Read Online Renewal 3 - Your Basic Swiss Family by Jf Perkins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jf Perkins
Tags: Science-Fiction
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wrap around that spacer, making a curved side to the truss. He strapped each end with the split vines and cut off the extra length from the curved piece. Kirk and I weren’t impressed. Why not just nail the straight log to the tree?
By midafternoon, we knew. He had four trusses nailed to the tree and attached firmly to each other; we were forced to make the second pair up in the tree to get them all to cross to his satisfaction. In addition, we had half the platform covered in long, narrow logs. Dad tested his new innovation by bouncing slightly on the outer edge of the new deck, and found it quite solid. Once again, Dad’s brains found the solution. By dinnertime, the rest of the deck was “planked” in sapling logs, except for the opening for the ladder, which fit nicely between the second pair of trusses. It was strange to be twenty-five feet up the tree while being able to look through the little cracks to the platform below, especially when the whole tree swayed slightly in the breeze, but nonetheless, we were all three proud of what we had built.
It took another three days to finish another ladder, a third platform, jokingly called “the kid’s room,” and railings around all three of them. Kirk and I were becoming quite adept at tree-construction, even as our amazement grew at what the project had generated. Standing back and looking from the ground, we thought that it was every bit the coolest tree house we had ever seen, but dad wasn’t done yet. We built roofs for the second and third levels out of the thinnest straight trees we could find. Dad wrapped the roofs carefully in tarps from the stack Mr. Carroll had given us, and left extra plastic hanging around the edges. The roofs were attached to the main tree and the extra-tall posts Dad had left on the corners of each platform. Kirk and I learned that any time Dad’s work made no sense, it eventually would. Finally, Dad made some clever braces any place that the spreading branches of the tree could add some extra support, and finished the job by adding a short, sloping bridge from the top of the third level to a final, small platform far up in the tree. He built a short railing around this crow’s nest and named it, “The lookout.”
As our tree fortress grew, Lucy began to take an interest in it, but had no desire to climb around in a tree. She compensated by using a scrap of plastic tarp to create a flag. She had used a Sharpie to draw nice cartoons of our entire extended family. I had no idea she had any talent until then, but it was easy to recognize all of the figures on our flag, from little Jimmy all the way up to Francine. We were quite proud of her. Dad made a special ceremony out of hoisting the flag onto one of the tall corner posts on the top level of our new home.
As we stood back and admired it as a family, all of us probably held as many turbulent thoughts as I did that day. It was only the tenth day of the Breakdown, although it already felt like a lifetime had passed. In the supreme adaptability of childhood, the old life was fading quickly into the past, and the new life was taking solid shape. In the moment, Mom probably expressed it best when she said, “I wish the camera still worked.”
Chapter 3 - 9
Terry waited to see if Bill was finished. When the words appeared to have ended, he said, “The tree house tradition goes back to the beginning. That’s remarkable.”
“Yeah, it took us a solid week to do it, and I still think that’s incredible, even though I was there, and even though we build them in less than a day now.” Bill said softly, his mind taking its time coming back to the present.
“That wasn’t far from where we took the Judge,” Terry said.
“No. Not far. It’s still over there, or at least the parts that haven’t rotted away are still up in the old maple.” Bill rubbed his eyes. “I still wander over there from time to time.”
Terry waited respectfully.
“It changed quite a bit after
By midafternoon, we knew. He had four trusses nailed to the tree and attached firmly to each other; we were forced to make the second pair up in the tree to get them all to cross to his satisfaction. In addition, we had half the platform covered in long, narrow logs. Dad tested his new innovation by bouncing slightly on the outer edge of the new deck, and found it quite solid. Once again, Dad’s brains found the solution. By dinnertime, the rest of the deck was “planked” in sapling logs, except for the opening for the ladder, which fit nicely between the second pair of trusses. It was strange to be twenty-five feet up the tree while being able to look through the little cracks to the platform below, especially when the whole tree swayed slightly in the breeze, but nonetheless, we were all three proud of what we had built.
It took another three days to finish another ladder, a third platform, jokingly called “the kid’s room,” and railings around all three of them. Kirk and I were becoming quite adept at tree-construction, even as our amazement grew at what the project had generated. Standing back and looking from the ground, we thought that it was every bit the coolest tree house we had ever seen, but dad wasn’t done yet. We built roofs for the second and third levels out of the thinnest straight trees we could find. Dad wrapped the roofs carefully in tarps from the stack Mr. Carroll had given us, and left extra plastic hanging around the edges. The roofs were attached to the main tree and the extra-tall posts Dad had left on the corners of each platform. Kirk and I learned that any time Dad’s work made no sense, it eventually would. Finally, Dad made some clever braces any place that the spreading branches of the tree could add some extra support, and finished the job by adding a short, sloping bridge from the top of the third level to a final, small platform far up in the tree. He built a short railing around this crow’s nest and named it, “The lookout.”
As our tree fortress grew, Lucy began to take an interest in it, but had no desire to climb around in a tree. She compensated by using a scrap of plastic tarp to create a flag. She had used a Sharpie to draw nice cartoons of our entire extended family. I had no idea she had any talent until then, but it was easy to recognize all of the figures on our flag, from little Jimmy all the way up to Francine. We were quite proud of her. Dad made a special ceremony out of hoisting the flag onto one of the tall corner posts on the top level of our new home.
As we stood back and admired it as a family, all of us probably held as many turbulent thoughts as I did that day. It was only the tenth day of the Breakdown, although it already felt like a lifetime had passed. In the supreme adaptability of childhood, the old life was fading quickly into the past, and the new life was taking solid shape. In the moment, Mom probably expressed it best when she said, “I wish the camera still worked.”
Chapter 3 - 9
Terry waited to see if Bill was finished. When the words appeared to have ended, he said, “The tree house tradition goes back to the beginning. That’s remarkable.”
“Yeah, it took us a solid week to do it, and I still think that’s incredible, even though I was there, and even though we build them in less than a day now.” Bill said softly, his mind taking its time coming back to the present.
“That wasn’t far from where we took the Judge,” Terry said.
“No. Not far. It’s still over there, or at least the parts that haven’t rotted away are still up in the old maple.” Bill rubbed his eyes. “I still wander over there from time to time.”
Terry waited respectfully.
“It changed quite a bit after
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