Three blocks away.
Every morning we had to listen to the sound of her blow-by-blow traffic report.
Two blocks.
Why do they call it The Three Stooges?
I mean, there's five of them. What?
Well, yeah, there's Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp and Curly Joe.
Yeah, but they only have three at a time. Yeah.
You know, I hate Curly Joe. I mean, he shouldn't even be a Stooge.
Listen, girl, I'm this close to calling the police.
You are trespassing and obstructing progress on a contracted job.
What's going on? Either you come down or we're gonna cut you down.
Bryce, you guys, come up here with me. They won't cut it down if we're all up here.
Bus, bus, bus. Juli was frantic.
They wanted to cut down the tree.
I couldn't understand why that mutant tangle of gnarly branches meant so much to her.
Bryce, please.
I felt bad for her. But I wasn't about to cut school over it.
Why isn't she your friend, Bryce?
You'd have to know Juli.
Well, I'd like to.
Why?
That girl has an iron backbone. Why don't you invite her over sometime?
An iron backbone? She's just stubborn and she's pushy beyond belief.
Is that so?
She's been stalking me since the second grade.
Well, a girl like that doesn't live next door to everyone.
Lucky them.
Read this. Without prejudice.
Like I needed to know anything more about Juli Baker.
Juli wasn't at the bus stop the next morning. Or the morning after that. She was at school, but
you'd never know it.
Little Joe? He's got so much makeup on...
He doesn't age.
I told myself I should be glad about it. I mean, isn't that what I'd always wanted? But still, I
felt bad for her. I was gonna tell her I was sorry, but then I thought, hey, no, that's the last
thing I needed Juli Baker thinking I missed her.
I see why you like to come out here.
Would you mind explaning it to your mother?
I loved to watch my father paint. Or really, I loved to hear him talk while he painted. I learned
a lot about my dad that way. He told me all sorts of things like how he got his first job
delivering hay and how he'd wished he'd finished college. Then one day he surprised me.
What's going on with you and Bryce Loski?
What do you mean? Nothing.
Oh, okay. My mistake.
Why would you even think that?
No reason. Just that you talk about him all the time.
I do? I don't know. I guess it's something about his eyes. Or maybe his smile.
What about him?
What?
You have to look at the whole landscape.
What does that mean?
A painting is more than the sum of its parts. A cow by itself is just a cow. A meadow by itself is
just grass flowers. And the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light. But you put them
all together and it can be magic.
I didn't really understand what he was saying until one afternoon when I was up in the sycamore
tree.
I was rescuing a kite. I t was a long way up, higher than I'd ever been. And the higher I got, the
more amazed I was by the view. I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. Like sunshine and
wild grass. I couldn't stop breathing it in filling my lungs with the sweetest smell I'd ever
known.
Hey, you found my kite.
Bryce, you should come up here. So beautiful.
I can't. I sprained my, um, I have a rash.
From that moment on, that became my spot. I could sit there for hours, just looking out at the
world. Some days the sunsets would be purple and pink. And some days they were a blazing orange
setting fire to the clouds on the horizon. It was during one of those sunsets that my father's idea
of the whole being greater than the sun of its parts moved from my head to my heart. Some days I
would get there extra early to watch the sunrise.
One morning I was making mental notes of how the pink and orange streaks of light were cutting
through the clouds so I could tell my dad when I heard a noise below.