Alicia began pulling and twisting at her long hair, the way she often did when her thoughts grew troubled. But still her silence filled the night. I knew she didn’t understand all of my words, but I think she understood when I said, “Alicia, we need to go back to María, Carmen, and Milagro, and to all the children. They’re our family now. Wherever they are, that’s where our home is. Here is where we belong.”
I sat a long time on the branch, letting my mind and my heart accept this decision. Then I drew in a deep breath. “Yes, this is where we belong,” I said, speaking to myself, to Alicia, and to the night sky that now bathed us in a warm darkness.
My little sister nodded, and then she also drew in a deep breath and looked up into the branches. “Can we climb higher?” she asked, her scratchy voice barely loud enough to be heard.
I gasped, and all of the world stopped at the sound of my sister’s voice. Turning on the branch, I hugged Alicia hard, and in the peaceful silence that followed her words, I whispered in her ear, “Yes, we’ll climb higher. Climbing a tree takes you closer to heaven.”
Books by
BEN MIKAELSEN
RESCUE JOSH MCGUIRE
SPARROW HAWK RED
STRANDED
COUNTDOWN
PETEY
TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR
RED MIDNIGHT
AUTHOR’S NOTE FOR TREE GIRL
The brutal military massacres that happened in Central America during the early 1980s are a matter of historical record. Tens of thousands of indigenous people were raped, tortured, and killed during the genocide that occurred in Guatemala alone. More than four hundred fifty villages were destroyed, their homes burned to the ground. Few children escaped to tell their stories. I had the opportunity to meet a young girl who survived the tragedy when I visited Guatemala in 2000. Tree Girl is based on her personal account of the Guatemalan massacres.
I thank the real Tree Girl for the chilling memories she shared with me late one night in a safe house in northern Guatemala. This book is part of my promise to her, that the rivers of tears she wept when telling me her story would not be wasted. Her identity must never be known because she still works with the resistance movement in Mexico, but her story is one that all people should hear. The real Tree Girl vowed never to climb a tree again, but I realized that climbing a tree is a metaphor for life. We cannot live life to its fullest, breathing the clouds, without risking the climb. That is why I knew that Gabriela, the Tree Girl in my story, needed to find the strength to climb again.
The U.S. government was aware of the conflict in Guatemala and did, in fact, provide training and weapons that enabled soldiers to attack Guatemalan villages. During the congressional hearings that followed, U.S. military leaders defended the massacres as an effort to fight communism, but the fact remains that the majority of those killed had never heard of communism or raised a finger against either America or the Guatemalan military. They were indigenous people living simple lives, wanting only to be left alone. Thousands of women, children, and grandparents were forced to defend themselves with little more than machetes, sticks, and the will to protect their families and homes. That same will exists in each of us when all that we know and love is threatened. Many Americans dismissed the Guatemalan massacres as tragic without speaking out against them, and in so doing became unwitting accomplices.
The tragic events of September 11, 2001, left the United States with scars of its own. As a result, it may be easier for some to justify any action taken by America in the name of patriotism. My hope is that talking about the mistakes of our past will remind our great country that no human need fear indiscriminate killing supported and condoned by the United States ever again. This was Gabriela’s prayer, as well.
About the Author
BEN MIKAELSEN
has won the International Reading Association Award and the Western Writers Golden Spur Award. His novels have earned critical acclaim, as well as several state reader’s choice awards. These novels include RED MIDNIGHT, TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR, RESCUE JOSH McGUIRE, SPARROW HAWK RED, STRANDED, COUNTDOWN, and PETEY. Ben’s articles and photos appear in numerous magazines around the world. He lives in a log cabin near Bozeman, Montana, with a 750-pound black bear he has adopted and raised. For more information about Ben Mikaelsen and his books, visit him online at www.benmikaelsen.com.
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Copyright
Tree Girl
Copyright © 2004 by Ben Mikaelsen
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03570-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mikaelsen, Ben.
Tree Girl/Ben Mikaelsen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When, protected by the branches of one of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela witnesses the destruction of her Mayan village and the murder of nearly all its inhabitants, she vows never to climb again until, after she and her traumatised sister find safety in a Mexican refugee camp, she realizes that only by climbing and facing their fears can she and her sister hope to have a future.
ISBN-10: 0-06-009006-5 (pbk.) — ISBN-13: 978-0-06-009006-7 (pbk.)
1. Mayas—Juvenile fiction. [1. Mayas—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Refugees—Fiction. 4. Indians of Central America—Guatemala—Fiction. 5. Guatemala—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M5926Tr 2004+ 2003018702
[Fie]—dc22
Typography by Lizzy Bromley
First paperback edition, 2005
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Ben Mikaelsen, Tree Girl
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