The following day, Abi ran over to Timi as soon as he got to the after-school club.
‘Timi, the demolition team – they’re going to the library tomorrow,’ she said. Marcus and Mo had run over too. All of their faces looked sad, their eyes barely lifting from the ground.
‘Tomorrow? When?’ Timi was aware of his heart beating loudly inside him.
‘I don’t know, I guess that it might be first thing, but they could come anytime,’ Abi answered. 82
‘Are you sure it’s tomorrow?’ Timi asked. He felt it, like a pain in his chest, that he was not there with the tree, protecting it.
‘That’s what my mum said.’
‘We’ve got to get there,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Abi.
‘But what are we even going to do?’ asked Mo.
‘Maybe that’s all that we need to do,’ said Marcus. ‘We just need to be there. We need to be there and not leave. They won’t be able to demolish the library if we refuse to go.’ ‘They’ll make us leave, call the police,’ said Mo.
‘Maybe they 83will,’ Marcus said. ‘But we’ll keep sending more kids to go in and protect it. We could message everyone we know and make people keep arriving, all of the time.’
‘That’s crazy,’ said Mo.
‘But it could work,’ said Abi, placing both her hands on her hips. Timi spotted that she had drawn faces on her hands that day. It felt like they were almost watching him.
‘Maybe when they see the tree,’ Timi said, ‘they won’t want to do it. Once they see the tree and we tell them what it’s like, they’ll want to protect it too.’
‘Maybe,’ said Abi, but she didn’t sound very convinced.
‘We’ve got to try,’ Timi said.
The first challenge they had was leaving 84the after-school club without any of the adults stopping them.
But that turned out not to be very difficult. When the adults were talking to a parent who had just arrived and they were all looking the other way, the group of kids slipped through the open door and out into the street.
Timi could feel his heart beating hard in his chest again as they ran from the building, waiting for a shout from behind them, but no one was following them. For those few minutes, they had not been noticed. Before any more time went by, they were already running away from the club – out of earshot of anyone who might have spotted them. 85
They sprinted all the way to the library, and it was only when the door slammed 86behind them did Timi feel that he could take a full breath.
They crowded into the room where the tree was growing. Since the last time they had been there, it had grown enormously. Massive branches had sprouted from its trunk and were almost touching the walls. Timi felt like all he could see was green.
Abi swung up easily onto one of the lower branches and climbed onto a spot where she could sit against the trunk. Each of the other children followed her up until the tree was holding all of them.
‘It’s grown so much since you’ve all been here,’ Timi said.
Mo was flicking through the pile of books that had been left behind and looked around at him.
‘It grew a lot when it was just you 87coming here,’ he said back.
‘But it’s huge now,’ Timi said. ‘And that’s been since we’ve all been here. I think it likes more people being around it.’
‘You said that before,’ Abi said. ‘That the tree likes this or likes that – how do you know?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Timi admitted. ‘I just have the feeling that it does.’
They both looked around at the tree. The children looked as though they were birds settling down to roost amongst the branches.
‘You know,’ Abi said. ‘I think we might need to get more people. My family is quite big …’
Timi remembered Abi saying that she liked babies. 88‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’ he asked. 89
90‘Four,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a baby sister and two little brothers and an older sister. I’m the second oldest.’ As she spoke, she pointed out little faces she’d drawn on her fingers and wiggled them in turn. Timi saw that they all had upturned smiles for mouths.
‘And you like them – your brothers and sisters?’ asked Timi.
Abi thought about that for a minute or two. ‘They’re my brothers and sisters,’ she said. ‘They’re just … I mean sometimes I think I don’t like them but they’re always there, you know. How many brothers and sisters do you have?’
‘Just my sister who’s a baby,’ said Timi.
‘Just the two of you,’ Abi said. ‘That’s special.’
‘Is it?’ Timi asked.
‘Well, you just have each other to look 91out for. My mum says that me and my brothers and sisters have to look out for each other and because there’s so many of us, that’s easy to do. If there’s just two of you, you only have each other. But at least you’ve got each other.’
Timi thought again about the small scrunched up face of Bisi. She still seemed so small. It would be a long time before she would be able to speak to him but until then, he could look after her, just like Abi said. Maybe one day, Bisi would look after him too.
He remembered then that there had been a time when he’d been excited to meet her, and his mum had spoken to him about how it was going to be different because she was coming but that it was going to be OK. He had been a bit 92nervous about it, but mostly excited. He’d forgotten that he’d felt like that.
For a moment he wished that Bisi was there so that he could show her the tree. Then he remembered the reason that they were there; the demolition team were coming in the morning.
‘Do you really think that we’ll be able to stop them?’ he asked. But Abi had wandered away and he realised he was talking to himself, or perhaps he was talking to the tree again.
He looked up at the branches but he didn’t hear any reply.