Chapter one

note: -now that I've re read it, when copying and pasting it from the word document, it kind of messed up the gaps and spaces between when one person was speaking and the next. sorry, just know this was not intentional, and I do understand how dialogue works. anyways, sorry!

It was a good tree. A spruce, big and powerful, its trunk strong enough to hold almost anything. It was old, too. A beautiful old tree. During the spring, it was as if it had turned from a mere tree to a hotel, and opened its doors to all the breeding birds in the area. As many as six or seven couples could house themselves there at once, never arguing about territory or anything of the sort. Its sap fed hundreds of sugar and greater gliders per night. A truly beautiful tree.

I admired the tree from my window, watching as its leaves gradually fell to the ground. I loved it so much. My parents planted it a month after I was born, and it had always been referred to as my tree by everyone. River’s tree. A big pinecone fell. I looked down at my bed, then glanced to my wall littered with pictures, Old pictures, me on my first day of school, my kindergarten drawings, and even my high school photos. There I was in the front row, smiling awkwardly as my much prettier classmates beamed at the camera. I was short, had curly brown hair, brown eyes, and tan skin. Dad was from New Zealand, mum was from Australia. A photo of the tree was there on the wall as well, myself standing next to it. That picture was taken a long time ago, before I began reading, even. I read before I was 3. Mum loved reading, and thought that if she had introduced it to me early in life, I would do better in school. She was right, and wrong, in a way. I was good at English. But I could never for the life of me be good at maths, no matter how hard I tried. Mum insisted that I was good at maths, I just refused to apply myself, but I felt as though she was obliged to tell me that because she was my mother, so I never believed her. If someone else was to tell me that I was good at it I might believe it. Might. I was fine at most other subjects, science, HPE, history. Mostly B’s and C’s. Not the best, but I could live with it. I walked over to my door. It was early in the morning. Cold. Christchurch was cold in the winter. Almost always. I walked to the kitchen, and poured my cereal. Cornflakes and old milk, my secret recipe I had been utilising for years. Surprisingly good. I got changed, packed my bag, and looked at my watch. I had 20 minutes till I had to leave. I walked out onto the porch and looked out at the neighbourhood, where, it seemed, no one was awake yet. The dew on the grass was evaporating as the sun rose, and I could see the water vapour drift upwards like steam from a pot of boiling water. I could see if the trams were running if I looked out into the city, and they were. I glanced up at my tree again, in awe of its magnificence. 15 years old and had never loved anything more than my tree. If I had the choice to marry the most beautiful person on earth or the tree, I would choose the tree. He’s a good listener. I’ve met many males in my life, and not one of them was nearly as respectful as my tree. Actually, no. Archer and Damien, my neighbour, were fine. They listened. But he was an exception, every other boy was an absolute weirdo, and Archer has been my best friend for 10 years, so of course I should be able to tolerate him. Unlike me, he had blue eyes, blonde hair and loved music. But not just any music, he liked 70’s and 80’s Tunes, which, in my opinion, was absolutely disgusting. If you asked me, the only good musician in the world was The Weeknd. The guy who sings about drugs and depression. My kind of music. I looked at my watch again. 7:30. Time to begin the long haul to school. The walk was long, but it was okay because I got to walk with Archer. I stepped off the porch, my feet squelching in the wet ground. I walked down the road, looking down at my feet until I got to Archer’s place. “River?” His voice was unmistakable. It was a pretty voice, with a beautiful tone, and the way he spoke with such confidence was so admirable. I didn’t understand how he could love himself so much. “Yes, that is I” I said. He was sitting on his porch, his bag next to him. “It’s a Monday” he replied. “Are you excited for an amazing new week of non-stop work? I know I sure am.” Sarcasm. “You know, my grade 6 teacher always said that sarcasm was the pinnacle form of stupidity. I don’t think she was very wrong.” I was never sarcastic. My mother used to say that I was “brutally honest.” It was true that I didn’t like to lie, but I just never understood sarcasm very well. Why would you say something completely on the contrary to the message that you are trying to convey? It makes absolutely no sense in my mind. Just be straight with people. If I ever became famous and I had an inspirational quote, it would be that. ‘Just be straight with people.’ I couldn’t tell if it was a good motto to have or not. “Ha-ha. I don’t think you’re the one to judge whether someone is stupid or not though, River.” That was too funny to take offence from.


The walk was good. We spent the whole time throwing insults at each other until we either got mad or started choking from laughter. When we got to school classes had already begun, so we had to sprint to our separate classrooms like we were competing in the 100 metre sprint in the Olympics. I had maths first up. Fuck. At least my maths teacher was cool. He understood that I had difficulty in the subject. I’ve met maths teachers who will absolutely FRY your self-esteem. In year 8 my maths teacher absolutely boiled and smoked me like I was a goddamn chicken leg. She was so bad, I still haven’t recovered. Still, two years later, when I’m 15 and am in grade 10 I haven’t recovered from her. That gives you an idea of what some maths teachers can be like, especially grumpy old ugly women. But this one was fine. I think he thought that children were real human beings, for whatever reason. The lesson went by. The next lesson went by. The next one went by. I didn’t have English on a Monday, which was always really sad for me. I did on have English on Tuesday, after all. A really good thing about English was that it was one of the few classes that I had Archer in. It was good that I could incorporate a social life into some classes, and not just sit there and stare mindlessly at the whiteboard, writing down what I was meant to write down. Archer made me laugh, too. I’ve told him multiple times that he should become a comedian one day, but he was dead set on music. This particular lesson he was absolutely determined to get us into trouble, apparently, because no matter how hard I tried to do the work he kept on managing to make me laugh. The only problem was that I actually liked English, and wanted to concentrate. In absolutely any other class I would’ve been fine with him distracting me because that stuff is boring as shit, but he wasn’t in any of my boring classes, only English and social studies. I didn’t get anything done that lesson no matter how hard I tried to ignore Archer, which was fine. It was only learning about the new unit of work anyway, so I didn’t really need to concentrate. Miss Piekkala was trying her best to teach us about the assignment task, but I felt that no one could hear or be capable of listening with Archer in the class. We left the room, with Miss Piekkala telling us that this assessment would cost for half of our grade. I just hope she isn’t surprised when the work comes back and she has to give us all Cs and Ds.