Children's Fiction
“Tell me about your tree," said Uncle as he planed the angles of the face. "What did you see among the branches?"
Solomon described the hummingbird nest and the antics of the baby birds. Uncle rounded the brow with the adze, chipped the hollows of the eyes, and told the hummingbird story.
"Did your tree smell nice?" asked Uncle as he used the hook knife to carve the nose. Solomon remembered the sweet spring smell of sap and the pungent, fall odor of crushed leaves.
Martha's eyes widened. Dad looked right back at her, calm as calm. Mom was in bed when she should have been helping Martha get ready for school. Mom, who had never let her be alone with her birth mother for one minute in her whole entire life (not even when Martha was being born), was suddenly sending her off on her own and not even coming downstairs to tell her about it. And no one was asking Martha what she wanted. They obviously didn't care. Neither of them.
At last it stopped. Everything stopped. No movement. No sound. Only smell. The truck cab filled with the dry smell of dust and the stomach-churning stench of gas.
Everything was hazy, seen through a blanket of dust and smoke. "Rusty?" Katie said, "You okay?"
"Uh, yeah, I think so. We gotta get out of here."
Katie undid her seatbelt. "Emily?"
There was no answer.
