Neil noticed the tree house a month ago. He saw it while sitting in the back seat of the Bonneville as his parents drove down Willard Street on the way to their new home. The magnificent tree house sat among lengthy branches of a large sycamore in the backyard of a shabby, two-story, dark green house in red trim. The backyard was spacious but the grass uncut and disheveled. The tree house was the biggest Neil had ever seen.
It was always Neil’s dream to have such a tree house. He turned fourteen five months ago and asked his father if they could build one in the back yard for his birthday. The answer was no, the answer was always no. The reason this time was because Neil’s father acquired a new job so they had to move. It wouldn’t be smart to build a tree house only to leave it behind. But this tree house, the one in the back yard of the dark green house on Willard Street, was exactly what Neil imagined the perfect tree house would be: the windows, the slanted roof lined with shingles, everything. Too bad Neil and his family weren’t moving into the house on Willard, there was a for sale sign on the scraggly, over grown grass of the front lawn. Neil’s new house wasn’t too far away though, five blocks to be exact. During his first week in town and still not quite settled in, Neil rode his Huffy bike around the neighborhood. Every now and then he’d stop at the front gate of the dark green house on Willard, the for sale sign still on the front lawn, and gaze into the back yard at the striking architecture in the sycamore. No matter how attractive the tree house was, there was something unsettling about the empty house for sale. So unsettling, Neil made quite an effort to not even look at the damn thing. Instead he focused on the tree house, imagining what it looked like inside. For the next two weeks Neil visited the tree house every other day and dreamed about it. One day on his way to Willard Street, Neil made an unusual turn down Trenton. It when then he saw her for the first time; a pretty blonde girl playing catch with a nine year old on the front lawn of a plain white ranch style house. She noticed him as well and smiled. Peddling by, Neil returned the grin, in silent awe of her. He glanced back to have a final look at her but she didn’t do the same. Tossing the softball through the air kept her occupied.Neil maintained along Trenton, turned right on Willard and stopped in front of the old house to peer once more in the back yard. The more he stopped to gaze at the tree house, the more he wanted it, needed it. Neil yearned to get a good look close up. He opened the front gate and walked his bike into the front yard. The foreboding home, with its chipped paint, caused him to pause. The house was watching him. No, of course it wasn’t. It was just an ugly old house. Perhaps it was the hideous shade of green that unsettled him? Neil buried the anxiety within him and headed for the backyard.“Nice tree house there, huh kid?” said a gruff voice. Neil turned around and there on the sidewalk stood a man with a head of thick gray hair and a pot belly. “My name is Walter,” he said. “I live across the street. I’ve noticed you’ve been stopping by every so often checking out that tree house. It’s been there as long as the house has. At least they were both there when I moved in over thirty years ago.”“Who used to live here?” Neil asked.“A couple, they only had one kid, a boy about your age. Weird people; they didn’t talk to anybody in the neighborhood, kept to themselves mostly.”“So what happened to them?”“They had some problems and moved out almost two years ago; house has been empty ever since. Real nice tree house though. You know kid, that’s private property. You might want to stay away from there.” Walter said nothing else, sauntered across the street and entered his small gray home. A week went by. Neil lay in bed almost every night, thinking about the tree house, fantasizing actually. It appeared Neil would never own a tree house like that. There wasn’t even a tree in his back yard. If he planted one, he’d be old by the time it was big enough to build a club house in its branches Neil speculated what the inside of the tree house looked like. Did it have more than one room or just one large one? Was there furniture? He’d never know, unless he looked inside. And why not? He’d never have one of his own. He knew he was on private property the day he met Walter but he wasn’t hurting anything. That settled it; he would pay a visit to the tree house when his parents went to sleep.Although excited, Neil was troubled. The dark green house; he didn’t like it but didn’t know why. Regardless, he put the house out of his head and lay in bed waiting, lights out. Around 2:30 a.m. Neil got up, left his room and silently crept down the dark hall to check on his parents. They were asleep; at least his father was for sure; loud snoring came blaring through the closed door. Thank God they weren’t fighting or they’d be up all night.Neil tip toed down the hall back to his room and got dressed. He grabbed a flashlight, opened his bedroom window then climbed out. He walked his bike from the back yard to the front of his house and hopped on. Seconds later he whizzed through the dark, quiet neighborhood streets as his face struck was with cool breeze.Within minutes Neil reached Willard Street and stood over the frame of his Huffy staring at the tree house cast in shadow from the branches and leaves of sycamore. Neil did his best not to look at the house for sale. Neil scanned the area to see if anyone was out or watching. He gazed at Walter’s house across the street; the lights were off. No one was around and the coast clear. Neil entered through the front gate and guided his bike through the grassy backyard. On the way he side stepped a large stone on the lawn. It was size and shape of a football about six feet from the tree. Neil leaned his bike against the tree’s trunk and looked up at the wooden floor of the club house above him. The large edifice over shadowed him. There was a hatch in the floor and wooden bars, neatly nailed horizontally into the tree’s trunk, ran from the ground all the way up to the floor of the house. Neil climbed up, stopped at the trap door and shined his light. A pad lock was attached to the door keeping him out. There had to be another way inside.He climbed down, ready search for another way in. Something caught his eye: movement near the dark green house which looked charcoal gray in the night. He wasn’t sure if the movement was outside, near the home or coming from inside through one of the windows. He aimed his light toward the house and saw nothing but three windows in a row along the back wall.Neil stepped over the football shaped stone, walked over to house and peered into first of the windows. He was looking into a bare bathroom, no shower curtains or any signs that it had been used on a while. He moved to the next window which belonged to an empty kitchen save for the stove and refrigerator still intact. The last window belonged to a bedroom void of furniture, except for a twin sized bed against the far wall.Movement again came from his peripheral, accompanied by noise, near the tree house this time. He shined his light near the trunk and saw nothing unusual until he walked closer. Something was different. The rock on the grass was in a different position. “What the hell?” Neil said. He was sure the pointed ends of the rock faced the other direction.Neil aimed his light on the stone. It looked as if it had been moved. The flat imprint where the rock had been previously was on the grass. In fact, the grass of the imprint was brown and withered. And there lying on the flattened dead grass was a small silver key.The rock had to have been that in that position when Neil first got there the first time, he just didn’t notice before. It was dark; things look different in the dark. There was no other explanation. What mattered was that there was a key. Neil snatched it up, climbed up the tree trunk ladder, and tried the pad lock: perfect fit. The lock came off; Neil opened the hatch inward and climbed into the tree house. He walked on the hardwood floors shinning his light about. It was one large room along with one smaller one, a closet. The inside of the tree house was fantastic! There was so much space and although dark, Neil saw the small sofa, table, and other furniture. He plopped himself down on the sofa and sank in. Yes, this would be perfect.
