The Tickle Tree

Partly because of a stomach bug and partly because my mind is blank and partly because a change of pace is due, today I want you to get out your crayons--the 64 Big Box--and illustrate this story.  I can see the pictures clearly in my mind but they don't come out of my fingers.  A few years ago (yes, years, not decades!) it took Second Place in the Tulsa Library Adult Creative Writing Contest.  I already spent the $100 that came with it.

                                   Timothy Thompson and the Tickle Tree

                                                              by

                                                       Pat Carey

 
Timothy Thompson was most often right. If he couldn't be right, he didn't want to play. Timothy put his shoes on first thing in the morning and tied them by himself. Then he sat on the steps of his big front porch.

Olivia Claire McPherson, who lived next door, didn't care about being right; she just liked to play.  Usually Olivia Claire, if she wore shoes at all, wore a red shoe on one foot and a blue shoe on the other or sometimes the other way around.  And she always went out of her way to stomp in puddles.

Today Olivia Claire walked to Timothy's house with one foot on the sidewalk and one foot in the rainwater that was running along the curb.

"Come out and play, Timothy," Olivia Claire said.  "There's a Tickle Tree in Mrs. Watson's yard right around the corner.  I'll show you."

"There's no such thing as a Tickle Tree," said Timothy

"Then you'll miss it," Olivia Claire said, as she stomp-splashed, stomp-splashed away.  And then Timothy heard her laughing, laughing, laughing from around the corner.

The next day Timothy, brown shoes neatly tied, was sitting on his porch steps when Olivia Claire came by.  She was wearing her best ball gown, the one her Mama bought at a garage sale for fifty cents.

"I'm going to the Tickle Tree, Timothy," she said.  "Do you want to come?"

There's no such thing as a Tickle Tree," Timothy said.  "My mother helped me look up trees on the internet. Mrs. Watson's tree is a Weeping Willow tree, NOT a Tickle Tree."

"Then you'll miss it," said Olivia Claire.  Her ball gown swirled around her as she twisted and twirled away. And Timothy heard her laughing, laughing, laughing from around the corner.

When Timothy got up the next morning he chose his blue canvas tennis shoes and carefully tied the shoestrings.  It had rained again last night so before Timothy sat on the front steps he first dried them off with a towel his mother gave him.

Today Olivia Claire was wearing flip-flops, one with shiny buttons all around and the other with fuzzy feathers across the toes.  "Hi, Timothy.  Do you want to play?  I'm flying today," she said.

"Kids can't fly.  Only birds," said Timothy.  But he came down the steps and walked, with very good posture, to the sidewalk.  Olivia Claire made zig-zigs back and forth, her arms stretched out widely as she flew along.

In Mrs. Watson's yard a tree stood next to the sidewalk.  It had long, thin branches with long, thin leaves that hung almost to the ground.  Olivia Claire disappeared into the leaves but Timothy stopped. He could go around it or he could duck down under. He heard Olivia Claire giggling but he couldn't see her. Finally, Timothy began to walk toward the branches. They tickled his forehead, then they tickled his nose, then they tickled his chin.  Timothy began to smile.  He grinned.  He giggled.  And before he knew it he was laughing, laughing, laughing.

He kept on laughing all the way home as he and Olivia Claire stomped in each puddle and then followed the footprints all the back again to the Tickle Tree.

                                               The End