ONE
There once was a treehouse so big and so tall,
From which little Tommy took a great fall.
He broke all his bones with a big, loud snap,
And landed below with his neck in his lap.
But Tommy still waits there, alone in the night,
And he’ll pull you down if you don’t hold on tight.
I was five years old when little Tommy Leeman went missing. I had never met him. In fact, another five years would pass before I first heard about Tommy’s treehouse and what supposedly took place there.
What follows is my account of what happened to me and some of my childhood friends. These are not exaggerations. I will tell this story exactly as I remember it. It is up to you to accept my testimony as truth or wave it aside as another hoax or campfire story.
This is the story of Tommy Leeman’s treehouse, and what happened to us there.
“Come on, Mark! What are you waiting for?”
Julie stood at the top of the hill, her yellow, mud-stained dress blowing in the soft breeze. It was late August. Soon, the yellow dresses and bare knees would have to make way for raincoats and jeans.
“I’m trying! You know I don’t run that fast.”
I tried to keep up with the group, my cheeks flushed from running. When I finally did make it to the top of the hill, the surrounding fields and woods stretched out before us, glowing orange in the setting sun.
“Are we really sure this is a good idea? I mean, we are supposed to be home soon.”
“Oh, does poor little Marky need to be home soon?”
She pretended to suck her thumb and rubbed her eyes like a baby. This made me blush even more. Julie noticed, as usual.
“Where are Jackson and Lucas anyway?” I cupped my hands around my eyes and used them as makeshift binoculars to scan the fields, but I could not see them anywhere.
“They went to the treehouse.”
“No, they didn’t.” I lowered my hands and stared straight into Julie’s grey eyes.
“They did!”
“Julie, you know our parents don’t allow us there!”
“Come on, Mark! It’s the end of the summer, and we all wanted to do something special, remember? This is it!”
“We all agreed to bike to the lake tomorrow,” I tried to convince her, but I already knew that ship had sailed.
“Lucas! Jackson!” I called for them a couple of times, but a reply never came. I couldn’t tell if they couldn’t hear me because of the wind or if they were simply ignoring me.
The woods started at the bottom of the hill, where the tall grass suddenly gave way to bushes and tightly packed trees. From where we stood, I could only see a few feet past the edge before everything disappeared behind branches and leaves.
“Seems like we will have to go find them after all.”
Julie started for the woods, and I had to follow her to hear what she said next.
“If we can start school next week and tell all our classmates we visited the treehouse this summer, everyone will think we are cool!”
I couldn’t argue with that. Some other kids claimed to have visited the year before, and everyone thought they were the coolest kids in school. Rumors even spread that they had gone inside, though I wasn’t sure if that part was true.
Julie turned her head and smiled when she saw me thinking about it.
“We can’t let Jackson and Lucas take all the credit now, can we?”
Again, I couldn’t argue with that.
We didn’t understand back then why our parents did not want us to visit Tommy Leeman’s old treehouse. We knew we would get in trouble if someone caught us, but we were young. And young kids do stupid things. It’s one of the unwritten laws of the universe.
So, in our ignorance, Julie and I chased after my friends and towards the woods.
