Artie’s Treehouse

A light breeze rushed through the leaves of the sycamore tree. It’s large branches creaked and groaned, as if fighting the wind that would never knock it down. It had been standing for decades; roots touching the centre of the Earth and limbs reaching for the sky. I climbed up the rope ladder hanging from the tree and pulled myself up. 

Perched at least ten feet from the ground, sat a wooden shack. It was built of now rotting wood and the leftover shingles from Artie Mitchell’s  father. Originally Mr. Mitchell had built the treehouse for his son, but after an incident involving poor grip and a broken arm, Artie’s treehouse was deemed unsafe. The Mitchell’s moved away due to a job opportunity not long after. Years later, the house was demolished, and yet they’d never gotten rid of Artie’s treehouse not far in the woods past the backyard. 

My mother used to tell me stories about Artie’s treehouse. She’d say that when they were twelve, all of their friends would climb the ladder to spend the day playing cards and singing songs from their radios or walkmans. Later on, they would return home to their parents just as the street lights came on.

I wished being twelve would look like the stories my mom tells me. But here I am, spending summer before seventh grade in a tree with my books. Not that I minded at all, of course.

They have a certain feeling to them, books do. A feeling that can make a person want to dive in and never come up again, not even for air. I dream about the books I read- ones with princesses that save themselves and people with wings and places I wouldn’t want to leave in a million years. But I can’t live in books, so I’ll have to do my best to imagine I can. Someday I’ll read all the books in the world. 

    It wasn’t long after I got up into the tree, maybe an hour or so, that I heard the familiar creaking of the ladder. Someone else was coming up. Just as I looked up from my book, the top of a head peaked out from the floor of the treehouse- then a pair of shoulders, a chest and legs. 

    A boy sat on the floor in the tree house, legs dangling through the hole in the wood. He was looking down at his feet with his hair in his eyes. I’d stayed unseen so far, in the corner with my knees to my chest. Why was he here? And how long was he going to stay? I took a quiet breath and proceeded to break the tension only I felt. 

    “What are you doing here?” He let out a squeal and clutched his hand to his heart. For a moment I could’ve sworn I saw his soul leave his body. Unfortunately, this boy thought he was the only one who knew about this place. 

    “You scared me!” He snorted. He sounded almost distressed, his voice a small bit higher than it should be for a twelve year old boy. I think; he did look my age.

    “And you scared me, so we’re even. What are you doing up here?” 

    “My Pa told me about this place. He used to spend all day up here when he was my age!” The boy spoke with such amazement as he looked around. Outside of the glassless windows, you could see past where the Mitchell’s home used to be, and right over the small town I lived in. 

We stared out at the small houses and farms until my eyes went crossed. Sooner or later, I snapped back into reality. “What did you say your name was?”

“Huh? Oh, I didn’t. Peter Mitchell,” he stated proudly. 

“Mitchell. Like the Mitchells that owned the house here?”

“Yep. My Ma and Pa lived here before I was born, but they wanted to move back this year. This is technically my treehouse, but you can stay for the day if you’d like.” So this was who built the place I’d spent most of my time in lately. Or rather, a relative of them. I wondered if my parents knew the Mitchell’s had moved back yet. 

“My name’s Anya. And this isn’t your anything.” I rolled my eyes and returned to my book as Peter stood awkwardly in the centre of the room. 

“So… do you read a lot?”

“Yeah, I got it from my dad, he loves to read.” I kept my eyes on the paper, flipping loudly every now and then.

“That’s nice.” There was a quiet struggle as he grabbed for words he couldn’t quite find. “Do you read any comics?” 

To which I replied, “You don’t read comics, you look at them. And no, I don’t.”

The silence that began to fill the room for the next few minutes was only subsided by my pages flipping and the occasional car that would drive by the road. Not too many cars came up here, it was close to the road leaving town, but no one ever used it so it stayed more peaceful than the rest of the roads there. That was one of the reasons I liked it so much- I didn’t have to listen to the engines that never stopped running, or the people who never stopped talking. The only thing to hear were the birds and the occasional squirrel. 

Peter began to look around at the treehouse. He paced back and forth, as if he was faced with an important decision. I looked past my pages at him, once every now and then, to watch what he was doing. 

At one point, he stopped pacing to look at something in one of the corners of the low roof. I kept reading, as he didn’t seem to be doing anything worth interest. I imagined the stories I read, how colourful they were in my head and how real. And- 

“AGHHH!” A loud scream from Peter made me flinch and drop my hardcover. He was running around, smacking away at his face for something I couldn’t see. “Spider! Spider, there was a spider on my face!” He continued to yell for another minute or so. I didn’t find the creatures scary in the slightest. It was an almost laughable thing to watch; in fact, it was. 

I cried with laughter as Peter’s panicking died down. He glared at me; I wished keeping a straight face for me wasn’t impossible. A smile crept onto his face as well and before we knew it, we were both rolling on the floor.

—————————

That same laughter echoes in my head while I look at the space where Artie’s treehouse used to stand. Long since taken down, an empty space sits in the spot it used to be. “Nana! Nana, look!” Peter yells to me. He’s hanging upside down from one of the trees, his face is turning red and he’s wearing a big smile. 

“Look at my little monkey! Good job, sweetie.” He smiles bigger and hops down to run to me. “You know, there used to be a treehouse here. It sat in a big sycamore tree about ten feet from the ground. You could see all over town up there!” 

“Really? That sounds amazing!”

“It was. That’s where I met your grandpa. His name was Peter, too. I wish you could’ve met him, we was so much like you!”

My grandson smiles and grabs my hand. “Come see the fort I made,” he says excitedly.