The Arborist

By M. S. Holm and Susana Sayles

When eleven-year-old Charlie Roebecker befriends Chief Goodyear, a homeless evacuee from Hurricane Katrina, he is not expecting any miracles. As Charlie says, "You can do only small things to fix a big problem." Chief Goodyear is an arborist—a fixer of trees. His arrival in Charlie’s town starts the boy on a mission to help

• Language: English
• Publisher: Great West Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997455335

M. S. Holm

M. S. Holm is the author of five previous books. Among his honors are the Moonbeam Winner Award and the ForeWord Book-of-the-Year Finalist. He lives in Mexico.

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Sentry Books

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Copyright © 2007 by M. S. Holm

Revised Edition © 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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

Sentry Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Great West Publishing.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007938941

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication

(Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)

Holm, M. S., author.

The arborist / by M.S. Holm; illustrations by Susana

Sayles. -- Second edition.

pages cm

SUMMARY: During the Christmas season, an

eleven-year-old boy befriends a homeless evacuee from

Hurricane Katrina.

ISBN 978-0-9974553-2-8

ISBN 978-0-9974553-1-1

ISBN 978-0-9796199-6-0

Homelessness--Juvenile fiction. 2. Christmas

trees--Juvenile fiction. 3. Hurricane Katrina, 2005--

Juvenile fiction. 4. Christmas stories. I. Title.

PZ7.H73228Arb 2016 [Fic]

QBI16-600018

ISBN eBook: 978-0-9974553-3-5

Illustrations by Susana Sayles

Cover artwork by Sarah Garibaldi

Book design and layout by Jonathan Gullery

Manufactured in the United States of America

CPSIA Compliance Information: Batch #0510

For

my mother and father

Contents

I

II

III

IV

I

My sister Irene said it was the ugliest Christmas tree she had ever seen, but I didn’t care. You only needed imagination to see what it could become.

I found it at the back of Mr. Paulson’s tent the day my father, Irene, and I went to buy our tree. It stood by itself in the corner with its top chopped off and orange sap oozing from the wound. The boughs were scrawny, and the trunk was crooked. You could see where the bark was skinned.

Irene laughed when she saw me checking it out. No roadkill, please, she said.

As usual, my sister had picked out the tallest tree in the tent, a perfect Douglas fir so full and triangular that it could have stood in the White House.

While my dad tied it to the roof of our minivan, I remained in the tree tent, breathing the piney smell and staring at the little tree in the corner.

Is this one for sale? I asked Mr. Paulson.

Why, it’s just a lop-off, Charlie, he said. Going to make a wreath, are you?

I don’t know, I replied, though I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

Here, he said, picking it up with one hand. He held it out as if he might twirl it. No charge.

When I carried it out of the tent, Irene protested. Don’t bring that thing near here! It’s probably got tree rabies or something.

I leaned it against our car. Trees don’t get rabies, I answered.

Dad! I don’t want our tree catching whatever that sick one has!

My dad said, That’s enough, you two. We’ll put it in the back.

And that’s the beauty of our Plymouth minivan. A normal tree fits inside.

On our way home, Irene announced, I’m not getting within a mile of that thing.

I kept my mouth shut. The needles of my puny tree tickled me from across the rear seat. A mile was fine with me. Actually, a mile was pretty close. Irene could never have guessed that my little tree was going to Chief Goodyear.

I had been the first kid to spot him from the school bus that September.

Hey! Who’s that? I had said one morning, pointing to a stranger sitting on a stack of tires in the vacant lot next to Hildreth’s Hardware. He was holding a pan over a fire.

In our town, you didn’t see strangers cooking in public like that, so kids glued their faces to the bus windows. In the same corner of the lot, we saw a homemade tent that looked like a miniature tepee.

Why is he in our lot? asked Gooter.

Gooter and I are best buddies, but he is more territorial than me. We played baseball and soccer in Mr. Hildreth’s lot. In the winter, we built forts and waged snowball wars there. To Gooter, the lot next to the hardware store was our lot.

He must be camping, I said.

The next day, he was still there. The day after, a cardboard sign hung on the tent. NEED WORK, it read. By the end of the week, rumors ran the length of the bus. Some kids said he was a hobo from the yards. Others suggested that he was an illegal immigrant. Gooter started calling him Chief Goodyear because of the tepee and the tires. The name stuck.

When my father drove us to church on Sunday morning, Chief Goodyear was doing sit-ups near his tepee. My mom noticed.

Harold, did you see that? she asked, looking back.

As a rule, my dad never took his eyes off the road when he was behind the wheel.

See what? he replied.

A man is living in a tent next to Hildreth’s.

He has been there all week, I interjected. I saw him from the bus.

Maybe we should call the police, said Irene.

It was just like Irene to say something silly like that.

I wonder what he is doing there, my mom remarked.

On the way home after church, my dad slowed the Plymouth in front of Hildreth’s Hardware.

Chief Goodyear stood near his tepee. His gray hair stuck out in every direction. His clothes were dirty and rumpled like he had slept in them.

Suddenly, he turned and looked at us. His face was friendly. He smiled and waved.

My parents reared