Trees in Disguise

“8:00.” Joey put his ski mask on. Frank took his out too.

They popped out from behind their bush and tip-toed onto the wooden porch.

“You’re sure this is the right house?” Joey whispered.

Frank looked down at the slip of paper in his pocket. The address number matched the one painted above the door.

“Pole,” Joey said. Frank pulled a large metal rod out of his pants.

“And remember,” Joey started.

“You do the talking, I know.”

“We don’t want another Johnson family situation here.”

“But I did enjoy playing board games with them,” Frank mused.

“But no money! That’s why we’re here, remember?” Joey just shook his head.

In one swift motion, Frank smashed through the front window.

Joey stepped in first, ducking his head to avoid the broken glass. Frank followed.

Before Joey could shout the threatening lines he rehearsed, they were greeted by quite a scene.

A man in a sweater was racing down the stars and into the kitchen. The man noticed them.

“I don’t have time for you right now,” he shouted without even a second glance. He continued racing into the kitchen. “Take anything except the giant Olaf!” 

Joey and Frank stood, frozen.

As Frank watched the man race down the hall into the kitchen, he saw what looked like flames through the kitchen doorway.

A few seconds later, a teenage girl came walking down the stairs. She walked past Frank and Joey in the living room - not even looking in their direction.

Frank looked at Joey. “Well I suppose…”

A high-pitched “AHHH” interrupted him.

It came from upstairs.

“You know what,” Joey started. “Maybe we should go rob someone else tonight.”

Frank nodded. He bent down to greet a sea of children’s toys on the living room carpet. “Well he did say to take anything.” 

He picked up a red fire truck. “I always wanted to be a fireman when I was a kid,” Frank said.

Joey rolled his eyes. But a glimmer from the corner of the room caught his eye. 

On the couch, next to a giant plush snowman, sat a remote-controlled BMW race car.

Joey walked over and picked up the black remote that lay beside it. “And I,” he said as he put the car on the carpet, “always wanted one of these when I was a kid.”

“So we just take ‘em and go?” Frank asked, relieved to not actually be doing any robbing tonight.

But Joey had already started up the race car and was driving it through the living room, navigating the obstacle course of toys on the floor.

Frank nodded. It was good to see Joey enjoying himself.

Ding dong.

Just then, Frank saw the same man in the sweater running out of the kitchen and back upstairs. 

“Oh, that’s a good one!” the sweater man shouted at Joey as he raced up the stairs.

The same teenage girl followed slowly, her head buried in her phone as she followed up the stairs.

Frank picked up a few nearby cardboard boxes and started ripping them.

This family has enough problems, Frank thought. He headed for the desk in the next room to look for tape.

He was going to board up the window.

---

8:00. Bedtime for Suzie.

Dad walked into her room, which looked like it was straight out of a catalogue. The walls were pink. So were the bedsheets. The curtains. The tiny horses on the dresser.

Suzie sat on her pink blanket on the bed, staring intently straight ahead.

Mom and he had never wanted to put a TV in a 5-year-old’s room. But this room used to be theirs.

But when Suzie turned 5, she begged to have their room instead of hers. So they switched.

Questioning his parenting decisions, Dad tried wrestling the remote away from Suzie, but knew it was a losing battle.

“Okay, but I’m coming back in 5 minutes. And you better be asleep, young lady,” Dad said in the most threatening voice he could to a 5-year-old.

He needed to check up on Eden.

Eden had just turned 16 and, while she would never say it out loud, both Dad and Mom suspected boy problems.

Today, Eden had looked particularly solemn when she got home from school. Dad made a mental note to check in with her before she slept.

And so Dad left the pink fortress of Suzie’s room and walked down the hall to greet the closed door of Eden’s room.

Dad knocked. “It’s me, can I come in?”

“No. Go away.”

“Okay, but there’s pie downstairs,” Dad said through the door.

The door swung open and Eden hopped out. Dad had to use the opportunity.

“So that Josh kid at school…”

Eden was annoyed. “Okay, I know. I know. It’s not a big deal. We just…”

She never finished the sentence. The ringtone on Dad’s phone blasted from out of his jeans. He reached for it and answered.

“Pie’s on fire,” he shouted as he raced out of the room.

As he was running down the stairs, he noticed two strange men in ski masks standing in his living room.

“I don’t have time for you right now. Take anything but the giant Olaf!”

Eden followed, still on her phone.

---

8:00. Time to put the pie in.

Mom had been bouncing around the kitchen for the past hour-and-a-half preparing this meal. Principal Wu would be here soon.

The lasagna was ready. The pears wrapped in prosciutto were ready. At least the ones she hadn’t eaten already. Only the apple pie was left.

She clumsily shoved the pie into the oven. Her work was done, at last.

“Joan, can you go check that pie one more time? I have a feeling I’ve forgotten something.” Mom said as she took off her apron and sat down. It was the first time in over an hour she’d rested her feet.

Joan was the babysitter she had hired to watch Suzie during the day. Both parents would go out shopping on weekends, and Eden couldn’t be trusted.

Joan walked over to check the oven.

“Uh, Mrs. Wood?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I think the oven’s on fire.”

“What? No, that can’t be. I…”

Mom stopped mid-sentence as Joan opened the oven. Apparently, in her blinding joy of finishing cooking, Mom had forgotten to put the pie on a pan. Pieces had fallen down to the oven floor and were starting to catch fire.

Mom sprang up out of her seat.

Grabbing a couple of hand towels, she violently tried to take the rest of the pie out, but the fragile crust broke apart. The pie split into pieces and splattered all over the floor.

She let out a shriek.

Mom looked on in horror as flames started rising out of her oven. And she had so needed to impress the principal.

She reached for her phone on the counter and dialed. And reached for another pear.

---

Dad came rushing in and dashed to the fire extinguisher in the closet. He turned off the oven first, and sprayed.

In seconds, the flames died down.

Mom silently shook her head. She had forgotten to turn off the oven in the midst of the fiasco. She continued munching on her pear, the slice of prosciutto now dripping down the side.

She looked up from her seat to her husband. “What are we going to do? The principal gets here any minute…”

The sound of the doorbell pierced through the smoky kitchen air. 

Dad shook his head and took a deep breath. “Okay, Joan, you start cleaning the pie off the floor. Mom, you entertain Wu. Joan, when you’re finished, put the lasagna and the pears out on the dining room table. I’ll...wait, where are the pears? There’s just some one pear and some prosciutto here.”

Mom smiled sheepishly. “I eat when I’m stressed.”

Eden wandered into the kitchen, still staring at her phone.

Dad turned and started to leave. “Eden, go back up. I’ll put Suzie to sleep. Oh, and I think we might have robbers in the house too.”

“What?!” Mom and Joan exclaimed.

“Hopefully they left. Eden, go! And don’t forget, stay in your room during dinner.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Eden muttered as she headed out of the kitchen. “Oh and Suzie screamed like a minute ago.”

Dad instinctively looked up. He must’ve missed it in the midst of the fire. He ran out and back up the stairs. 

“Oh, that’s a good one!” he yelled at one of the robbers as he saw his remote-controlled race car finally being used.

---

Principal Wu stared curiously at the cardboard that covered up the front window. It looked like someone was taping it to the wall at that moment.

He didn’t like making house calls. But the Wood’s had requested. It’s not often a 63-year-old man comes to a home at 8pm to talk about something as trivial as GPA conflicts.

Mrs. Wood opened the door and greeted him with a warm smile.

“Please, come in, Principal,” she said with her mouth half full of pear.

His eyebrow twitched at the strange sight before him.

To his right, in the living room, one man in a ski mask was either playing with or cleaning up children’s toys. And the other was boarding up the window.

Directly ahead of him, down the hall he got a glimpse of Joan Pine, a sophomore at Jefferson and also his office aide, cleaning up the kitchen floor.

To his left was the dining room. Mrs. Wood hurriedly guided him into it.

“So,” Wu started, trying his best to ignore the scene. “I hear there’s an issue that your daughter would like to speak with me about.”

“Actually we’re speaking for her. She’s busy tonight,” Mrs. Wood said, still smiling.

“Okay then,” Wu said as he took a seat. It was a dimly lit room with the table set for three. Frankly, he was more interested in what was happening in the other rooms.

Mrs. Wood sat down next to him, trying to keep his attention. “So, this Josh boy.”

“Josh Elm.”

“That’s right. He seems to have cheated on his last test.”

“Did he, now?”

“Yes, Eden tells us that she clearly saw him looking at his notes on his smart watch during the biology test. And so he would fail, I assume?”

“Mrs. Wood, you didn’t drag me all the way here to discuss another student.”

“Well, as you know,” Mrs. Wood paused for effect. “Eden and Josh are both tied right now with a 4.43 GPA. Top of their sophomore class.”

“Go on.”

“Josh’s incident would lower his GPA for getting a zero on the test.”

“What are you getting at?”

“We just wanted to let you know,” she said. 

As she finished talking, Joan came in and placed a tray of lasagna down on the table. She also laid down a plate with three slices of crumpled prosciutto.

“Would’ve gone great with pears,” Wu said to Joan with a smile.

“Oh I know,” Joan replied, looking at Mrs. Wood before leaving.

“In any case,” Mrs. Wood continued, “Josh cheating would also disqualify him for the Magnolia Scholarship, right?”

“I suppose,” Wu nodded as he started cutting himself a piece of lasagna. He didn’t see this conversation lasting too much longer.

“I just wanted to make sure. That kind of opportunity doesn’t come around every day.”

“Well I can’t…”

He was interrupted by a deep voice from behind him.

“Principal Wu?” 

It was one of the men in ski masks. The man walked up to the dining room table and took off the mask.

Wu turned around in his chair and squinted to get a better look. “That can’t be. Joey Cypress?”

“Yes, sir. It’s me.”

“And me!” The other man in a mask had crept up next to him, toy truck in hand. As he took off his mask, a smile crept onto Wu’s face.

“Frank Berry! Of course. Class of ‘04.”

“You remember us?” Joey asked.

“After all of the spray paint we had to remove from the east wall, I outlawed senior pranks because of you two.”

Joey chuckled. “Hey, how long did it take you to get it off?”

Mrs. Wood quietly got out of her seat and left the room. She could sense she wasn’t needed anymore.

Joan was sitting scrolling through her phone as Mrs. Wood walked in.

“So, those robbers still here, huh?” Joan questioned.

“Oh you saw them. Yes,” Mrs. Wood said, flustered. This is not how she thought the evening was going to go. “We were supposed to get the principal on our side. And then talk about the scholarship.”

“Oh, the Magnolia Scholarship? That’s a big deal,” Joan perked up.

“Yes - a free study-abroad program in England, plus money for her college fund. And we’d get to visit her in England as vacation.”

Back in the dining room, Wu, Joey, and Frank were interrupted by Mr. Wood coming down the stairs. A 5-year-old in pink pajamas marched behind him.

“Oh, good evening, Principal Wu,” Mr. Wood said. He didn’t acknowledge the other two. “Sorry, Suzie here refuses to sleep. I’ll just have her play in the living room for a bit.”

The trio in the dining room turned their attention back toward the kitchen.

Mrs. Wood had emerged along with Joan. Mrs. Wood had to get to the bottom of this scholarship issue. She was losing Wu.

“So sorry, Principal. I just…”

“Joey? Joey Cypress?” Mr. Wood had come out of the living room and now got a closer look at the two strangers.

Mrs. Wood rolled her eyes.

“Dr. Wood?”

“Doctor?” Mrs. Wood questioned.

“Yes,” Mr. Wood straightened up. “I’m a psychologist treating patients with their problems, remember? You know, patients who pay for my services?”

“Oh, oh, that’s right. Dr. Wood. Of course,” Mrs. Wood nodded.

“Dr. Wood here has been helping me with all my problems,” Joey asserted. “He even let me talk about my moral dilemma of robbing houses. It helped me see that robbing isn’t so bad after all. That’s when we started.”

“And we need the money to pay for the house butler,” Frank chimed in.

“You have a butler?” Wu asked curiously, still sitting in his char.

“Only on weekends.”

Wu stood up. “So let me get this straight,” he said with a deep breath. “Joan, that’s your Uncle Frank right here. Joey, your psychologist is Mr. Wood. Mrs. Wood, you’re arguing Eden’s case for the Magnolia Scholarship.”

Wu continued. “And if I’m not mistaken - Mrs. Wood, you’re lying to me about Josh cheating on that test. My guess is that’s a story you fabricated to get Eden a sure shot at the scholarship. And you, Mr. Wood. I looked into your background when Eden started at Jefferson High. You work at a car dealership. And from what I’m learning about your family, I’m going to take a guess that your psychologist gig is just a ruse.”

“No! Dr. Wood?” Joey looked befuddled.

Mr. Wood avoided eye contact. Mrs. Wood looked down.

“Joey and Frank,” Wu went on. “You two had so much potential in high school. And instead, you rob people for fun. This is a stab in the dark, but Joey, the paper sticking out of your pocket.”

“It’s the address,” Joey said, realizing what happened. “It was supposed to be the next house we were going to target. I must’ve switched it with Dr. Wood’s address when he invited me over.”

“We were going to have a special session,” Mr. Wood said quietly to Mrs. Wood. “Overtime fee.”

“So here’s what I’m going to do,” the principal said. “If Eden was in on framing Josh, she’ll face disciplinary action. I’m going to report you two as well,” he said, looking at the parents.

“Joey and Frank - I’m actually going to take another guess and say you haven’t earned much from your house-robbing.”

“Zilch.”

“And why is that?”

“Well,” Frank started. “After we break in, we usually help clean up the mess we made. And usually we sit down with them for dinner.”

“We pay for takeout, they don’t call the police,” Joey added. “That’s happened twice. This is our third house.”

“You’re gonna report them too, I suppose,” Mrs. Wood said, trying to make herself feel better.

“Actually, the opposite,” Wu said. “You boys have a heart that wants to help, not hurt. You just don’t know what to do with it.”

Joey tilted his head.

“Come teach for me at Jefferson - both of you. I’ll pay for your teaching credentials, and you’ll be teaching something P.E. or computers for now, and taking classes at night. Just to start out.”

Frank grinned. 

“Let me know. In the meantime, do me a favor and don’t rob anyone else. Though it seems you’ve done little harm outside of being the worst house burglars I’ve ever seen.”

Joey gave a slight nod in agreement.

“Well if this is all wrapped up, I have a nice glass of Merlot waiting for me at home. Mr. and Mrs. Wood, you’ll be hearing from me soon. And Joey and Frank, I hope I’ll be hearing from you soon.”

Mr. and Mrs. Wood stood there, frozen. 

Principal Wu turned towards the door.

“Oh, and Joan,” Wu turned back. “You might want to consider babysitting for someone else.”

With that, Wu walked out.

“Come on,” Frank said to his niece. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

Joey, Frank, and Joan followed out the door. 

Suzie waddled in from the living room. Mr. Wood wondered how much she’d heard.

“Daddy, are you going to jail? Will you all get arrested? Can I have Eden’s room? What’s a sigh-call-uh-something? Are you really a doctor? Should I run away? I’m telling Eden!”

Mr. and Mrs. Wood sat on the floor. They felt exposed, stripped of their facades and pride.

Suzie was the least of their worries.