Mr Lyons, my geography teacher, is a reminder that there is a bit of crazy in everyone. For our new assignment, he wants us all to email a tree. And apparently it will reply. That’s how Mr Lyons starts off the first lesson back from the holiday break. He walks around the room, handing out slips of paper with email addresses on them. ‘Each of you is being given an ID number that corresponds to one of 77,000 trees in Melbourne.’

A slip of paper lands on the desk in front of me. I read the information on it. My tree ID number is: 1041161. Apparently, it’s a smooth-barked apple myrtle. I have no idea what that type of tree looks like. I couldn’t even say if it was small or big. The last thing on the paper is the email address.

I look up at Mr Lyons. Surely he can’t be serious.

‘Over the next twenty years, half of the trees in Melbourne are expected to die. The Urban Forest Plan is attempting to connect people with the trees to create a growing awareness of the importance of nature in urban environments. Your task is to email your tree. Your emails can be about anything. I won’t read them or the replies. What will be assessed is your log, recording when you emailed your tree and a reflection in week six of next term. You have a fair bit of time for this task, so I’m expecting a minimum of ten emails to your tree.’

‘Are you going to be answering the emails, sir?’ asks Alice.

‘Didn’t you hear him?’ calls out a boy with dreadlocks. ‘A big gum tree will sit down at a cafe and reply.’

Mr Lyons coughs. ‘Staff at Melbourne City Council will be answering the emails, I imagine. But don’t think about it that way. Imagine you are talking to the tree. Some of these trees are more than one hundred years old. What would you like to ask them? What would you like to tell them?’

A few people snicker.

‘I’d want to ask how many times they’ve been peed on.’ This comment puts the whole back row in hysterics. Mr Lyons continues as if a comment about public urination had not been made. ‘Express yourself. Write whatever is on your mind.’

I look down at the email address sceptically. What’s the point of this task? What would I even write? I’m done with journal writing. Why can’t we be given an essay on sustainable forestry or something?

Listening to the conversations going on around me, I seem to be the only person who has a problem with the assignment. Everyone is in agreement that it’s going to be piss-easy. Mr Lyons does address this piss comment. ‘Do not think of this assignment as a walk in the park,’ he says, struggling to get everyone’s attention. ‘I will be able to tell from your reflections whether you took it seriously or not.’

Then the bell goes and everyone takes off after 0.3 seconds, leaving Mr Lyons standing at the front of the room looking like someone who has been knocked aside by the force of a speeding freight train. I suddenly feel sorry for him. He was so excited and passionate about the assignment. When I stand up, I’m the last to leave. I hold up the slip of paper and smile at Mr Lyons. He nods and smiles back.

That day, like the others that week, I don’t see West much at school. He either has this meeting or that practice. After dinner, I login to Facebook and send him a message.

I read West’s last message over and over until the words become a string of letters that glow like fairy lights. Until West, there was no future after the exams. It was just a dark cloud hovering in the distance. I still don’t know what I will do with myself after graduation, but I know I want to go to Melbourne with West.

My hands freeze on the keyboard. I try to remember telling West about Cassie and what exactly I’d told him. It was the night of the glow-worms and I was upset about the Post-it note and Cassie. I can’t believe West remembers.

I bite my lip until it hurts. Maybe I should tell West what happened. If I don’t, then maybe he’ll feel like I don’t trust him. It’s not like we aren’t already dealing with communication issues. But if I do tell him, then he might think of me differently.

I take a deep breath.

I don’t tell West about Liam’s bet with his friends. It’s too painful and embarrassing. Bet or no bet, Cassie would still have been angry with me. I could’ve said no to Liam but I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking about Cassie when it was happening. I should’ve been a better friend. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have found myself in that situation. I hate to think how far things would’ve gone with Liam if Cassie hadn’t walked in.

So much for not telling West about the bet.

I smile, imagining West and I driving from farm to farm, getting fat on cheese.

I start typing a message but I delete it. It’s too late to open that can of worms. I look at the time at the bottom of the screen. It’s almost midnight.

Before I turn off my laptop, I pull my geography book out of my schoolbag and find my tree’s email address. How do you begin an email to a tree? Dear apple myrtle? To 1041161? I decide to keep it simple.

Hi,

I’ve never sent an email to a tree before, but then there’s a lot of things I’ve never done. My name is Piper Rhodes. If I was a tree, I would be a bonsai. They look like normal trees in almost every way, but they’re not. Just like me.

I remember going to a friend’s house when I was little and her dad grew bonsais. At first I couldn’t believe they were real. I thought her dad was a wizard who shrunk things and that he might shrink me too. He did have a grey beard. Later on, I found out what they were. They are made things, shaped and cultivated. It makes me wonder how much of who I am is shaped and cultivated.

The first thing everyone wants to know is what happened to me. The answer is nothing. I’ve led a normal, happy and safe life. But then I wonder: would I be the way I am if I grew up in Japan? Or Turkey? What if I had grown up on the street with no parents? What if I had been born in the middle of a war? Maybe the smallest of circumstances, the moments that pass without making us blink, shape us. Would I be the same girl tomorrow if I spoke today? Would he like me more or less?

I think too much.

There’s this boy I’m sort of dating. We’re planning to come and visit you after graduation. What’s it like in Melbourne at the moment?

Bye for now, P.R.