The sun floats like a clementine in the purple sky. She stretches her golden hair through brown and gray tree branches as the autumn breeze flicks drying leaves from their fingertips. Spinning and falling, pausing and waving, the leaves cascading onto the hardening ground below.
A boy plays under the giant tree. He is small for his age with dark brown hair, wearing a down jacket and jeans. His red Converse shoes stomp around on the crunchy leaves as he marches around the base of the tree. Like a true soldier, he holds a long branch that once hung high above the Earth atop his shoulder and a smaller one sticking out from his denim pocket.
“Let’s go men!” He shouts. “We must go to battle!”
He readjusts his twiggy rifle at the front of his chest.
“1-2-3-4, hut, 2-3-4!” he exclaims in perfect time.
He continues pointing his rifle and calling to his men as they prepare for battle. With each command he addresses a smaller tree or fence post, which he has organized into a perfect formation in his mind.
He pauses. He looks down at his stomach as it rumbles commands back at him. He gently rests his hand upon his abdomen.
He quickly lifts his head and peers at his men, “Okay men. We will camp for supper.”
He places his wooden firearm at the base of the giant tree in his backyard battlefield. He gazes up at it in amazement, his mouth involuntarily jarring open as he brings his head further back.
The tree sits in the middle of the yard. It is tall and old and its circumference is wider than four little boy soldiers. His arms are raised high above the house, stretching open his fingers as if to protect the yard and its inhabitants below. In the spring, his leaves lay shadows along the grass, displacing shards of sunlight as the sun’s rays break through the canopy. But this autumn, his leaves have fallen and gathered at his roots.
The boy takes the fallen, crispy leaves and begins shoving them together to build a pile at the foot of the giant tree. He gathers as many leaves fit in his wingspan and claps his hands together with each follow through. Once his pile has grown to his liking, he stands, turns with his back to the tree and falls into it.
Leaves fly up and away, spinning and swinging back down onto him. He laughs and continues throwing leaves and rolling around in his new autumn bed. He then stops and reaches behind his head so he can touch the tree. He effortlessly expands and retracts his short legs in the pile listening to the dryness scratch and crumble beneath him.
While he sits peacefully in the lap of his best friend, a young girl is playing quietly next-door, on the other side of his fence post battalion. She is building something out of gardening tools, piling firewood and setting a shovel over it like a seesaw. The idea of a catapult is forming.
She loads her contraption with whatever backyard items she can find. Her ripped jeans compliment her old brown boots and loose ponytail; the hair tie desperately trying to hold its position in her auburn hair. After she loads the rusty coffee can that’s taped atop of the old shovel with acorns, a ball of twine, and wads of mulch, she jumps on the blade of the shovel and the contents of the can are released into the air.
But they fall short. Each time she launches, she quickly checks the crack in the fence to see if the boy soldier next-door has heard anything. She grimaces in clever scheme. She returns to the catapult and stares at it, along with the balls of failed projectiles lying haphazardly around her machine. She stabs her hands into her hips and gazes around the yard trying to think of better ammunition.
Something in the kitchen window catches her eye. She runs to retrieve it.
The boy next-door continues to lay in his pile of leaves listening to his stomach moan. “Eat up men! Tomorrow we fight to the death!” He looks up at the tree as if to ask for something to eat, for a little help. The tree’s top sways slightly in the breeze.
The auburn-haired girl next-door returns with her ammo in hand. She loads it into the coffee can and rushes back to the shovel blade ready to kick it into the air. Her confidence is glowing from her face, ready to get the boys attention. She rubs her fingers in the palms of each hand readying herself for the take-off.
“1…2…3…” she whispers.
RELEASE!
The ammo soars straight up into the sky remaining as still as a major league knuckle ball. It soars higher than any other attempt she made that day. Higher than the wad of mulch, further than the acorns. She smiles and gazes in hope that it might clear the fence. It does. The shiny red orb arches over the wooden fence separating the two battlefields and she continues to watch until it disappears on the other side.
Just as the boy has lost hope of ever eating again, something drops near him. The thing the auburn-haired girl loosed from her catapult lands on his side of the giant tree and quietly rolls to a stop.
Right then, the boy stops moving his legs. His arms stiffen in fright as he stares straight up at the sky questioning what it could have been. He slowly rolls over on to his stomach and pulls his knees to his chest. Once he is comfortable on all fours, he reaches to the side for his rifle. Slowly and steadily he pulls it near him ready to defend himself at any cost.
“Stand down, men,” he whispers, eyes still fixed on the source of the thud.
He presses his open left hand upon the cool, rough bark of the tree and inspects the source of the sound. He sees nothing. He straightens his back and looks harder, revealing a bit more grass now. He sees a touch of red.
The button-nosed girl waits anxiously, pressed against the tall wooden fence. She awaits his discovery with a smile, dimples like trenches in her cheeks.
He discovers the apple resting in the grass.
It’s the brightest apple he’s ever seen. A shiny red all the way around. A stem gently jutting from the top in a perfectly organic curve. He stops in his tracks with a look of shock on his face. He sits back on his heels and a smile begins to form, his sidearm resting in the loose grip of his small, right hand.
The girl behind the fence jumps away giggling. She turns back at the fence and begins to blush at the boy she’s watched through the broken wooden barrier. She levitates to her tippy-toes and outstretches her neck but alas, she cannot see over the fence. She expands her smile once more and turns to run in the house.
The boy, still sitting on his heels with a smile blaring from his face, looks up at his giant friend, then back at the apple that appears to have fallen from his branches above. No sign of apples hang from the tree, no sign of life at all, nothing but dwindling, dry autumn leaves. He’s always known the tree to be magical, to be special, but could never be sure. Now he has the proof. He has a perfect, brilliantly red apple sitting beside the tree. It had fallen from his friend to cure his hunger.
He grabs the apple and leaps back into his leaf pile, splashing leaves everywhere. He settles up against the tree and takes the biggest bite he could out of the apple. It’s juicy and delicious and he can taste the magic buried beneath its red skin.
He turns and hugs the tree, smiling and chewing joyfully.
And the tree was happy…
*The Giving Tree is a registered trademark of Harper-Collins Publishing.
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cheers great job