Gum Tree Girl

Gum Tree Girl(Rue) PROLOGUE

Isabelle was walking home, after a long tiring day at school. As usual, she took a detour around Notnef Court. There were only six houses, with tiny gardens of stone, with only ornamental bushes, and one gum tree, outside House Number Four. That is how Isabelle referred to the houses. House Number One, House Number Two, House Number Three, House Number Four and so on, up until House Number Six. It was always deathly quiet, and it sent shivers up Isabelle’s spine every time. It turned her stomach into knots. Everything was peaceful, with the air that something exciting was bound to happen one day, and Isabelle wanted to see it. There was never anyone there, and the houses stood seemingly empty. Her first time exploring what little there was of Notnef Court, she had walked on tip-toe, not wanting to disturb the serenity. Now, her footsteps made a clacking noise across the clean, unused pavement.

She heard something. A voice. There was never a voice. Isabelle went down Notnef Court every day since she started grade six, nine months ago. Never a sound except the whispering wind through the ugly bushes, and the tall proud gum tree. And she heard it again. A child’s voice, a girl. Singing under the gum tree of House Number Four, making a daisy chain from some stray dandelions growing underneath it. “Ring-a—ring o’ roses. A pocket full of posies. A-tishoo, a-tishoo. We all fall down!” When she said ‘down’, she stamped her feet.

“Hello?” said Isabelle timidly, disturbing the girls silent singing. For, although the girl was singing, it seemed as though the silence of Notnef Court remained. The girl continued singing, but a different song, with words Isabelle could not decipher. The girl was the picture of young innocence. Curly blonde hair reaching just above her waist, a neat light blue bow in her hair, and a pale blue dress, cut half a centimetre above the knee, and pure white knee-socks, and shiny black school shoes. The Girl seemed unaware of Isabelle. When she finished her song, she said: “My name is Cornelia.” Isabelle replied with her name, but Cornelia was onto a new song.

***

Isabelle continued to visit Notnef Court, and for a while, was annoyed by Cornelia’s continued show of singing. Except one day, exactly a week after Cornelia’s first appearance, there was no Cornelia. Only a note in the gum tree leaves. ‘Hello Isabelle.’ It read. ‘I am ever so sorry I don’t talk. But I took a vow of silence, but took one exception to tell people my name. Sorry. I do hope we can pass notes though. I used to love talking. Perhaps we can make a scrapbook of our notes to each other? We can leave it in that big thick low branch in the gum tree.

Oh, you must be confused. If I took a vow of silence, why do I always sing? It’s a simple answer:
I can’t help it. Papa says a witch put a curse on me. I can only say one thing to each person I meet in my whole life, and must always sing. I don’t know why. But I don’t believe in witches and such things. Well, thank you for reading this. Cornelia.PS. I am not here on Fridays (except the day you first saw me). By the time you get this, it will be Friday. There will be a scrapbook here in the gum tree on Saturday, for us to write in. I hope we can be friends.’

And Isabelle, having no real friends, hoped so too.



CHAPTER ONE

Isabelle turned the note over, wrote that she would love to be friends, and asked her why she thought she had that ‘curse’?
At school, which was dull and grey, Isabelle did well in studies, except at lunch and recess. She would wait in the ever growing line for handball, and as soon as she got in, she would get out. People would laugh cruelly and Isabelle would spend the rest of the time reading, or doing homework. Because of this, she always looked forward to the days when she could see Cornelia.

On Saturday, Isabelle woke at seven, was dressed and ready by eight-thirty and left at nine. She was wearing a red hair band to try and control her brown hair, which was more fluffy than curly. She wore a neat blue shirt, and a pair of blue jeans. And of course, her elephant bracelet, which her friend had given her before she left. Isabelle wore the bracelet all the time, caressing the four different colored elephants on it.

She sat beneath the gum tree for about ten minutes before Cornelia appeared beside her, this time wearing a purple bow and dress. She carried a large scrapbook, which she had decorated with the words ‘Under the Gum-Tree, Where Secrets Are Told.’

She looked at the title, and then at Isabelle, as if asking if that was alright. Isabelle nodded.

“Under the gum-tree where secrets are told.’ She said solemnly, and nodded. Cornelia’s face brightened.

She opened the first, clean page of the scrap book and wrote:
‘Key:
Cornelia: Green Pen
Isabelle: Blue Pen’

She handed Isabelle a blue pen and turned the page.
‘Hello Isabelle. How old are you?’ wrote Cornelia.
‘Twelve’ replied Isabelle.
‘Me too! I turned twelve last month, on the 23rd. What about you?
‘The 24th, last month too! Wow, we’re almost twins! What school do you go to?’
‘I’m home-schooled.’
‘Lucky! I wish I were home-schooled. I hate normal school.’

And so the notes went on in this manner, each one revealing her secrets. They went on, Isabelle laughing and Cornelia opening her mouth and smiling, which was her silent way of laughing, and all the while singing jolly songs, like ‘Happy Days’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag’ and other songs that Isabelle had never heard. Isabelle had written asking how she knew so many songs. And Cornelia had replied:
‘They come to me like waves. I don’t know them until I sing them, and then I forget.’

Isabelle dreamed that night of words riding on waves that sang, on a light blue and purple beach. She was wading in, but whenever she did, a gum leaf boat would knock her back. Only Cornelia, in a drenched dress, with hair plastering her face swam out further, and Isabelle called ‘Cornelia!’ and Cornelia would call “Don’t forget me Isabelle!”…



CHAPTER TWO

Isabelle waited by the gum tree until twelve o’clock on Sunday. She had packed a picnic lunch for them to share while they wrote. She was about to pack up and leave when Cornelia appeared beside her, singing rock-a-bye baby. Isabelle nearly screamed, and, after getting over the initial shock, managed to gasp out and ask how she ‘does that’.

‘Do what?’ scribbled Cornelia, after getting The Scrapbook down from the gum tree.

‘Just appear’ Wrote Isabelle.

Cornelia shrugged, still singing rock-a-bye. After that, she sang a song about a black bird. Only then did Isabelle really notice what a beautiful voice Cornelia had. She wrote down how amazing her voice was, and Cornelia smiled. You could tell she was pleased with this.

Though Isabelle lived for the days she saw Cornelia, she also loved the Fridays where she could spend time on her own, just walking down the empty road, without a sound but the clacking of her shoes. Just Isabelle, alone with her imagination, which always ran at its fullest when she was alone. She kept it a closely guarded secret, although she liked to write. Only Cornelia knew that Isabelle wanted to write forever. The magic of words forever entrapped her, binding her closer every time she allowed herself to be taken into its spell. Alone in Notnef Court, she would have so many ideas, and by the time she ran home to write them down, they were gone. But she didn’t mind. She loved seeing the beautiful baby story bouncing in her head up and down, until it slowly disappeared after it was fully formed.

On Saturday, it was a crisp clear and cold day, with just a tint of frost across the ugly bushes, and a shimmer of dew on the gum tree. Isabelle was bundled up in some jeans, and a mustard coloured jumper, while Cornelia was in her usual: pale coloured dress and bow, knee high socks and shiny black shoes. Today it was the same blue she had first met Isabelle in.

‘How can you not be cold?’ wrote Isabelle after she had sat on a rug under the gleaming gum tree.

Cornelia shrugged ‘I’m used to it. I can hardly feel the cold now.’

Today she was singing ‘Let it Snow’.

Isabelle sat in silence – by silence, I mean not writing, which by now to them had the same awkward echo as silence in conversation.

‘What am I singing now?’ wrote Cornelia after a stretch of the ‘silence’ that happens even in the best of friendships.

‘Let it Snow. I think it’s a sort of a Christmas Carol.’ Replied Isabelle, priding herself on knowing this incorrect piece of information.

Cornelia nodded, and wrote that she’d never heard it before, and Isabelle thought that was very unlikely, as it was getting rather common.
They continued, until Isabelle declared it was ‘absolutely too cold for a young girl.’ In a rather pompous manner, which every ‘young girl’ must try seriously at least once in their life. Generally they are rather ruffled when you laugh and ask wherever that pompousness had come from, so I advise you not to (laugh).

Anyway, Isabelle packed her rug, and was about to turn to leave when she thought it would be rude to leave without giving an invitation for her to come over.

When asked, the already pale Cornelia turned even paler, and turned and ran all the way down to House Number Six. Isabelle could keep a very good pace at following her, but it seemed she had just disappeared, last of her song fading away. Isabelle shivered, and told herself Cornelia must have been in her blind spot, either that or she’d gone into the fog.

Isabelle thought that she must’ve been terrified at the prospect of meeting new people. They mightn’t understand her ‘condition’, or Cornelia might be shy. Either way, Isabelle shook it off. Everything was fine. And nothing could go wrong.


CHAPTER THREE

‘You have no idea how much it means for me to have someone to talk to so intimately.’ Wrote Cornelia as she sung ‘Lollipop’. Cornelia had stayed up all night thinking of this rather (or so she thought) beautiful speech.

‘Thank you.’ Is all Isabelle wrote in reply, which she was secretly ashamed of, and which Cornelia secretly thought was rather pathetic. And don’t go calling Cornelia a bad friend. Everyone has done this in one way or another, if you haven’t; you are some sort of a saint who I have never met.

Continuing, the girl’s had all sorts of dreams and fantasies: for example, setting up a publishing company, and publishing some amazing books, most of which they wrote.

Their stories were ridiculously sentimental, and usually ended in all the main characters dying, of that common disease that all heroes and heroines have a tendency to catch: broken hearts. They thought these books were ‘ever so beautiful’, and they always cried after reading them.

Ten years later, instead of crying, they would have laughed, and cut out all the ridiculously long ‘sunset scenes’, of which they knew nothing about; the sunset would never be quite that loud. It is beautiful in a quiet way, a way twelve year olds can never quite grasp.

When writing these books, Cornelia sung the most dramatic opera, which had Isabelle in a fit of giggles. You could see Cornelia blushing red and wanting to stop, and her mouth smiling as she sang the ridiculous thing. They both didn’t understand a word, and spent the rest of the day giggling or writing about what it might’ve been about: the most ridiculous story being Cornelia’s, saying it is probably about a man whose love is a vampire.

After the happiest of days, when they cried so much at a scene Isabelle herself wrote:
‘And the man shed tears of the most bitter sweet taste, letting them fall over the grand tall old pine tree.
“And may thy tears forever water this tree, the tree of my love, planted on the day I realized she, was my one true love!”
And he drew his sword from his sheath and plunged himself into it, and let his gloriously deep red blood spill over the tree, just as the sun went down.’

And that was forever more their view of sunsets. A tall handsome man plunging his sword into his chest.


CHAPTER FOUR

The next day was a beautiful warm day for September. A lovely Tuesday, with a blazing orange sun that would’ve beat down on our two girls, was it not for the ever loyal gum tree.

That day, Isabelle decided she would lift the curse from Cornelia, no matter what it took. She wanted to be able to talk to Cornelia, with words, coming out of their mouths, not songs, not even the most beautiful.
‘How was the Curse given to you?’
They always talked about the Curse with a capital ‘C’, not wanting to disrespect it. A silent fear engulfed both and they didn’t want any wrath bought down on them because they had robbed the word of its rightful capital.

‘Papa says a witch. But I think it was Mama, I saw letters from her to Papa, saying how much she loved singing, and she wished I would do nothing but.’

‘Maybe she made a wish and she worded it wrong. You hear a lot about that in story-books.’

Cornelia only nodded, with a blank look while she sung ‘Like a Virgin’, which Isabelle sang along too, as she had to learn that song for choir. She had tried out for solo, but the music teacher had said,
“You have a lovely voice Isabelle, but for heaven’s sake, speak up!”
Isabelle had never gone back to choir after that. The solo was given to her ‘arch-enemy’ you could say, Ivy. She sang beautifully, and was sneering at Isabelle the whole time she sung.

One time, Isabelle was writing to Cornelia about Ivy, and broke down into tears, stating how awful it was to have no friends to play with at school, and oh, she was so glad she had Cornelia.

She had flung herself on her friend, and Cornelia had just patted her back awkwardly, with a blank look on her face.

Now, with steely reserve, she decided to lift the Curse.
She went to the library on Friday, before she went for her walk around Notnef Court, and got out lots of books about ‘curses and things’. While walking around Notnef afterward, she buried herself in them, ignoring the quiet environment that usually sent shivers up her spine, and soon figured out three possible ways of lifting her friends curse:
A wish fountain
A wishing tree
Or a simple task of finding the person who cast the curse, and killing them.

Isabelle decided on wish fountain, as she knew there was one at the botanical gardens. When she asked her mum if she could go, her voice sounded hoarse, as she rarely used it nowadays. Her mum looked at her oddly, and nodded. On Sunday she went. She expected to go to the gardens, find the wish fountain, toss in the three dollars (as was required) and leave. But no, her mum spent an infuriatingly long time looking at every single plant in the gardens, separately.

She would walk into the room with cactuses (or cacti, as is its rightful plural is), and she wouldn’t say: “Oh cool, some cacti”, oh no, she would go and see every single one about ten times, memorizing it each time, until it was implanted in her brain to forget it five minutes later.

And after they were finally done there, her mother insisted on going out for dinner, and by the time they got back, it was dark, and she muttered a quick ‘sorry’, as they drove past Notnef Court, and she saw a shadow of a girl walking around the gum tree.

That night she dreamed of walking round and round the gum tree, and people were screaming ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ at her from all sides, but she couldn’t understand them, and there was a cactus and so many other plants, and in the middle, three dollars…

The next day, a Wednesday, school couldn’t have gone slower if time went backwards. She wanted to go see Cornelia and apologize for not being there the previous day and to see if she could talk.

She rushed down to Notnef Court, excited and terrified.



CHAPTER FIVE

Cornelia was grinning as Isabelle approached her. And…
She wasn’t singing. She stayed like that. Just grinning, not speaking, and not singing.

“Is-a-belle” She said with great effort, and then she started singing again.

She wrote in the scrapbook that last night she “woke up, and I did all my usual morning things, when Papa had come in crying tears of joy, and I realized I was silent.”

Isabelle, despite herself, let out a squeal of delight. It echoed across the silence of Notnef Court.

“But why are you singing now?” She wrote.

‘Well, I said “Papa”, all shaky, and then I started singing again. Then Papa said it was the beginning of the end. Then when I came down here, I closed my mouth, opened it, and it was like magic, I wasn’t singing! But it’s like holding your breath. It feels bad after a while. But not like before. The last time I tried not singing, I almost died. My pulse actually stopped for a second. Then I kept singing and it felt better.’’
She wrote. Even her handwriting seemed so joyful, and happy. Almost jumpy, like the words were leaping off the page.

Then Cornelia smiled in her special way. With an open mouth and beautiful tunes exploding from it.

‘Do you sing in your sleep?’ wrote Isabelle, finally putting into writing what she herself had mused many times.

‘Yes. Usually lullabies.’ Cornelia said nodding. She started singing a new song.

Isabelle just nodded and they both waited in the silence, except for Cornelia singing melodically.

‘It was me who lifted the curse. For that short time. I made a wish. In a Wish Fountain. That’s why I didn’t come yesterday.’ Wrote Isabelle after contemplating this note for a long time.

Cornelia grinned, happy to have such a good friend. All she wrote, was
‘Thank you.’

Isabelle nodded.
‘I’m going to try again. With a Wishing Tree. I have to walk around it three times singing a song. Then when I’ve walked around it three times, I make a wish. I’m not sure where to find one. I think it must be very old, and planted in a very sad or romantic circumstance.”

Isabelle rather liked the sound of her last sentence.

Cornelia nodded, and hugged Isabelle.

‘What song?’ She wrote in her curling, beautiful handwriting, which made Isabelle’s spiky, quick handwriting look like cow poo.
‘Ring-a-ring o’ roses. That’s the song you were singing when we met.’
Cornelia smiled again.

***

Later that same day, Isabelle googled ‘Wishing Trees in Tasmania, Hobart’
She only got a few, and the closest one was in Launceston. The other two were too far away, and places she’d never heard of. She had relatives in Launceston anyway, so she decided to go and ‘visit’ them.

“Hey mum, let’s go see the cousins in Launceston. We haven’t seen them in ages and ages.” Said Isabelle in the most sweetest and innocent tone she could muster. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all that sweet and innocent.

“What makes you want to go now? Whenever I suggest going to see them, you say no. You say you don’t like them!” Retaliated her mother.

“And anyway, I’m not going all the way up to Launceston, just to see some people you don’t even like!”

And that was the end of that matter.
However, like a gift from God, an invitation came for Isabelle’s cousin’s eleventh birthday party.

Isabelle got her mother to accept.

“But Launceston is such a long way, just for a party! Why don’t we go somewhere else? Maybe even that Wishing Tree I told you about!” Isabelle’s mother thought Isabelle’s ‘wishing’ faze very odd. First a fountain, now a tree? But she gave her consent; yes they could go to the tree after the party. Isabelle was sure, that this one would do it.


CHAPTER SIX

The party was boring. Just a few cousins, aunties and uncles she hadn’t seen for three years, commenting on ‘How much she’s grown!’
Isabelle thought it was odd. They hadn’t seen her since she was eight, of course she had grown! But she put up with that with a patience that saints could not have.

She sang happy birthday, ate one slice of cake, and, as she classified all her cousins as ‘little kids’, and wanted to act ‘grown up’ pretended she was dieting, and had only the tiniest sliver of cake. She then regretted this, as her aunt was an extremely good cook.

As soon as the party was over, and everyone had said their goodbyes, Isabelle almost sprinted to the car, and waited impatiently at every red light on the way to the Wishing Tree.

When they finally arrived, a proud old oak tree stood alone, with just a plain wooden bench underneath.

It read:
‘This is the wishing tree. Planted in 1874, on top of Mr. Edward Collins grave, by his wife, Mrs. Primrose Collins. Edward was an ordinary, hard-working honest man, with a wife of the same attributes. They loved each other to the fullest extent, and for this tree, their love will live after their death.

Note: Do not make a wish here, unless it is, to you, of greatest importance.’

Isabelle thought this wish was of greatest importance to anyone.
She arranged herself under the tree, and marked where she started by placing a long thin twig against the tree. Then she began.
‘Ring-a-ring o’ roses.
A pocketful of posies
A-tishoo, A-tishoo!
We all fall down!’

Isabelle repeated this three times. She thought it very neat of it to end as soon as she finished one round of the tree, and she thanked the tree and the song for it.

When Isabelle finally finished, she nodded to the tree, and the ground below it, and thanked Mrs. Collins for planting it.

“What did you wish for sweetie?” asked Isabelle’s mum.

“Can’t say.” Replied Isabelle, lost in a world of her own wondering if Cornelia’s Papa was crying tears of joy at that very moment.

***

When Isabelle finally got home, she ran down to Notnef Court. Cornelia, was she better?
“Cornelia!” shouted Isabelle. It sounded strange in this empty place, her lonely voice echoing, Cornelia, Cornelia!

Cornelia appeared beside her, and spoke.
“Isabelle, oh Isabelle, my best friend in the whole wide world! Promise you won’t forget me!” Cried Cornelia, looking like she was about to cry.

“But why would I forget you? You can talk, and we will be even closer!” laughed Isabelle, just a little frightened of Cornelia’s watery eyes.

“I don’t have long, let me explain:
When I was born, it was 1894. I died when I was thirteen, in 1907.”
Oh, how confused and scared Isabelle was!
“It was raining, but every day, rain or shine, I would sit under the gum tree and sing. Well, I think a part of it must’ve been getting weak, because a big branch fell on me, and broke my back. I survived, but was confined to a wheelchair. I hated it, and finally realized I was dying, at thirteen. I didn’t want to die in a wheelchair, so I wheeled my way up to the gum tree, lifted myself out, and sang every song I knew. I died.”
At this, Isabelle burst into tears.

“So that’s how you appear! And you lied about your Papa!” she cried hysterically. It wasn’t the part about Cornelia’s Papa that got her upset. It was how Cornelia said she ‘didn’t have long’.

“Yes. And I am so sorry.” Said Cornelia sadly.

“Oh, I don’t care, Cornelia, you’re my best friend ever!” wailed Isabelle.

“And you are mine. But, after dying, I was condemned to sit under the tree and sing, never stopping, except to say one thing to every single person I meet and decide to waste words on. But if the curse was lifted, I could finally die, properly.” Cornelia had finally let the tears run freely down her soft pale cheek.

“Thank you so much.” She said, a quiver in her new, beautiful voice.

Oh, how Isabelle wailed! For Cornelia, beautiful, kind Cornelia was fading!


***

EPILOGUE

Cornelia faded into nothing, leaving only tears shining on the pavement, but soon they were gone too.

Isabelle stopped crying. She was left with a hollow, empty feeling, which had been there before Cornelia, but Cornelia had filled it! But now, it was gone.

Isabelle was never sure if she regretted making the wish. She wanted Cornelia, but what a life Cornelia would have, for there was no life, and she would never age! Isabelle would grow, and leave her friend behind, which would be even worse.

Isabelle was always sad after that, but continued her walks down Notnef Court, feeding her imagination, all the while, keeping her eyes off the gum tree. Now she could see a slight, ragged edge, right above where Cornelia used to sit. She hated it.

Sometimes, when she felt particularly sad, she would sit where she used to sit, and leaf through their scrapbook, laughing with tears in her eyes at the over-dramatic stories which already seemed too over the top. She saw a sunset, a quiet sunset, and wrote it down, every colour, and how beautiful it was, in its quiet way.

And sometimes, if she really listened, she could hear Cornelia singing.