Chapter Two

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on my phone going off. It was the only sound, as no birds chirped in their treeless yard and my father had either decided to stay so late at where ever he'd gone that he'd stayed overnight or else was in bed sound asleep still. I was tempted to tell it to let me snooze, but if I did that I'd do it again and again until I barely had enough time to get dressed and out the door. If I got up now, I could shower, dress, eat while checking over my homework, and then leave early enough to get inside to the school library before the first bell rang. This would keep me safe from the bullies, at least until it was time to brave the halls.

I could already tell that the day wasn't going to miraculously be the start of anything spectacularly wonderful. The hot water heater was old and it sometimes did not play nice. Today was one of those sometimes. The water for my shower started off lukewarm and from there went to cold. At least the cold took care of any lingering issues of embarrassing body parts behaving rudely. Hurriedly washed off and jumped out, rubbing the towel briskly over my skin, trying to rub in warmth as it dried the water off of my skin. It didn't work very well, but it did stop me from shivering quite so much as I put on my clothes.

My clothes were nothing special, just jeans, t-shirt and no name sneakers from Wal- mart. I didn't bother with socks as the shoes were beginning to feel a bit tight. I was still growing, my feet especially it seemed. Socks just made the shoes that little bit more unbearable, pinching and rubbing hard against the softer skin and helping blisters along on the heel and side of my big toe. I know I needed new shoes, but asking Dad for the money to buy them was a conversation I didn't want to have. Dad had retired after Mom died, and money was tighter. So I did what I could to help stretch the money as far as it would go, for as long as possible.

Breakfast was plain old cornflakes. That's what the box said anyway. The yellow coloring of the tiny curled up flakes encouraged that belief, but the lack of any flavor belied it. I remembered the taste of real cornflakes- that is brand name ones. The large flakes tasted of sunshine with a hint of sweetness, and Mom would slice a banana and sprinkle the slices over the top. Regular store brand ones might be like that too, but I don't know. We'd gone from brand name to the cheapest of generics just like that. I wish we could at least buy some fruit. Sliced bananas would add at least some taste to this.

I ate quickly then eyed over my homework from the night before. I caught a mistake on my math, and quickly fixed it, then shoved everything into my bag and raced out the door. I had a spare 20 minutes that I could spend in the library, if I hurried along. I hurried along, with my head down, watching where my feet were going and occasionally glancing up through my hair to make sure I wasn't about to run into anyone or anything.

I made it, but found the doors were locked and I could not get into the library s usual. I frowned, wondering why this was, trying to fight off the rising panic in my chest. If I stood out here, I'd be here when the other kids arrived. That would mean I would be here, a standing target for josh or anyone else who felt like bothering me to get at me. This was exactly why I’d wanted to get here and go into the library. If I'd made it into the library, I could have stayed there until the last bell had rung, and then make a quick dash down the mostly empty hall to class. That was obviously no longer an option, so what was I to do now?

As I willed my heart to stop beating so fast, I looked up to find a focal point so I could center myself and calm my breathing. My eyes lit upon the park across the street from the school. I looked fixedly at the trash can at the entrance and an realization came to me. I could go to the park. I knew what time the bells rang, so if I just kept an eye on the time, I could escape there until it was time to go. This decided, I could literally feel the tension melt from my body, my shoulders no longer so tense that my teeth grit against each other.

Yes, I would go to the park. One foot, then another. Step after step, as I made my way to the park, I felt my certainty grow. The trees seemed to beckon to me, and something stirred in the back of my mind. I couldn't quite grasp what it was, but decided it was unimportant. Right now, I simply needed to get to a place I felt safe. A place that my heart and mind told me was up ahead, protected from view by the wrought iron railings and screening shrubbery and trees of Mulberry Square Park. Even the name of the park brought up comforting associations. Mulberry brought to mind my mother, reading me “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street”. It's kind of hard to stay scared when you have Dr. Seuss on the brain.

I made it across the street, and into the park. I took the path to my left, where I could see a park bench. It was close enough to the entrance that I could make it if I made a dash for it, but not so close that the main path going out the gate that anyone cutting through the park to get to school might see me unless they were really looking. I sat down on the bench, relieved. Then I wondered what to do now. If I'd been at the library, I could have browsed through the books, or sat and read for a few minutes. Here there was nothing unless I wanted to read through my text books, which I decidedly did not wish t do. I decided to sit and just enjoy being in the green space, but as the time stretched out and I glanced at my phone, I realized that 20 minutes here could seem like forever as only four minutes had gone past and it had seemed like ages.

I began jiggling my leg up and down, unable to sit still. This was something I often did and tried hard not to. That and shifting about in my seat. I've always found it extremely hard to simply sit still. I forced my self to stop, then felt my eyes darting about here and there, eager to process all that could be seen. It was then that I noticed him One moment there was simply a tree. The next there was a boy. He seemed to almost melt from within the tree to the outside. I definitely needed to get my eyes checked. In any case, it was the guy I'd seen staring at me the day before. He simply gazed at me silently, brushed a lock of his hair back, and leaned back into the tree. And I do mean INTO the tree. He simply seemed to become one with it.

I began to freak out. Had someone perhaps tampered with the cornflakes we'd gotten? Maybe the milk had been contaminated. Wait, he'd gotten some water up his nose while showering. Maybe it was something in the water. I'd seen where people tried tampering with water supplies, like on cops shows and stuff. What if Dad has had some of whatever it is, and he hallucinated something only he got hurt? I jumped off the bench, and tore off past kids coming up the pavement towards school, people getting out of parked cars, and some guy out walking his dog.

I ran until my shins began to hurt, and knives cut into me with every breath I took, and then I slowed into a trot just long enough to let those turn into dull aches, and then took off again. I ran all the way only to find an empty. Had the car been in the drive when I left? I couldn't remember. I didn't see a note anywhere either. Dad's bed was made, but he was meticulous and always made his bed as soon as he got up so that meant absolutely nothing. No bowls in the sink or in the drainer. Good. That meant he'd been home, washed up and put everything away. But where did he go? And what if it had been in the water or cornflakes and he'd eaten or drank enough of it that he was off driving while imaging all sorts of weird shit?

I couldn't call the cops. They'd think I was nuts. “yes, hello. I think my dad ate some cornflakes and drank coffee made with drug laced water. He might be driving around seeing guys who are trees. I know because I saw a guy only he as a tree.” Yup, they'd come for me instead. Maybe there were no drugs, and he'd simply lost the plot. Maybe I'd hit his head on the steps yesterday and was suffering from a brain injury. That must be it. It'd explain why the people I'd run past looked so normal. It was just me. I'd hit my head and was dreaming while unconscious. None of this is happening. I'm still on the steps, and in just a moment or two, I'll come to and...

I waited. Nothing except the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the side table. No more guys came out of the woodwork though. No little white rabbits either, or cats who turned into smiles, or anything else weird. I glanced at the clock. Shit. I'd missed first period. Might as well not go in now, but if I stayed home, dad might return and wonder why the hell I was here and not at school. I could pretend to be sick, but then he'd get all worried and I couldn't do that to him. I decided to slip into my room and read until I heard him come in. then I could slip out of my window and into the back yard. If I cut across Mrs. Patterson’s backyard behind us, I could catch the bus from the stop in front of her house and spend the rest of the school day at the public library. That decided, I pulled my book from off of my bedside table, and began to read, body half tensed in readiness for the sound of a front door that never opened.

It was past supper time when the knocking began on our front door. Dad still wasn't home, and no on ever came to visit anymore. I looked out the living room window, and spied a police car pulled up in front of our house. I couldn't see the person actually at the door but I could make out what was most likely a dark uniform sleeve like a police officer might wear. I gulped. Was this about Dad? I hoped it wasn't anything too serious. I opened the door.

“Cody Barnaby?” the officer said.

I nodded my head numbly. The officer's eyes softened.

“I'm sorry,” he began.

I never even heard the rest of what it was he said. One look at his sympathy filled eyes as he just just those two words, and my world turned a brilliant white. I had indeed fallen down a rabbit hole. Boys who were trees, and fathers who are gone. I refused to think the word dead. Dead made it so final, like with Mom. I refused to believe that my dad would leave me completely alone. If I didn't hear the words, didn't listen to them, didn't acknowledge them, then I had a chance at climbing back out into my reality.

Mrs. McPherson from next door came over. I don't know if the officer went over to her house, or if she saw his car and came nosying over. It didn't matter. There weren't any casseroles this time. No phones ringing condolences. Just Mrs. McPherson, talking in hushed tones with the officer, then going into where our bedrooms were, emerging with a handful of my clothes, and returning to her home with them. This version of me followed her. I knew I had to play along, discover the rules. Then I could play them all at their own game, and find my way back. Back to where Dad was going to come home, we'd nuke a couple of frozen dinners, and trees definitely did not have people inside of them.

Chapter One

Chapter Three

©2013-2014 Lillian McKinnon. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter One

Did you know that in many places, you can leave an unwanted child at a police station, hospital or fire station? Not just unwanted as in “I hate you, so I can't wait to get rid of you” type of unwanted either. It can be for any reason- such as not wanting your child to starve because you're too poor to take take proper care of them. And not just babies either. You can leave big kids, teenagers even. I'd like to think that most people give an actual reason, so kids who were loved but unable to be cared for would know this part of their story at least, but that's probably me being starry eyed and hoping for fairy tales.

Having safe places to leave your kids though doesn't mean that everyone bothers. There's always the throwaways. Like me, for example. I wasn't some poor baby found clinging to life inside a dumpster or anything like that. No, my parents decided to wait until I was about preschool age and then dump my weird looking ass off in the middle of a national forest. Well, that might be overstating it a bit. Actually, I was about 3 miles away from a ranger station, just off trail. But it was miles deep into the Redwood national forest. My dad, my REAL dad who adopted me, worked as a ranger at the time, and while doing his thing, came across me huddled at the foot of one of the giant sequoia. I was dirty, scared, and dehydrated. I don't remember anything about that time, but he's always told me that I was terrified of him and tried to scrabble away as if I thought he would do me some sort of harm.

I was a genuine mystery. Between my obviously Asian face and my wildly multi-toned red hair, they hadn't a clue as I didn't respond to any English spoken at me. I also didn't grasp any Chinese, or Japanese. Korean was a bust as was Thai. They even at first thought my hair was dyed, but soon found out it was just another oddity about me. After the furore died down about me in the press and no leads as to who my parents were or why I had been abandoned in such a place, it was decided that as I was otherwise healthy, I could be released from the hospital and placed into foster care.

My dad and mom came forward. They plead their case, interested in not just fostering me, but adopting me, and after all the hoops they had to jump through to first be allowed to foster me, then to adopt me, they got their wish. It was a pretty good life, right up until Mom died. Two years ago, the night before my 12th birthday, Mom sat down on the couch to watch a bit of TV. She'd baked and decorated a birthday cake for me and had the meat for the family barbecue celebration marinating. Tired, she drifted off to sleep watching some game show, resting up before making dinner. Dinner never got made. They said it was an aneurysm. Basically, a blood clot went pop in her brain, and it seems they are sneaky things that simply just happen.

That cake sat on the counter for weeks, until mold began to grow fuzz not only on the cake, but along the edges of the cake cover. The food in the fridge went off, but that didn't matter because everyone and their cousin came crawling out of the woodwork to bring us tuna casserole and macaroni salad and all sorts of stuff like that. One of those ladies threw out the cake and cleaned out the fridge when she saw it as she went to put her casserole in the kitchen. All at once too, as if we could simply gorge ourselves on casseroles for 2 days to get it all eaten and then start again when they collected their dishes a few days later and plied us with green bean casserole and huge bowls of goodness knows what.

I'd always been picked on to a certain extent at school because of my looks. The other kids would call me carrot top and fire brain, while others would pull at the corners of their eyes until they became slits, and then they'd make comments about “Chinky Chinky boy”. My Mom used to say I was beautiful, in a delicate way and that they were jealous of my exotically good looks. As for my hair, she said the shadings of red to almost orange and even blonde reminded her of a candle flame. I loved her for that, but let's face it. Moms see what their heart shows, and it isn't always reality. I was a weird looking kid, and that was that.

After she died, you'd think some of the kids would have let up put of sympathy, but they didn't. If anything, they smelled blood in the water, like sharks. They could sense my feelings of vulnerability, and my sadness over losing my Mom. They began tormenting me even over death, going so far at times as to taunt me with the fact that yet another mother had left me. Cruel words, but nonetheless, they cut deeply as I did indeed feel abandoned and somewhat alone.

Then, if you can believe it, another freakish thing about me came to my attention. At 13, I realized that I felt about boys the way the other boys did about girls. Junior high locker rooms became a nightmare. God help me if they caught me looking, as I could get a beat down just for being me and glancing at them. But if they knew what I was thinking, and then caught me looking- I knew that would be more than a beat down. I didn't even want to think about that.

I kept my head down and prayed that it would indeed get better, hopefully once I made it to high school. Our small school fed into a much larger high school. This school even had a GSA, or a gay Straight Alliance. But, as usual, when the time came, I found myself still the butt of jokes and the occasional push or shove thanks to my odd looks. I did try to screw up the courage to visit the GSA meetings advertised, but when I approached and made eye contact with a couple of the kids going into the room, I met hostile glares, so I made myself scarce. I don't know if they thought I was trying to start crap, or if they just didn't want to have any thrown their way for associating with the really weird kid. Whatever their reason, I decided it was a good idea to steer clear. It was obvious I'd find no allies there.

I guess it's no surprise that when I noticed some guy looking at me s I made my way down the hallway and towards the freedom of the front doors at the end of the school day, I was more than a little bit leery. He was looking at me intently, but just what those intentions were, I was afraid to find out. My mind raced. I didn't recognize this guy. Sure, it's a rather large school and the people I actually do know are a relative drop in the bucket, but I'm pretty sure I’d remember someone who looked liked this guy did. Vividly green eyes and dark lush lashes like that are memorable, even without the rest of the package. He was tall, and I do mean TALL. Not just taller than short little old me, but towering over everyone else kind of tall. His hair was brown, but not plain old mousy brown or mud brown. It was a warm brown, shimmering with red and gold highlights any stylist would be proud to have put in. His skin was a warm shade too, looking as if he tanned regularly but somehow I got the feeling this was all him. Some people were just born to be gorgeous. It balances out the freakish looking people like me.

Uneasy under his stare, I made a dash for it. I managed to clear the doors, and I would have made it all the way down the steps and to the pavement if it hadn't been for Josh Henderson. Josh stopped dead in front of me, apparently deciding to not step aside while trying to engage some girl in conversation. I tried to squeeze past, rather than run full tilt in to him with the crowd going for the buses at my back. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough space, and I clipped Josh's arm and that of some other guy I didn't know.

“Hey, asswipe! Watch where you're going!”

“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered to them both, ducking my head and trying to make my get away.

The one guy glared, but gave a curt nod. Josh however was another story.

“Oh, it's you, freak boy!”

I could feel the panic beginning to settle into my bones.

“Sorry,” I said again, and went to hurry away, despite Josh's hand gripping my arm rather painfully. He let go, and felt a hard shove at my back. I went forward, and hit the the steps, arms out and face turned to the side, hoping to brace my fall against all odds and hopefully not break my face. The shock of the impact knocked the breath out me, and I choked back a sob of pain. My ribs had caught the edge of one of the steps, hard. I barely had time to register that when Josh's foot kicked at me. My rucksack caught most of that, but it added enough of a jarring motion to scrape my chest against the steps again, making my ribs feel like they were being grated.

“You there!”

A teacher's voice.

“I'm just helping him up,” Josh said as he grabbed the straps to my rucksack and yanked me upwards. I flailed for balance and as I steadied myself, I heard him whisper, “Just watch yourself, dork.”

I could hear a few snickers from the crowd, and as soon as he released me, I ducked my head down and made my escape. I didn't even flush with embarrassment. This was my life. It has always been this way. Except for two people, my adoptive Mom and dad, no one has ever wanted me or even liked me, so this was nothing new. The humiliation had long worn off.

As I trudged home, clouds rolled in and it began to rain. Just great., as it had been warm and sunny with no rain forecast, so I didn't have a jacket or anything. Soon my thin t-shirt was soaked and my damp backpack began to rub. To top all off, a car turned a corner too close to the curb, and my jeans were splattered with the muddy water. What an absolutely perfect end to an already shit day of school.

“Cody? That you, son?” my dad's voice called out.

“Yeah, it's me, Dad,” I called back. He has asked me this every day since Mom died. I sometimes think that he hopes against hope that it'll be her, returning from the grocery store or something. I often wish stuff like that too, but I know it's not gonna happen.

Dad stepped from the hall into the living room. He was shrugging on his jacket. Looked like he was going out again.

“Grab whatever you want out of the freezer, okay? I'll be at Dave's if you need me. Don't forget to your homework.”

Yup, he was going out for the night again. Lately he'd been going out to go bowling, play poker, watch the game, pretty much anything that took him out of the house and its memories. Problem is, it takes him away from me as well, and I'm left here alone with them by myself. Maybe we should just move and maybe get new furniture and stuff or redecorate. I don't know, and I don't know how to bring it up either. So, as usual, I just mumble, “Okay, Dad. Have a good time.” Yay. Supermarket brand ready meal something or other again tonight. Maybe I'll just have a sandwich. Whatever.

Prologue

Chapter Two

©2013-2014 Lillian McKinnon. All Rights Reserved.