Free Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

worry. Do you think we could wait to call him when we get to Idaho?”
    Gramps was right, but I was disappointed. I was ready to call my father. I wanted very much to hear his voice, but I was also afraid that I might ask him to come and get me.
    Outside the hospital, I heard the warbling of a bird, and it was such a familiar warble that I stopped and listened for its source. Bordering the parking lot was a rim of poplars. The sound was coming from somewhere in the top of one of those trees, and I thought, instantly, of the singing tree in Bybanks.
    Next to my favorite sugar maple tree beside the barn is a tall aspen. When I was younger, I heard the most beautiful birdsong coming from the top of that tree. It was not a call; it was a true birdsong, with trills and warbles. I stood beneath that tree for the longest time, hoping to catch sight of the bird who was singing such a song. I saw no bird—only leaves waving in the breeze. The longer I stared up at the leaves, the more it seemed that it was the tree itself that was singing. Every time I passed that tree, I listened. Sometimes it sang, sometimes it did not, but from then on I always called it the singing tree.
    The morning after my father learned that my mother was not coming back, he left for Lewiston, Idaho. Gram and Gramps came to stay with me. I had pleaded to go along, but my father said he didn’t think I should have to go through that. That day I climbed up into the maple and watched the singing tree, waiting for it to sing. I stayed there all day and on into the early evening. It did not sing.
    At dusk, Gramps placed three sleeping bags at the foot of the tree, and he, Gram, and I slept there all night. The tree did not sing.
    ?
    In the hospital parking lot, Gram heard the song too. “Oh Salamanca,” she said. “A singing tree!” She pulled at Gramps’s sleeve.
    “Oh, it’s a good sign, don’t you think?”
    As we swept on across South Dakota toward the Badlands, the whispers no longer said, hurry, hurry or rush, rush. They now said, slow down, slow down. I could not figure this out. It seemed some sort of warning, but I did not have too much time to think about it, as I was busy telling about Phoebe.

17
    IN THE COURSE OF A LIFETIME
    A few days after Phoebe and I had seen Mr. Birkway and Mrs. Cadaver whacking away at the rhododendron, I walked home with Phoebe after school. She was as crotchety and sullen as a three-legged mule, and I was not quite sure why. She had been asking me why I had not said anything to my father about Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway, and I told her that I was waiting for the right time.
    “Your father was over there yesterday,” Phoebe said. “I saw him. He’d better watch out. What would you do if Mrs. Cadaver chopped up your father? Would you go live with your mother?”
    It surprised me when she said that, reminding me that I had told Phoebe nothing about my mother. “Yes, I suppose I would go live with her.” That was impossible and I knew it, but for some reason I could not tell Phoebe that, so I lied.
    Phoebe’s mother was sitting at the kitchen table when we walked in. In front of her was a pan of burned brownies. She blew her nose. “Oh sweetie,” she said, “you startled me. How was it?”
    “How was what?” Phoebe said.
    “Why, sweetie, school of course. How was it? How were your classes?”
    “Okay.”
    “Just okay?” Mrs. Winterbottom suddenly leaned over and kissed Phoebe’s cheek.
    “I’m not a baby, you know,” Phoebe said, wiping off the kiss.
    Mrs. Winterbottom stabbed the brownies with a knife. “Want one?” she asked.
    “They’re burned,” Phoebe said. “Besides, I’m too fat.”
    “Oh sweetie, you’re not fat,” Mrs. Winterbottom said.
    “I am.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “I am, I am, I am!” Phoebe shouted at her mother. “You don’t have to bake things for me. I’m too fat. And you don’t have to wait here for me to come home. I’m thirteen now.”
    Phoebe marched