the magic tree house

Let me tell you what I am going to do with that freaking tree house the next time it lands in Frog Creek, Pa. I am going to destroy it.

I'll begin at the bottom of the tree, with the sharpest ax I can find. As soon as a flash of light signals that the tree house has arrived, I am going to begin chopping that tree with my ax as hard as I can. The ax will strike a steady rhythm and chips will fly. If those little twerps Jack and Annie come near me, I'll growl at them angrily and bare my teeth, and I'll keep on chopping as they watch, helpless to stop me.

Eventually the tree will creak, and there will be loud cracks from inside its trunk as the wood starts to give. I'll keep going for a while, until I reach the point of equilibrium, when the tree is perfectly balanced. After that, it's only a matter of time.

The wind will start to blow. The tree house will begin to spin. Faster and faster.

And then everything will be still. Absolutely still.

By that point, I expect, the tree house will be shattered beyond repair. If not, I have the ax, I have a stack of dry newspaper, and I have matches. That treehouse will burn, and with it will burn the frustration of every parent who has read those drivelous books to their children.

The magic will be gone, it's true, but so will be the curse: the curse of insipid little happy moralizing that everyone in the world is your friend and wants to help you; that animals are our equals and little girls can talk with them; that it's fun, safe and exciting to run into dangerous situations without telling your parents; that if you do get into trouble, a Deux ex machina will come to your rescue; and most of all, the curse that compels children to have their parents read those insult-your-intelligence books every night and then act them out

every --

single --

day.

I will burn the treehouse to cinders, and I will dance around the coals until they dissolve into ash. I will urinate on the embers to put them out, and when the fire has finished, I will rake everything up, pour lighter fluid onto the pile, and light another match.

In the end, there will be nothing left but ashes. These I will put in a box and mail to Mary Pope Osborne with instructions to mix the ashes with her garden soil, plant cucumber seeds, and never, under any circumstances, send one of the resulting cucumbers to anyone within a 100-mile radius of my house.

And then I will be happy.


Copyright © 2006 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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