The Dragon Tree (2 page)

Y
ES, THERE WAS
something else. It was leftover magic.

Uncle Fred was too busy writing his great book to think about it much, but Aunt Alex was aware of it all the time.

In the kitchen, for instance, she sometimes had to clap a lid over her pot of soup to keep sparkles from falling into it from the enchanted air. In the front hall the radiator sometimes rattled as if it were trying to tell her something, and Henry’s plaster lips often seemed to whisper,
Listen, listen
, and
the lamp in the metal hand of the lady on the newel post glittered like a star. Even the laundry on the back porch—Eddy’s pants and Uncle Freddy’s shirts—sometimes danced as if they were alive.

And as for the attic! Once in a while Aunt Alex climbed the attic stairs just to look around and remember, because so many wonders were packed away up there, such as Eddy’s mysterious bicycle and Georgie’s American flag and the snowflake wedding dress and the glowing rubber ball and the windows that once upon a time had flashed and twinkled like a diamond.

All these marvels were out-of-date, stored away and forgotten. But the house itself did not forget, because it was still bewitched—not with a weird decay like mildew, but with something like a healthy flow of blood in the wiring or a rush of water singing in the pipes.

The leftover magic was now so thick that it drenched the walls, made its way through the clapboards, and dripped down on Aunt Alex’s flower bed. Soon her trumpet lilies were hooting softly and
her marigolds glimmered in the dark.

Farther and farther spread the spell of the enchanted house, moving underground through dirt and rock, heading northward in the direction of the house next door.

“E
DDY, DEAR,” SAID
Aunt Alex, “you mustn’t stare.”

“Oh, right.” Eddy turned away from the window, but every now and then he couldn’t help taking another look at the neighboring house.

The stuck-up green-eyed girl did not appear again, but Mr. Moon was everywhere at once.

He was a hard worker, you could see that. Every time Eddy twitched a curtain aside he saw Mr. Moon hurrying briskly from one task to another, attacking his bushes with an electric hedge clipper. It made a fierce buzzing noise.

He worked at the task all week. On Monday he turned a sprawling forsythia bush into a cube. On Tuesday an untidy hydrangea became a ball like a scoop of ice cream. On Wednesday he transformed a holly into a prickly pyramid. On Thursday there was an even more savage racket. Mr. Moon was using a chain saw on a tree in his backyard.

Eddy had to bellow to be heard. “Hey, Uncle Fred, come look!”

His uncle came to the window just in time to see an oak tree tip and crash to the ground. The house shook. In the kitchen the hanging teacups rattled, and in the front hall Henry’s plaster eyes widened in surprise.

For a moment the racket stopped, but then the chattering roar began again as the vibrating teeth of Mr. Moon’s powerful saw bit into the rough bark of a maple tree.

Eddy shook his uncle’s arm and shouted, “We’ve got to stop him!”

But Uncle Fred only shook his head sadly. “We can’t interfere. You know the old saying, Eddy, A man’s house is his castle.”

“His castle!” gasped Eddy. “But look at him now, Uncle Fred. He’s going after the pine tree. It must be against the law.”

“No, Eddy, I’m afraid not.” Uncle Fred looked wretched. “He can do whatever he wants with his own property.”

Eddy couldn’t believe it. As the screaming noise of the saw began again, he cried, “I’ll make him stop.” He plunged away from the window and threw open the back door.

Uncle Fred called after him sharply, “Eddy!”

Eddy slowed down and looked back. “Well, okay, Uncle Fred. I won’t say a word. I’ll just watch.”

And he did. Eddy stood watching all afternoon beside the chicken yard while the flustered hens squawked at the hideous noise, and the cross-eyed cat yowled and crawled under Eddy’s bed, and in the kitchen Uncle Fred and Aunt Alex winced and covered their ears.

Watching the destruction, Eddy thought bitterly,
Our hero’s sword is frozen in its scabbard
. Leaning over the fence, he glowered at the man with the chain saw. Mr. Moon gave him a quick
glance and went right on demolishing one tree after another.

A birch tree sagged and sprawled. Eddy clenched his fists and kept his mouth shut, but when the saw began whining into a flowering dogwood tree, he shouted, “Stop!”

Mr. Moon paid no attention. His saw went right on grinding through the slender trunk, and in a few seconds the dogwood drooped and fell, its blossoming branches thrashing the ground.

It was horrible. As the chain saw ripped its way through the rest of Mr. Moon’s trees, Eddy tried to tell himself that this mass murder was perfectly legal by right of some document signed and sealed by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.

But it was like watching an execution. Mortimer Moon’s backyard had become a wilderness of stumps. When the last blossoming lilac lay on the ground, Mr. Moon walked firmly toward his back door, stepping high over the mangled limbs of his fallen trees. At the last minute he saluted Eddy with a cheerful wave.

Sick at heart, Eddy stumbled away. He glanced
at the windows of the house next door, wondering what Miss Stuck-up thought about the slaughter. But all the windows were dark. (It didn’t occur to Eddy that someone might be standing behind the curtains in the northwest bedroom on the second floor.)

In the meantime—
ouch—
he tripped over a bump in the lawn and fell to his knees.

Crawling closer, he looked at the little swelling in the grass. Before his eyes it was growing bigger. Something was pushing up from below.

I
T’S SOME SMALL
animal
, thought Eddy,
like maybe a mole.

But it wasn’t a mole, it was a little stick.

The stick pushed its way upward, growing two inches all at once. Crumbs of dirt fell away around it. Then it paused, and two leaves popped out at the top.

It’s a weed
, decided Eddy,
some kind of really powerful weed
. Sitting back on his heels, he watched the stick surge up again and fling out four more leaves.

It was nice. He liked it. The leafy stick might be
a weed, but it was the opposite of what was happening next door. Instead of death, it was life. Maybe it came from some jungle in Brazil where everything boiled up out of the forest floor and shot upward to the sky. Maybe some migrating bird had dropped the seed, and now the seed was sprouting eagerly as if it were back in its jungle home instead of way up here in cold New England.

Eddy got up from his knees and promised the stick that he would nurse it with as much attention as Aunt Alex gave to her flowers. He’d show that man next door how to take care of a tree.

“Hey, Aunt Alex, Uncle Fred,” cried Eddy, sauntering into the house. “Come on out. You’ve got to see this.”

“Oh, we know,” said Aunt Alex mournfully.

“It’s like a battlefield,” said Uncle Fred.

“No, no,” said Eddy, “it’s something else.”

They followed him outdoors. By now the stick was three feet tall, with four leafy twigs. It had stopped growing, but it was trembling a little, as if its jackrabbit start had worn it out.

“Good heavens,” said Aunt Alex. “That wasn’t
there yesterday.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” said Eddy. “I just watched it zoom up from the ground.”

Then there was a cry. It was Georgie, back from her friend Frieda’s house on Hubbard Street. “The trees,” she wept. “Oh, the poor trees.”

Aunt Alex held out her arms, and Eddy said, “I tried to stop him, Georgie.”

“I really don’t understand it,” said Uncle Fred. “I mean, considering who he is, Mortimer Moon.”

“What do you mean?” said Eddy. “Who is he?”

Uncle Fred looked at him grimly. “He’s Concord’s new tree warden.”

Eddy gasped. “
He’s
a tree warden? But that’s, like, impossible.”

“But true,” said Uncle Fred.

“And his wife, Margery,” murmured Aunt Alex, “has joined the Concord Society of Nature Lovers. They take walks and give tea parties.”

“Tea parties,” said Eddy scornfully. “What good is that?”

Grieving, they turned their backs on the frightful scene next door.

Behind them as they walked away, the little tree rose softly another inch and unfolded two more leaves in the evening air.

Eddy had not looked up, but once again the stuck-up girl was looking down, seeing everything with her clear green eyes.

A
NOTE HAD BEEN
slipped under the front door. Eddy picked it up and said, “For you, Aunt Alex.”

“For me?” Aunt Alex read the note warily and said, “Oh, dear, she’s started already.”

“Who?” said Uncle Freddy. “Started what?’

“Giving tea parties. Mrs. Moon has invited us to tea this afternoon.”

Eddy said, “No kidding!” and Uncle Fred growled, “What a shame! I fear I have a previous engagement.”

Aunt Alex laughed. “Oh, Fred, you do not.”

“Well, all right then, I’m sick.” He coughed.

“But, Fred, they’re our new neighbors. You have to be nice to new neighbors.”

“Nice to tree-killers?” Uncle Fred looked fiercely at the plaster bust of Henry Thoreau, then tramped across the hall. Pausing in the study doorway, he said, “I’m not going, and that’s that.” The door slammed.

“Oh, dear,” said Aunt Alex. “I suppose I’ll have to go by myself.”

“It’s okay, Aunt Alex,” said Eddy cheerfully. “I’ll join you.”

“At the tea party?” She looked at him in surprise. “But, Eddy, dear, you’re not invited.”

“I’ll just be taking Uncle Freddy’s place. Stepping heroically into the breach, as it were.”

“Well, I don’t know the proper etiquette, Eddy,” said Aunt Alex doubtfully. “For one thing, you’d have to wear a shirt and tie.”

“I am already,” said Eddy grandly. He patted his T-shirt and grinned at Henry’s plaster bust. “This
is
my shirt and tie.”

But of course it wasn’t. It was a T-shirt printed
with one of Henry’s most famous sayings:

“E
MERALD, AFTER VACUUMING
my Nature Center, please polish the cake stand and iron the doilies.”

“Okay, Mrs. Moon.”

“Now, Emerald, listen to me. This is extremely important. The cucumbers for the sandwiches must be sliced
extremely thin
.”

“Okay, Mrs. Moon.”

Emerald walked off to the kitchen, feeling in her pocket for the thing she carried with her all the time. Her fingers could almost read the printed words.

“Here we are,” said Aunt Alex, turning into the walk at No. 38 Walden Street. But halfway along the path they heard a crash and a shriek.

Aunt Alex nudged Eddy and murmured, “Let’s wait a few minutes.”

Eddy protested in a loud whisper, “You mean that’s etiquette? Screaming hostesses, you wait a few minutes?”

They scuttled back up their own porch steps and Uncle Fred said, “Back so soon?”

Eddy shrugged and rolled his eyes, and Aunt Alex said, “Just never you mind,” then turned and led Eddy back to the house next door.

This time Mr. and Mrs. Moon were waiting on the porch. Mr. Moon beamed, and Mrs. Moon gushed, “Oh, do come in.” Then both their faces fell as they recognized the redheaded boy, the dangerous juvenile delinquent.

But Aunt Alex elbowed Eddy, and at once he recited Uncle Freddy’s excuse. “I’m sorry, but my uncle is extremely ill. As a matter of fact, he’s at the point of death.”

“Eddy!” whispered Aunt Alex.

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Moon vaguely, beckoning them inside.

Trailing behind Aunt Alex, Eddy glanced left and right, looking for the green-eyed girl, but she was nowhere in sight. Too stuck-up, probably.

The Moons’ living room was a shock. “My Nature Center,” said Mrs. Moon, waving her hand proudly at the zoo of china animals on the mantel, the floor lamp shaped like a stork, the stuffed parrot on a stand, the plastic palm tree, the nest of teddy bears.

The sofa was cluttered with pillows embroidered with bunnies and kitties. Eddy pushed aside a cushion in the shape of a ladybug and sat down on a teddy bear. It squawked. “Whoops, sorry, fella.” Eddy rescued the bear, which glared at him with its shiny glass eyes.

Mr. Moon frowned at Eddy’s shirt, which commanded him to SIMPLIFY, and said to Aunt Alex, “You can see how much my wife loves nature. Well, of course, so do I.”

“The blue sky,” cooed Mrs. Moon. “The birds,
the butterflies, the elephants, the …”

She paused to think, and Eddy said sweetly, “The trees?”

Mr. Moon gave him a sharp look. But then Mrs. Moon began fussing with the teapot, and her husband vanished and came back with a plate of tiny sandwiches.

Aunt Alex accepted one politely. Eddy took one too, and said innocently, “Did your—uh—daughter make them?”