Tree Stump

Tree Stump By Guy Tucker

Stinky Billy Tate was the resident school bully. Today at lunch was just like every other day, Billy was heading over toward me as I sat with Zach, the best friend a guy could ask for, but when it came to standing up to bullies, Zach was just as cowardly as I was. We were sitting under a tree in the shade about to start eating our lunches when Billy suddenly loomed over us, casting his shadow of smelly doom upon me. Billy was the tallest kid in fifth grade; he had repeated this grade twice already. He had red-hair and freckles and smelt like he hadn’t showered in days. “Lunch time, I’m hungry, hand over your lunch, now,” Billy stated with his eyes narrowed and his meaty hand outstretched. He was the only kid at The Holy Mother that could pass for a grown up. He had a fine layer of stubble on his face and a nest of ginger hair on his chest that threatened to burst from the neck of his filthy white school shirt. A mournful sigh escaped my lips as I lowered my head and rummaged through my bag and popped open the clear Tupperware container that held the gourmet roll that my mother had made. I pulled out the cling-wrap covered sesame seed roll and held it in my hands and stared at it for a second too long. “Hand it over nerd,” Billy barked. “I’m starved.” With another sigh I lifted it up to Billy, who snatched it out of my hand like some hungry dog. He tore the wrapping away and devoured the entire thing in less than a minute, he hardly seemed to chew at all, it was like watching crocodiles feed, but with Billy you usually got to keep your arms and legs. “Thanks nerd,” Billy said as he threw the balled up wrapping in my lap, then turned and walked back across the playground. My eyes burned hateful holes in his back as he walked away. I wanted to hit him, I wanted to make him cry, no I wanted to do more than that, I wanted him to bleed. My life would be so much better if Billy Tate never existed.

No one made lunch for Billy, everyone said that his father had left when he was five and never came back. Billie’s mother had become an alcoholic and had made a habit of sending her son to school stinky and dirty. My stomach grumbled and gnawed on my insides, I really wanted that roll, but I should have known that Billy would take it, he always did. Why did he always pick on me? Did I look like some pathetic nerd? Most people told me I looked like my father; I had his dark brown hair that was so dark in fact that most of the kids at school thought it was black. While my eyebrows could pass for two giant caterpillars sitting above my dark brown eyes. I hunched over and scrounged around the bottom of my bag, hoping there might be some long forgotten muesli bar floating around down there,but there was none. With a final sigh of defeat, my shoulders slumped and I just turned to stare hatefully at Billy as he went to pick on some other kids across the playground. “Guess what I read in my sister’s journal?” Zach said with a bit too much enthusiasm. His head of chestnut hair framed his suddenly cheerful face. “I really don’t care,” I mumbled with my head in my hands. “You will. In the bush behind my house, there’s this tree stump with a hole in the centre of it. If you write down a wish on a piece of paper and wrap a gold coin in it and drop it down the hole in the stump, your wish comes true! My sister makes wishes out there all the time,” Zach said, his eyes almost popping. I turned to Zach and stared at his face, trying to gauge the truth in his eyes. “Really?” “Really, really,” Zach put his hand over his heart. “I swear it’s the truth Sam, I wouldn’t lie to my best friend.” A smile began to pull at my frown, he always knew how to make me smile and lift me out of the dumps of depression. Whether the wishing stump was real or not it really didn’t matter, it was an adventure in itself and of course a distraction from hateful and even vengeful thoughts of Billy. “How do you know where it is if you’ve only read this in your sisters diary?” I asked. “I’ve explored the mountain behind our house and there’s only one stump there that it could be,” Zach said as his eyes flicked between me and his sandwich. Without saying a word and without making me feel weird, Zach unwrapped his sandwich with the crusts cut off and handed me half with a genuine smile. For a second I was going to refuse but my stomach rumbled like an angry bear and I thought better of it. After all, it would be rude to refuse. I was starved and ate the ham sandwich, somehow it seemed like the best one I had ever had. I felt as if I was the one who had the alcoholic parent and had to take donations of food. “Thanks,” I said with my eyes averted.

“We can go to the stump straight after school, if you want to?” Zach asked. I turned back to Zach, the sandwich was making me feel better and the thought of making a wish, any wish I wanted was making me feel even better. “That would be great, what are you going to wish for?” I asked with excitement growing on my face. “I can’t tell you that, otherwise it won’t come true. Don’t you know anything about making wishes?” Zach asked frowning. A little of my excitement faded. “Well I’ve never made a wish before, how was I to know.” Zach waved it away. “That’s okay, I’ll teach you all about wishes,” Zach said nodding. “My older sister Katie does it all the time, it’s how she got her boyfriend and her new job, and it’s all in her diary.” “She’ll kill you if she ever catches you doing that.” “She’s never home long enough to catch me, she’s always out with her rich boyfriend,” Zach said rolling of his eyes. For the rest of lunchtime, Zach talked all about the things that his sister had wished for and how every one of them had come true, according to Zach anyway. At times he had a tendency to exaggerate a little in order to make things seem more exciting and fun, but that was what made him the perfect friend, he would always turn a dull ordinary moment into something magical, even if it didn’t last. A loud bell echoed across the playground signalling the end of lunch. We returned to class and spent the next hour or so making key rings, we attached multicoloured plastic strings to a ring and then braided the strings into a set design then tied it off. Somehow this very basic activity took an hour to do, it was school after all and no one was in a hurry. With my hand shielded over a scrap of paper I wrote down my wish and buried it in my shorts pocket. Our teacher Mrs. Norris was a kind, grey haired old lady with glasses so thick they magnified her eyes ten times giving her giant terrifying bug eyes. It was getting closer to home time and everyone was squirming in their seats with anticipation. The bell rang and Mrs. Norris dismissed the class and in a wild rush, Zach and I ran for our bags. “Slow down!” called Mrs. Norris as she peered down her nose at us. Immediately we slowed and glanced sheepishly at the bent old woman but as soon as we reached the door, Zach broke into a run toward the bike racks and I followed close behind. It felt invigorating at this time of day to ride away from school and leave it far behind, it was like escaping from jail or so I imagined. We rode toward the mountains that surrounded our small coastal town; Zach’s parents owned a house that backed onto the bush reserve in the shadow of the mountain.

Zach’s house was a small red brick cottage that reminded me of a large red liquorice square. His dog, Kane, was an excitable blue cattle dog that whined and cried whenever Zach came home. Kane jumped up on the waist high wire fence and rested his front paws over the top as he bounced up and down, his long slobbering tongue hanging out the side of his gaping jaws. We propped our bikes against the fence then went to greet the feisty dog. Zach patted him first, rubbing behind his ears which he loved more than a belly rub. “We can’t stay Kane. We have things to do,” Zach said in some sort of baby talk for dogs, while Kane licked at Zach’s face. Zach gave Kane’s head one final rub before he headed up the front stairs; I gave Kane a quick pat then dashed up the stairs behind Zach. “Do you want a drink?” Zach asked over his shoulder as he unlocked the front door. “I’d love one.” I followed Zach to the kitchen where we each downed a glass of water before going out the back door and down to the back fence. Kane followed, eyeing us the whole time in the hope of more attention. Zach opened the gate built into the back fence. He went out first then I followed with Kane almost barrelling me over as he charged out, making it clear that he was not going to be left behind. Outside the fence there was waist high grass, beyond that was the bush reserve. A well-worn path had been made through the grass, it seemed that Zach’s sister came here more than he realised. The path wove up the bush track like a serpent weaving in and out of trees and giant boulders. An icy shade covered everything beneath the canopy overhead, I started to wish I had worn something warmer, and from the way Zach’s arms were wrapped tightly around him it appeared that he felt the same way. Every so often the track forked off in other directions but we continued to follow the path upward until we reached a small clearing, which was the only place that seemed to get any sunlight. In the centre stood a large stump surrounded by knots of twisted roots. “This has to be it,” Zach called as he raced toward it. He climbed on the giant roots to get a look at the top of the stump. “It has a hole in the centre, this must be it,” Zach said looking back at me with a wide excited grin. I punched my hand in my pocket and pulled out the wish I had written on a scrap of paper during the last hour of class. It was then that I realised my error, I didn’t have a gold coin. I dug around in my pocket and found a silver coin and wrapped it in the scrap of paper. It wasn’t a gold coin but it would have to do, after all what harm could it do?

Suddenly the sound of crunching leaves came echoing up the hill along with a few faint curses. “Someone’s coming, quick make your wish!” Zach said in a frantic tone as he pointed to the stump. Zach glanced between me and the direction of the approaching footsteps, I leapt onto the huge roots of the wishing stump and stretched right out to get near the hole but I still couldn’t reach, I looked back at Zach. “I can’t reach it,” I said with my arm outstretched. Without a seconds hesitation, Zach ran up behind me and pushed me up in one great heave, the move caused the edge of the stump to scratch the skin over my stomach and it instantly began to sting, but I tried not to think about it as I dropped the coin wrapped in the note down the hole. “Done,” I said with relief. Zach let me go and I wiggled backward off the stump and slid down to the roots then jumped to the ground and in that very moment a large figure lurched into the clearing and it was not what I had wished for. Stinky Billy Tate stepped out of the trees and glared at Zach and me, with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. “What are you two nerds doing here?” Billy said, his top lip rose in a sneer. Instantly Zach turned to face me as if he was unsure what to say and didn’t want Billy to find out about the wishing stump. I thought if we told the truth, he would only make fun of us and probably burn the stump to the ground or fill the hole with concrete or some evil thing like that. “Nothing, we’re just…” I glanced around the clearing as if I was trying to find something. “Looking for brush turkeys,” I stammered. It was the only thing I could that came to mind. Billy snorted and gave a knowing grin. “I thought you were here to make a wish at the wishing stump that I heard about at school today.” His snake like eyes flashed between Zach and me. “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied trying to sound genuine, not meeting Billy’s eyes. Billy headed toward the stump and with a chuckle he shoved Zach out of the way, knocking him to the ground with a hollow thud. But there was one thing that Billy hadn’t counted on and that was the bond between a dog and his boy. Kane leapt forward with his fangs bared, snarling and snapping at Billy who took a few quick steps backward to the edge of the clearing as Kane stalked his every move. I’d never seen Kane act like this, and by the open mouthed look on Zach’s face, he hadn’t either. All of a sudden the sunlight vanished and the clearing was enveloped in a shadowy gloom that filled me with a feeling of emptiness that I could not explain.

In unison we all seemed to gaze up at the blackening sky just for a moment before Kane jumped at Billy, sending them both crashing down the hillside with the sound of crunching leaves and breaking branches following them as they fell. Suddenly Billy let out the most blood-curdling scream and then… all went silent. Zach and I looked at each other; neither of us seemed willing or able to speak. I helped him to his feet and as I did, the sunlight shone down on us once more. Together we crept to the edge of the clearing and scanned through the trees but there was nothing. “Kane, here boy,” Zach called weakly, but there was no response, no sound, no movement. We searched for Kane and Billy for the next hour but found no trace of either of them; it was as if they had just disappeared. Zach thought that maybe Kane had gone back to the wishing stump, so we went back up the hillside to the clearing. We walked into the sunlit area; the stump was so brightly lit that it almost seemed to be made of gold. It was then that I turned to Zach. “I have to tell you something.” “What’s that?” Zach asked with his head hung low and shoulders slouched. “The thing I wished for, it was—“ “No! You can’t talk about it until you’re wish comes true,” Zach said seriously. I sighed and a made grim face. “That’s the thing, it did come true.” “What! What did you wish?” With shameful eyes I stared at the ground, feeling regret for the first time in my life. “I wished that Billy would go away and never came back.” “Do you think it really worked? Do you think he is gone forever?” “I don’t know, but there’s something else.” He looked at me silently with sudden concern. “What is it Sam?” “Well, you know how I was meant to put a gold coin in with the wish.” Zach nodded. “Yeah, what about it?” “I only had a silver coin and I used that instead,” I replied with my eyes lowered. Taking a step back, Zach stood up straight and tall with a look of horror and disgust creeping over his face. “You didn’t pay the full price for the wish, so my dog was taken as payment.” In unison Zach and I faced the stump and for the first time, we pondered the source of its power and began to fear the power of the wish.