The library was still standing, Timi noticed with relief, when he first managed to get away from his cousins.
His mum had been wrong about them spending more time together now, and wrong about Bisi wanting to talk to him. He still went to the after-school club and spent a few nights every week with his auntie who lived close by.
The only good thing about this was that it was easy to slip away from his cousins again. 59
The door of the library felt a little stiffer than it had before. Timi had to lean his weight against it to open it. When he was inside, there was a moment when he was sure that the tree wasn’t there but, as he walked into the main room, he saw that it was, and was as tall as it was when he’d last visited, although no bigger.
It was still standing but it looked grey. Its leaves were dull and they drooped on the branches. One strong gust of wind might whip them from the tree for good. The trunk looked almost sagging, leaning to one side ever so slightly as though it were tired.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Timi whispered to the tree urgently as he tipped a bucket of water into the crack. He hoped that the 60tree might start to look better immediately but it continued to look withered and weak. It didn’t even seem to Timi like it was talking back to him anymore, but he spoke to it anyway.
‘Do you need more?’ he asked it.
He filled the bucket again and gave it another long drink. Then he went to the 61window on the side of the library that was not by the road, so people wouldn’t be able to look in, and pulled the curtain open a bit more, so more light fell onto its branches. The curtain was stuck at first but Timi tugged at it until he managed to pull it open wide.
The sun’s rays filled the room and when Timi looked back at the tree he thought that it already looked a little bit greener than it had when he first came in.
‘Are you feeling better?’ Timi asked the tree. ‘Have you had enough to drink?’
The way he’d always been able to tell with one of his pots in his little garden if they’d had enough water, was by feeling the soil to see if it felt damp and looked black with moisture. But here in the library, he couldn’t see any soil, just the criss-cross 62of the floorboards.
He laid his hand against the floorboards at the base of the trunk. They felt damp from the last bucket of water and so Timi trusted that the tree had had enough. Also, he promised himself, he would be back tomorrow to check on it.