On the Ground, In the Trees

James sauntered away from the young vendor, then hurriedly pushed his way among the crowd and licked at the melting cherry popsicle from his fingers. The cold delight vanished on his tongue like a cloud. To a passerby, he might have appeared to be cute, his sand coloured hair sticking out artistically in all directions (though it was nothing but the humid weather) and his shirt stained red-pink. He carried another popsicle, grape flavoured, in that same hand, holding it precariously between his fingers, which started to melt under the clear blue sky. Occasionally, his pink tongue reached out to capture his dripping delight before it could go anywhere else. One of his hands held a bag containing cotton cloth, and he resisted the urge to swing it back and forth in the crowded area. Underneath that adorable expression was a scheming mind, one which planned to get hold of another popsicle from under the vendor’s nose. But perhaps on another day.

“You stole those popsicles. I saw you do it.” a disembodied voice spoke in hushed tones behind him. James could recognise that voice in his dreams, even. He turned around, exasperated, to find his younger sister looking up at him with wide innocent eyes, framed with thick black eyelashes. Her mouth was puckered up in a pout; she wanted to say something but could not. She expressed this by knotting her fingers in her skirt, which was clean but torn from the edges.

“I promised to bring you your popsicle. You should not have followed me.” James said, trying to avoid the question in her eyes.

“It would all have disappeared by the time you arrived.” She eyed the popsicle “But why did you steal it?”

James sighed heavily as he handed over the grape flavoured popsicle to his younger sister. “Rosalie, you remember what our caretaker said?” he said.

“Madam Dorothy?”

“Yes, silly. She said that the world is your home.” he broke eye contact and nudged Rose, urging her to move forward, “One does not steal from their own home. I call it borrowing.”

James received no reply from Rose, and he found her biting the popsicle, closing her eyes and savouring the cold and the flavour. He would do anything to make her happy, but he was slightly guilty after knowing that she had followed him, only to find him stealing popsicles.

They sat down under the shade of the trees behind the master’s shed, which overlooked the farm. The cool air was a welcome relief from the relentless heat of the sun. They both took one last bite of their popsicles. A satisfied sigh escaped James’s lips while Rose licked the stick bare of its previous sweetness, her tiny body shuddering coldly as she put her head on James’ shoulder, her eyes closed. She looked as vulnerable to James as she was in her sleep, and he had a spontaneous need of protecting the only family he had. He tilted his head, his cheek resting on the soft pillow of Rose’s hair.

The boy knew he would have to get up to hand over Madam Dorothy the cloth she had asked him to fetch and then return to Master Harte’s animals in the shed. But he was too tired to move now that his muscles had relaxed, in a safe place with Rose beside him. 

Clouds appeared across the sky, floating like boats in a sea. The sky darkened a shade when they passed in front of the Sun, but then the rays would peek out from beneath the cover. The white masses then disappeared beneath the canopy sheltering the children. It almost seemed like nature was playing hide and seek, just like James’s father would say peek-a-boo to Rose when she was a baby, which caused her to erupt in giggles. He could not help but smile at the memory.

There was something surreal about the two trees surrounding them. Both of them differed from each other, in height and size, their colours different shades of green- one hued down to a sage shade by the weather, while the other was bright fern coloured, standing in stark contrast. But they were entirely knit together like a family. The ground was uncomfortable to sit on, yet the blades of the patchy grass were soft beneath James’s fingers as he ran his hands through them.

Suddenly, the wind blew across with a whooshing sound; the breeze ruffled his hair, similar to the way his mother used to do. His eyes were wet, but he soon forgot everything as something dropped on his head. He jumped up in surprise, to find a pale blue semi circle spotted with dark colours, jagged from the edges.

“What is it, Jamie?” Rose stood behind his back, clinging to his legs. James picked it up, puzzled, until he realised what had happened. Twirling the fragile casing, he looked up in the highest canopy, soon identifying twigs and mud forming the base of a nest, made from the sweat, blood and tears of birds. 

He held his breath, not missing a single sound in the canopy- the cracking of more shells, the rustling of the twigs beneath the feet as fragile as their casing itself, and the majestic sound of a bigger bird swooping near its littlings. It was a blur of black, and as it settled on the edge of the nest, flexing its wings, it was an aesthetic sequence of black and white. There were blue-green iridescent flashes in the wing and tail, the upperparts mostly black with a white patch in the outer wing and two white stripes on the back. Its beak was black, and its belly nearly white, as James saw it from beneath the tree. The boy's chores and exhaustion were forgotten, as if they never existed; the chirping and cackling soothed him.

He listened to the symphony, and the bird sang to him as if he belonged with them. Twirling slowly on his feet, his head thrown upwards, he tried taking in the activities of the creatures in the wide expanse of the emerald foliage. He had a terrible idea blooming, but his curiosity caught the better of him. 

“Rose, stay right here.”

“Where are you going?” came the worried question, but James paid it no heed.

He held his hands in front of him, marvelling at the roughness beneath his fingers for a few seconds. And then he climbed, finding holdings and edges for her footing. The exercise had cost him a few splinters on his hands, but his breath left him in a whoosh when he saw the opposite tree, the one bearing the nest. Rose was climbing the tree, her hands and feet finding their footing in a dance like manner, as if she had been practicing her entire life. 

“Rose, I told you to stay put!” 

“Why should I? Just because I am a girl in skirts does not mean I cannot climb trees.” she retorted.

The bold reply stunned James. Women were meant not to climb trees or speak back, according to everyone. And what will Madam Dorothy say when she will see her muddy clothes? Perhaps another lesson on propriety. Rose would pay it no heed, like always. 

“Will it be fluffy?” came a question from high above him.

James peeked above the branch, nearly falling off it when he heard a scream. “What is it?” he shouted.

“They are so thin and ugly! Why do they not have beautiful feathers like their mother? And what is she doing with her mouth open and liquid dripping down her mouth to the creature?” 

James laughed, more out of relief than amusement. 

He descended, calling out for Rose to do the same. But when he descended, the mother bird started shrieking, her wings open wide and ready to attack; Rose was still gripping the branches, one hand in the nest. 

“Rosalie! Don’t do that! You will fall with the nest and hurt yourself. You will kill the birds!” 

Without thinking, he gripped the trunk of the larger tree, trying to find footings and holdings, but his hands kept slipping until he found something to hang onto. The mother magpie, visibly distressed now, flew to attack Rose, her beak ready to hurt her viciously. James diverted his attention for a while to haul himself up further.

But everything quieted down suddenly. James looked up, but Rosalie was missing. 

“Rose! ROSE!” He frantically looked in the canopy, hoping for any sight of her. He could not lose her too.

“You are more dramatic than women who come to gossip with Madam Dorothy,” came a reply from below. 

“What-h… how?” he was flustered. He climbed down in anger and relief, turning towards his sister. She must have seen the fright in his face because she paled. He stomped towards her, about to shake her to her senses, but he refrained from doing so. An uncomfortable silence raged between them.

“Hey look what I found,” Rose whispered, trying to dispel the still air. Looking up at her brother when he stood there with his expression dark, she put her hand in the skirt’s pocket then took it out. She held her palm open, revealing a few dirty coins. “It was in the nest.” she hesitated, and her lips pouted, “Could we buy anything from them? Please?”

James looked up. He glanced back at his sister, another idea blooming in his head, but he reined it in for the time being. 

“Hand me these coins and take the bag to Madam Dorothy,” he motioned to the bag lying in a heap on the ground, while holding out the other hand for the coins. But his voice was shaky. “And try nothing like this again. Not being a future proper lady is one thing, but going on to the point of hurting yourself, or worse, killing yourself! It is not acceptable. Go back inside the house.” 

Rose looked up at him, her eyes wide at the sudden outburst. “Will you tell the lady?” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. Her expression told James she was expecting the dreaded pronouncement. Her fingers curled around the coins in a fist.

James ran a hand over his face. “No, not today. But do this one more time, and I will ask her to keep you in bounds. Now please hand over the cloth to her or she will run around the city looking for us.” 

Rose, expelling a relieved sigh, dropped the coins in his open palm and rushed to the kitchen with the bag. James looked at the running figure, brown hair flying in the air, catching fire under the Sun’s rays. He knew he would miss those short legs running through the fields, and her soft hands would turn hard with washing and scrubbing later. But something told him she would be defiant about it too.

James trekked through the stalls and stopped in front of a familiar one. The boy tending the stall could only be a few years older than James, but his face was unsmiling, the expression devoid of any emotion. The most startling thing perhaps was a scar protruding from the v-necked collar of his shirt. He tried to hide it with a cloth draped over one of his shoulders, but it was still visible. He worked mechanically, as if he was in a distant land of his own, existing in the body of someone else. 

James would have only one way of returning what he stole, and so he quietly crept among the thinning crowd, discreetly placing all the coins near the edge of the table top and left, but not without sending prayers the boy’s way and a vow to himself never to steal. Before he trotted away, he reminded himself to be grateful for shelter and food and clothes, and most of all for the couple who took them in when they had no one. Even if James was a worker for Master Harte, the couple treated them both as their own children.

Rose might require an explanation for where the coins went, but she would understand.