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open pink shirt. A yellow barrette at the back of her head held up her blonde hair like a plume. She looked like a startled parrot. |
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"Well, you could get your bike." |
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"We can go to the pond and look for frogs. Come on." |
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"They're just coming out of hibernation." |
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"How come you're such a spoilsport?" |
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"I don't feel like riding." Matty looked at the high wall of treesfive hundred acres of Magog Woods. Deep woods. Black woods. He felt the trees pull at him. He wanted to be in there, alone, running through them. |
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Gina put her foot on the pedal, getting ready to go. "I think all the kids are right about you." |
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"Just that you're wicked weird." |
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"Everybody says so," she said, then pedaled off. |
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Wicked weird. What does she know? |
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He watched her disappear down the road, then cut into the trees. Evergreens rose around him like giant fingers. He moved within, away from the houses and the cars, where the air was cool and moist. |
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The raw breath of winter had not fully departed. In a month the place would be a green cathedral. He loved the woods, the heavy, sullen air, the dark, the solitude, the sweet, musty odors of matted pine needles and wet earth, of things decaying and being born. |
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On any other day he would have headed straight for TopTreethe elaborate tree house he and his father had built high in a massive oak. |
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TopTree was Matty's secret place, his private sanctuary, now nearly hidden by the thick head and surrounding saplings. Over the |
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