Where I Belong

  “So Social Services put you with Mrs. Clancy.”

  “Yes. I’ve been with her for two years.”

  “And what do you think of her?” The Green Man regards me with sad eyes. “Are you happy with her? Does she treat you well?”

  No one has ever asked me this. I chew my bottom lip and think about my answer. “She feeds me and all that, but she has a whole different way of seeing things and she thinks her way is the only way and I’m never going to amount to much because I don’t see the same thing she sees. She’s trying to make me see things her way and I don’t want to so she thinks I’m stupid or something and gets mad at me. Sometimes I think she hates me.”

  Most people would have said something like No, no, she doesn’t hate you, she’s just trying to help you, but the Green Man doesn’t say anything. He sits there watching me, waiting for me to go on.

  I want him to understand what I mean, so I lean toward him and stare into his eyes. “You know how people talk about the real world, and Life with a capital L and all that?”

  He nods as if he knows more about “all that” than I ever will.

  “Well, Mrs. Clancy lives in the real world, but I live in a place inside my head most of the time. I draw and I read and I daydream. Stuff like school and good grades and being popular aren’t important to me, but they’re super important to her. I want to be an artist, pure and simple. That’s all.”

  I pick up a stick and draw a line in the dirt. “I’m on one side of this line and Mrs. Clancy is on the other side.”

  The Green Man studies the line and nods. “You and I are on the same side of the line.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “You’re the spirit of the woods. You’re in the real real world, not the fake real world.”

  “There are many more people on Mrs. Clancy’s side of the line,” he says. “You and I are a minority.”

  “Yes.” The word comes out in a long sigh—yessssss.

  “You spend a lot of time in the woods,” the Green Man says. “I’ve seen you up in the tree—”

  “Your tree—it’s your tree, I know it is. Is it all right for me to have built a house in it?”

  “It’s absolutely splendid.”

  “I hoped you’d say that. Would you like to come up and see what it’s like?”

  The Green Man peers up into the leaves, his brow wrinkled with thought. “Even creatures such as I get old,” he says reluctantly. “When I was a lad, I could scramble up a tree just like you, as nimble as a squirrel. But living in the wild stiffens a man’s joints and slows him down.”

  I nod. I guess I’d been mistaken about the spirits of the wild, and I was sad to think they didn’t stay young forever. “You are immortal, though.”

  He shakes his head. “Yes and no,” he says. “When my time here ends, someone young and strong will take my place and carry on my work. So even if I die, I’m immortal. It’s the work that’s important, not the man who does it.”

  I draw my knees close to my chest and know in my heart of hearts he’s telling the truth. But I wish it were not the truth.

  “Tell me something, Brendan.” The Green Man stares into my eyes as if he can see my thoughts swimming like fish beneath the surface. “Whenever I see you in the woods, you’re alone. Do you have any friends? Someone to talk to, to share things with?”

  I lower my head to hide the tears welling up. “Nobody wants to be friends with a foster kid. They hate me at school.”

  “That’s very troubling.” The Green Man sighs and tosses an apple core to the squirrel. “Very troubling indeed.”

  “I don’t care,” I say fiercely, not wanting him to feel sorry for me. “They’re mean and stupid and all they care about is things you buy. And what kind of house you live in and what kind of car your parents drive. They all live on Mrs. Clancy’s side of the line. Real boys, the kind who join Little League, the kind of boy Mrs. Clancy wants me to be.”

  “So you don’t want to hit home runs and catch the ball and strike out the batter?”

  “I hate Little League. Not just because I’m rotten at baseball but because Little League has all sorts of rules and everybody takes it seriously, even parents, and no one plays for fun.”

  The Green Man laughs. “Little League is for little minds.”

  I laugh too. He’s the first person who has ever understood me.

  “There must be a few kids who care about what you care about.”

  “I sure haven’t met any.” I’m angry now. He doesn’t understand after all, he doesn’t believe me. “They laugh at me and tease me and chase me and beat me up. They hate me, I tell you! And I hate them!”

  I cover my mouth with my hands and wish I could take back what I just said. I’ve been rude to the Green Man. He must be disappointed, maybe even angry at me. At any moment, he’ll get to his feet and vanish into the woods, and I’ll never see him again.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to shout at you. Don’t be angry.”

  “Why would I be angry?” He looks puzzled.

  I realize I’m acting as if he’s an ordinary adult who gets mad at disrespectful kids. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I guess I forgot who you are.”

  “Sometimes I forget who I am too.” He laughs, a big, jolly laugh that rolls through the trees. The kind of laugh that makes other people laugh too.

  I climb the tree and come back with my drawing stuff and some of my weapons and carvings. He looks at each one carefully. He really sees my drawings. Doesn’t say Oh, this is good, you have talent and then flip to the next one. He sighs and mumbles and takes in every detail. He turns the wooden swords and staffs over and looks at them from every angle, squinting to see if they’re straight and true.

  The last one I show him is the Green Man’s face I carved yesterday. “It’s not finished yet,” I tell him, “but can you tell who it is?”

  He smiles and sighs and turns the face this way and that way. “Is it me?” he asks at last.

  I nod. “I found your face and beard in the grain of the wood.”

  “But you hadn’t even seen me then.”

  “No, but I’ve glimpsed your face in the leaves and I’ve seen pictures in books and that made it easy.”

  “Easy? Work like this is never easy.”

  I smile. He does understand. “It was easy because the face was already there. All I had to do was let it out.”

  He chuckles. “All you had to do was let it out.”

  “Yes, sir.” I sit back and feel the sun warm my back. I don’t need to ask if the Green Man thinks art is a waste of time. Like me, he knows it’s the most important thing in the world, in both the real world and the unreal world.

  The Green Man gets to his feet and stretches. “Thanks for the breakfast, Brendan.”

  I jump up, suddenly anxious. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I’m always leafing,” he jokes.

  I smile so he’ll know I understood the joke, but it’s a fake smile. “No, really, are you going somewhere?”

  He waves an arm at the trees all around us. “I have a whole forest to tend to,” he says.

  “Can I go with you?”

  “Not today, Brendan. Maybe another time.”

  “You’ll come back?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “When? When will I see you?”

  “Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week—it all depends on how much work I need to do.”

  “I’ll be here every day,” I tell him, but he’s already turning away, fading into the greenery as quietly as a deer. “Every day,” I call after him.

  But he’s gone, and the woods are silent as if every bird and animal is quiet in honor of his passing.

  I climb up to my platform and work on my carving. Now that I’ve met the Green Man, I have this strange feeling things might get better. I’m afraid to count on it, though. As soon as you let yourself believe something, you’re bound to be disappointed.

  SIX

  SUMMER S
CHOOL BEGINS. Mrs. Clancy drives me there to make sure I go. The classes aren’t in my old elementary school but in the middle school I’m supposed to attend in the fall. The building is at least twice as big but much older. It was the high school once. I don’t like the looks of the brick walls and narrow windows and steep stone steps. A kid could get lost in there.

  While Mrs. Clancy watches, I climb the steps slowly and push open the heavy green door. The hall is crowded with kids, pushing and shouting. I don’t know where my classroom is and I’m scared. There’s too much going on, too much noise.

  Trying not to be noticed, I edge along a wall of lockers until I see an exit sign. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I escape through a back door into the summer heat. A teacher calls after me, but I run as fast as I can across the playground.

  Can’t catch me, I think. I’m the gingerbread boy.

  Once the school is safely behind me, I slow down. Mrs. Clancy is at the mall by now, so I don’t need to worry about her seeing me. The whales are most likely playing boring team sports or swimming at the country club pool. So I wander along a street lined with tall trees whose roots have pushed the sidewalk up here and there. Big old-fashioned houses sit back from the street on grassy lawns. Wedged in between them are bungalows and ramblers and brick apartment buildings. A power mower roars somewhere. Birds sing. A few cars pass me. It’s not hot yet, just cool and damp with the smell of freshly cut grass. No one is waiting around the corner to beat me up.

  I hear a train whistle and head for the railroad tracks. In a few minutes, I plunge into the cool silence of the woods. I look for the Green Man but he’s not in sight. Disappointed, I climb up to my platform and survey the treetops. Green as far as I can see in all directions, rippling in the breeze. It’s like being on a ship at sea.

  A week after summer school starts, I come home from the woods at suppertime to find Mrs. Clancy waiting to pounce on me. She’s the cat. I’m the mouse. She’s big. I’m small. She’s mad. I’m scared.

  “Where have you been all day, Brendan?”

  “At school in the morning and then hanging out with some kids in my class,” I answer without hesitating. If I take too long to answer, she’ll know I’m lying.

  “And what did you learn today?”

  If I tell her the truth—I learned a new shortcut to the woods, I patched my tree-house roof, I drew three pictures of wizards and dragons, I almost finished my unicorn head—she’ll be outraged.

  “Oh, just the usual,” I say. “Some math stuff, state capitals, and what President Wilson did way back in the 1800s.”

  Her face is growing grimmer with every word. Maybe I went too far with President Wilson. Got too specific. What if he wasn’t president in the 1800s? Maybe it was earlier, maybe it was later.

  “Tell me what President Wilson did in the 1800s.”

  “He bought Louisiana from the French?” Or was it the Spanish?

  “For your information,” she says, “Wilson was president during World War One. Afterward, he started the League of Nations.”

  I look at the floor. Who’d have guessed Mrs. Clancy knew that much about Woodrow Wilson? I should have said Calvin Coolidge. Most people don’t even remember his name.

  “It so happens I got a phone call from school this afternoon. The principal wanted to know why you haven’t attended a single class.”

  Mrs. Clancy’s eyes are boring a hole in the top of my head. What brains I have will leak out and make a mess on her spotless kitchen floor. “Where have you been? What have you been doing all this time? How are you ever going to amount to anything if you don’t have an education?”

  Although she doesn’t say it out loud, she’d like to say, You worthless boy, why do I even care what happens to you?

  The next morning Mrs. Clancy drives me to school, but this time she goes inside with me. Straight ahead is the principal’s office. I feel sick. I have a history with principals, and it’s not pretty. Mrs. Funkhauser sends me to the office about once a month. I’m used to Mr. Padgett, the principal at my school, but this is a different school and a different principal.

  The school secretary leads us to the principal’s office. Ms. Evans sits behind a well-organized desk. Framed pictures of three blond children (hers, I suppose) are the only nonbusiness things in sight. I imagine her kids are as perfect as they look.

  “So you’re Brendan,” Ms. Evans says, her voice neutral, her face expressionless. “Please tell me why you have not attended a single class this summer.”

  I shrug and look at the floor, my favorite technique for avoiding questions.

  She taps the desk with her long, sharp fingernails, click-clack. “Well?”

  Mrs. Clancy squeezes my shoulder. “Answer Ms. Evans, Brendan.”

  “I don’t know,” I mutter.

  Click-clack go the nails. “I hear you don’t care if you fail sixth grade.”

  I shrug again. Mrs. Clancy gives my shoulder a little shake this time.

  The principal gazes at me. “Won’t it embarrass you to be older than the other kids in your class?”

  I shake my head and look past her out the window. The recycling truck is in the parking lot. The workers shout at each other and hurl stuff into the truck’s maw as fast as they can. They take their job seriously. No fooling around. They’re professional real-lifers.

  Beside me, I sense Mrs. Clancy go tense with frustration. Why does he act like this? Why is he so stubborn? What’s wrong with him, anyway?

  “I don’t have time for this, Brendan.” Ms. Evans’s voice is still neutral, her face still expressionless. “I expect you to be here every day for the rest of the summer. I expect you to do your homework and hand it in on time. I expect you to start seventh grade in the fall. Is that clear?”

  Again a shake from Mrs. Clancy. Again a shrug from me.

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Clancy says to Ms. Evans. “I’ve tried to teach him manners, to be polite, to answer when spoken to . . .”

  “It’s all right.” Ms. Evans gets to her feet. She’s tall and muscular. She must work out at a gym or something.

  “I’m late for work.” Mrs. Clancy edges toward the door.

  “Thank you for bringing Brendan to school,” Ms. Evans says. “I’ll take him to his classroom now.”

  For once I’m almost sorry to see Mrs. Clancy leave. I’m trapped. There’s no escape from Ms. Evans.

  With one hand on my shoulder, the principal leads me down a hall. “Try to cooperate with Mr. Hailey,” she says. “He’s a good teacher.”

  Ha. I bet he won’t think I’m a good student.

  She stops at room fourteen and opens the door. A man with a beard looks at us. His shaggy hair is collar length, not as long as mine but not regulation length either.

  “This is Brendan Doyle,” Ms. Evans says. “He’s been truant the first week, but I’m sure he can make up the work he’s missed.”

  Mr. Hailey is younger than most teachers. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt and those expensive rubber sandals they sell in L.L. Bean. He looks like a real-lifer pretending not to be. I don’t trust him.

  After he shows me where to sit, he and Ms. Evans step out into the hall, where I know she’s telling him I have a bad attitude and he’ll have to keep an eye on me but what can you expect from a foster child? Take my word for it, I imagine her saying. He’s headed for trouble.

  I glance around the room. Six kids look back. I don’t know any of them. Don’t care to know them either—except for the girl sitting in the seat across from me. Long, dark curly hair, narrow face, pointed chin, chipped black nail polish, and a scar just under one eye. A dog bite, maybe. Some people might say it ruins her looks, but to me the scar sets her apart, makes her unique.

  But it’s more than the scar that interests me. Something’s different about her. Nothing obvious, just something that makes me want to know her. Maybe it’s her eyes, the palest green I’ve ever seen. Or the way she looks at me without blinking. Suddenly nervous, I d
uck my head and fidget with my notebook.

  What am I thinking? Why would that girl like me? Nobody else does.

  Mr. Hailey returns and says he’s sure I’ll fit right in and catch up quickly. He smiles. I don’t smile back. It’s always good to know what the game is before you start playing.

  He tells us to open our math books, and my breakfast turns to lead in my stomach. Not my worst subject first. Mr. Hailey starts with a complicated problem, and I slip a sheet of paper out of my notebook and start drawing.

  “We have art after lunch,” Mr. Hailey informs me.

  A boy in the back of the room snorts. “Didn’t Ms. Evans tell you Brendan is an artist and he should be excused from everything else?”

  “That’s enough, Blake,” Mr. Hailey says. Turning to me, he says, “Put the drawing away and pay attention. You’re going to middle school whether you like it or not. Nobody flunks my class.”

  Ha, I think. Just wait and see. I’ll flunk if I want to.

  Mr. Hailey returns to the math problem. When no one except the girl next to me can solve it by the standard method, he shows us a different way. If some kids still don’t get it, he says, “Well, look at it this way.” By the end of the hour, even someone as stupid as I am understands how to solve problems that never made sense before. Not that I let on. I sit and stare out the window as if it’s still a mystery to me.

  The rest of the day goes like that. Different ways of doing things. No sarcasm. Some jokes. Some laughs. I find myself getting interested in what Mr. Hailey has to say about the environment and climate change. I just might survive summer school after all.

  After school, the girl with the scar follows me down the street. I’m heading for the woods and I don’t want company, so I walk faster. So does she. I hope she’ll turn a corner or run up a sidewalk to her house, but block after block, she follows me.

  At the end of the road, I stop and look at her. “What do you want? Why are you following me?”

  “What makes you think I’m following you?” Her head tips to the side like a sassy bird’s. “Maybe I’m going the same place you’re going.”