The Wendy Tree

This story never bothered me, really. Or as much as I'd like to admit. Sure, my fear of bees was amplified just a tad, but it was the school, determined not to have such an incident occur again, that took dramatic action.

The sliver of land the playground was on was demolished, the playground moved to the opposite side of the grass fields, but they had to cut down the huge, old, Maple Tree JUST to put it there, when they could've put it elsewhere, and even the little chameleon we had found lived in the tree and played with had to be removed/killed. We kids were furious, but the school did what they thought was right, and even used the woodchips from the tree as the new floor to the playground, learning their mistakes with the sand.

The Wendy Tree still remained though. Right next to where the old playground was, still near a remaining spot of sand, and a final hive of sand-bees.

The piece of land was later used as a parking lot.

I was present and in school at the time of this change. I watched the bees buzz and kids get stung. I watched the Great Maple fall. But i was not present to see Wendy, she died a few years before i was born. She'd be 32 now, i believe. Possibly graduated college, having a husband, a family... not dead at 11.

But of course, i was also around when the rumours started up.

The Wendy Tree was a curse, or so they said.

Though no one really knew what would happen, only that being near and disturbing the gravesite of an upper classmate would be a great error.

So I ignored them.

Of course, I never was liked amongst my classmates. All I was used for was intelligence. Then I'd be cast aside and forgotten. And when i was forgotten, I went to the one place where I wasn't alone, The Wendy Tree.

It was quiet at that corner of the school, because no one dared going near. And when I was spotted to sit there, no one dared go near me either.

But I didn't mind.

I never felt as if I disturbed the tree, or Wendy. I'd sit there listening to the leaves rustle in the wind, casting moving shadows on the grass. I'd sit there, and as I grew, the tree grew as well. I'd sit in solitude... when the rumours started coming true.

Third Grade is the most prominent year I remember it began, after the new playground was built. My Thrid Grade Teacher, Ms. Jones, was a creative woman, and made a tree out of contrustion paper, filling the corner of the class with a fake tree, with fake branches, fake leaves.

But definitely not fake, glowing eyes in the tree.

When I saw this I screamed and ran out of the class. Not knowing really why I had left, only that I seemed driven to leave.

I hadn't realized, like I do now, the fake tree resembled the fallen Maple.

When my class discovered why I screamed, they acted as if they, too, saw. At first I believed them, that we all saw something there, until they laughed in my face one day and called me a fake, that nothing was there, and they were just acting so that I'd share my secrets with them and lend them homework.

Ever since I was young, I was used.

But the eyes in the tree never went away.

That same year, more and more oddities happened.

The school was expanding, the original building far too small to accomodate the growing number of students. And so most of the school was portable buildings. Of course, this was also when the jobs of the country seem to be lost, and teachers began losing their jobs, resulting in abandoned portables like the one I saw the girl in.