Chapter 2: The Boy Who Climbed Trees

The reason that David seemed to fall out of so many trees was, of course, that he found them to be the best hiding places. He could escape into the cool branches of a secure maple and not be found for hours. The wind would blow through the leaves and rustle his hair while he continually turned the pages of the latest dragon novel. David loved all kinds of books, but fantasy was by far his favorite.

On the other end of the scale, Solomon did not believe in dragons, knights, or anything that required an imagination, and he found no value in reading. Although one of his favorite pastimes was hunting for David and attempting to knock him out of the tree, book and all.

David had always known that reading was an especially good skill to have, and so he read, despite the taunts of his brother. Reading may not have kept Solomon from beating on him, but he found comfort in the fact that his brother might some day be washing dishes in the local grease pit while he sat in an executive's office like his father's. David wasn't sure he wanted to be like his father, but he was sure it was better than being like his brother.

The dragon in his latest book, a beautiful blue female with wings that would have stretched from home plate to first base, was engulfed in an awe-inspiring battle between good and evil. Surrounded by elven archers and dwarfish warriors, she was fending off the attacking goblin army. She was just about to eat a goblin, who happened to be remarkably similar to Solomon, when a football nailed David squarely in the head.

“Look what got stuck in this tree,” called up a taunting voice from below. Without looking David knew that there would soon be a pack of five boys kicking at the shallow roots of his tree.

“Knock him out!” yelled Solomon as he jogged to his friend's side.

David, having no desire to be knocked from the tree, dog-eared the page and closed the paperback. Stuffing it into the waistband of his shorts, he moved as quickly as he could to the higher branches.

“Look at the monkey climbing the tree,” boomed a voice below him. “Don't fall outta the tree, Monkey!”

A rock nailed David in the back of his right knee, which happened to be supporting most of his weight, as he scrambled to climb away from the bigger boys. Consequently, his leg gave way under him, and he swung precariously from the branch above. The paperback slid out from the place where he had tucked it into his shorts, and it fell down one leg, bouncing through the branches, until it came to rest at Solomon's feet. David cursed under his breath.

“What's this?” he smirked. “Reading about fairies again? Fairy Boy.”

“Give it back,” David said calmly, knowing full well that he would never see that book again. His leg was bleeding, and he could feel the warm trickle running down his calf.

“No,” Solomon said, “this is for your own good. I can't have my little bro turning into a freakin' fairy lover, now can I?” He pointed his face up to look at his little brother still swinging above him in the tree. For a moment David considered dropping straight down on to his head, but he reconsidered, remembering that he was outnumbered five to one. Right on cue the other boys laughed and added in broken phrases of “yeah, freakin' fairy” and “Monkey Boy is a fairy lover.” David thought that they probably had a combined IQ of somewhere around eighty, but they were all bigger than he was, and he didn't want to start their summer fun early. His arms were tiring, and he was kicking around for a good foothold.

“I've gotta protect my little brother,” Solomon said cockily, sweeping the blond hairs back from his forehead. “This crap'll rot your mind, Bro.” With that he pulled the front cover from the book. David winced. It was a brand new book purchased with the money he had earned washing his mother's car, and his brother was shredding it five feet below while he was bleeding into his sock.

“Awww, the little monkey boy wants his book back,” crooned a tall, thin boy. David could see the beginnings of the acne blooming on the boy's chin, even from his branch in the tree. He suddenly wished with all his might that the boy's whole face would just explode from it.

“Better make sure you don't want to tape this back together,” sneered another boy named Jack, the one whom Solomon had run out of the house to find.

There were murmurs of “yeah good idea, J-man,” and with that Jack pulled down his fly and urinated on the pile of torn pages at the base of the tree. The clean white pages turned a putrid yellow under the thick stream. This prompted a huge roar of laughter from the boys who cheered him on; evil grins spread across their faces.

David found a foothold and leaned his head against the tree, resigning himself to a long and unpleasant summer. He was too old and too mature to cry over something as replaceable as an average paperback novel, but the humiliation of it washed over him like a great current, and he felt his face grow warm. He would not give them the satisfaction of knowing that they hurt him. Instead, he drew his legs up to his chest and waited for them to go away.

Seeming to have lost interest in him, sometime later, the gang of older boys moved off to go swimming in the lake, and David climbed down from the tree. The last thing he needed was his mother finding the pissed on remains of his book. She only ever managed to make things worse for him when she reprimanded his older brother. Turning his head away from the stench, David picked up a corner of the ripped novel and did the best he could to collect it all without getting his fingers wet. He gingerly carried it down to the lake and tossed it into a pile of brambles near the water's edge. He didn't think it likely that anyone would venture in there. He rinsed his hands in the lake and dried them on the side of his shorts.