A few minutes later Cass arrived with Brianna, pulling a small, red metal wagon. They loaded the softener salt, compost, and bucket of Tree Seal into the bed and headed back down the drive, Nest and Robert pulling the wagon, Cass and Brianna helping to balance its load. They followed the road out to Spring, then turned down Spring until they reached Mrs. Eberhardt's blacktop drive, which ran back through her lot to her garage at the edge of the park. They were halfway down the drive when Alice Eberhardt appeared, yelling at them for trespassing on private property. This was nothing new. Mrs. Eberhardt yelled at every kid who cut through her yard, and there were a lot of them. Robert said it was Mrs. Eberhardt's fault for providing them with a shortcut in the first place. He assured her now, giving her his "don't mess with me" look, that this was an emergency, so the law was on their side. Mrs. Eberhardt, who was a retired insurance adjuster and convinced that all kids were looking to get into trouble, but especially the ones in her yard, shouted back that she knew who Robert was and she was going to speak to his parents. Robert said she should call the house before seven, because his father was still doing nights in jail until the end of the month and his mother would probably go off to visit him after dinner.
They reached the end of the driveway, detoured around the garage to the back of the lot, and set off into the park. The woods began immediately, so they moved to the nearest trail and followed it in.
"You are really asking for it, Robert," Brianna observed, but there was a hint of admiration in her voice.
"Hey, this is how I look at it." Robert cocked his head, a savvy bantam rooster. "Each day is a new chance to get into trouble. I don't ever pass up those kinds of chances. You know why? Because even when I don't go out of the house, I get into trouble. Don't ask me why. It's a gift. So what's the difference if I get into trouble at Mrs. Eberhardt's or at home? It's all relative." He gave Brianna a smirk. "Besides, getting into trouble, is fun. You should try it sometime."
They worked their way deeper into the woods, the heat and the silence growing. The sounds of the neighborhood faded. Gnats flew at them in clouds. "Yuck." Brianna grimaced.
"Just a little additional protein for your diet," Robert cracked, licking at the air with his tongue.
"What are we doing out here?" Cass asked Nest, plodding along dutifully, one hand balancing the sacks of salt and compost in the swaying wagon.
Nest spit out a bug. "There's a big oak that's not looking too good. I'm going to see what I can do to help it."
"With salt and compost?" Robert was incredulous. "Tree Seal, I can see. But salt and compost? Anyway, why are you doing this? Don't they have people who work for the parks who are supposed to patch up sick trees?"
The trail narrowed and the ground roughened. The wagon began to bounce and creak. Nest steered around a large hole. "I tried getting hold of someone, but they're all off for the Fourth of July weekend," she improvised.
"But how do you know what to do?" Cass pressed, looking doubtful as well.
"Yeah, have you nursed other sick trees back to health?" Robert asked with his trademark smirk.
"I watched Grandpa once. He showed me." Nest shrugged dismissively and pushed on.
Fortunately, no one asked her for details. They worked their way along the trail through the weeds and scrub, swatting at bugs and brushing aside nettles, hot and miserable in the damp heat. Nest began to feel guilty for forcing her friends to come. She could probably handle this alone, now that she had the wagon and the supplies. Robert could go back to his computer and Cass and Brianna could go swimming. Besides, what would she do about Pick?
"You don't have to come any farther," she said finally, glancing over her shoulder at them, tugging on the wagon handle. "You can head back. I can manage."
"Forget it!" Robert snapped. "I want to see this sick tree."
Cass nodded in agreement. "Me, too. Anyway, this is more fun than doing hair." She gave Brianna a wry glance.
"Is it much farther?" Brianna asked, stepping gingerly around a huge thistle.
Five minutes later, they reached their destination. They pulled the wagon into the clearing and stood looking at the tree in awe. Nest wasn't sure if any of them had ever seen it before. She hadn't brought them herself, so maybe they hadn't. Whatever the case, she was certain from the looks on their faces that they would never forget it.
"Wow," whispered Robert. Uncharacteristically, he was otherwise at a loss for words.
"That is the biggest oak tree I have ever seen," Cass said, gazing up into its darkened branches. "The biggest."
"You know what?" Robert said. "When they made that tree, they threw away the mold."
"Mother Nature, you mean," Cass said.
"God," Brianna said.
"Whoever," Robert said.
Nest was already moving away from them, ostensibly to take a closer look at the oak, but really to find Pick. There was no sign of him anywhere.
"Look at the way the bark is split," said Cass. "Nest was right. This tree is really sick."
"Something bad has gotten inside of it," Brianna declared, taking a tentative step forward. "See that stuff oozing out of the sores?"
"Maybe it's only sap," said Robert.
"Maybe pigs fly at night." Cass gave him a look.
Nest rounded the tree on its far side, listening to the silence, to the murmur of her friends' voices, to the rustle of the feeders lurking in the shadows back where they couldn't be seen. She glanced left and right, seeing the feeders, but not Pick. Irritation shifted to concern. What if something had happened to him? She glanced at the tree, afraid suddenly that the damage was more extensive than they had believed, that somehow the creature trapped within was already loose. Heat and fear closed about her.
"Hey, Nest!" Robert called out. "What are we supposed to do, now that we're here?"
She was searching for an answer when Pick dropped from the tree's branches onto her shoulder, causing her to start in spite of herself. "Pick!" she gasped, exhaling sharply.
"Took you long enough," he huffed, ignoring her. "Now listen up, and I'll tell you what to do."
He gave Nest a quick explanation, then disappeared again. Nest walked back around the tree, gathered her friends together, and told them what was needed. For the next half hour they worked to carry out her instructions. Robert was given the Tree Seal to apply to the splits in the trunk, and he used the stirring stick and brush to slap the pitchlike material into place in thick gobs. Cass and Brianna spread the compost over the exposed roots and cracks, dumping it in piles and raking it in with their hands. Nest took the conditioner salt and poured it on the ground in a thin line that encircled the tree some twenty–five feet out from its base. When Robert asked what she was doing, she told him she was using the salt to protect the tree from a particularly deadly form of wood bore that was causing the sickness. The pitch would heal the sores, the compost would feed the roots, and the salt would keep other wood bores from finding their way back to the tree. It wasn't true, of course, but it sounded good.
When they were done, they stood together for a time surveying their handiwork. Robert gave his theory on tree bores, some wild concoction he said he had picked up on the Internet, and Brianna gave her theory on Robert. Then Cass allowed as how standing there looking at the tree was like watching grass grow, Brianna complained about being hot and thirsty, and Robert remembered the program he was downloading on his computer. It was not yet midafternoon, so there was still time to go swimming. But Nest told them she was tired and thought she would go home instead. Robert snorted derisively and called her a wimp and Cass and Brianna suggested they could just hang out. But Nest persisted, needing to be alone with Pick, distracted by thoughts of the maentwrog and tonight's meeting with Two Bears. The lie felt awkward, and she added to her discomfort by saying that Gran had asked her to do some additional chores around the house. She promised to meet them the following day in the park by the Indian mounds after church services and lunch.