The Big Tree

My construction paper sign waves sadly in the wind. The yarn clumsily pokes through either end of the paper and tied to the lowest branches of the tree announced the only rule in our club: No Boys.

This is a convenient rule as there are no boys to be found to belong to our club of 3. I secretly want boys, but our brothers are all too old to be part of our club, and there are no other boys in the neighborhood who are acceptable. 

The Pensingers  - the boys across the street - are too young, and our family is fighting with them because they gave us a bike and then took it back. As a result, we are forbidden from speaking to the Pensingers. Are we forbidden? I can’t remember. I know we don’t speak. Which is a problem because I am still secretly in love with Jared, Pensinger #2, Please don’t tell. It is embarrassing because he is much younger than me, which makes my crush so weird. But love is love. I can’t help that I love him. I think my sister suspects my crush, which is why she is trying so hard to convince me that the Pensingers are my real family. According to my sister, My mom took me as a baby because Ann, the Pensingers mom, didn’t want me. It makes me sad and I cry whenever she tells me this, because I do not want to be Leon’s sister (Pensinger #1), and I’m in love with Jared (Pensinger #2). Pensinger #3, Emory, is a baby and outside of being cute is pretty much worthless, in my opinion.

In the days of The Big Tree, our roads are the only paved roads that run out in Doney Park. The surrounding roads, including the road that housed The Big Tree, are all dirt roads. Our trips out to the Big Tree require several phone calls between our house on Gemini, and Wendy’s house on Lunar. We are bringing snacks. Wendy is to bring water. I will bring paper for my job as the secretary which I know will inevitably be assigned to me as soon as we vote on roles. Finally, we set off.  We are a haphazard group with our banged up bikes and knees, with my dog, Shasta, running along behind me with a huge log in his mouth. Shasta never travels anywhere without some kind of a stick, and usually a large log. 

After I write the rules for our club, and we debate once more about who is the president of our club (always my older sister, Alicia), and who is the vice president (always Wendy Horner, our neighborhood friend), and what role I will fill because I cannot be president or vice president (I am always the secretary), we sit under the Big Tree and eat our snack. Sweet and sticky apple juice runs down my chin as I realize that now that the rules are once more in place, the tree has been cleaned out from its winter clutter of leaves, grass and the reminants of last year’s sign warning boys away, pushed away with the other debris, our job here at the club is pretty much done. We sit in the hot, dry June sun. We begin the next inevitable discussion fight: the name of our club.

This is the primary discussion each day until Wendy and Alicia are shipped off to their respective fathers for the rest of the summer. It is important work to have established our name before they go. How do they expect me to run our club totally alone if the president and vice president have not accomplished the primary job of naming our club? Inevitably, they leave without a name. The monsoon rains come in, and I cannot ride to The Big Tree alone. My sign rattles in the rain, battered by the wind.

Despite its name as The Big Tree, it is not big. It is the biggest tree in the neighborhood, which says a lot about the three small streets laid out in the high elevation desert of Doney Park. Low income housing built in the late 70’s, my dad bought our little house right after construction. My parents slowly planted every tree,  blade of grass, flower, and weed on the property and have nursed them to grow in the arid air, and cold winters of Flagstaff, Arizona. 

Today, The Big Tree is gone. He has been long since replaced by fancy houses in a new subdivision. The roads are paved, and large gates protect these new homes from the riffraff a few streets over. I run out on the path I used ride to where The Big Tree stood. June is still hot and dry. Doney Park is still windy. The Pensingers still live across the street from my parents. My mom and Ann are friends now. We have forgiven them for the bike incident, apparently. I am not still in love with Jared, and it turns out they are not my real family, after all. My mother has assured me multiple times. Trees tower over my parents’ house these days. Flowers have somehow flourished.

In a few short days I will be back in that neck of the woods. I will be calling a meeting of The Big Tree. The membership has dwindled to two. Our tree is long gone, but we will convene for one last meeting. We will probably fight about who gets to be the president. My sister will win, but at last I can be vice president (Sorry, Wendy). My first act will be to name our club. My second will be to write the sign, “No Boys Allowed.” I am not sure where to hang it though.