Read Online Where I Belong by Mary Downing Hahn - Free Book Online

Green Man vanished. “He
must
be.”
    Together we follow the path out of the forest. After we cross the train tracks, she says, “Tomorrow will you show me how to climb up to your tree house?”
    â€œMaybe.” I peer into her pale green eyes. Yellow rings around the pupils remind me of a cat’s eyes. “But you have to keep it a secret. Not just how to get up there but where it is.”
    â€œWhy is it a secret?”
    â€œI have enemies,” I say, almost proudly. “Enemies who’d destroy my tree house if they knew how to find it.”
    Shea nods, impressed. “Are they supernatural?” she asks. “Demons or monsters or—?” Her voice falters as if she’s not sure what else might roam the forest looking for me and my tree house.
    â€œNo.” I picture Sean and Gene and T.J. skulking through the woods, smoking dope and cussing. Looking for me. I see their ugly faces, their mean eyes, their tattoos. “They’re just ordinary thugs, outlaws, scum. . . .” My voice is rising, and I stop myself from saying more. I don’t want Shea to think I’m afraid of them, that just thinking about them terrifies me.
    Shea nods, but she still looks puzzled. “Well,” she says, “thanks for not chasing me away from your tree. You wanted to, don’t think I didn’t know.”
    I kick a beer can and send it flying down the tracks. I watch it bounce three or four times before it rolls to a stop. “I’m not good at making friends.” I don’t look at her when I tell her this. She had a bunch of friends in Texas. She can’t possibly understand.
    â€œYeah,” she says. “I noticed.” Then she laughs.
    I laugh too.
    â€œWhen you move as much as I do,” Shea says, “you learn a lot about friends. How to get them. How to keep them until you move again.”
    â€œYou’ll make tons of friends when real school starts,” I tell her. “The kids in summer school, well, I don’t think you’re their type.”
    â€œYou and me, though, we’re right for each other.” She stops in front of me and turns those eyes on me full force. “See, what I know about friends is, you have to pretend to like what they like and hate what they hate. But you, I don’t have to pretend to like what you like because I like what you like.” She starts to giggle. “I’m getting all tangled up in words, but you know what I mean. Right?”
    â€œI guess.” I kick another beer can, but it only bounces once.
    Suddenly I want to get away from Shea. I need to think about what she said. Could we really be friends? I feel nervous, maybe even scared.
    â€œCan I go to the woods with you after school tomorrow?” she asks.
    â€œI guess so.” I watch her scramble up the embankment and head for wherever she lives. Even if I’d said no, she would follow me.
    When Shea’s out of sight, I take a deep breath and walk along the railroad track, balancing the way she did.
    The moon hangs low in the sky, close to Venus, and the sharp sweet smell of the woods fills my nose.

EIGHT
    T HE NEXT DAY , I show Shea how to climb to my tree house. Since she’s a girl, I hope the spider webs will scare her, but she doesn’t even notice them. Once she’s on the platform, she looks in all directions, out over the green sea of leaves moving like waves when the wind blows.
    â€œYou can see so far.” She points at a church steeple way far away and the Blue Ridge Mountains stacked like clouds along the horizon. “It’s splendid!” She hugs herself and smiles so widely her face almost splits in two.
    Next she looks at my carvings, and I tell her she can choose one. She picks a unicorn a little smaller than the one I haven’t finished. Then she goes through my books and finds
A Wizard of Earthsea
, which she hasn’t read. While she reads, I draw.