She called out, "Mama, I'm home," and slammed the door shut. She changed out of her school clothes as fast as she could, grabbed a tart green apple and headed out the it backdoor. "Whoops, forgot my school books." She reached in the door and picked them up.

She ran up the grassy slope, ponytail flying. At last she was standing beneath her tree. She tossed her books and snack into the basket, unhooked the rope and pulled. It rose into the air. When it reached the tree house, she fastened the rope and began her ascent.

The large green Japanese maple was very old. It had many trunks, right from the beginning. Now the trunks were all large and sturdy, forming a giant maze of a tree almost fifty feet tall. The trick was getting to the first limb. She found her starting spot, leaned back against the trunk, put her feet against the opposite trunk, pushed backward and let her feet slowly step upward. She reached out and grabbed the small limb. Keeping her weight balanced between the small limb in her hand and the trunk beneath her feet, she pulled herself upwards. Then she lifted one leg and hoisted it straight in the air to hook over the next limb, pushed on the smaller limb and righted herself on the larger. The hardest part was over.

She liked to do things in a certain pattern. She was the only one who knew how to get up in that tree and she always finished her climb according to the same, exact formula.

She looked up while she was climbing. The big, green, three-pointed leaves made a safe canopy and a lovely sound. They let in the sky, but not too much. She made the tree house herself. Her father had torn down her other two tree houses because they were not safe, but he didn't know about this one. Even if he found out, she had taken some drastic measures to defend her property.

The tree house was only big enough for her. It had a trapezoid floor and a partial roof. It also had a bookcase made from an apple crate. In the bookcase right now was her copy of War and Peace, a black binder filled with expressions of love for her music teacher and also a Band-Aid box with candles, matches and magic ink inside it.

She lifted the lid and checked her bucket. It was part of her strategy. She added today's new ingredients: gum wrapper, old snotty Kleenex, one well-salted snail. She tossed them in. The bucket was brimming with slime. The bucket was in case anyone threatened to tear down her tree house.

She swung the basket over on its rope and unpacked the food and schoolbooks. She got ready to study, placing all the books in a stack in front of her with the subject she disliked the most-Algebra-on top. She always did her most distasteful assignments first.

The sun was going down. She looked up from her English assignment and stared at the orange and gold shining behind the green leaves that looked to her like oriental fans. She could smell dinner cooking.

But, oh no, who was coming up under the tree in his three piece business suit, scotch and soda in his hand? She would know that bald spot anywhere. She reached over and put her hand on the bucket. Something was about to be decided, something about life, liberty and property.