David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

“Budgie climbed the tree!”

There wasn’t a kid in school who didn’t know about the tree. It had silver bark and purply, reddish leaves and was a hundred feet tall. Maybe even two hundred. It was off limits because one time a kid fell out and broke his neck and turned into a vegetable but sometimes kids climbed it anyway when no one was looking.

“He even carved his name on the top branch with a knife!”

“No he didn’t,” I said.

“Yes he did!”

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Barely O’Donahue said. “Curds and way.”

Then Ms. Dickson told us all to sit down and I tried to listen to what she was saying but I kept thinking about Budgie and the tree and how I didn’t believe any of it because Budgie had about as much natural climbing ability as a walrus no matter what Barely O’Donahue said.

I looked around at Budgie. He was sitting at his desk looking more puffed up than usual. I bet he hadn’t climbed the tree at all. I bet he was giving Barely O’Donahue candy or cookies just to say he did. I was also pretty sure he didn’t carve his name on any branch. As far as I knew he didn’t even have a pocketknife.

Budgie found me on the monkey bars during recess. Barely O’Donahue and a couple other kids were with him.

“Barely says you don’t believe I climbed the tree,” he said.

I looked down from the monkey bars at him. Barley seemed even smaller from up there.

“So?”

“So do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you believe I climbed the tree?”

More kids were coming over. They quit playing tag. They stopped playing four square and crackabout and wall ball. I don’t know why I said what I said next. Maybe it was because Budgie was surrounded by kids who thought he was some kind of hero when he hadn’t done anything except lie to them and that didn’t seem right. Maybe I thought I could get away with it because there were so many people around. Or maybe the words just popped into my head and they came out before I could stop them.

“Dude, I don’t believe you could climb any tree.”

Some of the kids laughed including Barely O’Donahue. Budgie didn’t laugh. His face went red instead.

“What did you just say?”

“He said he didn’t believe you could climb any tree,” said Barely O’Donahue.

“I heard him.”

“You know, because you’re fat.”

“Shut up!”

Now just about everyone was laughing. Budgie’s face got redder—almost purple.

“Are you saying you could do better?” he asked.

Budgie stood below the monkey bars waiting for me to answer. I looked around at the kids. They were waiting for an answer, too. There was really only one thing I could say so I said it.

“Yeah.”

The kids in the crowd all started talking between each other and Budgie stood there with his arms crossed and a mean grin on his face. My mouth went dry all of a sudden. What if he hadn’t made the whole thing up?

“After school,” he said. “At the tree.”

Then he turned around and walked away and Barely O’Donahue and a couple of other kids followed him. The kids who were left walked away, too. They started playing four square and crackabout and wall ball again. I was all alone on top of the monkey bars wondering if I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

Normally I couldn’t wait for the day to be over. Normally I’d be counting down the minutes until the bell. Today was not a normal day. Today I actually wished the clock would slow down. Sally passed me a note and I opened it even though I knew I shouldn’t have. At first I thought Budgie’s drawing was of a weasel falling off a burning flagpole, then I realized it wasn’t a burning flagpole at all. It was a tree. And if the burning flagpole was a tree, that meant I was the weasel.

I wanted to turn around and scream at him that nobody believed he’d climbed the stupid tree anyway and that I didn’t have to prove anything to him or anybody else and that nobody liked him or cared about what he said, including Barely O’Donahue, who probably only hung around because he was short and afraid of being picked on. Instead I crumpled up the note and put it in my desk, which is what I should have done in the first place.

The clock kept ticking. The bell would ring soon and the day would end and I’d have to climb the tree and I wasn’t very good at climbing trees. But just because I wasn’t that good at it didn’t mean I was scared to. Budgie would soon find out that Derek Lamb was no chicken. Plus about a thousand people heard me say I’d do it.

“All right, Lamb, up you go.”

Me, Budgie, Barely O’Donahue, and a few kids from recess were all standing at the bottom of the tree looking up. I could see part of the sky and some clouds through the branches. They seemed very far away.

“What branch?” I asked.

“What what branch?” said Budgie.

“What branch did you carve your name on?”

Budgie glanced at Barely O’Donahue, who shrugged and shook his head.

“You know—the top one,” said Budgie.

“There’s more than one branch at the top.”

“Quit stalling!”

I wasn’t stalling. How could Budgie expect me to climb higher than he did if he couldn’t even remember which branch he carved his name on? I know that if it was me I’d totally remember. If it was me I would’ve hung a flag and claimed the tree for Derekland.

“Go on, Captain Saturday, get up there!” said Budgie.

“Yeah, go on!” said Barely O’Donahue. “Whatcha waiting for?”

“What’s the matter, Lamb? Chicken?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Dude, you sound like that dog food commercial.”

“What?”

Now I was stalling. I figured the longer I put it off, the more likely we’d get caught and I wouldn’t have to do it at all.

“You know—the Hungry Pup commercial? With that song?”

“ I know that one!” said Barely O’Donahue.

“If your pup is up and sniffin’ in the kitchen,” I sang, with Barely O’Donahue and a couple of the other kids joining in. “Hungry Pup’s got rice, lamb, and chicken!”

“What are you doing?” asked Budgie angrily.

“What?” answered Barely O’Donahue. “It’s a commercial.”

“I know it’s a commercial.”

I looked up at the school building while Budgie and Barely O’Donahue worked things out, hoping we’d be spotted by a teacher or a janitor—somebody, anybody with even the slightest bit of authority who might recognize this as a potential breaking of the rules.

“What’re you doing now?” said Budgie.

“Making sure there’s no teachers,” I said. “You wanna get busted?”

“Just hurry up!”

I looked up into the tree again and swallowed hard. Three hundred feet. At least.

Ignoring Budgie, Barely O’Donahue, and the others, I walked around the tree looking for a good place to start. Luckily, the tree had some branches close to the ground and I found a sturdy one and climbed up onto it. From there I found another branch a little farther up. It was narrower than the first one but still wide enough for both feet and I hugged the trunk and pressed my cheek against the bark. My hands were starting to sweat and I hoped that Budgie couldn’t see that my legs were shaking.

“That branch looks wobbly,” said Budgie. “Are you sure it’ll hold you?”

“It held you, didn’t it?”

Some of the kids laughed.

“What did you just say?”

“He said, ‘It held you, didn’t it,’” said Barely O’Donahue.

“I heard him.”

“You know, because you’re fat.”

“Shut up!”