Read Online In All Deep Places by Susan Meissner - Free Book Online

of planks driven into the mighty trunk and also from my bedroom window. It had taken my father many hours of persuading before my mother would let me access the tree house the second way. I had to first prove to her I could climb into the tree house by crawling—without the slightest jiggle—onto the thick branch just outside my window. It was a monstrous branch that had to be cut back every year so it wouldn’t punch a hole in the yellow siding of the house. The first time I tried to show her—the day the tree house was finished—she wouldn’t look.
    “See, Mom?” I said from just inside the tree house after I’d made it across on the first try. My parents and Ethan were standing in the bedroom watching me. At least Ethan and my dad were watching. “It’s easy.”
    But my mother hadn’t seen anything because her eyes were closed. I had to do it again.
    “See?” I said, when again I was speaking to her from within the safe confines of the tree house.
    She shook her head and tapped her foot. Not usually a good sign.
    “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” she said between her teeth, surprising me.
    I restrained myself from hooting, hollering, or doing any thing that might be mistaken for horseplay.
    “But Ethan, so help me,” my mother continued, “if you put so much as one finger on that branch outside that window, you will be grounded for the rest of your life. You use the little steps. Got it?”
    Ethan pursed his lips together while he considered our mother’s threat.
    “How can you ground me when I’m an old man and you’re already dead?” He was completely serious.
    “The little steps,” my mother replied authoritatively and turned to descend to the kitchen, where supper dishes waited.
    “I’m comin’ up!” Ethan yelled to me, sprinting after our mother to head down the stairs and out the front door.
    “You want to come in, too?” I’d said to dad.
    Dad smiled. “Thanks, anyway. Every bone is important when you’re my age.”
    “Thanks for the tree house, Dad.”
    “My pleasure.” My father turned away from the window and walked out of the bedroom.
    Ethan began to climb up through the opening in the floor of the tree house. I scooted back, crawling on my hands and knees to the half I planned to claim as my own. I had a piece of chalk in my pocket, and I took it out and drew a wiggly line on the uneven floor.
    Ethan poked his head through the opening.
    “You’re not allowed to cross this line,” I said to his brother.
    Ethan climbed in the rest of the way, looked at the part of the tree house that was left, calculated that it was certainly less than half, but shrugged. “Okay,” he said as he sat down cross-legged and put his hands under his chin.
    We sat in silence for a few minutes.
    “So why do people say ‘horseplay’?” my brother asked, furrowing his brow. “Horses don’t play. Monkeys play. Puppies play. Why don’t parents say no monkey-play? Or no puppy-play? Horses just stand around eating grass and swishing their tails.”
    “I don’t have to answer your dumb questions when I’m on this side of the line,” I said.
    “Do I have to answer yours?” Ethan asked innocently.
    I turned my back to him, and took a flashlight out of my pocket, shining it here and there until Mom called Ethan in to get ready for bed.
    When my brother was gone, I stretched out on the floor of the tree house, peering at the stars that peeked through the slabs in the roof. I imagined I was alone in a great forest and there were elves hiding all around me, waiting to see if I would fall asleep there. Then they would sneak in and cut all my hair off, or steal my flashlight or paint my face with berry juice. I closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of crickets and bullfrogs serenading each other in the early June evening. I could almost forget there was a house on either side of me, one the color of lemon custard and the other the color of snot. I grinned. I could think that here.