Chapter Three (part c)

"Hello," said Jennifer. "Who are you?"

"Shhh!" he hissed back. "You'll scare him away!"

"Scare who away?" asked Jennifer.

"Shhhhhh!"

The boy was staring intently at another tree only a few steps away, so Jennifer decided to stare at it too, just to see why anyone could possibly want to stare at a tree. It didn't make sense at first, but then suddenly it did. A long, slender face was slowly poking itself around from the back of the tree trunk.

At least Jennifer thought it was a face. For a moment she wasn't exactly sure, in some ways it looked a little bit more like the tree itself was growing. There were eyes surely, but they were deep down brown with no white at all, and the nose looked like the nob on a stump. The skin was like bark but not quite as coarse. The ears were like leaves and the hair like twigs. The rest of him soon followed his face. His arms were like branches, his body like a tree trunk, his legs and feet like roots. He was tall and slender and all things considered he looked a lot like the tree he was sneaking around.

His eyes darted this way and that as he slipped into view, but his attention was focused on a small wooden cup that was lying in the grass at the base of the tree. Slowly and very silently he reached down and picked it up. The cup had some sort of liquid inside. He sniffed it and sighed, then he raised it to his mouth and drank. When he was done he looked up suddenly and smiled. Then he slipped back around the tree and was gone.