With so much disheartening news I was tempted to write an opinion, to join the league of outraged liberals, to voice my indignation at the suggestion of a 51st state… but there is plenty of that elsewhere. I’ve chosen instead to post a short story I wrote about growing up.

Most adults, if they think about it, can pinpoint a moment when their childhood ended and the ascent (descent?) into adulthood began. For some of us, becoming an adult might have been welcomed while others may have resisted. I know a few adults whose childhood ended when they realized they were big enough to stand up to a physically abusive parent. For me, it was the slow realization that my friends had more mature interests than I did and I was being left behind.

Elegant Literature‘s monthly contest prompt for this story was ‘Paradise Plundered’. I opted to think of the end of childhood as the supposed paradise. Readers from the Niagara region might recognize the subdivision I used as home base for my characters.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or sign up for delivery to your email.

The Treehouse

“The Summer of ’69″ came on the radio and I automatically switched it off. That summer was nothing to sing about for me. Turning off the highway, I gave a wry grin to see that the four-classroom school was now a community centre. Ironic. Some community: this miserable subdivision built in the middle of nowhere was some developer’s idea of paradise. A farmer’s field turned into a mini-suburbia, growing middle class bungalows and side-splits instead of corn, fewer than sixty houses in all. Still not a mature tree anywhere. A great idea on paper—young kids could walk to school, swim in the creek, play baseball in the school yard. Older kids however, suffered from the stultifying boredom of nothing to do beyond ‘hanging out’. Just going to a movie was a half-hour drive down the highway to the closest small city. The saving grace was the creek that ran along the western perimeter. Deep enough to swim in, small motor boats could make their way out to the larger river to fish.

The house looked the same as ever, perhaps a little tired, the grass overgrown, the curtains sagging. My job, solo, was to clean out the contents and get it sold. My brother said he couldn’t get the time off work to help. Well. At least he’d shown up for Dad’s funeral.

I walked through, breathing stale air, seeing ghosts everywhere: my mother calling us for dinner, my father chain-smoking at the kitchen table, my brother giving me noogies in the hallway. It’s a dreary task sorting through the trinkets and trash that make up a home. I found a box of notebooks, the first stories I’d ever written down. I put them aside—my grade six students would enjoy seeing my spelling errors and outrageous plot twists.

I abandoned the house, my feet drawn to the path that was still there. The treehouse looked smaller and less sturdy than I remembered, but there it was…

…I twitched in my seat, Old Lady Lauder droning on about how to have a safe and happy summer. Finally! The bell rang and we erupted into cheers. Me and Shawn and Joe burst out the front doors and peeled across the yard toward freedom! Our last day ever to go to that tiny, crowded sun-baked school. Come fall we’d be bused into town for grade seven. Light-years away. A whole unused summer spread out before us. 

I threw my school supplies into the bottom of my closet and dropped my school clothes. In the hallway, my brother hip-checked me into the wall, trapped me in a half-Nelson and rubbed his knuckles into my head.

“Back off!” I shouted and squirmed to get away.

“Awwww, whattsamatter? Somebody bugging you?” And he rubbed harder.

This was his idea of being funny. Mom interrupted us with the laundry basket in her arms,

“Which of you two wants to fold these for me?”

“Dougie does,” shrilled Brian in a girlie voice. He ran through the kitchen, jumped the three steps to the basement landing and slammed the back door.

“Brian! Your father wants to talk to you!” Mom shouted, but he was long gone. 

With a sigh, she gestured for me to sit on the couch to do the folding.

“Aw, Mom, nooo! I’m meeting the guys. We’re camping out. You know we are. You said!”

“Plenty of time for that. This won’t take you ten minutes. I made treats for you and the boys. Joe’s dad is cooking hot dogs for everybody, but not for an hour and a half. Sit.” 

Me and Shawn and Joe had our traditions. Every last day of school we camped out in the treehouse. It was a real beaut. It had a trap door and lookout points. Stuffed with old couch cushions, blankets, extra swimming trunks, stacks of comics, it had all the bits and pieces needed to make a really cool hideout. The creek ran right behind and if we weren’t swimming, we’d spend hours plundering, chasing, kidnapping or rescuing all kinds of enemies depending on our mood. We took turns being heroes or bad guys or getting walked off the plank into the creek. I was the mastermind, outlining the general plot. Ad-libbing and surprise twists happened as we played it out. The three of us could really make a story work. Pirates was my favourite.

We got settled in with sleeping bags, snacks and some new comic books. I started outlining my latest ideas for play tomorrow. I’d been planning a twisted tale of looted treasure and double-crosses, where the Captain fends off a mutiny and takes the ship back. Joe interrupted me, his mouth full of my mom’s Rice Krispies squares,

“Did you get a load of Kathy Walker today?”

“What? No, why?” 

Shawn snorted and said, 

“How’d you miss it? She was waving them around in front of everybody.”

“Everybody except Dougie,” Joe said. He said my name with a with a bit of a sneer.

Kathy Walker? Who cared about her? She was just a girl in our class.

“What?” I said.

“She wore a bra today. You’d have thought she won the medal of honour. She’s gonna be built just like her sister. I can tell.”

I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t noticed Kathy Walker and bras were something I detested touching when my mom made me fold laundry. Their conversation continued: who else wore one, who needed one, and the size of Kathy Walker’s compared to her sister’s. My Captain and his mutinous crew were left to flounder on the ship in my mind. The talk went on until eventually we fell asleep. Or at least I did.

When I woke up, Shawn and Joe were gone. I rode my bike home wondering why they’d left without me. At my house, my parents stopped talking as soon as they saw me. Mom got all chatty, asking how my night was and what did I want to eat. Dad lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one. Never a good sign.

I wondered if I was in trouble or something. Then Brian came in. He stunk to high heaven. Puke was smeared down the front of his shirt. He even had some in his hair.

Dad exhaled loudly, 

“Dougie. Go to your room and stay there.” 

Why bother sending me to my room when I could hear everything anyway? Brian and his buddies had put up a tent in the empty lot, stole some booze from somebody’s house and gotten drunk. Dad blew his stack. He grounded Brian for a week, no privileges, no TV. Brian yelled and screamed things like, “no way” and “you can’t make me”. He and Dad shouted all kinds of things. Mom started crying which Dad blamed on Brian. Finally, Mom made Brian give her his clothes for laundry and sent him to shower.

I waited ’til the coast was clear, made a peanut butter sandwich and rode back to the treehouse. No one there. I held the binoculars to my eyes. For the first weekend out of school, it was deadly quiet. I said that out loud and felt really stupid. Then, I spotted activity across the field. Kathy Walker and a couple of other girls walked along the road that connected the highway to the county road. Close on their heels, popping wheelies and swerving back and forth were Joe and Shawn. I uttered my favourite pirate curse, 

“Blast your poxy eyes!” 

There was no thrill in saying those words, and I felt even more stupid. I figured they were headed to the old general store. The older kids hung out there, drinking pop and eating chips and stuff. But we never hung out there. I flopped down on an old cushion. I felt like I needed to think about things but I didn’t know what.

Suddenly, it seemed like there was nothing to do. Days drifted by. I spent most of my time reading. Mom kept feeling my forehead. Sometimes, I’d go over to the treehouse to spy on the neighbourhood. Joe and Shawn came over once or twice, but we never played. We never even swam.

Brian was so busy waging war against Dad’s rules, he didn’t even bother giving me noogies anymore. In a weird way, I sort of missed them. He was lying all the time. He’d say something like he was going to mow someone’s lawn for extra money and then just not come home. Dad threatened private school or juvenile detention. Brian let him shout.

One afternoon, I rode over to the treehouse. “Honky Tonk Women” was coming from a radio inside. I pushed on the trap door but it was weighted down. I pounded ’til Brian’s face appeared. 

“Get lost, Dougie!” He slammed the door shut and pulled the weight back over it.

I could hear kids laughing, Brian’s buddies, and a couple of girls. There was a strange smell, not quite like Dad’s cigarettes. And then I knew. They were smoking dope. 

There was a spot where the creek made a small peninsula. Screened by bulrushes and teasel, it was the best place to hide pirated loot, or tie up captives. I went there to try to make sense of things. I’d seen the headlines: “Stoned teenagers go blind staring at the sun”; “Hippy culture ruining our youth”, “Rock music causing teens to turn wild”… I didn’t know what to think. 

I rode my bike aimlessly around the subdivision for a while. I turned a corner and Joe and Shawn were riding right towards me. They said hi. And kept right on going. 

At home, Mom put a grilled cheese sandwich cut into fours in front of me. There were fresh Rice Krispies squares on the counter. Did I want her to pack some up for me? Did I want another sleepover in the treehouse? I said nothing and pulled away when she tried to feel my forehead again. Mom put her cup of tea on the table and helped herself to a square. 

“Suit yourself. More for me,” she said.

She chewed a moment, then continued,

“I saw Joe and his Mom in town the other day. He’s really grown hasn’t he? I barely recognized him.” Another pause, gently,

“You’ll change, too, Dougie. Just not yet.” 

I thought about Brian and all his changes. Should I tell? Dad couldn’t blow his stack any higher than he already had. I excused myself from the table.

To the best of my recollection, I never went back to the treehouse again. With her profound mother’s instinct, Mom packed me off to summer camp for two weeks. I learned to tell my stories around the camp-fire rather than act them out. A counsellor let me tune his guitar and discovered I had a good ear. He taught me a few chords. Before long I could play the main riffs from “Satisfaction”. I felt kind of cool. Other kids wanted to hang with me.

That fall, I caught the bus with Joe and Shawn but we were never friends again. Not really.

In high school, I focused on band practice and the drama club. Joe and Shawn took shop classes, played on sports teams and, last I heard, started a plumbing business together. Good on them.

Brian failed grade twelve. Rather than go to summer school, he ran away to Toronto; disappeared from us for a long while. When he finally came home, Mom forgave him right away, but he and Dad never reconciled. Eventually, he drifted out west, and now he works in the oil industry. Good on him, too.

…The trap door squeaked open. It was a far cry from the lush pirate’s cabin I remembered. I smiled at the ghosts of three boys holding spy glasses to their eyes, shouting, “Sail Ho!”.  

“Blast your poxy eyes!” I shouted back. I smiled and slowly returned to the house.