Flipped // DNF

Chapter Three

Eleventh grade brought changes, all right. But the biggest one didn't happen at school. It happened at home. My grandfather came to live with us. He sat in his chair, in the living room, staring out the bay window all day. Mom said he stared like that because he missed Grandma. That was not something Grandpa would talk about with me. As a matter of fact, he never talked about much of anything with me. That is, until George appeared in the local newspaper.

"Oh, Clay, may I speak with you?" Clay's grandfather asked.

"What?" Clay smiled. His voice was filled with confusion.

"Have a seat, son."

Clay sat down on the couch, next to the chair his grandfather was sitting in.

"Tell me about your friend, George."

Clay laughs. "George, um, he's not exactly my friend."

"Oh, why is that?" His grandfather wonders.

"Why do you wanna know?" Clay laughs again, getting more and more nervous with every question his grandfather asks.

Now, George did not wind up in the newsletter for being young Einstein. No. He got front-page coverage because he refused to climb out of a sycamore tree. George and that stupid sycamore tree. He always thought it was God's gift to our little corner of the universe.

George's house was the joke of the neighborhood. They had bushes growing over windows and weeds all over the place. It bugged my dad big time.

"Oh, there he is. The bricklayer who thinks he's a painter," my father complained, looking out the window. "That truck's not ugly enough in real life? He's gotta make a painting of it?"

My sister walked into the living room, looking out the window from behind our agitated father. "No, he does landscapes. He sells them at the county fair. People say they're beautiful."

"Landscapes? Let me tell you something. The world would have a little more beauty in it if he'd do a little landscaping on that piece of crap he calls a yard." He awkwardly looked around to see if anybody was laughing. Nobody was. Not even smiling.

My mother walked into the room. "I feel bad for his wife. She married a dreamer. Because of that, one of the two of them will always be unhappy."

"Yeah, fine. But why do we have to be unhappy?" My father whined.

As annoying the yard was to my dad, it was nothing compared to how annoying George was in that tree. Every morning we had to listen to the sound of his blow-by-blow traffic report.

My friend, Nick, who I call Sapnap, and I were walking to the bus stop one morning. We were discussing our opinions on The Three Stooges, when we heard an unfamiliar voice coming from the bus stop. We looked in the direction of the voice. It looked like a maintenance truck. Sapnap ran over to the bus stop, but I continued walking. I was in no hurry.

"Listen, boy, I'm this close to calling the police. You are trespassing and obstructing progress on a contracted job. Either you come down, or we're gonna cut you down," a firm voice stated, looking up the tree.

"Clay, guys, come up here with me. They won't cut it down if we're all up here," George pleaded.

The bus screeched as it stopped in front of George's tree.

George was frantic. They wanted to cut down his tree. I couldn't understand why that mutant tangle of gnarly branches meant so much to him.

"Clay, please," George begged.

I felt bad for him, but I wasn't about to cut school over it.

"Why isn't he your friend, Clay?" His grandfather asks.

"You'd have to know George," Clay says.

"Well, I'd like to."

This caught Clay by surprise. "Why?"

"That boy has an iron back bone," his grandfather explains. "Why don't you invite him over sometime?"

"An iron backbone?" Clay repeats. "He's just stubborn and he's pushy beyond belief."

"Is that so?" his grandfather answers.

"And he's been stalking me since the second grade," Clay adds.

"Well, a boy like that doesn't live next door to everyone."

"Lucky them."

Clay's grandfather laughs, then hands the newsletter to him. "Read this... without prejudice."

Clay walks to his bedroom.

Like I needed to know anything more about George.

George wasn't at the bus stop the next morning. Or the morning after that. He was at school, but you'd never know it. I told myself I should be glad about it. Isn't that what I always wanted? But still, I felt bad for him. I was going to tell him I was sorry, but then I thought, "Hey, no, that's the last thing I needed. George thinking I missed him."