Page 28 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘We could give them to children to colour in,’ Alys suggests.
‘Exactly!’ I feel buoyant by how much they’re embracing the idea. ‘The possibilities are endless. We could laminate them and get thousands of sycamore leaves circulating with our website address printed on the back. We could ask locals to display them in windows so everyone visiting the area will see them and wonder what’s going on. We could ask kids to draw their own sycamore trees and display them somewhere. Kids love getting involved with things like this.’
‘Children are our future,’ Tonya cries and starts warbling “Greatest Love of All” popularised by Whitney Houston.
‘Can we carve “HELP” in the ground so anyone flying over can see it? I’ve always wanted to do that,’ Morys muses.
‘I don’t think that’s … Actually, that’s not a bad idea. One of us could run down to the beach every morning …’ I glance at Ryan because, honestly, there’s only one person capable of tackling that hike and it’s not me. ‘We could write something in the sand so anyone walking along the coastal path would see it. Does anyone have a drone?’
‘My grandson does!’ Tonya stops singing. ‘He’s always making a nuisance of himself with it.’
‘It could be a great campaign video if we wrote “save our sycamore” in the sand and filmed the tide gradually washing it away with the tree in the background. It would make a great video clip to upload to our new YouTube channel.’
I look up at Ryan and his eyes are warm and smiley. The group’s chatter fades away and something hovers in the air between us, so tangible that I think I’d feel it if I swiped my hand towards him.
He blinks and takes a step backwards. ‘I’ll take some photographs.’
‘I’ll make a start on the website and social media accounts.’
That look again. It’s like once my eyes lock on to his, it’s impossible to tear my gaze away, like a thread is pulling me to him.
‘Fee …’ His tongue wets his lips, which shifts my gaze from his eyes to his mouth, and memories of Ryan’s mouth arenota good thing.
I shake myself and spin around so I’m facing the residents again. ‘Let’s do this! Let’s save this tree!’
I punch a fist into the air and they all do the same and then clutch at their shoulders with grunts of pain.
I wonder if Harrison would let me claim muscle ache gel on expenses?
Chapter 8
‘Domain name, anyone?’ I ask loudly.
‘Gno—’
‘Not gnomesdonaughtythings.com, Mr Barley,’ I say quickly.
‘Beach Battle-axes and, er, Battle-gents,’ Tonya suggests, her voice trailing off before she’s finished the sentence. ‘What’s the male equivalent of a battle-axe? I’ll ask online and see if anyone knows.’
‘Seaside Sycamore Tree?’ Alys suggests.
‘Ooh, that’s good.’ I do a quick google on my phone. ‘It’s available.’
‘I like it,’ Ryan calls up from where he’s taking photos of various parts of the trunk.
‘Seaside-sycamore-tree.com. All in favour?’ I ask, and I’m greeted with a chorus of “ayes”.
A few clicks and I’ve paid a year’s fee for the website and set up a blog. I defiantly ignore Harrison’s angry face in my head. He is going to bethrilledwhen he discovers this protest has now got a website that it didn’t have before I came here.
‘Do you want to borrow my laptop?’ Ryan calls over without looking up. He’s still taking photographs by the tree, and Baaabra Streisand has unravelled a bit of her lead and mooched into the brambles for some fresh shoots to munch.
‘I’m going to ring my dad and ask him to bring mine down here,’ I say, watching as Cynthia edges closer with interest. ‘He doesn’t seem to get out much nowadays and it’ll be a good excuse to get him here. He can’t refuse a request from his second favourite daughter.’
‘Aww, you couldn’t beanyone’ssecond favourite anything, Fee,’ Ryan says without looking up.
The sun gets inexplicably hotter. Well, something does. If I moved, there would probably be singed patches of grass underneath my feet.
Baaabra Streisand is rustling around in the bushes when I get off the phone to my dad, who reluctantly agreed, and the residents have started drafting out slogans and campaign mottos, and Mr Barley’s got a gnome who’s baring its bum and is painting “seaside-sycamore-tree.com” on its bare bum cheeks, and no one has the heart to tell him that that isnotchild-friendly advertising.
