Free Frozen by Richard Burke

where I was taking her, I wanted it to be a surprise.
    “You'll love it,” I said hopefully.
    “Why should I trust you?” She was pouting.
    What did trust have to do with it? What did she think I was going to do? I was hardly going to jump on her the moment we were out of sight of the village although... I was thirteen, she had just turned twelve and, to me, she was ravishing. I had dreams about her, and I enjoyed them. Part of it was that she was unattainable. She was coquettish, wild, she played hard (impossible) to get. But the idea that she might not trust me was baffling—I had hardly even dared let our arms brush. The treehouse was just a great place to muck around.
    “Ah, go on, Verity...”
    The summer had changed for me. I was having fun. I had stopped being aware of my self-imposed misery or the sluggish tick of passing days. Each morning she would be waiting in my garden, head cocked sideways, her thin knees hugged up under her dress; if she wasn't, I would sneak through the hedge and wait for her. Hot days slid by.
    The Great Sling worked brilliantly. It didn't once get the ball into the crook of the tree because the ball never lodged even when it was on target. But who cared? We graduated quickly from targeting the tree to competing for distance and height, launching the ball from one garden to the other. Our targets were clumps of flowers, wheelbarrows and the like. Aiming blind over the hedge was part of the fun.
    “Come on, Verity, it's brilliant, this place—you'll see.”
    “Daddy won't let me.”
    “Don't tell him,” I shrugged.
    She said nothing, but she bit her lip. “I had an idea for the sling,” she said eventually.
    “It's a treehouse,” I blurted. “It's just a treehouse. In Wytham Woods.”
    “But you're not allowed in there.” Verity looked at me sharply. That had caught her interest.
    “That's why it's secret. I haven't told anyone else about it, not ever.” I added, bolshily, “It was going to be a surprise.”
    “What sort of a treehouse?”
    “You'll see.”
    She looked at me suspiciously. But she kicked the wall in time to my lazy rhythm, then the fence, and then the wall. I grinned at her, and her eyes creased and her cheeks dimpled.
    We went on our bikes. The shadows had left her face even before the village was behind us. When we got to the hill down to the woods, she stuck out both legs sideways and rattled ever faster down the rutted track. Her hair bounced in the wind, shot sparks of sunlight, and she screamed with happy abandon.
    *
    The treehouse was about fifteen feet up in the arms of an immense hornbeam. Great branches, three or four feet thick, swept outwards from the vast trunk, ancient and rimed with mossy green. They spread twelve or more feet horizontally, before reaching ponderously upwards. Thinner branches drooped still further out, and down again towards the ground. The tree stood alone: no younger trees had grown in its shade. Its crown was unreachable, out of sight high above the wood's canopy. The tree was old and wise, and I liked to think it was glad of our company.
    You could climb onto the lower limbs by shinning up one of the smaller branches that stooped towards the ground. Getting round on to the big branch while dangling fifteen feet above the ground was a challenge, but not impossible. And only once you were up there could you see it.
    It was almost invisible from the ground. It rested on the second layer of branches, which were as thick as the ones immediately below, and offset, so that they filled the gaps between them, so that if you looked up from the bole of the tree, you saw a dense mass of radiating branches and very little of what was above them. That was why the treehouse was so hard to spot. You might glimpse it if you knew to look—but why would anyone look? This was private property. It belonged to Oxford University, and was strictly off-limits to all but a select handful of university officials. The people who came to the woods