Chapter Two Twenty Years Earlier
Chapter Two
Twenty Years Earlier
‘Go away!’
Lily was still gasping from the climb, and what little air she had left was instantly sucked from her by the stranger’s rude greeting.
‘Well, you’re not very nice, are you?’ she finally wheezed, swinging her leg over the thick branch she’d just hauled herself up on.
‘So they tell me,’ the boy replied mulishly. He glared at her angrily and Lily glared right back. ‘What are you doing here anyway? This is my tree.’
‘Actually, this tree belongs to Mr and Mrs Baker, who are our neighbours. And they let me climb it all the time.’
‘Liar,’ said the boy.
Lily blinked back at him. No one had ever been this rude to her in all of her eleven years, and to be honest she had no idea how to respond. The boy scared her a little.
When it became clear Lily had nothing further to say, the boy found himself unwillingly filling the silence. ‘I always know when people are lying to me.’
‘How?’ Lily asked, forgetting she’d just decided not to speak to the intruder in her neighbours’ garden ever again.
The boy shrugged. He looked tall, although admittedly it was hard to be sure when he was crouched down on the branch of a tree, a good fifteen feet above the ground. She went a little queasy when she thought about that. The boy was right. She’d never climbed a tree before and the danger of being this far above the ground hadn’t really occurred to her until right now.
‘When people lie to you all the time you get good at spotting it. Crap, you’re not going to faint, are you?’
There suddenly seemed to be way too much saliva in Lily’s mouth, and she felt sweaty even though the day was quite cool for the middle of summer.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never fainted before. How would I tell?’
The boy gave another ‘I don’t really know or care’ shrug. ‘Don’t ask me. I guess we’ll find out when you go splat on the ground.’
Lily felt the Frosties she’d eaten for breakfast swirl around in her stomach like it was a whirlpool.
‘For fuck’s sake, you’d better not puke in my tree.’
‘You’re the rudest, most annoying boy I’ve ever met. Why are you so horrible?’ Lily asked. Her curiosity was more compelling than the need to throw up.
‘I dunno. You’d have to ask my case worker about that. It’s probably all there in my file.’
‘What file? And what’s a case worker?’
The boy gave a long-suffering sigh, as though it was bad enough having to share the tree with a girl, without them being this ignorant.
‘It’s someone who looks after you.’
‘Like a mum or a dad, you mean?’
Lily knew she hadn’t imagined the fleeting look of sadness on the young boy’s face before it was swept aside by one of contempt.
‘Yeah, well. Not everyone gets a great one of those.’
The nausea had thankfully passed, and Lily settled herself a little more comfortably on the thick tree branch, gripping it with her thighs as though riding a pony.
‘Is that why you’re so angry? Because you don’t have any parents?’
‘I have parents. Just shitty ones, that’s all. That’s why I’m with the . . . what did you say the people who live here are called?’
‘The Bakers. Janette and Gordon. They’re really nice.’
The boy pulled a face. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be here long enough to know if that’s true or not.’
‘Why not?’
‘They move me around a lot. I’m trouble.’
He said it as though it was a badge of honour that he wore with pride.
‘That’s sad,’ Lily said, her eleven-year-old heart ready to like anyone, even rude boys who swore at her.
‘Don’t go feeling sorry for me. I’m fine as I am.’
‘Liar,’ said Lily, shocking herself at the retort. She’d never called anyone one of those before. ‘I think you’re just lonely. I think you need a friend.’
‘Yeah, sure. That’s why I chose to climb this big old tree. Because I wanted to find a mate up here.’
‘Well, it worked, didn’t it? You found me. I can be your friend.’
‘Don’t bother. I won’t be here long enough.’
Lily screwed up her face in confusion. He really was the most awkward boy she had ever met. And not at all like the ones in her class at school.
‘How old are you, anyway?’ she asked her fellow tree climber.
‘I’m twelve. I’m going to be thirteen soon.’
‘Oh, when?’ Lily asked.
‘Why do you want to know? Are you going to throw me a party? Bake me a cake?’
Lily gave a broad smile. ‘Maybe I will. I love making cakes with my mum. Fairy cakes are my favourite.’
‘It figures,’ the boy said dourly. ‘You seem like a cupcakes and rainbows sort of girl.’
‘Cupcakes and rainbows. That’s cute.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ the boy said, still determined to be mean, or at least that’s how it seemed to Lily.
‘What were you doing on the tree anyway, when I first climbed up?’
‘Doing? Nothing.’ He had gone straight into defensive mode.
‘Yes, you were,’ Lily said, wriggling further along the tree branch, very glad she’d chosen to wear jeans and not shorts that morning. ‘When I popped up, you spun around and looked really guilty.’
Unconsciously the boy moved his body to one side, obscuring the main trunk of the sycamore tree.
‘What are you hiding?’
‘You really are the nosiest little girl in the world, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not that little. I’m going to be twelve soon.’
‘Twelve and nosy,’ the boy declared.
‘What’s your name anyway? I can’t call you “the boy from the tree”, can I?’
‘There’s no need for you to call me anything. But if you must know, that’s what I was doing when you got here.’ He leant back and Lily saw a dangerously sharp-looking penknife resting by his legs and the first three letters of a name gouged into the tree bark. ‘I like to leave my name wherever they put me.’
‘J . . . O . . . S . . .’ she said out loud, as though she was back in Reception class trying to sound out a new word. ‘Is your name Josh?’
The boy almost gave a flicker of a smile before scowling it away at the last moment.
‘My name is Lily. Will you carve that into the tree too, when you’ve finished yours?’
The boy gave a non-committal shrug, but Lily already knew that he would do it.