Allie was in her backyard playing with her cat, Lissy. She sat on her swing, thinking about how school had gone. It began to get dark. Hearing strange noises, she looked out past her fence to the trees beyond. The trees were swaying and the flash had returned. A ball of light flashed at the top of one of the tall trees, and then another – perhaps a couple of birds? She tried to keep an eye on both when she saw one of the flashes last longer and move from a back tree to a tree closer in her direction.
“It moved!”
Allie went over to where she put her flashlight and took it out, but the batteries were dead. She shook it a couple times with no result, then set it back down and instead picked up her binoculars. Allie trained them on the trees and brought them into focus. When she lifted them higher to see the tops of the trees, she got a big surprise: a boy, her perfect number five boy, perched high up in the tree. She watched him leap to another tree that held someone else in it. Allie saw what the bright flash was; it was someone’s bracelet. She saw the thin legs, the shorts, and she knew it was a girl. When she looked higher she saw that it was Shelby from the cafeteria.
“Oh my God! It can’t be!”
Shelby leaped to another tree but the branch gave way and she fell. Allie followed her all the way to the ground and she gasped at what she had just witnessed. Shelby should have been dead from the fall but she got up and held her arm. Leaves fell down around her and then Brad appeared as if he floated down to her. He checked Shelby’s arm and pulled something from it. The two of them then ran for yet another tree and were back in the tops of them in no time.
Allie put the binoculars down and ran into the house. She ran up the stairs as fast as she could and pushed her bedroom door in without turning the knob. Desperately, she threw open her closet doors, ran to the dresser to grab a chair, then placed it beside the open closet and clambered onto it, looking at the top shelf. She found her video camera that her dad gave her for last Christmas and raced to a drawer to get a cassette tape for it. Allie slapped in the tape and raced back downstairs and out the door to the spot where she stood before. She turned on the camera and aimed it at the top of the trees.
She zoomed in and out on the recorder, searching the trees for flashes, but found none. For an hour she waited, but she saw and recorded nothing but the trees swaying in the breeze. She was heartbroken; no one would believe her without proof. She would not believe such a tale without proof herself. Frustrated by the events, Allie turned off the recorder and went in the house to go to bed. She was excited by what she had seen but deflated by her lack of proof.
Not being able to sleep left her tired and drowsy the next morning. After getting a good look at her, Kay frowned.
“Kitten, are you all right?”
“I’m fine; I just couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned all night.” She yawned and stretched before sitting down to a bowl of cereal for her breakfast.
“Do you feel sick? Your color doesn’t look good.” Worry lines sprouted in her face; her husband was the only doctor in town and he had not returned from treating the injured at the pipeline.
“I’m fine. I hope this is a fast day; I will be hitting the sack early tonight to catch up on some sleep.” She finished eating her cereal and picked up her backpack for another day of school.
A horn was honking outside and her mother looked out the window. “Your bus is here; get going. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Allie ran out the door and did not stop until she landed on the first step of the bus. The bus was half full of students so she took a seat in the middle by herself. The bus jerked forward as it started and threw her backward into her seat. She looked up for an instant and then steadied herself. Looking up reminded her of the ride home, but she was surprised there were no dents of any kind in the ceiling, even after a thorough search. She drew a nervous breath before looking at the bus driver: he was the same. She looked at the bus itself: it was the same too, she was sure of it, but there were no dents. Allie’s face warmed as she looked at the other students to see if they were watching her. She was no fool; she saw the dents and heard the noise. Were all these people in on a big practical joke at her expense? She knew she wasn’t crazy. She sat in silence going over the events trying to make sense of them.
The bus arrived in front of the school and she was the last to get off. She kept quiet until lunch time, when she waited impatiently for Sara. Sara was in a corner huddling with three black students. Allie fidgeted as she waited for her friend, hoping she would stop talking and come soon.
“It’s about time!” she blurted as Sara sat down with her tray.
“What’s up, girl?”
“I’m going crazy insane! You will not believe what I saw last night and what happened to me on the bus!” She hastily recounted the whole story to Sara, who ate and listened.
“You didn’t get any of that on tape?” Sara said with skepticism.
“No! I told you it stopped. Something is seriously out of whack around here. You haven’t noticed anything strange?”
“Nope.”
“What about Shelby? The way you acted, you know something.”
“I know that girl will kill your crazy insane behind if you get in her way. I’m telling you the truth; everybody thinks she did something to that girl. Stay as far away from her as you can get.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Allie said with sorrow.
“I believe you better take my advice to heart or you will be dead meat.” Sara finished her sandwich and looked at her worried friend. “Did you ask the bus driver?”
“No.”
“Maybe you dreamed the whole thing. You said you didn’t get much sleep. People have wild dreams all the time.”
“Forget it.” The door opened at the end of the cafeteria and young men and women came in wearing gray jackets. Among their numbers were Shelby and Brad. “Don’t tell anybody what I told you, promise?”
Sara smiled and held up her hand with her fingers crossed. “Scout’s honor,” Sara said mockingly.
“Were you even in the scouts?”
Sara shook her head at her friend’s disbelief. “Yes - I - was! I promise, okay?”
“Thanks.”
The two girls rose to go back to class after their lunch break. As Allie carried her tray, something hit her in the left side of her back. She looked around: it was a dinner roll. Quickly looking up and scanning the room for the thrower, Allie set her eyes to the back table. How could she have made an enemy so fast? She was nice and courteous to everyone and smiled a lot. Everyone at the back table with Shelby was looking directly at her - all smirking. For a brief second Allie considered confrontation, but Sara was walking out of the room, her only friend.
With no backup, she gave up on the idea of wanting to smack the smirk off all their faces and got a surprise. She noticed Shelby taking off her jacket to reveal a bandage on her arm. Allie walked out of the cafeteria smiling: she had confirmation, she was not crazy.
Allie’s last class of the day would be study hall. She made up her mind to skip the class and go to the gym. The boys had basketball practice and she knew Brad would be there. Allie sneaked in without being seen and hid under the bleachers so she could watch them play.
Allie was happy to see he didn’t have acne or pimples in his handsome yet pale face. He wore a long blue tank top with knee length white shorts that had a blue stripe on each side. His new white Nike shoes screeched every time he stopped suddenly on the hardwood floor. Allie watched him dribble down the court and stop and shoot with a defender against him. The ball went into the hoop and the net wrapped around the rim. His teammates hooted and hollered and pointed at the rim; Allie smiled. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a note on it. She then folded it and waited to get Brad’s attention.
Allie stood out from the edge of the bleachers to locate Brad. She found him and then went partially back behind them so no one would see her. When Brad’s team came down the court
he passed the ball to a teammate near her. The teammate dribbled a couple of times and then passed the ball back to Brad, who was at the top of the key now. As the ball was halfway to him, Allie made her move to get his attention by waving her hand between the bleachers. Only Brad saw her hand waving. He passed the ball to someone else and looked back at the bleachers; the hand had vanished, and in its place was the folded slip of paper. As the others ran to the opposite end of the court, Brad backpedaled. He saw Allie walk from behind the bleachers and sneak out of the gym. He kept his eye on the paper and when the game ended he scooped it up. It was folded over several times like students do when making a paper football in study hall to pass the time. He unfolded the paper and as he read it, his facial expression changed. He put it into his pocket and went to take a shower. Later he took the note out to read it again. It read: I saw you in the trees last night. Come to my house tonight.
At eight o’clock, Allie waited at her window looking out the curtain, hoping Brad would stop by like she asked. Her mother had already come upstairs to check on her so she knew she was good to go if he showed up. Showing no patience, she walked back and forth across her carpet continuously, stopping only to peak out the window before returning to her ritual.
As Brad set out to Allie’s house, he destroyed her note. He ran along the road and when a car came he leaped from the road to the trees. He leaped over her eight foot tall backyard fence and walked up to the back of the house. He looked up at the windows; the upper left showed movement. He watched for a minute, then leaped up to the roof and landed softly. He peered through the window and saw Kay Carter lying in bed reading a book. He leaped to the other window and saw Allie pacing. He tapped on the window. She stopped, rushed to the window, moved the curtain, opened it – and grinned. “Come in,” she said softly.
“Are you inviting me in?” Brad asked.
“Yes! Come in before someone sees you.”
Brad entered her bedroom and stood rigid against the window. Goosebumps rose on the young girl’s flesh as she thought about having a boy in her room and her mother right next door. It was exhilarating. Wicked. She glanced toward the door fearing her mother would burst through at any minute.
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“About what?”
“About what you guys do out there.” Allie pointed to the woods behind him. Her heart pounded. She gave the door another glance.
Brad said nothing.
“I saw you in the trees with Shelby. I saw her fall and you landed beside her and helped her. I saw the bandage on her arm this morning in the cafeteria, too.” Delight flooded her face. No way could he talk himself out of this.
“What do you want?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Why am I here?”
“Okay, how do you do it? How do you leap from tree to tree like that?”
“Leave it alone.”
“No! Tell me how you do it.You were like fifty feet off the ground. I want to learn. Teach me.”
“Forget what you saw. You saw nothing.”
“No! I won’t forget it. Teach me. What could it hurt?”
Brad cautiously thought about how to answer and what her next question might be.
“Leave it alone and forget what you saw. The best thing you can do for yourself is to say nothing to no one.”
“Why?”
“This is not a game!” His voice became harder, more forceful. “You tell anyone what you saw and you can be killed, you and your family. It’s not a game.”
Allie quivered but pushed forward nonetheless. “I have seen so many weird things since I have been here and I just want them explained. Tell me how you do it!”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Just tell me, that’s all I want to know, just tell me!”
Brad huffed; he had had enough of this. He cast Allie one final look. “If you keep asking questions someone will stop you.” And then he was gone.
Allie walked to the window and looked out. There was nothing to be seen; it was as if he melted into the night. Allie was crestfallen, yet she had her verification and that was enough for now. She would find out more in her own good time. She locked her window and pulled the curtains together before going to bed.
The next morning she ate her breakfast and was outside waiting on the bus. Her mother saw her put her backpack down and pull out her father’s binoculars, scanning the trees. Kay looked at the trees for animals and saw none. Allie scanned the treetops; Kay looked over and saw the branches swaying in a light breeze, but no animals. Shrugging it off, she began to clean the house.
Sara and Allie did not have their last class together so at lunchtime Allie would have to make her plans for the evening. “Hey, Sara,” she said as Sara came to the table after talking with other friends.
“Hey, girl.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“You want to spend the night at my house? My mom said I could have a sleepover.”
Sara thought about it for a moment before replying. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing.”
“You still tripping about them Tree People you saw, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Allie?”
“It’s just a sleepover, all right!”
“I’ll ask my mom when she comes to pick me up. Give me your address. If she says yes she will drop me off.”
Allie wrote her address on a piece of paper and gave it to her. “It’s got my phone number on it, too. Call me.”
“All right, girl.”
After lunch as they were heading back to class they saw Shelby, Brad, and the Double E Club members coming into the cafeteria. When Shelby wasn’t looking in her direction, Allie smiled slightly in Brad’s direction. Sara shot her a worried look. “You are playing with fire, girl. You are not as smart as I thought you were.”
“It’s nothing,” Allie said, trying to smooth things over with her friend. She did not want to tell her about his visit – not yet. Maybe tonight.
Chapter 4