Page 3 of Love me, Maddie Mendoza

“If you fall, coach won’t keep you on the team with a wonky arm.”

I sighed. “I won’t fall. And I made the team already.” Our school basketball team. It wasn’t exactly hard, there weren’t many kids good enough to even attempt to try for it. But I wanted to be part of it, and I got it.

I wouldn’t fall.

“But if you fall and hurt yourself…”

“Maddie!” I hissed. “I’m not going to fall.”

“Are you being careful?”

“Yes.”

She said nothing to that. I kept on my steady ascend, high enough now, trying to trace a safe path.

“This is the plan since forever.” I reminded her.

A beat.

“I know. I just really don’t want you to fall. I hate when you get hurt.”

Girls. I rolled my eyes. I was hurt all the time, and she always made it too big of a deal. Now I wanted not to fall, just to stop her from making a fuss out of things. My hand held firm to the branch to my right. If I could bring my foot up and hold my weight, I could try to swing to Maddie’s window. It wasn’t that difficult, I could land on the porch roof just under her window. I just needed to think it through.

It was taking too long, though. All the branches I tested looked too weak. It was going to be more difficult than I thought to get from one room to the other.

Disappointed, I climbed down. Jumping beside Maddie with a thud loud enough to startle her.

“No?” she frowned.

We’d been waiting for five years. I guessed we could wait a little longer. I shook my head, and I watched her shoulders slump. We really thought this was the year.

Maddie looked up at the trees, now big enough, their branches intertwined with one another, making a big shade above us.

“The branches are too weak.” I explained. “I needed something stronger to swing.”

Maddie looked at the trees and then at me. “Wait a second!”

She wasn’t even finished talking before she darted inside her house. I waited by the tree, looking at all angles, thinking about what I could have missed. Soon, Maddie came back bringing orange yarn with her.

To my surprise, she started to climb her tree. She didn’t go high, though, stopping right before the branches tangled. Right there it was impossible to know which branch belonged to which tree, but she did a good job separating them, like someone combing out knots from hair.

Her tongue sticking out in concentration, Maddie selected the thickest branch from each side. I had tested them both with my foot. They looked sturdy enough but would snap under our weight.

Maddie twisted them together. Then she looped the yarn around the tangled branches, finishing up with a strong knot. Satisfied with her work, she jumped down.

“Now they will grow together and make a bigger one,” she told me, pointing to her handy work.

“Do you think it will work?”

She nodded confidently. “We’ll see in a year."

The ball bounced off my wall again and again. I heard a shuffle to my right and then a stumble, unmistakable. A mass of curly hair just fell through my window, ungracefully as usual, like her limbs were too long for her body. Everything about her was tiny. I couldn’t understand her lack of coordination.

In the last year since we could climb the trees outside our windows, everything changed. Which meant that even when I was in a bad mood and wanted to be left alone, Maddie had a way to get to me.

She straightened herself and watched me bounce the ball back and forth. I said nothing; she said nothing. We let silence brew until Maddie snapped out of it.

“What’s going on?”

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