Free The Secrets of Tree Taylor by Dandi Daley Mackall Page B

playing music again. I kept my hoop spinning and held my peace until the Beach Boys got halfway through “Surfin’ Safari.”
    Then Dad broke. “ ‘Advisor,’ my eye! Twelve hundred ‘advisors’ sent to Vietnam? How can they call those young boys advisors? They’re soldiers. Sent with guns over to a country where nobody wants them. And to people who wouldn’t take their
advice
if they offered it, which they won’t because they’re trained to shoot and kill. I tell you what, Tree. Sometimes I think the whole world’s going crazy.” He shoved Eileen’s Hula-Hoop around his waist so hard that it spun three times before crashing at his feet. “Most of those poor boys don’t even have a clue where Vietnam is before they get there.”
    Dad sounded so depressed that I didn’t want to tell him that
I
had no idea where Vietnam was, either. Except that it had to be far away from America. “They’ll be okay, though, won’t they? America’s never lost a war, right?”
    He picked up the Hula-Hoop and tried again. “This isn’t like the big war your mom and I fought in. Or World War One, the war your grandfather fought in. Vietnam is nothing but hills and jungles and rice paddies … and dead bodies. We rushed in, and we haven’t the vaguest notion of what that culture is like, what those people are thinking.”
    “Dad! You’re doing it!” The Hula-Hoop circled Dad’s waist, clicking against his belt buckle and wobbling over his wide striped tie.
    “I’ve got it! I can Hula-Hoop!” He suddenly sounded more thrilled than I had been the first time I caught on.
    One more reason to love my dad—not that he could Hula-Hoop but that he was so excited about it.
    As soon as Dad left to make a house call, the rain started up again. I’d just turned on the TV when the phone rang. Nobody answered it, so I shut off the television and answered it myself. “Hello?”
    “Tree, is that you?”
    I was pretty sure it was Wanda on the other end of the line. Only I couldn’t remember a single time when she’d called me, except maybe to get the language arts assignment, which she hadn’t heard because she was too busy flirting with Ray. “Yeah, this is Tree.”
    “Good. Because I need to talk to you.”
    “Wanda?” It was definitely her voice—nasal, like a permanent whine.
    “Duh,” she said, as if I was the stupid one for not recognizing the voice of the Great Wanda right off. “I want you toknow that I saw you talking to people at the pool Saturday and asking dumb questions about the Kinneys.”
    “So?”
    “So,” she continued, “I know what you’re trying to do. And you’re only going to be disappointed … and embarrassed.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wanda,” I lied.
    “Right. Like it’s not obvious that you want
my
job on the
Blue and Gold
next year?” She laughed, the way a grown-up would laugh at a little kid. “Don’t get me wrong. Aunt Edna—Mrs. Woolsey to you—didn’t pick me because she’s my aunt. I—”
    “She’s not your aunt,” I said.
    “Then why do I call her Aunt Edna?”
    “I don’t know. So you can get on the
Blue and Gold
staff maybe?”
    “Very funny, Tree,” Wanda said, not laughing.
    “Thank you. And I really should be going, Wanda.”
    “Not until I tell you why I called. Look … Tree, you are not a reporter. Even if you did write something about the Kinneys, nobody would ever read it.”
    I tried not to take in the words coming through the phone line. “Are you done?”
    “Don’t be that way, Tree.” Wanda pulled out her syrupy sweet voice. “I think it’s cute that you were trying to conduct interviews. Ray thinks so too.”
    Ray?
I couldn’t help picturing them together at the pool, their towels overlapping.
    Wanda was still talking. “…  so we both think now is thetime to burst your bubble. This way, you won’t get shot down during school, with everyone looking on. We don’t want you to have to go through that.