Cameron
looked up at me, her blue eyes vacant. “Huh?”
I knew
that would be my answer. “Well, it was worth a shot.” I ripped the red-inked
paper in half and tossed it into the recycle. Cameron beamed at me and I
half-smiled back. “What are you going to wear today?”
Still
grinning, she pointed at her rubber dinosaur boots and Morton-salt-girl rain
coat. “Rain!”
A glance
outside revealed a cloudless July sky. “It’s summer.”
“Rain,
rain, rain, rain, rain!” Cameron chanted, happy as a clam at high tide. She
slid yellow-stockinged feet into her boots. Experience warned me away from an
attempt to convince her to change her orange leggings. If she wanted to look
like a du ck, then she would look like a duck. End of story.
“Where
do you want to go today?” I asked as I pulled on a tank top and shorts. I
considered flip flops to show off the pedicure I’d given myself that morning,
but reconsidered. If Cameron was wearing rain boots, then I wanted real shoes.
“Park!”
Cameron crowed. “It’s raining in the park!”
Our
apartment was three blocks from the park. I doubted it.
“Well,
finish getting dressed! We don’t have all day, you know.”
She
pulled her bright coat on over her mismatched light and dark green skirt and
shirt. I buttoned it up for her while she put her hat on just right.
“How do
I look?” For the first time her eyes showed an emotion other than cheer.
Her hat
was crooked, her hair tangled, and she looked like a giant Starburst wrapper.
“You look great, Cam,” I replied, and grabbed an umbrella on our way out the
door.
***
“Kayleigh,
you can’t sit there, that’s the stupid table.”
I’d been
about to place my lunch tray next to Cameron’s. At my new friend’s words,
however, I straightened back up. “What do you mean?”
She
pulled me aside. “Those are the retarded
kids,” she whispered. “They aren’t like us.” Her face was serious, completely
contrary to her flowery pink dress and beribboned braids.
I looked
between Cameron and my new friend, made just that morning in Mrs. Beck’s class.
She gave a little tug on my arm, spilling my cup of juice and urging me to come
with her, to get away from the “stupid kids”. I took a step in her direction,
then looked back at Cameron. She was watching me silently, a hazy kind of hurt
in her eyes.
“No.” I
tugged away from the girl whose name I forgot later that day. “You aren’t like
Cameron.” I sat stubbornly at the stupid table while the girl marched away in a
huff.
Cameron
seemed happy, but I ate my lunch in grumpy silence. When I saw how people
avoided me afterward, as if I carried a disease, I came to two conclusions:
first, that I hated school lunches; and second, that Cameron would be my only
friend ever.
***
It was
warm and sunny at the park. The air smelled of lawn clippings and salt air, a
sure sign of the season. It seemed doubtful that rain was on the way. Still,
Cameron had never been wrong when it came to weather.
Delighting
in the fresh green surroundings, she took off with a Xena yell. Women pushing
strollers glared in our direction. A jogger stopped to stare at the crazy girl
in the rain coat running full-tilt toward the nearest tree. She blazed past him
while he gaped.
When she
hit the tree, she began to climb, raincoat and all. It was an old maple with
plenty of branches, but as soon as her feet lifted off the ground I ran toward
her. “Cameron! Cam! What are you doing?!”
“Climb!”
she ordered when I arrived, panting.
“No, you
come down.”
“No,
climb!” She was moving further up into the branches, surprisingly agile. Her
boots had no traction against the branches but that didn’t seem to affect her.
I just knew that she would get stuck on her way down.
Setting
my hands against the branch over my head, I lifted myself off the ground and
began to climb.
***
“Camie,
look!” I shouted.
Cameron
looked up at me. She was wearing a red-and-white striped shirt over blue jeans
and was sitting in a pile of oak leaves we had raked earlier, searching for
galls. I perched in the tree right above the pile, over Cameron’s head. She
grinned and waved, but was not distracted from her hunt for long. She picked up
another leaf, inspected it, and put it behind her.
Farther
out on the branch, there was a rope with a tire attached to it. Angry that
Cameron wasn’t looking, I crawled farther out. Dirt and moss from the limb
clung to my scabby knees and my shorts. I ignored this, although it was itchy.
“Camie, I’m gonna climb down the rope!”
Cameron
nodded, but didn’t look up.
Infuriated,
I took hold of the moldy rope. It was at least twelve feet long, which was
plenty of length to reach Cameron. I used my weight to start rocking the tire
swing in her direction, hoping to bump her head so she would watch.
The
swing was heavier than I had thought. I was able to bring its momentum up
enough so that it moved back and forth a few feet, but it wasn’t enough to hit
Cameron. This only made me madder. I shifted my position so I was lying down on
the limb, holding on to a smaller branch for support while I grabbed farther
down on the rope.
This was
a mistake. The mossy old branch was not meant for all the gymnastics I was
doing. My handhold snapped, and down I went.
I didn’t
have time to scream. My hands grasped for the rope but I was falling too fast.
Heat sliced through my palms. If it hadn’t been for the tire swing, I would
have landed on my chest and probably broken some ribs or my spine. Instead, the
big black wheel knocked me to one side so that I landed on my leg instead,
which snapped with a crack like a gunshot.
I laid
on the ground for several moments, dazed, while the tire swayed back and forth
over me. When I looked for Cameron, she was lying in the leaves, bumped over
from the force of the swing. Her eyes were closed, and I started crying.
***
My knee
was scraped, my hair was covered in leaves, and I was trembling by the time I
reached Cameron’s perch. She sat with her legs crossed in front of her and her
back to the trunk, grinning like I’d just given her a Christmas present. With
one last heave, I brought my leg over the branch in front of her and straddled
it. We stared at each other for a few minutes. Then Cameron laughed.
“This is
fun!”
“That
depends on your definition of fun. Better than having to work though, huh?”
“Work is
fun too!”
To her,
everything was fun. I glanced down. We were at least fifteen feet in the air.
With a gulp, I turned my face back to Cameron. This was not my idea of fun.
“When is
it going to rain?” I asked to distract myself.
Cameron
shrugged. “I don’t know.” She was still smiling.
“Since
when did you start climbing trees?” So much for a distraction.
She
paused to think about my question, though I knew perfectly well what the answer
would be. “Today,” she said.
Of all
the luck. “Think we can get down now?”
“Yes!”
she said. “Me first!” Before I could protest, she was down to the next lowest
branch, her skinny arms holding on to the trunk almost carelessly.
“Be
careful!” I shouted as she hopped her way to the ground. Her feet touched the
grass safely, and she looked up.
“Ok,
your turn!” she said with a big smile.
***
I
clutched Cameron’s hand tighter under the table as my boss looked her up and down.
“Cam’s the best typist you’ll ever meet,” I told her as seriously as possible.
“If you ask her to type something up, she’ll do it with enthusiasm, and there
won’t be a single error. She’s got ninety words per minute.”
My boss
glanced at me, then back at Cameron. “And you say she won’t be a disturbance?”
“Not if
you tell her not to be.”
Cameron
smiled at my boss, who raised an eyebrow at me. “She certainly is cheerful.”
“Never a
down day,” I agreed.
She
considered for a few more minutes. “We’ll try her out. If she doesn’t fit with
the company, she’ll have to find new employment. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly.”
I stood up and tugged Cameron to her feet. “Cam, remember what we practiced?”
Cameron
nodded happily. “Thank you for this opportunity,” she enunciated, slow and
careful to get each sound out properly, and held out her hand to my boss.
She
smiled and took it. “I look forward to working with you.”
***
The bark
pressing into my face was sure to leave an imprint on my cheek for the rest of
my life. Is this what a tree hugger feels
like? I wondered.
Below
me, Cameron was singing to herself. Occasionally she would smile up in my
direction and give me helpful advice. As said advice was usually “just jump!” I
ignored most of it. I clung to the trunk and tried to use it to help my
descent. It took me ten minutes to get to the next branch down, and once I was
there I couldn’t convince myself to try again.
A male
voice below startled me. Someone was talking to Cameron.
When I
peaked down, trying to ignore the dizzying drop, I saw two faces looking up at
me. One I recognized, one I didn’t. Cameron pointed at me while smiling at the
man, who looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“Need a
little help?” he called up in a friendly voice.
“Not
from you!” I shouted back, though I had no idea who he was. I just wanted him
to leave us alone.
“Of
course not. Hold on. I’m coming up.”
***
Cameron
and I were on our way home from work. She was skipping and singing, carrying a
purple owl purse that held all her essentials: pen, notepad, ladybug stickers,
and pre-paid cell phone. The notepad, I knew, was mostly filled with random
doodles, but she used it to take notes on occasion.
We’d
left later than usual, so the sun was already down over the water, but the air
was warm for a February evening and I’d stuffed my heavy jacket in my backpack.
Since I usually kept my knife in my coat pocket, it was impossible to get at
when the attack came.
They
grabbed Cameron’s arms and pushed her to the ground. She fell without a sound.
I yelled and rushed for her, but they got me too, and forcefully wrenched my
backpack from my arms. They searched my neck, wrists, and ears for jewelry, but
found only a cheap ring I wore on my right hand. This was left in the street.
When they
were gone, I dropped at Cameron’s side. There was blood on her neck from the
necklace they had pulled off, and she was sobbing. I sat with her head in my
lap, stroking her hair back slowly until she cried herself out.
“Those
people were mean,” she hiccupped.
“Yeah,”
I replied, staring out at the water. “Mean people.”
***
He was
up on my branch in less than a minute. “Go away,” I told him, still turned
toward the trunk.
“Now, is
that the way to greet a friend?” he joked.
“I don’t
have any friends.”
“That
nice girl down there looks like one.”
“That’s
different.”
“Now,
I’ll understand if I’m not your type,” he said with a grin as I turned my face
toward him. “But you should just say so. Don’t leave me hanging here.”
I
groaned at the pun. “People aren’t my type.”
“That’s
the spirit! Now here, grab my hand and I’ll help you down.”
He held
out an overly-large hand. It seemed disproportionate with the rest of him,
which was tall and skinny. I looked down again, shuddered at the potential
fall, and took it.
Step by
step, he coached me down until I was firmly on land again. I could have kissed
the grass. Cameron hugged me tightly. “You did it!” Then she stood and danced
around me, singing a tuneless victory song.
The man
jumped down beside me. He grinned. “Well at least someone’s happy!”
Cameron
hugged him too. He hugged her back, even going so far as to pick her up and
twirl her around like a girl. This was quite the feat, as she was at least
twice as wide as him, though not nearly so tall.
“Thanks,”
I said softly.
“Climbing
trees is my specialty,” he said, though I hadn’t meant the tree. “Call me Luke.
Either of you up for ice cream?”
Cameron
jumped up and down. “Me! Me, me, me, me, me!”
“We
should probably be getting home, Cam,” I said softly without looking at Luke.
She looked so disappointed, but it was almost time to make dinner. “Thank you
for the offer though.”
“Anytime.
I suppose I’d better be off as well. If you ever get stuck in a tree again,
don’t hesitate to call. I’ll see you around!” He tipped an imaginary hat in our
direction and sashayed away, whistling the theme song for Chariots of Fire.
“C’mon,
Cam,” I said, taking her arm. “Let’s go.”
Hand-in-hand,
we strolled from the park. I glanced back once to see if Luke was still nearby
but he had long since left. Shrugging, I faced forward.
As we left the rolling lawn, the
skies opened up and it began to rain.
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