Free Up High in the Trees by Kiara Brinkman

morning when she woke up. She put chocolate syrup in her Coke and every time before she took a sip, she stirred it up with a long spoon and the spoon made clinking noises against her glass. I liked to stir it for her and make the clinking noises myself. Sometimes she let me have a sip. Leo said that Coke is bad because it has acid in it. I can’t remember the name of the acid, but Leo said thatit was bad for Mother to drink. Mother said that Leo was being silly, but Leo said he was telling the truth and he put a nail at the bottom of a glass and then he filled it up with Coke. After four days, the nail really was gone, but Mother still drank her Coke in the morning. Leo said that when there’s an accident on the highway and they need to clean the blood off the road, they use a big bottle of Coke. That’s enough, Mother told Leo and then he stopped.

    In the bath, I lie all the way back so my ears are underwater. There’s the sound of my heart beating and the humming sound of blood going through me. Drips from the faucet land in the bath. They’re loud and heavy sounding.
    I remember, at the swimming pool I didn’t want to put my head under. The swimming teacher said I had to. I held on to my blue foam kickboard. I liked to bite into the blue foam when she wasn’t looking. The swimming teacher put on her frog goggles that said SPEEDO across the noseband in white letters and she showed me how to go under. I watched the bubbles coming up out of her nose.
    I wouldn’t do it.
    Mother helped me out of the pool and dried me off with one of the scratchy, white pool towels.
    She whispered, That’s okay, my son, you have years and years to put your head underwater. Her breath in my ear made me shiver. Mother held me close.
    I try to hear Mother’s voice now under the bathwater, but I can’t. Her voice is gone. I sit up fast and slide forward and then back again, forward and then back again, and the water moves with me, like waves. When I stop sliding, the water keeps moving and it pushes me back and forth, back and forth.
    Dad comes in with a blue towel. It’s my blue towel from home.
    I found some WD-40 out in the shed, Dad tells me. I can spray the bike so it won’t squeak.
    Yes, I say.
    Okay now, he says, let’s get you out.
    I don’t want to stand up, because then I’ll be cold, but Dad says it’s time. He’s still not wearing a shirt. I look at the place where his appendix came out.
    Dad holds the towel, ready to wrap me up. I stand up fast and reach out with my finger to touch Dad’s bumpy, white scar. I touch it, but I can’t really feel anything because my finger is all shriveled from being in the water so long.
    Will it be there forever? I ask Dad.
    Yes, he says.

    I wrote Mother a very important note and taped it to the mirror in her bathroom.
    The note said:
    To Mother,
    Please wake me up. I want to go with you.
    From, Sebby
    I was sitting on the floor in my room, making a tower out of blocks. Mother sat down and helped me build the tower. She gave me back the note.
    I miss you too, sweetheart, Mother said. Then she left.
    I thought about how she wasn’t alone because there was the baby, Sara Rose, in her stomach. Sara Rose was a part of her, listening to the outside through Mother’s skin. They were together at night, when Mother ran.

    A big envelope comes in the mail from Ms. Lambert. I like how my name looks in her perfect, teacher handwriting. Up in the corner is Ms. Lambert’s name with the school address underneath. I’m happy because now I have a place to send my letters.
    Inside the envelope is a packet of homework that I have to do, so I sit at the kitchen table with my red pencil. I skip the fraction page and turn to the part where I have to look at the sentences and underline nouns. I know nouns are people, places, or things, and that makes them easy to find.
    The phone rings and I jump. I run over to where it’s