Don’t confuse science with reality,” Dorian taunted Mr. Keyes.

Score! Maybe Dorian wasn’t so bad after all.

“Are you forgetting your philosophy lesson so quickly?” asked Mr. Keyes.

“No, I’m just taking my philosophy lesson fourteen dimensions and fifteen ontological planes past your comprehension,” Dorian replied.

I was beginning to think that Mr. Keyes would be better off trying to teach a bunch of monsters like me and my friends than having to tangle with Dorian.

“We could send a sample to a lab I know and they’ll tell you what kind of tree this is,” said Mr. Keyes as he reached for a twig on the lowest branch

“Don’t!” Dorian, Kirsten, and I yelled at the same time.

That rang Mr. Keyes’ bell and twisted the rope around his neck. Dorian and Kirsten and I felt pretty rung up ourselves. We’d just made a lot more noise than three kids could have made in an echo chamber.

“I’ll give you a few more minutes recreation break,” said Mr. Keyes, “then I expect you back for your math.”

“You and your expectations,” Dorian muttered.

I think Mr. Keyes heard that as he turned back to the house, but he probably decided he didn’t want to hear what snippy remark he would get from a conceited boy genius like Dorian if he kept the dialogue going.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. I started to feel the tree’s vibes again. So did Dorian and Kirsten. I looked across to Mrs. O’Mally’s yard. Sure enough, she was still sitting in her rocking chair, staring at the tree with the beginnings of a smile on her face that went a long way in making her not look so much like a witch. Maybe Dorian and Kirsten were right about her after all.

I opened my mouth to ask Dorian if he was smarter than his tutor, but instead of the words, more music came out of my mouth. I was singing again! This time the melody the White Tree had me singing twisted and turned in every direction. And it soared. Like way up past the sky. I hadn’t known I could sing so high. Dorian made the motions of playing an invisible violin. Kirsten started to play an invisible piano and I heard more music than my singing could account for. I think that somehow, the White Tree was picking up the music that Dorian and Kirsten were thinking about and producing that sound to back up my singing. It was like I had a little band behind me! Then, as I looked up, I saw something that made me hold a high note for the longest time and then stop.

“Rocking and rolling rollicking racoons!” I cried.

Every last branch, right up to the tippy top, had buds on it. My heart raced for a couple of minutes before the vibes in the tree calmed me down.

“Stop yodeling like a dying turkey!”

Spell shattered. Only my yucky sister, Rachel, would have yelled an insult like that at me.

“Go dive into a crocodile’s throat!” I yelled back at her.

Right when I said that, I slipped about on my branch. Dorian reached out to steady me. For a conceited kid, he was turning out to be nicer than I thought he was.

“I don’t think the White Tree likes that sort of thing,” Dorian whispered to me.

“What would you say to a sister like that if you had one?” I whispered to him.

“I’d have suggested she ride a rhinoceros down the block.”

Dorian’s branch shook just a little. I made sure he didn’t fall off, although I don’t think he was in any danger of that.

“Look at what this tree has done to our garden!”

 That was Miriam, Kirsten’s oldest sister. Rachel’s good friends with her. They deserve each other.

“Oh no! Our flowers are ruined!” cried Penny, Kirsten’s not-as-older sister.

“Kirsten! Tell this tree of yours to get out of our garden!” Miriam demanded.

Looking down, I could see the White Tree’s roots had crawled into the Parks’ flower garden, but none of the flowers looked wrecked to me. Kirsten looked down at the garden, too, and obviously saw the same thing I did. She gave her sisters a look that said they weren’t worth the time of day.

“I will not tell this tree what to do,” said Kirsten, relishing her chance to talk back to her sisters. “Besides, I think all of your flowers are perfectly safe.”

“Sammy, your tree has ruined our fence,” Rachel complained, as if that was all my fault. “You know we don’t have the money to replace it. I hope you weren’t planning on spending your allowance on anything else.”

“You’re not in charge of my allowance,” I reminded my sister.

“That tree is stealing our space,” Penny complained.

“Do you have the deed of sale for this piece of land?” Kirsten asked her.

Penny and Miriam gave Kirsten such withering looks I thought they would fry Kirsten in oil. Seeing her two sisters in action was enough to make me feel sorry for her. First time I’d ever felt sorry for a girl.

“We’ll tell daddy to chop the tree down,” said Miriam. “That will take care of it.”

“Don’t!

All three of us yelled that at exactly the same time. Again. You’d think we had a conductor. This time you could have heard us from a block away. Penny and Miriam twisted their faces so far out of shape that even Mrs. O’Mally could have beaten them at a beauty contest. They walked away without saying another word. Speaking of Mrs. O’Mally, I looked over her way again. I couldn’t help it. She was still rocking away in her chair, and she had the kind of smile a kid gets after putting a nasty person in his or her place as had just happened to Penny and Miriam. I was starting to feel bad about thinking she was a witch.

I turned and looked in the opposite direction, the back of my house, and got startled again. Leah was standing on the back steps looking over at the tree. I wished I knew what she was thinking of her brother.

*****

“Sammy! Dinner!” Leah called out.

It had taken her a while, to call me. I could only hope the tree had more of an effect on her than it did on Rachel. I didn’t want to come to go in for dinner, but it’s hard to ignore Leah when she calls. Besides, Dorian and Kirsten got called to dinner at about the same time. To my surprise, I didn’t really feel like staying in the White Tree all alone. To think I’d been so annoyed with them just a few hours ago for not letting me have the White Tree all to myself!

Dinner was the worst meal I’d ever had, and that’s saying something with the family I’ve got. It wasn’t the food; it was the company. Especially Rachel. You see, with Leah looking up to me the way she does, Rachel is always looking for the chance to turn Leah against me. The White Tree had given her that chance. I can’t stand to write down all the things Rachel said about the tree while I picked at my food so you don’t have to read it. When I tell you that “yucky” was the nicest word she had for the White Tree, you get the idea. What she said about me for climbing up into the White Tree was fifty times worse than what she said about the tree itself. Then Rachel blamed me for letting the White Tree destroy our fence. Mom sighed. She really did have to worry about money, but she seemed to have enough sense not to blame me for what the White Tree did. Then Rachel went on and on about my singing like a maniac and disturbing the whole neighborhood. Before I could say anything about that, Rachel talked about the strange look in my eyes and accused the White Tree of twisting my brain out of shape. I guess she’d forgotten that on my eleventh birthday, she’d announced to the family that my brain had just run away from home because it was unemployed and was seeking work elsewhere. I tried to explain that the White Tree was nice, and that it didn’t even let me say bad things to Rachel when she deserved it. Leah was really listening to me right then, and that got my hopes up. But then I made the mistake of saying the White Tree had good vibes. Leah looked frightened and leaned more in Rachel’s direction. Her worried look hurt me more than Rachel’s barbs. You see, Leah has a face as cute as the light, brown pigtails that hang down her back. Her eyes kind of shine when she’s admiring you. But her eyes weren’t shining with admiration for me right then. Mom tried to be neutral as she always does when my sisters and I have a fight, but I could tell she wasn’t sold on the White Tree.

“I’m not so sure this tree is good for you,” said Mom.

Great way to be neutral.

“You’re listening to Rachel, too much,” I said. “She doesn’t understand the White Tree.”

“I’m not just listening to Rachel,” said Mom. “I’m also paying attention to you. You do have a strange far-away look in your eyes.”

“So? What’s wrong with a far away look?” I asked. “Somebody has to take the long view of things.”

“The trouble with looking far away, is that it is making you a very bad dinner companion to your sisters and your mother.”

“I’d be a perfectly fine dinner companion to all of you if you’d stop trashing this really neat tree and stop trashing me for appreciating its worth.”

I tried again to tell my sisters and mom that the tree was all right, that it was really cool, but I ended up singing the way I sang in the tree to get the buds to come out. Leah took cover in Rachel’s arms.

“Sammy! What’s wrong with you?” asked my mother.

Obviously, my mother thought I was going crazy. I’d never sung before; why should I start singing now just because a White Tree had come along in our backyard?

“Do you think I’m going crazy just because I started singing all of a sudden?” I asked. “Don’t you like my singing? Don’t you like music?”

“Well—I just don’t know what to make of it,” was my mom’s feeble response.

“I know what to make of it,” said Rachel.

I didn’t want to hear what Rachel knew to make of it, and I wasn’t going to. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do more than run back out to the White Tree and sit up in its branches, but I knew I couldn’t get away with doing it right then. So I ran up to my room instead. I’d even given up my dessert to get away from everybody. Once I got to my room, the problem was what to do there. I played a couple of computer games, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had homework to do, so I decided to at least try to get that done. It was hard to settle down and concentrate on it because the White Tree’s vibes kept distracting me. Finally, I asked the White Tree to let me do my homework so I wouldn’t get in trouble at school. After that, the vibes let up just enough to let me work, but they kept on going strong enough that I could stand doing my homework. Right when I was in the middle of a math problem, there was a soft knock on the door.

“Keep out!” I yelled.

But when I heard a whimper behind my door, I lunged at the knob and opened it. I can’t stand to have Leah crying without trying to make it better. She was already starting to turn away, but reversed her field when I opened the door and shuffled into my room. I sat at my desk and waited for Leah to sit on my bed and to say something. It was obvious she was bothered by our conversation at dinner, and she wanted to do something to make things better between us, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

“You aren’t really going crazy, are you?” Leah asked me.

“What do you think?”

Leah looked into my eyes for quite a long time. For a little kid of nine, she could really make you squirm when she did that.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” said Leah. “But if you aren’t crazy, then that White Tree isn’t as yucky as Rachel says it is.”

I heard the capital letters in her voice. That raised my spirits a lot. Leah was getting hooked by the White Tree.

“What were you thinking when you stood on the back steps this afternoon, looking at the tree before you called me to dinner?” I asked her.

Leah leaned her back against the wall for a moment, then said, “I was scared.”

My insides caved in.

“But I wanted to listen to that singing forever,” she added.

My insides caved back out again.

“Do you think you would like to sit up in the White Tree with me tomorrow?” I asked her.

Leah edged back into the doorway.

“Maybe. Do you want me to?”

Good question. I was amazed that I’d asked it. I never asked her to come along when I was out doing something with my friends from school.

“Sure,” I said.

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”

With that, Leah left the room and I got back to my homework.

*****

When I finished my homework, I turned off the lights, and sat in front of my window to look out at the White Tree while it sang to me. The next thing I knew, I was looking at the White Tree from the back steps at the crack of dawn. What I saw pushed me up against the house. The White Tree, looking all the more like a ghost in the dawn’s early light, to quote our National Anthem, was quite a bit taller than the night before. And thicker. I didn’t remember seeing the White Tree grow or expand while I looked at it from my window during the night. It must have grown and expanded after I’d fallen asleep. Assuming I had fallen asleep. I was so scared I wanted to run back inside, but, scared or not, I wouldn’t have torn myself away from the White Tree for the world. After the way Rachel trashed the tree last night at dinner, I wasn’t about to admit she was right when I knew she was as wrong as a four dollar bill and a pig flying over the moon. Next thing I knew, my body was gently pressing itself against the trunk of the White Tree. The vibes hummed through my body and I was humming softly to them. The lowest branch was just out of my reach. I wasn’t going to be able sit up in the tree this time unless the tree put me there. It did. I had to catch my breath after getting swept up so high so suddenly. Kirsten and Dorian were also sitting up in the tree. They nodded to me. I nodded back. I was surprised with how comfortable I felt up in the White Tree. I still don’t know how the White Tree could support my back and bottom so firmly that I felt I was sitting on the floor of my room with my back against a wall.

“Did your sisters ask your papa to—to do what they said they were going to ask him to do?” Dorian asked Kirsten.

“They did,” Kirsten replied, her lips tight. “But Daddy always does what I want. I told him I like the White Tree. End of conversation. Too bad for Miriam and Penny.”

“Rachel doesn’t like it either,” I said. “She didn’t say anything about having it cut down, but she probably will by dinnertime tonight. Poor Leah doesn’t know what to think about it.”

I choked a bit as I said that. I really wanted her to like the White Tree as much as I did.

“What about your mother?” Kirsten asked Dorian.

“She’s a tree hugger,” Dorian answered. “She doesn’t want anybody cutting down any trees for any reason. She won’t use any paper that isn’t recycled.”

“Then she’ll keep it safe,” said Kirsten.

“I wonder what Mrs. O’Mally thinks of the tree,” I said.

I looked over to her house. She wasn’t on her porch. I didn’t see any lights on. She probably wasn’t up yet.

*****

“I hear you’ve got a freaky tree in your back yard,” said Mike from across the lunch table.

I almost choked on my chocolate milk. Mike was one of my friends. Was. His words rubbed against the White Tree’s vibes the wrong way. Those vibes had been a kind of background music all morning. I tore off the end of my hot dog bun and dipped it in ketchup to make it ready for throwing at somebody. Preferably a girl. That’s what my friends and I did during lunch when we caught the teacher on lunch duty looking at somebody else besides us. Starting a food fight would be a good way to keep my friends, or ex-friends, from ganging up on me about the White Tree. But I dropped the soaked piece of hot dog bun back on the wrapper and shrugged my shoulders. I’d suddenly realized that it was my thought of starting a food fight that rubbed the wrong way against the White Tree’s music. Let this be a lesson to you: If you want to go through life solving your problems by starting food fights, stay well clear of anything like the White Tree.

“You heard wrong about the tree,” I said to Mike, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s a perfectly nice White Tree.”

“Penny says it looks like an albino squid,” said Bart. “It has tentacles instead of branches.”

One more ex-friend.

“Since when do you talk to a girl and listen to her?” I asked.

That rubbed the wrong way against the White Tree’s music, too.

“Penny says you were talking to her sister, Kirsten,” said Bart. “In case you didn’t notice, Kirsten is a girl, and a little squirt at that.”

I cursed my stupidity for setting myself up for that. But then I deserved it for putting down girls just for being girls.

“That proves that the albino squid sucked Sammy’s brains out to get him to sit in the tree with Kirsten and the all-time greatest nerd, Dorian!!” said Mike.

“What’s wrong with a white tree with squid tentacles that are reaching out for your neck?” I asked.

“Penny says she heard you singing,” Bart accused me.

“What’s wrong with singing?” I asked.

“Need you ask?”

Jason sat down next to me. I knew what was coming next, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“Hey Jason!” said Bart, “Did you hear that Sammy has an albino squid growing in his back yard that looks like a tree? It sucked Sammy’s brains out him and all he can do is sing all day!”

“Cool!” Jason exclaimed. “How about a song about the albino squid from the Planet Zandoom, the vanguard of a mass invasion of Planet Earth to take over every square inch of our planet and squeeze out everybody’s guts to feed their gorges to make them grow bigger and fatter so they can. . .”

One more ex-friend.

“I’ll bet this albino squid disguised like a tree has teeth all up and down its digestive tract inside its trunk that slowly cuts its victims into pieces over the next year,” Bart suggested.

And then, to top it off, Stewart had to sit down on the other side of me. This was getting unbearable. Stewart was the friend I least wanted to lose.

“Hey Steward!” Jason called out. “Sammy’s got a tree from the Planet Zandoom in his backyard that makes Sammy sing like an squid snatching its victim with its tentacles and stuffing its dinner down its tooth-lined throat inside its trunk.”

“Cool!” said Steward.

I knew it. Four ex-friends in one day. Meanwhile, by looking a few tables over from me, I saw Penny and bunch of other girls reducing Kirsten to tears. Need I say more about my day at school?

*****

I was way out of breath by the time I got to my back yard from running home from school. Not only did the White Tree’s vibes make me feel like singing, the White Tree itself was singing. The music calmed me down and I almost didn’t mind having lost all my friends. Wait, that wasn’t true. Dorian and Kirsten were friends now because of the White Tree. The White Tree’s singing sounded like the most awesome band in the world. I was already singing madly like the lead vocalist in a rock band by the time I made a running leap at the tree, but then I broke off into a scream when a branch caught me.

I had to catch my breath all over again and wait for the dizziness to go away before I could start singing again. The tree didn’t stop singing tough. The music kept right on going with its weird melody and odd-sounding chords. When my head cleared, I was in for another shock. Dorian was playing a violin and Kirsten was playing on an electronic keyboard. I’d forgotten how many times I’d heard Dorian screeching away on his violin while goofing off in the back yard. Another reason I thought we could never be friends. I’d also heard one of the Park girls play the piano, but who pays attention to girls? Now I know it was Kirsten. When Dorian and Kirsten saw me, they stopped playing their instruments, but the White Tree’s vibes still buzzed loudly in my ears with a kind of tinkly far-off kind of sound.

“I wish I could have brought our grand piano up here,” said Kirsten, “but I’m getting sounds out of this I’ve never gotten before.”

“Violin’s a lot more portable,” said Dorian, “but my teacher’s head will break through a dozen ceilings if she finds out I carried it up here.”

Now that the White Tree had grown this tall, a lot taller than it was in the morning, we had quite a broad view. I decided we had to submit the White Tree to the Guinness Book of Records for fastest growing tree in the universe. The four fences that used to meet at the corner were totally and completely demolished and decimated. If Rachel ever talked Mom into taking the damage to our fence out of my allowance, I wouldn’t have enough money to buy even one baseball card for at least five years. Dorian’s his mom was there at her easel again in her back yard. If ever she was painting the White Tree, it would be awesome. When I looked down at Mrs. O’Mally’s backyard, I found out where the tinkling sound was coming from. Mrs. O’Mally was sitting in a lounge chair in her back yard with a walker next to it. On her lap, was a small harp that she was playing like a real pro. Just then, Mrs. O’Mally stopped playing. From my distance, I couldn’t see all that clearly, but she kind of looked like a little girl watching other kids play and wishing she could join in. I felt sorry that she was too old to climb the tree. I felt even sorrier that I’d thought she was a witch just because she’s old. Mrs. O’Mally pulled herself out of her rocking chair and grabbed the walker just in time to keep from falling. Now comes the really amazing part. Mrs. O’Mally tried to push her walker over the grass with one hand while holding the harp in the other.

“What’s she trying to do?” I asked.

“I think she wants to join us,” said Kirsten.

“Helen!” Dorian cried out to her. “Let me get you!”

But it was too late. I’m sure you know as well as I do that you can’t push a walker across a lawn one-handed and carry a harp with the other and get very far. Mrs. O’Mally was flat on her face by the time those words had gotten out of Dorian’s mouth. Then things really got amazing. The branch of the White Tree Dorian was sitting on stretched out like a rubber arm and wrapped itself around Mrs. O’Mally with Dorian riding the branch! Kirsten and I both held our breaths while Dorian took Mrs. O’Mally by the hand and assisted her on to the branch. The branch brought up Mrs. O’Mally a lot slower than it did a kid like me. That’s the kind of thing that convinced me that the White Tree really knew what it was doing, and it wasn’t just a tree.

“Ouf! Good gracious me! Angels and saints in Heaven protect us!” Mrs. O’Mally cried.

“The angels and saints have protected you all this time, Helen,” said Dorian. “I don’t think they’ll let you down now.”

“They’d better not,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

I learned three new things right there. One: Dorian was already on a first-name basis with a woman I thought was an old witch. Two: Dorian seemed to believe in angels and saints. Who would have thought that a smart-head like him would? Three: I wouldn’t want to be an angel or saint who had to face Mrs. O’Mally after letting her down.

“Sammy,” said Mrs. O’Mally, “you have a nice voice.”

That gave me that prickly feeling you get when an old woman embarrasses you with a compliment that none of your friends would approve of. But then I’d already lost all the friends I had who would not have approved of that compliment.

“I think it’s the White Tree,” I said.

“It’s both,” said Dorian. “I can’t sing the White Tree’s song very well because I don’t have the voice for it, but I can play the White Tree’s music on my violin because I know how to play that.”

“My singing voice isn’t what it used to be thirty years ago,” Mrs. O’Mally admitted, “but not even my arthritis can keep me from playing my harp.”

To prove her point, Mrs. O’Mally started to play a jaunty weird-sounding tune on her harp. Kirsten joined in with some off-beat chords on her keyboard. The White Tree made the keyboard sound something like a piano, a vibraphone, and a marimba all rolled into one, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, keep trying to stretch your ear. I was singing before I knew it, and Dorian was playing another tune on his violin as weird as the one I was singing. I sang like a kid possessed. I was a kid possessed. I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t care. I was still singing without any words, but I kind of had the feeling I was singing a song about something growing, about sap flowing up a tree and spurting out like a fountain on the tree’s branches. There I go again, almost writing like a poet. My English teacher should see me now! (Maybe she’d better not!) If you think this story can’t get more weird than this, think again. I lost all track of time as the musical mayhem got crazier and crazier until the music suddenly stopped flowing through me. The same thing must have happened to Kirsten and Dorian, because they stopped playing our instruments, the split second I stopped singing. I looked at the branches around and above me, and my mouth popped wide open. I didn’t have to look at any of my new friends to know that their mouths were as wide open as mine. What I had sung about and Dorian and Kirsten had played about had come true! All of the white buds had opened up into full-fledged white leaves! Yes, white leaves! Leaves that looked like green leaves covered with snow, only this was the middle of May and there wasn’t any snow and the leaves weren’t covered by anything. They really were white! I touched a leaf. It felt like a leaf, a leaf filled with the White Tree’s electric vibes. Not a flake of snow on it. I’m not good at recognizing the difference between one leaf and another except for a few like the maple, so I didn’t know if the leaves were in the shape of a tree known to science or not. Each leaf had four rounded sections, sort of like a four-leaf clover. Another sign that the White Tree was good luck.

“Cool!”

Spell broken. Everything spoiled. I didn’t have to look down to know that it was my ex-friend Stewart. Sure enough, there he was, looking up at us with his handsome face framed by his blond hair that already has the girls chasing him.

“Now that you’ve had a good look at our white squid tree, you can go home,” I said to Stewart.

To my surprise, Stewart looked really hurt that I’d said that. But what did he expect after mocking me the way he did at lunch? But I was in for a big surprise—a real shocker. Suddenly, Stewart’s hurt and mocking face wasn’t down below, looking up at me. Just as suddenly, Stewart’s astonished face was looking straight across from me from another branch of the White Tree.

“Cool as a penguin sliding down a glacier!” Stewart cried out.

I didn’t know he was as good at making up exclamations as I was.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked Stewart.

“I don’t know, I just got here,” said Stewart. “Sorry I can’t sing like you. Good thing I’ve got my saxophone.”

Stewart had such an armful with his school books along with his saxophone case that it didn’t seem possible that he could have gotten up in the White Tree, but he had. He opened his case, took out the pieces of his saxophone, and started to screw them together.

“You liked the music, even my singing?” I asked, more shocked about that than anything the White Tree had done.

“Yea,” said Stewart. “Anything wrong with that?”

“No,” I answered. “I’m sorry about being an ass.”

“Me too,” said Stewart.

“Dorian! Now what are you doing up there?”

Spell broken again. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that was Mr. Keyes trying to get Dorian back to his lessons. School ought to be out for him when it’s out for us, for crying out loud.

“I am contemplating the mysteries of this tree and the properties of the mystical world from which it comes,” Dorian explained to his tutor. “The white buds have just broken out into white leaves. That proves that this is a White Tree and not a giant white mushroom. Your hypothesis has been confounded.”

Mr. Keyes made a sour face. He deserved to be sentenced by some judge to sucking a sour lemon for the rest of his life.

“Dorian, you know enough botany to know a tree doesn’t mushroom out of the ground the way this thing did. You also know that a real leaf has to be green because it has to have hemoglobin in it to do the things a leaf is made to do. Therefore, you are sitting in a giant fungus that may or may not be poisonous.”

“There it is!”

Spell totally shattered. That was Penny. She and Miriam had come with an army of their friends, including both my sisters, my three ex-friends, and three or four other boys my ex-friends had recruited. They’d formed a semi-circle around the White Tree in my back yard and Kirsten’s and my ex-friends had that look they get when they’re about to gang up on somebody. Usually I was with them and I had that same look, but now I was one of the victims along with the White Tree. I was really glad the White Tree had gotten so tall there was no way any of these guys were going to be able to climb up and give me or my friends any trouble.

“Gross!”

“Eeeeeew!”

“You call that a tree?”

“It’s the White Slime!”

“It’s a fungus, not a tree!” Mr. Keyes insisted.

“It’s an attack mushroom!”

“Watch those tentacles! They’ll grab you and crush your bones to dust!”

“Don’t get too close! The giant albino squid will squeeze your lungs to death and make you sing like a frog in a meat grinder!”

I trust you don’t need any more samples of the insults the kids hurled at the White Tree.

“Help! The giant albino squid bit my hand!”

My ex-friend Jason ran the length of the Park’s backyard before he got brave enough to circle back very carefully, sucking his fingers. Now he and my ex-friend’s looked like they were in full attack mode.

“Sammy’s betrayed us all to that squid fungus that’s going to spread over the whole planet!” Rachel shouted.

I didn’t mind Rachel’s insult; what else can you expect from her? But seeing Leah standing right next to her was enough to make my heart snap like a broken twig. How’s that for poetry? Only then did I realize that I’d been so anxious to get to the White Tree that I hadn’t stopped to see if Leah had gotten home and ask if she wanted to come to the White Tree with me. She had that betrayed-by-my-brother look all over her face. I deserved to lose her for that.

I didn’t know what to do, but Mrs. O’Mally did. She started playing her harp again. Then Kirsten played a gentle set of chords that kind of went with what Mrs. O’Mally was playing on her harp. Dorian and Stewart each played a melody more weird than anything the tree had made us play so far. Another weird high-pitched melody wove itself into the other two melodies. (I don’t know why I keep sounding poetic like this!) It took me a while to realize the third melody was coming from my own voice. The melodies twisted and turned until I felt the music was tying me up in knots. A lot of the kids gathered against the White Tree clapped their hands over their ears and yelled some words kids not fit to listen to. It was pandemonium. Or so I thought. I was about to find out I didn’t know yet what pandemonium really is.

One kid screamed. Then another. They had cause to scream. The White Tree was living up to its reputation of being an attack albino squid disguised as a tree. The tree’s branches flew out like so many tentacles. As the kids ran away screaming, one branch slithered up Jason’s neck. Now I’m ashamed to write this, but it’s only fair that I admit it. After all, I’ve been bragging about how good I must have been to get the White Tree to like me so much. For a very nasty moment, I gloated about how the branch was about to wrap itself around Jason and sink its suction cups squid-style right into his neck, and then—well, you get the idea. I even stopped singing for a moment, I was gloating so much. Then I almost lost my balance high up in the tree. I knew right away it was my gloating about Jason getting tortured that had done it. That made it loud and clear that the White Tree was awfully strict about nasty thoughts, even if it was about people to have nasty things happen to them. You can bet your favorite pet turtle I got back to singing faster than I could grab the White Tree’s trunk to steady myself. Now, I can be a little more proud of what I have to say next. When the branch slipped past Jason, I felt the White Tree’s disappointed groan when Jason outran the branch in his fright.

Right after that, I felt the White Tree’s happiness when a branch wrapped itself around a girl who’d come along with Penny and Miriam and brought her up into the White Tree with us. I sang a song of welcome to her that relaxed her a bit, I think. She was kind of startled, if not scared. The girl was Linda Connell. I didn’t know her well, but I’d always thought she was pretty decent for a girl. As soon as Linda got placed up above me, another branch set Linda’s best friend, Mary Tugwell, down next to her. You should have seen Penny Park’s face when she saw that, and you should have heard what she yelled at the two girls for betraying her! Actually, you should not have heard what she yelled up at them, and I’m not about to tell you. That’s when I caught on that the White Tree wasn’t attacking anybody, not even Jason. The White Tree was folding its branches around everybody and gathering them up to itself. One more kid got caught by one of the White Tree’s branches and got gently carried up to the rest of us. Of all kids, it was Ricky Morales, a whiny squirt if there ever was one. But I wasn’t about the question the White Tree’s choices. Not when I remembered that it had chosen me, of all kids.

“We’ll get this tree chopped down and ground into sawdust!” Mike yelled up at us at the top of his lungs.

“We’ll chop off every tentacle on its slimy body and feed them to the polar bears in the zoo!”

I don’t know who yelled that and I don’t care. Everybody who had rejected the White Tree had run far enough away to get out of range of what they thought was a slimy beast with tentacles. With all the movies out about monsters like giant squids invading our planet to destroy it, what do you expect? Wait! I take that back. One girl was still standing in the middle of my backyard. It was Leah. I felt like holding my breath, afraid to do anything that might scare her away. But the White Tree pushed its welcoming song out of my throat and I sang it like I’d never sung anything before. I sang solo. This was my song for my sister. A branch, filled with the song moved slowly toward Leah. Leah stood as still as a statue. I didn’t know if she was frozen with fright or was waiting for the branch to take her, or both. The branch gently wrapped itself around Leah’s waist. Yes! Leah melted and hugged the branch the way she hugs her stuffed walrus. And then: Yes! Leah floated up in the air with a squeal of delight like what she makes when I twirl her around. She settled next to me on the branch I was sitting on and gave me a quick hug that would have embarrassed the daylights out of me any other time. I gave her a quick hug in return without even blushing.

“Now do you think I’m crazy?” I couldn’t resist asking Leah.

Leah gave me that look of hers that she gives me when I ask her a stupid question.

“Only a crazy brother asks a crazy question,” she answered with that superior air she’s got when she knows she’s better than me.

“What—kind of—of tree is this?” asked a pretty scared Ricky Morales.

He was pressing his back up against the trunk, every muscle in his body rigid. I didn’t blame him for being scared.

“We don’t know very much about this tree,” said Dorian. “I’m not even sure this tree comes from our own universe. In fact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”

Ricky’s eyes just about popped out of his head, and Linda and Mary scrunched a little closer to each other.

“All I can say is that this Tree is the coolest thing I’ve seen in my life,” said Stewart. “I’ll bet you my favorite model submarine that if you relax just a little, you’ll want to stay up here for the rest of your life.”

“Will the tree—put me down if I want it to?” asked Ricky, still as stiff as a blackboard.

“I’m sure it will,” I said. “I’m sure the White Tree wouldn’t have picked you up in the first place if it didn’t think you wanted it to come up here.”

“But I didn’t want to come up here?” Ricky protested.

“Ricky,” said Mrs. O’Mally, “Just relax a minute. Sometimes I find out I wanted something but didn’t even know it because I just didn’t know better. Take a bit of time to see if that’s what’s happened to you. Then, if you really want the White Tree to take you back down, I’m sure it will do it—gently.”

Ricky thought for a minute. Linda and Mary were listening intently to everything we were saying, and they did some thinking, too.

“Does this tree feel good to you in any way?” Dorian asked Ricky and the two girls. “Do you feel its vibrations? Did you like the music we were making?”

“I like it here,” said Linda.

“Me, too,” said Mary.

“I guess it’s okay,” Ricky admitted.

Now he was looking more scared of admitting he liked the White Tree after he’d joined a gang of kids to attack it then he was of the White Tree itself.

“I’ve never seen anything like this White Tree in all my born days,” said Mrs. O’Mally, “and I’ve seen more born days than all of you kids put together. I don’t know where this tree comes from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes from a world that the Celtic peoples know how to tune into.”

“That leaves me out,” said Ricky, his face falling. “I’m not Irish.”

True enough, Ricky looked as un-Irish as you’d expect a boy named Morales to look. Dark skin. Thick black hair. Brown eyes. I could see that Mrs. O’Mally was already feeling bad for saying what she had just said.

“I should know better than to exult my own Celtic heritage when I know that this tree is reaching out to everybody who appreciates its song,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

“This tree even accepted my brother,” said Leah. “Any tree that will accept a kid like Sammy will accept a kid like you.”

I could have said something about any tree that would accept a girl like Leah, but I knew the White Tree wouldn’t like that, so I didn’t say anything. Besides, Leah had that smile of hers that undercuts her insulting words.

“Do you feel comfortable now that you’ve been here for a while?” Dorian asked Ricky.

“I guess so,” Ricky replied in a soft voice.

“I do,” said Mary Tugwell.

“Me too,” said Linda Connell.

Ricky eyed Kirsten’s keyboard, Mrs. O’Mally’s harp & Dorian’s violin uneasily.

“Do I have to make music or something to stay here?” he asked.

“I don’t think this tree has rules like that,” said Dorian. “Do you feel like doing anything musical?”

Ricky tightened up for a second, then relaxed and thought for a minute. He tapped on the branch he was sitting on a couple of times. The deep sound he got almost knocked him over.

“Sounds good,” Mrs. O’Mally encouraged Ricky. “Keep going.”

Ricky made a few more hesitant taps and got the same rich sound. Then he tapped a little more until he’d established a rhythm the rest of us could work with.

“We needed a drummer,” said Stewart.

Ricky smiled uneasily, but he was starting to relax a bit more. Kirsten and Mrs. O’Mally picked at their instruments, and next thing we knew, we had another jam session going. Once again, I was off and running with my newly-discovered singing voice. Linda and Mary looked at us and at each other, trying to figure out what they could do. I didn’t have any suggestions. They didn’t need any. They started singing a backup vocal to me that sounded pretty good. Kirsten sang with them to encourage them. Getting even more into the act, Mary and Linda snapped their fingers and clapped their hands in rhythm to Ricky’s drumming. Leah doesn’t play an instrument yet except for her voice. She uses that all the time. She made a little trumpet out of her hands and trumpeted a tune. Even with all our extra players, our music didn’t seem as loud as it did before when all those kids had come to insult the White Tree. This time, we were making nice, gentle, music. That’s saying something, coming from a kid who thought all music had to be loud enough to break your eardrums to be any good until the White Tree came into my life.

By this time, I was pretty well expecting this more-wild-than-ever music-making up in the boughs of the White Tree to bring about something out of this and every other world and off every wall. But expecting that didn’t keep the next trick the White Tree pulled off from sending chills colder than the ice at the North Pole all up and down my spine and sinking everything I ever believed about the universe. The larger branches started to—they started to branch out. Duh! What else are branches for? But their branching out got really crazy. Whole slews of thin branches wove in and out of each other above and under and around each other. And when I say slews of branches, I mean slews of branches. What is a slew anyway? And what are lots of slews? Well, it takes more branches than even a mathematician can count to make up one slew. That means that lots of slews are more than even a computer can count. It kind of tickled when some branches slid under the seat of my pants, but the White Tree’s vibes felt so good I didn’t mind it. The White Tree’s branches danced with graceful movements to the music like a ballet in the sky as they wove into and out of each other. Here I go again, writing like a poet! And I haven’t even gone to a ballet in my life. I don’t want to, either. Well, maybe I would like going to a ballet if it was as beautiful as the White Tree’s branches wrapping themselves around each other like lovers. Sheesh! Now this White Tree even has me believing in love! What next?

What was the White Tree doing? Good question. It was pretty scary to see the branches starting to look like a super spider web that would trap our wild musical group forever. But the music we played and sang sounded and felt so right that I was willing to give the White Tree the benefit of the doubt. I could tell just from looking at everybody else up in the White Tree with me that all of us felt roughly the same way. At any rate, none of us stopped making music and the White Tree didn’t stop its new piece of work. Finally, the magic moment came when I realized that What the White Tree’s branches were weaving walls decorated with white leave around us, a roof over us, and a floor under us, a floor so soft we felt we were floating. The White Tree had made a tree house for us, complete with large open-air windows! It was sort of like sitting in a huge wicker basket. Once the tree house was finished, our music faded out and we savored the White Tree’s work.

“Wow! Our own tree fort!” Ricky gasped.

“Do you like the White Tree, now?” Dorian asked him.

“Yea—like—it’s the coolest thing ever!”

“Do you think it’s as cool as a penguin sliding down a glacier into the Arctic ocean and swimming to an iceberg?” Stewart asked.

“No!” Ricky crowed. “It’s a hundred degrees cooler than that!”

That gave us all a good laugh. It also gave me a chance to look out and down. The sun’s slant told me it was getting close to dinnertime. I didn’t want to think about that. Not when it meant Mom was coming home unless she had to work late. Even less did I want to think about the small groups of people gathering in front of my house and the Park’s house to look at the White Tree. This time, it wasn’t just kids; there were a lot of grownups. I guess a lot of them were curious. After all, it isn’t every day that a humongous White Tree grows up in your neighborhood. Several of these people were talking on their cell phones. That was sure to increase the number of people gawking at the White Tree before much longer. Mike and Jason and some of the other kids who’d hassled us before had come back with their parents and their parents were either talking to other people who had come along or were calling somebody on a cell phone. That spelled trouble.

“You don’t think they can get the City to chop down this tree, do you?” Stewart asked.

“Not if any of the property owners refuse to ask for it,” said Mrs. O’Mally, “and I will ask them not to chop this tree down. In fact, I will demand that they refrain from chopping down the White Tree. I’ll call the Governor if I have to if that’s what it takes to stop them.”

Good old Mrs. O’Mally. That clinched it. She’s not a witch at all, no matter what she looks like, unless someone threatens to chop down the White Tree without her permission.

“What about your father?” I asked Kirsten.

“I don’t think he’ll ask the City to do it as long as I don’t want him to, no matter how much noise my sisters make,” Kirsten answered, “but if the City tells him the tree’s got to go, the only chance of saving the White Tree would be for me to throw a super tantrum that makes him more afraid of me than the police.”

“And you said your mother’s a tree-hugger, right?” I asked Dorian.

“Yea,” said Dorian, “but Mr. Keyes is trying to convince her this is a humongous fungus plant. Mom’s not a fungus-hugger. She won’t mind cutting down a prodigious mushroom.”

“What about your Mom?” Kirsten asked me.

I didn’t want to think about that.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“We’ll gain up on her and Rachel,” said Leah. “Mommy won’t fight against both of us.”

Now you know how important it is to have Leah on your side. There was just one problem.

“Yea, but Rachel will take both of us on with brass knuckles.”

“Bet she can’t get up here to do that,” Leah giggled.

“Dorian! Want to come down for supper?” Dorian’s mom called up, still wearing her paint-splattered smock.

“Can you bring it up here?” Dorian asked. “The view’s great!”

Ms. Maxwell looked up with a puzzled frown.

“I’m not a twelve-year-old who can shinny up any tree, you know.”

“You don’t have to be!” Mrs. O’Mally called out. “Just fill a picnic basket and come back here. The White Tree will bring you up. Counting yourself, you’ll need enough for eight. I’ve got lots of nice things in my kitchen you can bring. Just help yourself.”

*****

“Dorian! What will Ms. Pentovsky say if she finds out you took your violin up this tree?” Ms. Maxwell asked when, true to Mrs. O’Mally’s word, the tree brought her up to us, overflowing picnic basket and all.

“I suppose she’d use every swear word in the Polish language to say it,” Dorian replied.

Ms. Maxwell threw back her head and laughed her head off. What a cool mother! She opened the picnic basket and all sorts of cold cuts tumbled out along with a huge jar of peanut butter and several jars of fruit preserves. There were at least three kinds of spicy mustard (I tried them all), soda drinks, and an apple caramel pie that Ms. Maxwell found in Mrs. O’Mally’s kitchen.

“Now what to you think about what Mr. Keyes thinks about the White Tree?” Dorian asked his mom.

Ms. Maxwell laughed again, louder and longer than the first time.

“I knew Stanley Keyes was wrong about the White Tree as soon as I got the itch to paint it. No fungus in the world will make me do that. It takes a tree to make me get out my brushes and paints.”

“I can hardly wait until I see your painting when it’s done,” said Leah.

“Me neither,” said Ms. Maxwell,

The tree hummed along as we talked excitedly about staying up in the White Tree House for the rest of our lives and making tons of money off the CDs we could make from singing and playing The White Tree’s music. I was already forgetting how most people, including me, don’t like music unless it was so loud you didn’t notice if there wasn’t anything else to it. As we talked, our instruments made faint sounds even when nobody was touching them. The tinkling of the harp, the soft chords floating out of the keyboard, and the high, soft notes from the violin and saxophone sounded like music for friendly ghosts. What’s more weird, the more we talked, the more we sounded like we were singing to each other. Sort of like an opera, but this was an opera where you didn’t have to sit in a theater and listen to boring music sung in a language nobody understands. It was more like talking in song.

“This is the best-tasting good I’ve ever had!” Ricky exclaimed.

“I think the White Tree makes it taste better than ever, somehow,” said Stewart.

“It seems like the White Tree can do anything,” said Dorian.

“I wonder how it does it?” I asked.

Pause.

“It?” Kirsten asked.

Another pause. Then I understood the question.

“It does funny to call the White Tree ‘it.’” I said, “but do you think the White Tree is a ‘he’ or a she?’”

Yet another pause.

“I don’t know,” Kirsten admitted.

“The White Tree is very personal, do question about it,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

“Somehow, I think calling the White Tree a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ or an ‘it’ is too limiting,” said Dorian.

“I guess we don’t know what the White Tree is,” said Kirsten.

“That’s okay with me,” said Ms. Maxwell.

“Let’s just say that the White Tree is what the White Tree is,” suggested Stewart.

I still don’t know what the White Tree is, and I feel funny using the word “it,” but I don’t know what else to do. I hope you realize that I don’t mean much by that word. As we talked about the White Tree, I became more aware of how I was hearing the capital letters in everybody’s voices, and how we kept calling it the White Tree and not just “the tree.”

“Mother! Where are you?”

That was the beginning of the end. I should have known that the rest of the world wouldn’t let us get away with enjoying the great and wonderful White Tree. Actually, I did know it after seeing the people who were gathering in the area, but I was trying to forget it. I knew that Mrs. O’Mally was the only one among us who could have a grownup son, so I assumed she was the mother being called by a tall gray-haired man dressed in a business suit who was standing in his mother’s backyard, calling up to her. A bright, shiny yellow Aston Martin stood in the driveway. That made my mouth water and made me really wish I was five years older and a lot richer and could go out and buy one for myself. With Mrs. O’Mally’s walker lying in the middle of the lawn and no Mrs. O’Mally in sight, I couldn’t blame her son for being upset and worried about his mother.

“I’m up here, Peter!” Mrs. O’Mally sang out. “Want to join us?”

The split second Peter O’Mally saw where his mother was, he looked like he was having thirty heart attacks and twenty strokes all at once. He threw off his suit coat and took a running jump at the tree. Peter was a pretty athletic man, but I knew the White Tree wasn’t about to let anybody climb who didn’t appreciate it. Sure enough, Peter O’Mally slipped and slid back down the White Tree’s trunk every time he made a go of it.

“Peter,” said his mother in the kind of motherly tone that’s sure to make any grown man sick, “if you would just relax and not worry about me, the White Tree would take you up here and we could have a lovely time together.”

“Have you gone totally senile since I saw you last?” Peter asked his mother.

“Not that I know of.”

This discussion got crazier the longer it went on, and Peter’s attempts to climb to tree and retrieve his aging parent got more pathetic. He yelled all sorts of things at his mother that my mother would slap me for saying but that didn’t do him any good. Pretty soon the rest of us were in stitches. Too bad Peter was too upset to enjoy his own comic routine. Finally, Peter gave up and threatened to get the police. Mrs. O’Mally shook her head as her son headed back to his car and drove off.

“I love him dearly,” she said, “but sometimes he just doesn’t get it.”

“Kirsten Darling! Come down from there before you get hurt!” cried Mr. Park. Who else would call Kirsten “darling” and sound so frantic?

Nothing like getting another threat as soon as the last one is over. Kirsten’s mom and her horrible sisters were standing next to him and they didn’t look like happy campers.

“Daddy!” Kirsten yelled back, “the White Tree is the best tree in the world. It won’t hurt me in a million years! Why don’t you come on up?”

“Rachel and Penny told me the tree kidnaped you. Are you sure you don ‘t need me to come and rescue you, Sweetie Pie?”

“I don’t need rescuing,” said Kirsten. Why don’t you come up and join us? Ple-e-e-e-se! Then you’ll know why this tree won’t hurt me even in a zillion years. Ple-e-e-e-ase!”

Mr. Park pleaded with Kirsten for some time. It was kind of pathetic to see a plump grown man with a mustache dressed in a business suit blubber on about how he would drown in oceans of tears if he ever lost his darling little girl. The disgusted looks on the faces of Rachel and Penny told me they knew know that their father wouldn’t drown in any oceans of tears if he lost either of them. Finally, Mr. Park stopped pleading and announced he was going to rescue Kirsten if it was the last thing he did. He lunged at the tree and tried to climb it and get his darling little Sweetie-pie girl just as Mrs. O’Mally’s son had done and with even funnier results, thanks to his physique. I got ready to really laugh my guts out, but before I could laugh even one gut out, Mr. Park plopped down on the floor of the White Tree House and Kirsten was swimming in her daddy’s arms. What was funny was the squawking down below by Miriam and Penny and their mother, but that sort of thing gets tiresome after a while, so I won’t write anymore about it.

“Sa-a-a-a-a-a-m-m-my! Time for dinner!”

That was the voice I’d been dreading. The voice that wakes me up every morning.

“Do you want to come down?” I asked Leah.

“What do you think?”

That answered my question.

“I don’t need to come for dinner!” I yelled down.

“Neither do I!” Leah yelled.

“Leah!” What are you doing up there?”

“I’m having dinner, Squirrel Face!”

Leah can be so tactful when she wants to be.

You could bet your last ipod battery that Rachel ran into the house to get mom and win the bet. You could then bet your last cell phone that my mom came running out like a storm trooper to the claw her way up the White Tree and drag Leah and me down and all the way to our bedrooms without supper. Leah and I both yelled some things to made us deserve a lot more than early bed without supper. It is a law of the universe that an eleven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl can’t reason with a mom and an older sister in a situation like this. It was the grownups up in the White Tree House who saved the day. Mrs. O’Mally, Ms. Maxwell, and Mr. Park all explained to our mom that the tree was really great and she should join us. Neither Leah nor I wanted our mom or Rachel to join us, but we couldn’t say that. We didn’t have to. There was no way they were going to come up to the White Tree House just to enjoy the view or to join in on our picnic for that matter. And they didn’t. But at least my mom got talked into letting Leah and me stay up in the White Tree House for dinner since dinner had already been served up there. The thing that annoyed me about all this is that my Mom listened to three grownups but it was pretty obvious she was not about to listen to me or Leah. I don’t like it when grownups think that kids are always wrong, or at least make it seem like it. You should have seen the daggers of fire Rachel’s eyes sent up to us before she followed mom into the house. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t see that. I still don’t know how I escaped turning into stone after seeing that for myself. Maybe the White Tree saved me.

As soon as we finished our picnic banquet, we got back to making more music. We couldn’t help it. We didn’t want to help it. But if you think we got much more time to enjoy the White Tree House and its music after all the people who’d interfered with us already, then you’ll have to revise your thinking. You probably know without my telling you that Peter O’Mally zoomed his shiny bright yellow Aston Martin back up the driveway with a couple of police cars behind him about as soon as we got going. Peter O’Mally jumped out of his car and pointed up to the top of the tree. I didn’t have to hear what he was saying to know he wasn’t telling the police what a lovely tree it was. A minute later, a couple more police cars pulled up in the Park’s driveway. Mrs. Park pounced on them, yelled frantically, and waved her hands in the direction of the White Tree. Two more cops came running up my driveway with a wiry man who was frantically waving his arms and yelling words in a slurred voice that would get me grounded for a year if I wrote them down. One look at Ricky’s cringing face and I knew whose father he was.

“Don’t let him get me,” he pleaded to us.

I put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Ricky, there’s no way the White Tree is going to let anybody get you.”

“I — hope not.”

This was just the beginning of a flood of people who came to get at the White Tree and those of us up in its branches. I thought we’d attracted a crowd before, but now I knew I didn’t know what a crowd really is. Word must have been spreading all over town that a monster fungus-squid-tree had kidnaped a bunch of kids and was preparing to attack the rest of the town as the first step of taking over the world. The streets and front yards of both blocks filled up with people and cars about as fast as a wildfire. And the people acted like a wildfire as they poured out around the White Tree to attack it. Never before in my life had I had the vaguest notion of what it was like to be the one who gets ganged up on. I’d always had enough friends until today—lunch that afternoon felt like a million years ago—that I’d only been on the giving end of ganging up on other people. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. Now that I was up in the White Tree House trying to help the White Tree hold off crowds of attackers, I’d decided that if ganging up on people and things like the White Tree are natural, then it’s time to change what’s natural. Some of the cops had to direct traffic instead of attacking the tree and freeing us from its clutches. As the attackers came at us, I thought they were getting smaller. And they were! Yes! No doubt about it! The White Tree was growing taller and wider yet again and I noticed that the White Tree House was expanding. Would some of the people coming at us get converted and join us up in the White Tree? Anyway, the White Tree was taking us further out of reach of the cops and other people attacking us. Not that they could get us anyway. I knew by now that the White Tree knew how to defend itself.

One of the White Tree’s strongest weapons was me. Well, not just me, of course. The White Tree had a whole gang of us who had gotten pretty good at making attack music. Well, maybe attack music isn’t the right expression. We weren’t trying to hurt anybody with it, after all. We were just trying to help people overcome their fear of the White Tree’s music and join us. The White Tree’s vibes surged through my nervous system and bone marrows with so much power there was no way I was going to stifle the song the tree wanted me to sing next. Same for all of us. Dorian’s bow moved across his the strings faster than lightning. Kirsten’s hands flashed all over her keyboard. Ricky drummed all over the floor of the White Tree House like a maniac. Leah trumpeted a fanfare loud enough to wake the deadest zombies in the world. When the cops tried to climb up the White Tree, it bulged a little here and a little there to send them back down on their butts before they knew what had happened to them. Another round of Comedy Hour had begun.

As the police charged the White Tree, the White Tree’s branches stretched out across the four backyards surrounding it and beyond as far as the streets where the police were desperately trying to control the crowds. I knew the White Tree was trying to welcome more people, but most of the people acted like the branches were the tentacles of a monster squid. Their screams were enough to win an Academy Award for special affects, but I wasn’t watching a horror movie with my friends; I was singing my butt off, trying to get people to hear the White Tree’s music for what it was and let the branches bring them to the Tree House. Time after time, I felt the sting of fright and rejection as this boy or that woman pushed a branch away and ran. Then finally, I felt the hands of somebody hang on to a branch and fly through the air, screams and all. The White Tree’s catch was Adrian Burrows. I only knew him as a boy who wore glasses and didn’t talk much or do much. And, speaking of ganging up on people, he was a kid my friends and I made fun of when we were getting bored with life. Adrian was frozen stiff with shock. I couldn’t blame him, considering the strange music surrounding him, the people screaming about invaders from Outer Space, and sirens squealing through the air. I knew I had to act fast to save Adrian from falling into a catatonic fit. After the way I’d treated him before, it was the least I could do. I dodged a couple of other people the White Tree was reeling in through the window and slid across the floor over to him. I’m not much good at helping people, but I figured it was up to me this time. Adrian kind of shrank away from me, probably expecting me to dish out what I’d dished out to him before. Couldn’t blame him for that, either. Leah crawled over to join us. Figures. She’s always following me around.

“Adrian. It’s okay here. I promise you.”

Adrian looked at me as if I’d made the most absurd promise he’d ever heard in his life, and he couldn’t believe I was trying to be nice to him. I tried again.

“Adrian, I’m really sorry for the way I’ve treated you before. Now please listen to me. I’ve spent a lot of time in this tree since it first came here. I was kind of scared, too, at first, but not any more. The White Tree is the most awesome tree in the world. Can you feel its vibes?”

Adrian nodded. I was getting somewhere.

“I was even more scared than Sammy at first,” said Leah. “I should have trusted my brother right away when he told me how awesome the White Tree is. He was so right about it. Just look around you. Can you see that nobody here is getting hurt, and we’re really happy up here? Just start to sing what the White Tree has you sing or drum away, or something.”

Adrian’s face fell.

“But — I’m tone deaf.”

That threw me for a couple of loops. I didn’t know what to say, but I was sure the White Tree wasn’t going to hurt a kid for being tone deaf. He couldn’t help it. Music was surrounding us. Adrian still looked scared of it. I tried to think of something to say, but when I couldn’t think of anything, I decided to let the White Tree say whatever words came out.

“What do you feel like doing?” I asked Adrian.

Such a simple question, I should have thought of it myself.

“I feel like floating in the house of White Leaves to the rhythm of the wind’s slender fingers,” said Adrian.

That caught the attention of a lot of people. And the White Tree had brought in a lot of people while Leah and I were talking to Adrian. Both of Linda Connell’s parents and her little sister, Sherrie, were together, listening to Linda and Mary Tugwell spill out words about the White Tree faster than a machine gun. A tall, lean man with a black goatee was chatting with Mrs. O’Mally. I found out a bit later that he’s a church organist named Mr. Malcolm. No wonder Mrs. O’Mally knew him. There was a girl whose named turned out to be Rosie. She looked pretty bewildered, but Mary Tugwell waved her over and I knew she was going to be okay. A kid named Bradley McDonald was having problems. He’d pretty well lost it and was huddled in a corner of the White Tree House where he yelled and screamed that he was being devoured by a giant squid while Dorian got a hold of him to make sure he didn’t try to jump out of one of the windows. I was surprised to see that Dorian was pretty strong for a nerd, and there was no way Bradley was going to break his grip. Actually, I don’t think the White Tree would have let Bradley jump out in any case; a branch was still wrapped around him pretty good. All of these people stopped talking or singing in mid-sentence to look at Adrian. Poor Adrian was looking pretty embarrassed.

“That was very beautiful, Adrian,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

“Are you sure we’re floating like you said and not getting eaten by a white fungus from another planet?” Bradley asked Adrian.

I wanted to answer that question so bad, and so did Leah, but Mrs. O’Mally gently raised her hand just enough to let us know that this was Adrian’s question. The White Tree’s music stopped on a long, thick chord while we all waited for Adrian to answer. He still looked scared of the White Tree and flustered that so many people he hardly knew were looking at him, waiting for him to say something. Finally, his face muscles relaxed and he spoke again:

“We are floating in the House of White Leaves when our hearts are floating, but if we want to be devoured by monstrous teeth, they can be found.”

The White Tree shifted to another thick chord and held it.

“What do you mean?” Bradley whispered.

“What do you want?” Adrian asked in return.

The White Tree shifted to yet another chord, this one deeper and thicker than the last.

“I want to fly,” Bradley whispered.

Right as he said those words, maybe even before he said them, a slender twig slid into Bradley’s hands. I didn’t know what that was about, but Bradley did. He worked the twig into a shape and, somehow, the twig expanded to fit what Bradley was doing. Ricky was a little too hyperactive to sit still any longer, so he started drumming on the floor of White Tree’s House. Ricky’s drumming was contagious and it wasn’t long before all of us were in the act and that was enough to make all the newbies start to feel at home in the White Tree House. Adrian didn’t sing, but he spoke more strange words that sounded pretty good to me. And I thought I hated poetry. Kirsten let Mr. Malcolm share her keyboard and the two of them really let ‘er rip. More drumming, more singing, more playing of music. All this time, we couldn’t keep our eyes off of what Bradley was doing. As our music swelled, the twig turned into every boy’s dream of a model airplane in Bradley’s hands. There was more! The model airplane swelled with the music, large enough to wrap itself around Bradley and send him whooping and flying out from the White Tree over the crowd below. How could the rest of us possibly have done anything else but go crazy with our music.

It was a good thing we did. The White Tree needed all the music it could get. The next onslaught of sirens we heard turned out to be fire engines. Fire engines meant ladders. Ladders meant a lot more trouble. Trouble in the form of a big fire truck pulling into our driveway and parking right in front of our garage. Trouble in the form of the truck’s big ladder rising up in the direction of the White Tree House. Trouble in the form of at least half a dozen more fire trucks coming to a screeching halt in the street. Trouble in the form of people yelling threats at the White Tree and every traitor to humanity who would stay in the White Tree’s House. Trouble in the form of the police chief speaking to us through a megaphone to tell us that he and the city council had just had an emergency meeting where they agreed that they should cut down the tree. So, would we please be reasonable and come down so they can their job without any fuss. If any one of us needed help, the firemen were there to help us. Not in your life. We were so united with the White Tree and with each other that we didn’t need to consult with each other about that. We didn’t even have to look at each other to confirm what we all knew we were thinking. Mrs. O’Malley stood up first to respond in a voice that boomed and sang so loudly you’d think we had a blockbuster set of amplifiers up in the White Tree House.

“I will have you know that the White Tree is a great gift to this neighborhood, to this town, to the whole world. I absolutely forbid anyone to put as much as one step on my property for the purpose of even thinking of committing such a heinous crime.”

Then Ms. Maxwell spoke:

“I will have you know that I am a member of thirty-four ecological societies and if any of you put on step on my property to commit the least injury to the White Tree, I will make sure that every one of these societies sues the city for damages.”

Then Mr. Park stood up and spoke:

“My darling girl knows a great White Tree when she sees one and that’s enough for me. I intentionally withhold all permission to anybody who would step on my property to attack the White Tree that has stolen my little girl’s heart.”

That left my mom. We’d gotten so high up it was getting hard to see her, but I could make her out. Unfortunately, she was talking to the police chief. Leah and I both stood up.

“Mom!” we both cried out. “Don’t let them on our property to come and chop down the White Tree!”

We all held our breaths as mom and the police chief talked a bit longer. The conversation didn’t seem to go well for either of them. Finally, the police chief aimed his megaphone at us.

“I have to tell you that property ownership does not give you the right to grow a tree that kidnaps children and is a menace to the city.”

“It is your minds that have been kidnaped by fear and hate of the White Tree that is only growing to bring us all together,” said a voice that seemed to come from the trunk of the White Tree itself.

Those of us in the White Tree House knew that it was Adrian who said those words. I guess they struck some sore nerves, because they were greeted with a rumble of grumbling like thunder warning of a coming storm. Gosh! Adrian’s poetic way of speaking is contagious! The police chief and then the mayor tried again to talk us into being reasonable, but the crowd surrounding them drowned them out. There was only one response to all that. We started singing and playing like there was no tomorrow. Which there wasn’t. Our music drowned out whatever words from the mayor and police chief weren’t drowned out by the crowd. Finally, the police chief gave up and gave a signal. The firemen jumped off the trucks and swarmed at the tree with their ladders like a dozen armies of ants. This was war. I knew we were going to lose. We all knew we were going to lose, but we were determined to go down singing. As ladders attacked from all sides, we threw all our guts into singing and playing and Bradley flew his White Model Airplane in and out of the firemen, adding to the confusion. I’m sure you could have heard us from the other end of the state. There was no holding back. The way I’m describing this probably makes it sound like we were like a super rock band with enough amplifiers to fill a stadium. We weren’t. There was a humongous amount of energy in our music-making, but there was something very gentle about it, too. I don’t know how to describe it. It was something like all kinds of music working together. The problem was, with the firemen running at the White Tree with their ladders, we couldn’t enjoy the music anywhere near as much as we wanted to.

Like I lot of kids, there have been days when I’ve dreamed of being a fireman. It would be so cool to climb ladders into burning houses to save children and old ladies. So it was kind of strange to see firemen climbing ladders up to White Tree—or trying to—and I wished they were busy rescuing somebody else. Unfortunately, there was no way I could get them to understand that I didn’t need to be saved from a boy-eating fungus. All of us in the White Tree House braced ourselves to fight a losing battle against the men in black fire coats and red fire hats who had become an invading army like the armies in movies that storm forts and castle with ladders. The only difference is that we didn’t have any melted lead to dump on the invaders and I don’t think the White Tree would have brought anybody up to the White Tree House who would want to do such a thing. But the White Tree had its own ways of defending itself with the help of the wild music we were making and Adrian’s weird poetry. The White Tree acted the part of a giant squid by stretching its branches like so many tentacles and grabbing a hold of each ladder as soon as a fireman had climbed up it a few rungs. The screams of these men were horrifying. Worse was the screaming of everybody else who thought their best firemen were getting killed and their town was about to be destroyed. But now get this! Every time a branch of the White Tree wrapped itself around a ladder with a fireman on it, it gently placed the ladder back down on the ground so that not one fireman in the whole fire squad got a broken bone. What more proof do you need that the White Tree is good? Really good. The White Tree wouldn’t hurt a flea! But the other firemen and the police didn’t get it. They kept on coming with their ladders and the White Tree kept on gently laying the ladders and the firemen on to the ground. All the while, Bradley flew his White Tree Plane all over the place, kind of teasing the firemen and policemen by zipping close to them and then zipping away. He wasn’t having any real effect on the battle of the White Tree, but he sure was having fun.

Just as it looked like the battle was a stalemate, one of the firemen kept on climbing until he reached the windows of the White Tree House. He dropped down through the window and looked at us with a dazed expression. All music stopped and all of us shrank away from him and bunched together to try to keep him from nabbing any of us.

“Thank you for coming to rescue us,” said Leah, “but you can go right back down that ladder, because we’re having too great a time in the White Tree to let you take any of us away.”

Like I said before, there is a limit to how tactful Leah can be.

But the fireman’s expression was still kind of strange, like he didn’t know what he was doing up in the White Tree.

“Who says I want to take any of you out of the White Tree House?” the fireman asked in a deep sing-songy voice. “Don’t you want any firemen to join you?”

By the time he finished with his second question, he was singing at the lop of his lungs in a deep bass voice. It turned out he was the only fireman who made it up to the White Tree House. We wasted no time in joining him in song to make sure the fireman felt every bit as welcome as the rest of us.

As it turned out, this fireman was the only one who did join us during the Battle of the White Tree. Not that it was much of a battle since the White Tree was making sure nobody got hurt. It was more of a circus that went on and on until after sundown until it got to the point that it wasn’t funny anymore. Finally, the police and firemen gave up on trying to storm the White Tree. The mayor warned us through the megaphone that first thing the following morning, the City would send in their heavy-duty equipment to cut down the White Tree. Anybody who obstructed the work by continuing to occupy the White Tree would be arrested. The rest of the kids in the White Tree House and me looked at each other with excitement at the prospect of becoming juvenile delinquents. Ricky’s father was given the megaphone to order his son to come down right away or “face what the consequences he knew very well.” Ricky muttered that he knew what the consequences would be and that coming down right away would only make him suffer them all the sooner. Mr. Howard, the fireman who had joined us, went to the window of the White Tree House that faced the mayor.

“I humbly ask all of you down there to respect the White Tree. I can only tell you that I was amazed with how the White Tree made my favorite music surge in my veins. How could I not stay up here with the others who have experienced the White Tree’s magic?”

Mr. Howard went on longer than that, sounding like a bit of a poet himself, but I don’t know what he said because the shouts from the ground drowned him out. I don’t know what made so many people crazy (and maybe you think those of us who liked the White Tree were crazy) It got so bad that the police and firemen had to put all their efforts into crowd control. The crowd looked like such a mess, I couldn’t really tell what was happening. It kind of looked like a lot of people were trying to attack the White Tree and some people were trying to stop them and sometimes getting into fights, and the police and firemen were having to protect the White Tree and break up fights, but I think some of the police and firemen got into some fights as well. Since we couldn’t get anybody to listen to us, we sang and drummed and played our instruments until the police got the crowd to thin out. They put up yellow police tape, and, apparently giving up on trying to get any of us to come down, stood guard to make sure a crowd didn’t come back in the middle of the night. Bradley flew his White Tree Plane back to the White Tree house. The White Tree Plane floated just outside the window while he climbed back into the White Tree House, and then the White Tree Plane kind of melted into the White Tree House until it looked more like the figurehead on the bow of a ship than an airplane. When it finally got quiet enough for us to hear anything from the ground, we heard my mom’s voice on the megaphone, asking if Leah I were sure we were okay. We both said we were more than fine and mom waved to us and went into the house with Rachel. Mom looked like she still hadn’t made up her mind about the White Tree, but at least she wasn’t letting Rachel make up her mind for her.

*****

“I don’t understand why so many people want to destroy the White Tree,” Stewart complained.

“Probably for the same reason people rub out anybody who’s really good,” Dorian replied, “like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus.”

It was dark and quiet, The screams thrown at the White Tree and orders blasted through the police megaphones echoed in our ears, but the White Tree’s musical vibes kept soft sounds coming out of the instruments, even when nobody was playing them, and most of us were humming softly when he weren’t talking. The soft music was almost enough to make me believe that everything was going to turn out okay, even though we didn’t that they possibly could. We were all committed to spending the night in the White Tree House since there was a chance this was going to be the White Tree’s last night on earth.

“Maybe we should have tried to tell people about the tree instead of just singing,” said Mary Tugwell.

“If people can’t hear the music, they can’t hear the words we could have said about the tree,” said Mr. Malcolm, the man I’d found out was the church organist Mrs. O’Mally knew.

“My sentiments exactly,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

“They won’t chop this tree down as long as we stay up here,” said Leah. “So let’s just live here for the rest of our lives.”

“My mom will organize a feeding brigade,” said Dorian. “Won’t you, Mom?”

“Of course I will,” Ms. Maxwell promised. “I’ll organize a brigade to provide everything you need.”

“What if the police set up a blockade?” asked Bradley.

“I don’t think public opinion would allow the police to starve out a wonderful bunch of kids like you,” said Mr. Park.

 “Any feeding brigade I organize will be so big they’ll have to send in the whole army to stop us,” said Ms. Maxwell.

“I don’t ever want to go home,” said Ricky Morales. “I want to live here forever. With all of you.”

Having just seen Ricky’s father, I didn’t blame him.

“We’ll stick with you no matter what happens,” said Dorian.

“All of us,” I said.

Mrs. O’Mally gave Ricky a big a hug. I can’t believe I thought she was an old witch up to just a day ago. The soft, bright look in Ricky’s eyes was a moment to treasure. No doubt about it. The White Tree had come to bring people together. If only there were more of us! We passed the time talking softly about ourselves and about some of the things we dreamed of doing. Some of us were dreaming of things we’d never dreamed of before the White Tree came into our lives.

“I want to be a violinist,” said Dorian. “What I want most is to be a soloist, but I’ll settle for a job in a good symphony orchestra. “And I’ll go into the inner cities to get kids there started on music like Midori.”

“Who’s she?” I asked.

“She’s a great violinist, like what I want to be.”

“Speaking of getting kids started on music,” said Mr. Malcolm, “I want to start a boys choir and a girls choir at my church starting with a summer program. It’s important to give kids that kind of opportunity, especially with a lot of schools like ours skimping on their music programs.”

All this time, I’d been just as glad our school didn’t have much of a music program, but the White Tree and Mr. Malcolm had convinced me that I and all other kids had gotten gypped by the school system.

“Sammy, I want you to join the choir and let me train you to be a soloist.”

I didn’t even blush when he said that and I was ready to sign my life away to join on the spot.

“I also want Leah and Kirsten to help me start the girls choir,” Mr. Malcolm added.

“I want to do something that really makes a difference in the world,” said Stewart. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I’ll think of something. I’m ambitious; I just want to make the whole world a lot better than it is now.”

“Want to be president of the United States, or something?” Dorian asked him.

“Hmm. Don’t know about that. I don’t know about being a politician—or, actually, I do know about that and the answer is No. I think I’d rather be a social leader like Martin Luther King, Jr.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor since she I was little,” said Linda Connell. “And I still do, more than ever.”

“I want to join something like one of the U.N. relief organizations that helps children in the Third World,” said Kirsten.

Her father almost fainted with shock when he heard that. I guess he was always blubbering so much about how much he loved his darling little girl that he hadn’t gotten to know her very well.

“It’s always been important for me to help people out in emergencies like in some of the fires I’ve had to fight,” said Mr. Howard. “I’m hoping I don’t lose his job for joining you in the White Tree House, but I knew I’ve done the right thing and my job ain’t worth beans if I don’t keep doing the right thing.

“I’m determined to be a baseball pitcher in the Big Leagues and make enough money to help the people in the village in Mexico my family left behind,” said Ricky Morales.

“Linda and I are going to be movie stars,” said Mary Tugwell, “but now I think we’d rather be in good movies that help people be good than make a lot of money doing bad movies.”

Linda Tugwell nodded in agreement.

“I’d always wanted to be a poet, but fear of the hearts of others has slipped a gag of silk into my mouth until now,” said Adrian in a low voice.

“Like I said,” Bradley whispered, “I’d always wanted to fly.”

“There’s an autistic girl in our school who can’t talk,” said Leah. “I’m going to volunteer to spend time with her and go from there.”

I’d never bothered to dream about what I wanted to do with my life except find a way to make a lot of money so I can live better than I do with just a single parent. But that night, thoughts of being a singer or a doctor like Linda, or just finding a way to make a difference in the world buzzed through my body with the White Tree’s vibes.

“I’m going to try to be a better person,” I said quietly.

I expected somebody to laugh at me. That’s what would have happened at the lunch table at school if I’d said that to Mike or Bart or Jason. But nobody in the White Tree House laughed.

“We all have to keep doing that,” said Mrs. O’Mally.

When we’d finally talked ourselves out, we sang softly, even those who, like Dorian, can’t sing very well. It was kind of a lullaby that went on and on and on.

*****

The White Tree’s lullaby was flowing through my body when I woke up. It took me a minute to remember everything that had just happened and recognize the White Tree House. A faint light came in through the windows. I sat up. All I could see out the windows was white mist. The air felt a bit chilly, but the leafy walls made the House a lot warmer than you’d think it would be. Everybody else was still sleeping. I heard a soft scraping sound. Then another. Sherrie Connell stirred. Then Ricky Morales. Leah stretched out her arms and yawned. In just a few minutes, all of us were wide awake. Dorian peered through window closest to him and gasped. I ran over to see what it was. Leah squeezed in next to me. Suddenly, Dorian jumped out of the window. I grabbed his hand to keep him from falling, but he didn’t fall. The mist cleared just enough for me to see him standing on a dewy lawn.

A few minutes later, all of us had come out of the White Tree House through a door that hadn’t there the night before. What we discovered is that the White Tree House wasn’t a tree house anymore; it had become the White Tree Cabin that had planted itself in the corner of Mrs. O’Mally’s backyard. The White Tree was gone. Between the four fences that the White Tree had pushed aside when it appeared, there was a large opening. That’s all evidence that was left to show that the White Tree had ever been there. The ground between the fences was smoothed out. You’d never know that a tree had just pulled its roots out of it. Nobody in our town was going to chop down the White Tree.

*****

Although the White Tree disappeared mysteriously in the middle of a misty night the same way it had appeared, we still had the White Tree Cabin as a meeting place. Mrs. O’Mally makes sure that there are plenty of goodies for anybody who meets there. We let other people come if they appreciate the White Tree now that it’s gone. Peter O’Mally’s is one of them. It turns out he’s really a nice guy. That’s why he was so upset when he thought his mother had had a bad accident. He’s manager of a Little League team and he’s got Ricky Morales on his pitching staff. You should come see him zing his fastball past the batters. Neither my mom nor Dorian’s mom are the sort to put up with abusive men, as my father and Dorian’s father found out years ago. That means that Ricky Morales’ father is now in a treatment program for men like him. It still amazes me how quickly so many people forgot about how dangerous they thought the White Tree was. Not that all these people who wanted to cut down the White Tree are great fans of it. Stewart invited Mike and Bart and Jason to visit the White Tree Cabin. I didn’t think they deserved it, but we all agree that the White Tree cabin has to be allowed to welcome anybody who wants to come, and I have to admit that when I sat in the White Tree Cabin with them, I had a harder time being angry with them than I thought I would. I guess the White Tree and the White Tree Cabin it left behind is more forgiving than I want to be sometimes. Anyway, all three of those guys were kind of uncomfortable in the White Tree Cabin and they made excuses to get away pretty quickly. I still see them at school, but they aren’t my friends like they were before. You can probably guess that Steward is my very best buddy. Dorian is my very best buddy, too. Don’t tell me I’m lousy at math. I’m talking about friendship, not math. Mr. Malcolm called us a few days later to get me and Leah started choir rehearsals and for me to come over to his church for special singing lessons. My mom still doesn’t know what to think of the White Tree or even the White Tree Cabin, but she can’t help realizing that Leah and I have been better kids than we were before, and that’s moral money in the bank for when you need it. Rachel doesn’t go near the White Cabin, but at least she doesn’t talk trash about it. She knows Leah will scratch her eyes out if she does. Nobody wants to fix the fence. The open passage to the White Cabin is too handy. So nobody is taking money out of my allowance for that.

A few days after the White Tree left, the chief of police came to our house to talk to me and Leah. I was afraid we were in trouble and we’d lost interest in being juvenile delinquents by then, but it turned out that the police chief was trying to understand why and so many other people got so worked up about the White Tree. His admitting to us that he might have been wronged did a lot for making me really look up to him and other policemen. Anyway, he was making the rounds of those who’d stayed in the White Tree House, asking what we liked about it. So we told him. When he left, he told me I should write down the story, and that’s why I’ve done it.

One more thing: Guess what hangs on the wall of the White Cabin? If you guessed it’s a painting of the White Tree by Roberta Maxwell, you win the prize. What’s the prize? All the cookies baked by Mrs. O’Mally you can eat. All you have to do is find us.

One more thing: Mr. Howard did not lose his job with the with fire department. He ended up getting a promotion for staying up in the White Tree House to make sure all the kids up there were okay.

Oh! Yet another one more thing: If you want to hear music like you’ve never heard music before, look up a group called The White Leafs.