Between the Ways:
The place where I live has a name so old that no one knows when it was made up, or who thought of it. It’s called ‘Between the Ways’, but we just call it ‘The Ways’. Mama said it was called that because of where it is – near different ways that people use to get from one place to another. At the back is a road, usually very quiet, like the road outside a school when all the children are gone. That’s what she said, but I don’t know what a road outside a school is like when all the children have gone, because I’ve never been to school, and certainly not when no one else was there. My brothers have never been to school either. I’m the middle oldest of three brothers, but I’ve got an older sister too, Katterli, who is older than all of us, but not all of us put together because that would make her older than mama and papa, and then she wouldn’t exist. I think about that sometimes, that maybe she is older than all of us put together and so can’t be our sister and so can’t boss us around so much. But she doesn’t really boss us around that much to start with, so I don’t think about it much. And when she does boss us around, it’s only because she’s looking out for us, apparently, and she’s not doing it to be mean. That’s what mama says.
But back to my house, which isn’t really a house, not according to Katterli, but is only really a place where we live. It has a road at the back, and at the front there is a canal, which is like a river that has been ironed out until it’s straight, with no bendy bits. And on the other side of the canal is a train track, but none of us are allowed over there because it’s dangerous and the trains go very fast. My younger brother, Dillon, gets scared by the trains sometimes, and cries, but I’m not scared of them. I think I might go over there some day, when Katterli isn’t watching, and try and touch a train as it goes past. Darcy, my older brother, says he’ll come with me when I go, but he’s always too busy when I suggest it.
Mama and Papa don’t really live with us. They stay away a lot, on business, so I only see them when they come home, which isn’t often. I miss Mama when she’s away, because she always brings presents for us and smells nice when she hugs you. Papa is a bit grouchy, so he doesn’t say much. He never brings presents, or hugs anyone, but he tells good stories at night, before we go to bed. Mama says he shouldn’t tell us stories like that just before we go to bed, but I like hearing them. I don’t get nightmares like Mama thinks I will. Neither does Dillon, and he’s the most scared of all of us, so I think Mama is just being ‘over-protective’, and I think Katterli agrees because I heard her say it one time.
My house, that’s not a house, is a really neat place, much better than all those boring brick houses I read about in books, and more roomy than the tiny wooden houses that sail past on the canal. It’s made of trees, and bushes, and dirt, but it’s very tidy and not dirty in the slightest because Katterli won’t let it be. She cleans every day, and makes us wash our dishes after every meal and tidy our rooms when they get messy. My room is under a really old oak tree – there was a hollow there to begin with, between all the roots, but Papa hollowed it out even more when they moved in, apparently, and it became my bedroom. Katterli found some plastic sheeting stuff to go on the floor, so the damp didn’t get in so much and make everything harder to clean, and Mama brought a woven straw curtain back one time which is hanging over the entrance so no one can see in. When I’m older, like Darcy, Katterli might let me move into a room up in the branches, but she says I’m too young yet and might fall and hurt myself. Darcy gets a room up in the branches, so high that he doesn’t need a curtain to stop people seeing in. Dillon sleeps in a hollow like mine, but closer to Katterli’s room, which is on the surface and is made of branches woven together between bushes to make walls. I’ve never seen inside her room, because she always keeps the door shut and locked. Dillon goes in when he has bad dreams, but he won’t say what it’s like, even when we threaten to push him in the canal. He knows we won’t, though, because Katterli heard us say it the first time, and got really angry, and said anyone who pushes anyone in the canal won’t get to see Mama and Papa when they come back.
The rest of the house that isn’t a house is wherever we want it to be. The stretch of trees we live in is so thick that even if we moved right to the edge of it, people driving or sailing or training past still wouldn’t see us. But we’re not allowed to move that close to the edge, in case someone does see us, and wants to know what we’re doing here. The closest room to the edge is the kitchen, and that’s because it needs more air or something, I don’t know. Katterli says it’s just safer where there aren’t so many trees.
So that is my house. ‘The Ways’. And that is my family, all of them who are here. Mama and Papa talk about my grandpapa sometimes, but I’ve never seen him. I don’t think he really exists. But, apart from him, we are all here, in the trees, beside the road and the canal and the train tracks. Mama and Papa, when they’re home, Katterli, Darcy, Dillon, and me. My name is Devin. And in two days time, Mama and Papa are coming home, and we’ll all get presents and new stories, and maybe I’ll ask for a room up in the trees. That would be the best thing in the world.
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