Tree People

By Rebecca Radley

Eugenia is happily complacent in her structured life until the day she discovers 5-year old Spooner playing in her childhood tree house. She chases the boy away with dire warnings, but that's not enough to keep Spooner from bringing his homeless family back to the tree house to spend the night.

Although Eugenia's wishful suitor, Stan, chides Eugenia for her cold heart after she sends the Tree People packing, Stan's own rigid beliefs are tested when his son comes home for spring break with a pregnant girlfriend.
As the Blizzard of the Century threatens the region, Eugenia and Stan grapple with their right wing attitudes when they collide at a very personal level with the problems of real people.

If a butterfly can flap its wings and start a hurricane, a small boy just might be able to change some lives forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Radley
• Release date: Jan 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311384515

Rebecca Radley

I have been writing since I began publishing a family newspaper in the third grade. I live in central Texas, where I work as a legal assistant and part-time dance teacher. When the boys were young, I wrote several non-fiction articles, a couple of which were published in periodicals---many of which were not. A few years later when an idea came to me for a story for my favorite television series, I tried my hand at script-writing. Although I never could get the studio to look at my tv scripts, I eventually had an idea for a screenplay and ran with it. A kind and nurturing literary agent took me under his wing, gave me encouragement, and peddled my screenplays around Hollywood. Though I didn't sell anything at the time, I have continued to write, and the stories from my screenplays are the foundation for three of my novels. The characters in my books have lived with me for so long that they seem very real to me and their stories make my heart smile---I hope they will yours, too.I love to hear from my readers! Please send a note to [e-mail] to join my mailing list. And read my blog at http://rebeccaradley.com

Book preview

Tree People

Rebecca Radley

Copyright © 2013,2014,2015 Rebecca Radley

All Rights Reserved

http://rebeccaradley.com

Smashwords edition

published by Nepo Press

formatted by http://nepotism.net July 31, 2015

cover by Frank Sergeant (http://nepotism.net)

woman’s face http://www.canstockphoto.com/beautiful-mature-woman-eating-green-8821441.html © Can Stock Photo Inc. / photography33

oak tree

http://www.canstockphoto.com/old-oak-tree-in-the-fall-1-0140379.html © Can Stock Photo Inc. / Elenathewise

font for cover from http://www.1001fonts.com/dearkatienbp-font.html: DEAR KATIE NBP made by Nate Halley. License: Creative Commons (by-sa) Attribution Share Alike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

pirates’ treasure http://www.canstockphoto.com/pirates-treasure-still-life-14361425.html © Can Stock Photo Inc. / Anna_Omelchenko

What a Friend We Have In Jesus, poem by Joseph M. Scriven, tune for hymn by Charles Crozat Converse

The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, fantasy novels by J. R. R. Tolkien

The printed and PDF versions of this book are set in the Libertine font (http://linuxlibertine.org/) licensed under the Open Font License (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Tree People

Eugenia is happily complacent in her structured life until the day she discovers 5-year old Spooner playing in her childhood tree house. She chases the boy away with dire warnings, but that’s not enough to keep Spooner from bringing his homeless family back to the tree house to spend the night.

Although Eugenia’s wishful suitor, Stan, chides Eugenia for her cold heart after she sends the Tree People packing, Stan’s own rigid beliefs are tested when his son comes home for spring break with a pregnant girlfriend.

As the Blizzard of the Century threatens the region, Eugenia and Stan grapple with their right wing attitudes when they collide at a very personal level with the problems of real people.

If a butterfly can flap its wings and start a hurricane, a small boy just might be able to change some lives forever.

— Rebecca Radley

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Table of Contents

About Tree People

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Calm Before the Storm

Chapter 2 - Storm of the Century

Chapter 3 - Suffer the Little Children

Chapter 4 - Elementary Education

Chapter 5 - Lightning Bolts

Chapter 6 - Quantum Leap

Chapter 7 - Jumble Sale

Chapter 8 - Mister and Miss Banker

Chapter 9 - Pieces of Eight

Chapter 10 - Provocation

Chapter 11 - Parade of Fools

Chapter 12 - The Two Towers

Chapter 13 - Awards Banquet

Chapter 14 - Admissions and Regrets

Chapter 15 - Restoration

Epilogue

About the Author

About America’s Junior Miss

About Vienna Bonbons

About Sombras del Pasado

To the two best boys in the world, I love you more than anyone in the whole wide world can count.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Mary Beth Wilbanks, exceptional editor and dear, dear friend. And special thanks to Frank Sergeant, the man behind the author, whose formatting, artistic, editorial, proofreading, and people skills, have made this book possible.

For it is easier to shout stop than to do it.

But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway.

— Treebeard from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers

Prologue

You, hey, you! Come down from there! Eugenia yelled.

Go away!

Come down here this minute, or I’ll come up and get you, she said.

No, you won’t, the boy said. You’re an old lady!

Don’t think I wouldn’t, Eugenia said as she reached for the rope that hung down from the doorway.

The boy began to haul the rope up.

This is private property, young man. You can’t play here.

He stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry.

Be a good boy. Please come down now, Eugenia said.

No!

What would your mother say? Eugenia’s tension headache wasn’t helping her mood.

She’d say you’re ugly!

Who is she? Eugenia was now using her most reasonable finance officer voice. I think I’ll give her a call.

She could hear the boy scuffle into the corner of the tree house and pictured him with arms wrapped around his knees in a tight little knot.

Won’t you tell me your name?

Spooner, she heard from inside. Then the little face appeared in the doorway. "What’s your name?"

Eugenia. That’s better, Spooner. Now, where do you live?

In a tree.

But, where?

Mommy says we’re tree people.

Tree people?

Just then Eugenia’s nosy neighbor lady called out. Miss Norris! Miss Norris!

You stay right there, Eugenia cautioned the boy. But the minute she turned her back, he shinnied down the rope and scurried away up the street.

Chapter 1

Calm Before the Storm

Before Superstorm Sandy tore up the eastern coast of the US in the late fall of 2012, the storm I remembered best was the 1993 Storm of the Century that my 5-year old brother and I lived through as homeless children.

Though he still doesn’t acknowledge the hint of a memory of our life as Tree People, Spooner was, without a doubt, the mover and shaker during that eventful time.

I’ve always wondered how our lives might have been different, if they hadn’t towed off the station wagon three days before the blizzard …

Late that Tuesday afternoon, after Eugenia chased him out of the tree house, Spooner came running home with a hot dog some old hobo had given him. Mom and Dad (Melanie and Hal) were out looking for aluminum cans and Spooner and I locked ourselves in the station wagon, which wasn’t going anywhere, because, well, all the tires had gone flat a couple of weeks earlier.

We divided the hot dog and I was about to start my arithmetic homework, when Spooner saw the flashing lights. He was just a kid, mind you, but he had the street smarts of a 40-year old junkie.

Cops coming, Josh. Get out of the car!

The cop had stopped his cruiser at the end of the street and Spooner’s hobo was talking the guy’s ear off, waving his arms every which way. Behind the cruiser was a flatbed tow truck. The hobo bought us enough time to sneak out of the car and unload a bunch of stuff, which we stowed behind some trash barrels in back of the stairway in the alley. Then we hid and watched the tow truck haul our home away.

It was dark before Melanie and Hal got back. They had a jar of peanut butter and we ate it with an old metal spoon we’d saved from the car. Spooner licked the spoon clean, then it was my turn. Then Melanie made Hal eat some. When Melanie started her turn, Spooner climbed into our dad’s lap. Hal hugged him—I guess from muscle memory—but he didn’t say anything. His eyes would fill with tears sometimes, and he’d stare dully into space, but I hadn’t heard him utter a word since the car had its last flat.

It’s cold, Spooner said. I wish we had the car still.

Where will we sleep tonight? I asked.

Now that we don’t have the car, we’re going to have to find some place to get out of the weather, Melanie said.

I have a place … Spooner began. But I had another idea and interrupted him. What about the bus station? There’s always a bunch of people stay there.

Not all night, though, Melanie said.

We can pretend we’re traveling to Pittsburgh, I said.

I don’t know, Josh.

There’s a man living in a boxcar over by the railroad tracks. He gave Spooner a hot dog, I continued. Maybe he’d let us stay with him tonight.

No, Josh.

I have a place, Spooner repeated.

We wrapped up in blankets salvaged from the station wagon and fished newspapers out of people’s trash as we followed Spooner from the warehouse district, through town, and into a nearby residential section.

Spooner led us to a large, colonial home on a tree-covered lot that must have been a half-acre, or more. The driveway on the north side of the house led to a barn-like garage in back. In a wide, grassy strip between the driveway and the property line, half-way down from the street toward the front of the house, stood a big, gnarled oak tree, easily over 100 years old. Sitting on a giant branch eight feet up was a tree house that could have been the inspiration for Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson.

There was an old rope hanging down from the doorway of the tree house and Spooner climbed up quick as a monkey. Hal put his hand on my bottom and pressed me up like I didn’t weigh anything. He was tall and still really strong from his time in the Marines. He climbed up inside and Melanie handed him our blankets and stuff. Then he reached an arm down and pulled her up like he was rescuing her from a mountain cliff.

We lined the tree house with newspapers and hung blankets across the little window and the doorway. All huddled together under the newspaper, we stayed pretty warm that night.

When I woke the next morning, Hal was sitting on the edge dangling his legs out and Melanie was kneeling behind him massaging his shoulders. She wasn’t more than 5 feet tall, very thin, and her hair was all cut off because she was afraid of getting lice. She looked like a skinny boy.

Eugenia spotted Melanie and Hal out the window just after she had poured her morning coffee. My god! she said and dropped her cup in the sink. Shards of bone china bounced out and landed on the floor. She was still wearing her slippers and had to be careful not to cut her feet as she raced for the phone to call Stan.

Eugenia was sitting in the rocking chair with a shotgun across her lap when Stan arrived, ten minutes later.

What’s the matter? he asked.

There are two strange men out there, Eugenia said, pointing out the window.

Where? I don’t see anyone.

In the tree house, she said. Two men.

When Stan was helping her carry the ladder over to the tree house a few minutes later, Eugenia saw Spooner peeking out from the doorway above.

Wait! It’s the Tree People.

The who?

The little boy said they were Tree People. Never mind, I’m going up.

I should go …

Just hold the ladder, Stan, she said, and climbed up the ladder on that cold March morning in her pajamas and slippers.

Excuse me! This is private property. I told Spooner yesterday afternoon when I saw him playing in there.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Melanie said. We’ll leave.

Eugenia stood with fists on her hips, while we rolled up our blankets and climbed down the ladder. Forehead furrowed, she glared sternly after us as we trudged up the street. Stan chuckled, but Eugenia didn’t even crack a smile, when Spooner turned around at the bus stop and waved.

Bye, lady! Have a nice day!

Stan read the newspaper at the kitchen table while Eugenia dressed for work.

Those poor people, he said, as they drove into town later.

Poor nothing. They’re bums, she said.

Eugenia!

Well, that’s what they are! Loafers on the dole. Making no attempt to better themselves.

Isn’t that kind of a hard-assed, right wing attitude, even for you? You have no idea what terrible circumstances might have brought them here.

Mind your own business.

Hey, come on, Stan said. Where’s your heart?

They’re just like stray cats, Eugenia told him. If you don’t feed them, they’ll go away.

That’s great, Eugenia, he said. "That NIMBY attitude