Five rows of red, yellow and green knitting, stitched onto a Stop sign. This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen since tiptoeing out of our building half an hour ago.
In Montreal right now, the streets are busy with people scraping ice off windshields, shopkeepers calling out good morning to each other, and neighbors shoveling sidewalks. Here in Victoria, though, everyone’s still asleep, like they can’t stand to face another day of taupe houses, manicured lawns and gray skies.
I touch the matted, damp yarn with one finger. I miss our old neighborhood—the smells of roasting coffee (like burnt toast until you recognize it) and spicy Ethiopian food, flower gardens sprouting in parking lots, murals appearing in alleyways overnight, and little libraries popping up in public parks. Even the yarn bombing was better there. A few months ago, someone knitted an entire rainbow sleeve for a Stop sign. This tiny little yarn tag is nothing compared to that.
Dad says I’ll drive myself crazy if I keep comparing where we are to where we were, but I can’t help it.
“Fine color choice.” It’s a man’s voice.
I spin around and see my grandfather smiling at me. With half of his mouth anyway. He had a stroke last year, and part of his face is paralyzed.
I don’t know him all that well—didn’t see him much until we moved in across the street—but he’s an unusual guy. His big passion is growing “heirloom vegetables,” which as far as I can tell means weird ones that no one else bothers with, like black tomatoes, blue lettuce and purple beans. When he first told me about them, I thought he was losing it. Dad said that some people who have strokes wind up with dementia. So when my grandfather first mentioned the vegetables, I half expected him to add that “Jack and the Beanstalk” is a true story, and fairies live in his compost pile.
“You’re out early,” I say, as if I’m not totally freaked that he snuck up on me like that. (Not that I’m scared of my own grandfather, of course. But I should have heard him at least. Jeez. One week out of the city, and I’ve lost all my street smarts.)
“Morning walk,” he says. “Never miss it.”
“So I heard.” He was in rough shape when he first got out of the hospital, but apparently every day he insisted on walking around the block, even if it was pouring rain.
“Your handiwork?” He points to the wisps of yarn.
“Nah, I’d have made it bigger and more colorful.” I don’t know why I say this, like I’m some kind of closet yarn bomber. I knit, but only socks and sweaters.
“Fair enough. The street could use more color.” He surveys the houses, lawns and boulevard. “So which way now? You coming or going?”
I shrug. “I’m heading home, I guess.”
He says nothing as we walk. He drags one leg a bit, and I wonder if he has to concentrate to get his body to move. We pass a driveway where a man in a suit is getting into a car. “Morning, Uli.”
My grandfather’s name is Ulrich, but everyone calls him Uli, even me. Uli waves at the man. We keep walking. At the corner, he glances up at a bare Stop sign. “Another one that could use more color. Orange and yellow maybe. Or a green post with knitted petals around the sign?”
I study his face for a moment and then smile. I don’t think he’s teasing me. “You’re really getting into this.”
“Makes people stop and pay attention,” he says. “I like unusual.”
Like the vegetables. I’ve discovered since moving here that Uli is way more interesting than I’d imagined. Dad never talked about him much. In all my thirteen years, we never once came to visit. The only thing I remembered about Uli was that he was very tall and got really excited about going to the botanical gardens the time he visited us in Montreal. And we went out for ice cream after. That’s it. Every time I asked Dad about him, he changed the subject. Then Uli had a stroke, and Dad decided the two of us should move here. Without Mom. My parents hadn’t been getting along, but I sure didn’t see this move coming.
Uli stops in front of his little house. It’s the third of three almost identical gray stucco houses with different-colored doors. Uli’s is the one on the corner, with the green door. If you drive by quickly, it looks like an ordinary place. But from here on the sidewalk, you can see that the green stuff growing in the front yard isn’t grass. It’s some other kind of plant, one you don’t have to mow. Uli calls it “creeping thyme.” He says that in summer, when you step on it, it smells like pizza. (That was another moment when I thought my grandfather might be completely nuts, but Dad told me later that lots of people put thyme in their tomato sauce.) To the right of the front walk is a big tree. It doesn’t have any leaves on it yet, but Uli told me it’s an apple.
A huge cedar hedge extends out from both sides of the house and frames the backyard. There’s a solid wooden gate in the hedge, just behind the apple tree, and through there, in the back, is where Uli grows his vegetables. I haven’t gone through that gate yet though—or been into the house either, for that matter, which is a bit weird. Another thing Dad won’t explain. Uli says there’s nothing to see in his garden right now anyway because it’s still winter, but that doesn’t make me any less curious. On my way to school, I walk past the sidewalk side of the hedge, and one time I noticed a bit of a hole near the far corner. I pushed a branch aside and stuck my head in, but all I could see was the back of a greenhouse. I didn’t dare go farther in, in case someone spotted me.
“Here, let me show you something.” Uli points at one of the cherry blossom trees that the city planted between the sidewalk and the road. It’s all bark and pink blossoms right now, even though other trees—like the apple in Uli’s yard—are still completely bare. The blossoms were the first thing I noticed when we got here last week. I took a picture to send to Mom, because she’d told me about them. She’s been to the west coast for conferences at this time of year. She said sometimes whole streets are lined with pink blossoms. If you walk under them, they shower petals on you, and it’s called a pink-out because it happens while everyone else in the country is battling winter blizzards and whiteouts.
These trees look different from the ones Mom showed me in pictures though. These ones have two kinds of flowers. Most of them are super frilly, but the blossoms on the lower branches are simpler and a different shade of pink. Uli reaches up and cups a few of the less-frilly flowers in one hand. “Around July, these’ll turn into cherries. The dark kind. Delicious.”
Huh. I thought Dad said cherry blossom trees were just for show. No fruit. And he should know. He grew up on this street, after all. Again I study my grandfather’s face, looking for a hint that he’s teasing. If he is, I can’t tell. “This is my public artwork,” he adds, like he planted the trees himself. Maybe he did, for all I know.
“They’re beautiful,” I say.
“I don’t mean all the blossoms.” He waves a hand at the tree. “Just these ones here at the ends. I grafted on fruit-bearing cherries. Every tree for the next four blocks is fruit-bearing now. The cherries come out right at picking height, perfect for snacking in July.”
I follow his gaze down the street. Sure enough, every light-pink tree has different flowers on the lower tips. “Grafting?” I ask. “Isn’t that for skin? Like for burn victims?”
He nods. “Yes, but it works for trees too.”
“That’s actually pretty cool,” I say. “Like yarn bombing with live plants.”
“Yarn bombing? That’s what the knitting on the sign posts is called?” He shakes his head. “Should have a less-violent name. I’ve lived in bombed-out cities. A burst of color on a drab street is nothing like that.”
“You were in a bombing?” I ask.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. Now you need to get ready for school.”
I don’t argue. In five minutes, I’ve already learned more about my grandfather than I ever did from my dad. I give Uli a quick hug. “See you later. Maybe after school?”
When I reach the other sidewalk, he calls my name. I turn to see him moving slowly toward me. I go back to save him a trip.
“This neighborhood might look plain at first,” he says, “but I know you’ll find its heartbeat. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”
He talks like this is a permanent move, like we’ll be here forever. I don’t want to disappoint him, but as far as I can tell, we’ve only come to Victoria to wait. For any number of things. For Uli to be fine on his own again. Or for Dad to find a better job. Or for him and Mom to want to live together again. Or all, or none, of the above. As soon as we’re done waiting, we’ll go back to Montreal and continue on with our lives.
I don’t want to hurt Uli’s feelings though. Instead I think about the cherry blossoms and how getting to know my grandfather might be the only decent thing that comes out of this temporary transplant to this side of the country. “Thanks.” I put a hand on his weak arm. He clasps my hand with his good one.