She took a few steps back and took a running jump to grip the slick branch, grabbing it hard, her hands slipping a bit but holding firm. She kicked herself up off the broken trunk and wrapped herself around a thick limb.
She climbed up, inching her way quickly despite how wet the surface was. She could feel the rain that the hurricane had brought soaking into her jeans and t-shirt, and the fabric clung to her skin as she shimmied on up. The cold, eye-of-the-storm winds chilled her as she pushed forward, yet she smiled, a girl on a mission.
She was thinking of Sarika and Major Oak.
Back in the group home, she’d worked her way through a heaping majority of the limited library. It consisted mostly of classics donated by well-meaning liberal arts graduates of one of the nearby universities, probably Temple or St. Joseph’s, who apparently never spoke to one another about their donations. The result was several stacks of the same exact book again and again, likely from finished English literature courses, which irritated some of the other children and teens who came through the place.
But Leila didn’t mind the collections. It gave her an excuse to try and form book clubs with the other kids in the house. Including Sarika. Four years back, when Sarika had arrived at the home on the same day as a massive stack of Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (likely donated from some first-year college English class) they quietly read copies together on the home’s way-too-soft couch. Sarika only stopped to cry a little every few chapters.
“So,” Sarika had said, closing the book as it grew dark outside. “What else you got here?”
They’d been inseparable ever since.
Leila drew closer to the top of the large willow, where branches burst this way and that, pushing out and then plummeting down under the weight of the long, green leaves. She thought fondly of the first book club she’d put together with Sarika back in the home.
Some students had dropped off a stack of Alexandre Dumas’ Prince of Thieves, and another failed foster family had left Leila back at the home the same day. Leila found solace in the pages, holed up with Sarika and their books. But when stories of made-up families and their adventures failed, she sought out words about her own in the only place she could.
The Internet.
With every near miss and failed family came the searching; on Google, adoption message boards, and anywhere else she could think of.
“Why do you do this? What are you hoping to find?” Sarika would ask, flicking back her thick, black hair before crossing her arms, her heavy eyebrows furrowed. “Ambiguously brown couple dies in tragic train derailment, but not before bequeathing millions of dollars to the daughter they put up for adoption so many years ago. Leila Hetter, please come to City Hall to collect your inheritance and the deeds to your four mansions.”
“Well,” Leila had started with a laugh.
“Here, I’ll show you something better to strive for,” Sarika had said that day, nudging Leila away from the computer and taking over the search.
“Major Oak,” she’d typed.
It turned out Robin Hood’s hideout, Major Oak, was in fact a real tree, one still growing in the actual Sherwood Forest. That had begun a tradition of entering the annual lottery to claim a sapling from Major Oak. Each year Sarika and Leila waited in front of the computer at their group home or in the Philadelphia Public Library, watching the clock count down, signing up to win a baby tree during the limited time frame.
They never won, which Leila thought was probably for the best, considering the cost of the saplings and the fact that a tree wasn’t going to thrive in their group home. Hell, the kids hardly did. But it did bring the girls closer together.
Leila sat up, her legs holding on tight to the willow’s remaining limb, and snapped some smaller twigs and sticks off one of the branches. She checked each one as she pulled them back, making sure the inside still revealed signs of life, bright green over the white wood. Once she’d gathered a small bundle, she let them go and watched them fall to the ground. A few stragglers clicked softly against the tree’s branches as they worked their way down, and one or two got stuck in the hanging leaves.
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