Grace age 6
Noah age 7
The treehouse is mine. No one has lived in this house for a couple of years… A new family just showed up today. Shit, there’s a little girl coming.
Girls are such a pain.
N.P.
Looking back now, it’s funny that my parents named me Grace. They couldn’t have picked a better name for their only daughter. I was sweet and caring, beautiful everyone told me. Picture perfect, dressed head to toe in frilly little dresses, Mom made me wear. She’d place headbands or bows in my brown hair that added to the freckles splashed across my cheeks. As a kid, I was always the center of attention and I loved it. I knew all the right things to say to make the adults laugh and smile at me more.
It didn’t matter how doting my parents were, though, because it was only a matter of time before I started to disappoint them. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know the town we moved to when I was six would be three houses down from a dirty trailer park. And inside one of those trailers would be a wild, lonely boy left to do whatever he wanted day-in and day-out. It wasn’t their fault their daughter took a liking to the dirty neighbor boy and became his friend.
If only that was all we became, they would have been happy. If only our bodies weren’t made to do the things I did with the neighbor boy.
I met him the same day Dad drove a U-Haul to our new house with Mom and me in her car behind him. The electric and water had been hooked up days before we even got there, Mom and Dad were always efficient in everything they did. Mom was a math teacher and would be a teaching at my new school. Dad was an accountant, I didn’t really understand what that meant until I was older, I just knew it had something to do with numbers. They met and fell in love in college over their mutual attraction to numbers… Don’t ask me, I didn’t understand it either.
Our new house was a two-hour drive from our last one, but it was still in Virginia. When I thought of the friends I was leaving behind from kindergarten, it made my heart ache, but the moment my feet touched the concrete driveway at our new place, I couldn’t help but feel excited. Everything was new. And for a six-year-old, new was exciting. It wasn’t until you were older that change was scary.
“What do you think Gracie?” Dad asked, stepping out of the U-Haul with a smile as he watched me soak it all in. Everyone called me Gracie in an endearing way, and that was another thing that wouldn’t bother me until I got older.
I didn’t answer his question at first. Instead, I took it all in with my eyes, ears, and nose. This house was just as big as our old house, a two-story, but our old one had been white with a blue roof. This one was white too, but its roof was red as were the windowsills and porch banisters. The air was hot, yet clean as I inhaled. We were in the middle of June so even the breeze was hot. There was another house next to ours, followed by two double-wide trailers. In the distance, I could see a bunch of trailers grouped together. But my eyes quickly fell back on what was ours. The front yard wasn’t very big, but the back one was huge. I finally giggled and ran back to answer Dad’s question. “I love it!” His hands were there to catch me as he swooped me up and spun me around.
“Okay, you two, we have to unload the last of our things so Dad can take the U-Haul back and pick up his truck.” The whole time Mom spoke, Dad mimicked her with a goofy face and it had me laughing the entire time she was talking.
“Steven,” Mom clucked at Dad which only made me burst into more giggles.
“Yes, dear,” was his sugary sweet reply to her. My dark eyes and hair were passed down from Mom, but my freckles came from Dad who was a redhead with freckles all over his body.
She shook her head and sighed at him. “I give up, I don’t know what to do with you both.”
Dad sucked in his jaws and looked back down at me. “We better listen to the boss lady.” I nodded and agreed completely.
“I’ll help,” I offered excitedly, already lifting myself in the back of the U-Haul. I bent down for the first closest box and couldn’t even grasp it correctly, let alone lift it.
Dad chuckled. “Here, why don’t you go check the place out while your mom and I get everything unloaded?”
“Just give me something that I can carry,” I protested.
“Gracie,” he started, then smiled. “Stop trying to be a grown up and go check out the backyard some more.”
I huffed. “Fine.”
I hopped out of the back of the U-Haul and made my way through the grass. It needed to be cut, being just above my ankles and making them itch. “And make sure you watch for snakes,” Dad hollered. “Better yet, just go inside and look around until I get a chance to cut the grass.” I took off running around the house, and I heard his frustrated sigh and smiled.
Glancing at the hill behind the house, I knew I was going to enjoy exploring it but not that day. My eyes lit up when I saw the giant oak tree in our yard. It wasn’t exactly the tree that caught my attention, it was the treehouse in it. “Oh, my gosh!” I squealed as I ran toward the tree. My palms and the insides of my legs met the rope in a frenzied rush as I pulled myself up. It wasn’t hard for me, gymnastics and naturally being an adventurist kid, I was one of those that thought I could do anything growing up.
My eyes fell on the blankets toward the back of the treehouse before I dropped them back to the floor as I finished hoisting myself up. I smiled to myself once one leg was already on the floor, then the other. Something darted through the treehouse, I paused, my gaze snapping forward. My scream was at the edge of my teeth before two hands clamped over my mouth quickly.
“Shh,” a scratchy voice barked out.
My eyes raked over the thin boy in front of me. His dirty hands were cupped over my lips as his blue eyes studied me darkly. They were so bright and blue, even the darkness of the treehouse couldn’t hide their color. But the rest of him… was dirty. Even his hair looked dark and matted in such a way I’d never seen before.
Once I saw it was just a boy instead of a monster hiding in the treehouse, I brought my hand to his and pulled it from my mouth. He watched me cautiously as my eyes darted toward the heap of clothes and blankets behind him. “Do you live here, boy?” I asked him quickly.
A flash of color hit his cheeks so quickly, I probably saw wrong. “No, but this is my treehouse, girl,” he snapped back with venom.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe.” I gave him my battle smile. I always got what I wanted, but in this case, this treehouse was already mine. “But, not anymore. My parents bought this house and this land, and that places this treehouse as mine.”
His eyes held a gleam to them that made my smile falter for a fraction of a second. “Wanna know what happened to the last family that lived here?” he asked me, and I leaned in for what he was going to tell me. “They moved away because of me, I scared their son so bad he begged them to move!”
I blinked a few times before I burst into giggles. “You’re a liar.”
“Ask anyone,” he hissed. “His name was Jeremiah, and they moved seven months ago. This treehouse has been mine ever since.”
“How old are you?” I asked. “Six, like me?”
“No, seven.” He grinned smugly. “And don’t think that just because you’re a fancy little girl that I’ll let you have your way.”
“Fancy?”
He pointed toward my dress. “What kind of creature wears polka dots? You look like a unicorn shit on you.”
I gasped, my hands flying over my mouth. “You said a bad word. You can’t say that!”
“What?” He genuinely looked confused at first then an evil smirk claimed his lips. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I gasped again. “You’re such a foul and dirty boy!”
He laughed at my choice of words, and my cheeks warmed. “And you’re such a bratty girl,” he argued back.
“Get out of my treehouse.” I stood up, twisted my body halfway, and pointed toward the exit.
He turned around and grabbed a couple of clothes from the pile. “Like I’d want to stay here and fight with a loud-mouthed girl anyway,” he told me.
I dropped my hand finally and just watched him slip past me. My eyes fell back on the blankets and clothes he was about to leave behind. Even at age six, I looked too deeply into things and saw them for what they truly were, not how a normal child would. I glanced back to him as he was tossing his clothes on the ground. “Do you have somewhere to go?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Where’re your parents?”
He turned around, a dark storm brewed in his eyes. “I wasn’t living here!” he yelled. “Stupid girl!”
My eyes grew wide. “I was only—”
“You were only being nosy.”
I practically blew steam from my nose as I glared at him. I brought my leg out to kick him but he saw what I was about to do, and jumped. I hurried to the edge and looked down to see him scooping up his clothes. “Don’t come back,” I said haughtily like I had done something great to make him run off.
He smirked. “Oh, I’ll be back.” And it was a promise because the very next day, he came again. I guarded the treehouse like it was a treasure trove. I just knew from the looks of him he was going to be a persistent pain in my butt. When I wasn’t in the treehouse that day, I was looking out the kitchen window eating a popsicle. That was when he came back. He snuck in the backyard through the hills so that told me he knew his way around the woods. I hopped off the counter and headed for the door.
“Where’re you going?” Mom asked me.
“Treehouse,” I replied. I didn’t want to give away the boy. If my parents knew of him, that might ruin the fun I was sure I would have with him.
“Be careful.”
I stopped at the door and ran to the fridge, tiptoeing to get another popsicle in the freezer. “You and popsicles,” Mom laughed, shaking her head.
I grinned at my own secret as I hurried outside. The boy let out a frustrated sigh the moment my head peeked above the treehouse where he sat. “You should stop wearing those dresses if you plan to keep climbing up here,” he pointed out.
I couldn’t respond to him just yet with my popsicle wedged in my mouth. I gripped the wood and tossed the extra popsicle to him as I finished hoisting myself into the treehouse. Once I was inside, I walked over to him and sat down, bringing the popsicle out of my mouth with a popping sound. He watched me cautiously then glanced down at the popsicle in his lap. “I brought it for you,” I told him.
His eyes widened. “This is why girls are strange,” he muttered.
“How so?” I asked, leaning on my hand as I spoke.
“One minute, a girl will be mad at you for saying something, then the next, she’s trying to be sweet.” He shook his head and sighed, ripping into the wrapper before sticking the popsicle in his mouth. “It’s so annoying.”
“What’s wrong with trying to get along with you despite our first meeting?”
He shrugged his shoulders in reply. “Are you going to tell me your name?” I asked him.
“Noah,” he answered. “Noah Phillips.” He lifted his gaze. “And yours?”
“Grace,” I chirped. “Grace Harper.”
He snorted. “Figures.”
I gave him a hostile look. “What?”
“Even your name sounds prissy.”
“I am not prissy,” I protested.
He nodded his head like he wanted to say, sure, sure.
I lifted my chin up, remembering the way he entered the yard. “You just reminded me, I saw the way you entered the yard… You look like you know your way around the woods.”
He smiled smugly. “I know these woods like the back of my head.”
I rolled my eyes before smiling. “Good.” He lifted a brow in question. “Take me on an adventure.”
His reply was the lift of his eyes and mouth as he moved across the creaking wood in a hurry, shimmying down the rope. I got up and followed after him. I looked over to the house before following him into the hills where he spent hours testing me with steep places, high tree branches, and small creeks. The only thing that he managed to get a reaction from me was when he lifted some sort of bug in my face, and I jumped back screeching. He grabbed his stomach and pointed at me as he lurched over and laughed.
I huffed. “Put it down!”
He lifted himself up and nodded. “Yes, Miss Priss.”
“Don’t call me that, either.”
When he smiled at me this time, it was different than the times before, more relaxed. “Ya know, you’re not so bad for a girl.”
His smile was contagious. I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I guess that makes you my first friend here.”
He rubbed a hand down his dirty shirt, almost like he was as self-conscious as a seven-year-old could be. “I guess having one girl as a friend won’t hurt,” he said slowly.
I stepped closer to him. “Then it’s a promise.”
He frowned. “What is?”
“That I’ll be the only girl you spend your time with,” I giggled innocently, not understanding the true gravity my words placed on him that day. “I’ll always stay with you as long as you promise something.”
His eyes searched mine. “What?”
“That you’ll always take me on an adventure.”
He smirked. “I can do that.”
I nodded. “I think so too.”
“Gracie!” In the distance, my mom’s voice rang loud.
“Oh no,” I whispered, “it’s my mom.”
I took off running as quick as I could down the hill, occasionally scooting on my butt and leaping over branches and puddles of mud. Noah stayed right behind me, and soon I was laughing as we made a game out of it.
“Quick, the giant mutant spiders are right behind us!” Noah screamed.
I looked behind him and gasped. “Noah, duck!” He did and I sighed in relief. “It almost had you.”
He jumped right next to me, knocking into me. He grabbed my arms and I his as we twisted around each other to keep our balance. “I got you, Miss Priss,” he said to me in a princely tone that had us bursting out in laughter.
“Grace!” Mom yelled, snapping me out of our game.
Noah jerked his hands from me and stepped away quickly. He suddenly looked nervous, tugging on his dirty shirt, and looking down and around, anywhere but at my mom as she stared him down.
“Mom, this is my friend Noah,” I told her quickly, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable and look so unlike that confident boy I had first met.
“How’d you make a friend when we’ve only been here two days?” she asked me curiously. “So, you live around here, Noah?” She looked to him.
He finally met her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s great.” Mom gave him a smile. “You’ll have to introduce us,” his face paled at her words, “but, Grace, you can’t just run off into the woods like that. It’s dangerous,” Mom cautioned.
“Mom, Noah knows his way around.”
She sighed. “I’m sure he does.” Mom looked at him again. “Noah, would you like to come in and eat with us?”
Something about the shine in his eyes and the hard swallow I watched slide down his throat told me he liked the idea, but he still looked hesitant. “Umm…”
“Do you need to go ask your parents?” Mom asked about his parents again.
He straightened quickly. “No, they won’t mind.”
He ate with us that night. I’d never seen someone eat so much food. I smiled proudly that day, thinking his appetite was because of Mom’s cooking until he left, and Mom stood by the door watching him dart over toward the trailers.
That night, I listened in on my parents as she told Dad about Noah. “I know how dirty a kid can get while playing outside during the summer, but Steven, he looked as if he hadn’t had a bath or a decent meal in God knows how long. And as soon as he saw me, he started fidgeting with his clothes like he was used to grown-ups commenting about how dirty they were and was self-conscious.” Mom sighed. “It bothered me.”
“Don’t think too much of it,” Dad told her. “You’re making assumptions when he might just be that dirty from playing outside, unlike you thought.”
Mom’s voice softened, “You’re right, I do tend to get ahead of myself.”
I heard Dad kiss Mom’s forehead and slipped back upstairs into my room from the hallway where I was peeping outside their door.
Only Mom hadn’t been wrong that day. Noah’s parents were far different from mine.