Violet Mackerel’s Pocket Protest Read online

  For Lisa (my friend)

  —A. B.

  For Anna

  —E. A.

  Violet Mackerel is under the big, old oak tree at Clover Park. She is collecting acorns with Rose, her very good friend and neighbor. So far they have about twenty each, but they are still looking for more, mainly because it is nice to be under the oak tree where the sun filters through yellowish-green, the smells are musty and earthy, and small creatures sometimes rustle and scurry in the leaves.

  Just as their pockets are getting too full to hold many more acorns, a truck pulls up and two people get out. They are dressed in matching green overalls with red writing that says JOHNSON’S TREE SERVICES.

  Violet wonders what sort of work they might do. Rose guesses that tree servicers might be a bit like waiters at a restaurant, except instead of bringing drinks in tall glasses on trays, they bring them in buckets and hoses. Violet suspects they could be a bit like doctors, only instead of counting heartbeats and listening to deep breaths, they count acorns and listen to rustling leaves. They both think that when they are older they might like to have matching overalls that say VIOLET AND ROSE’S TREE SERVICES.

  The people in the van walk over to the tree, so Rose is able to ask them what they do instead of guessing. They say that their work isn’t much like being a waiter or a doctor, but they don’t really have time to explain what it is like. Mainly they just need Violet and Rose to move away so they can measure different parts of the tree and take pictures without being disturbed.

  Vincent is sitting nearby on a wooden bench reading a book called Honeymooning on a Shoestring. He and Violet’s mama got married quite a while ago now, but there wasn’t enough money for a honeymoon, so they are thinking of having a late one. Violet has had lots of good ideas for them, like scuba diving in the ocean or possibly going to space. But there is still not much money for a honeymoon, especially not one that involves diving equipment or rockets, so they definitely need the shoestring sort. That is why Vincent and Violet borrowed the book from the library.

  Violet and Rose both feel a bit shy after being asked to move away from the oak tree, so they join Vincent on the bench and look at the book with him. The bench is their second favorite place in the park because it has a nice goldish plaque that says IN MEMORY OF EVA.

  It twinkles as if the dusty old wood is wearing a brooch. They like wondering who Eva might have been.

  “What do you think those people are doing?” Violet asks Vincent.

  But before he can answer, the woman in the overalls calls out and asks if there is a gas station nearby. Vincent is a bit deaf, so he has to go up quite close to hear her question properly and ends up talking with them for a little while.

  “Did they tell you anything?” asks Rose when he joins them back on the bench with a slight frown on his face.

  “Yes,” says Vincent. “They told me they’ve been hired to cut down the oak tree.”

  “Cut it down?” checks Violet.

  “Cut it right down?” double-checks Rose.

  Vincent nods. “There is going to be a parking lot built over this part of the park, and they need to clear the land before laying down the concrete.”

  “They can’t do that!” says Violet.

  “Unfortunately, they can,” says Vincent. “They’re coming back in two weeks to do the job.”

  It is a horrible surprise.

  Before leaving, the people from Johnson’s Tree Services bang a big sign onto the tree with a noisy hammer. It says:

  It is quite late in the day now, so the birds are getting a bit noisy. The cicadas have started singing, and the insects are turning golden in the setting sunlight. Violet, Vincent, and Rose do the slow, quiet walking that people do after they find out something worrying.

  When they get to Violet’s house, Violet and Rose go up to Violet’s room to talk and think. They have told each other their best secrets under the oak tree. They have found some very good small things there too—not just acorns, but leaf skeletons and a butterfly wing and even a golden dollar coin. Once they made a daisy chain that went all the way around the trunk. It is hard to imagine the park without the oak tree.

  “Do you have any theories that might help?” asks Rose. Violet has theories about lots of things, and they are sometimes useful for solving problems.

  Violet thinks. “No,” she says. “Maybe it’s because my theories are mostly about small things, and this is a very, very big thing.”

  Rose thinks too. “Johnson’s Tree Services said the chopping won’t actually happen for two weeks,” she says. “There must be something we can do before then.”

  Violet agrees, but she doesn’t know what that something could be. That is the problem.

  At dinnertime it is just Violet, Vincent, and Violet’s big sister, Nicola, because Rose has gone home and Mama and Violet’s big brother, Dylan, are at a violin recital. They talk about the problem of the oak tree. Vincent says he is going to write a letter to the local newspaper, which Violet thinks is a very good idea. But she is still hoping for a good idea of her own.

  “You could try holding a protest,” Nicola says. “Lara and I organized one at school last year.”

  Violet remembers Nicola and Lara’s protest. The sports department had planned to turn one of the art studios into a sports equipment room because there wasn’t enough space for all the hoops and bats and they said hardly anyone was using the studio. But Nicola and her best friend, Lara, did use it, almost every day. So they started a petition, which they told Violet is a long list of names and signatures of people who think something is important. Their friends and even some of their teachers signed it. Nicola and Lara dressed up as artists in berets and artists’ smocks and carried big cardboard signs that said SAVE OUR STUDIO and RIGHTS FOR ARTISTS NOW. They marched around the school doing a chant they made up, which Violet remembers because they practiced it quite a lot in Nicola’s room.

  One, two, three, four.

  We won’t take it anymore.

  Five, six, seven, eight.

  We need spaces to create.

  Eight, seven, six, five.

  Keep art in our school alive.

  Four, three, two, one.

  Or its beauty will be gone.

  It was a very good chant, Violet thought.

  After dinner, Violet, Vincent, and Nicola watch a television show about vacations. Vincent is hoping there might be a shoestring segment, but the show is more the sort with hotels and pools and spas and towels cleverly folded into the shape of a bird. Violet wishes there could be folded-bird towels on Mama and Vincent’s honeymoon. But mainly she is too busy thinking about other things.

  Violet’s mind’s eye is seeing herself and Rose leading an enormous protest, wearing very good costumes. Violet has a tree costume with eyeholes and leafy branches, and Rose has a bird costume with a built-in nest and eggs. They are marching around the park, holding a big sign that says SAVE OUR OAK TREE. Their petition is as long as a dictionary. A huge crowd of people is following them, and some of the people are dressed up too, as trees, birds, and other animals whose natural habitat is the oak tree. (Although, their costumes are not quite as nice as Violet’s and Rose’s.) They are doing a special tree-saving chant, which Violet’s mind’s ear can’t quite hear yet. But her mind’s eye is doing a very good job of seeing a little plane writing SAY NO TO CHOPPING across the sky above the park. It would be an excellent protest, Violet thinks.

  It is just about bedtime, so Violet says thank you to Nicola for the good idea and goes up to her room to put on her pajamas and think a bit more. She wishes it was not too late to go over to Rose’s house and tell her about the enormous protest and the little plan
e. It would also be good to see if Rose has any ideas to solve some of the problems Violet is already starting to think of too.

  For example, at Nicola’s school there were quite a lot of people there to see the costumes and read the signs and hear the chanting and join the protest. But except for Violet and Rose and Vincent, there is usually no one in the park at all apart from some small animals that are not very good at protesting. So who would see? Also, big signs and costumes and a small plane are quite a lot to organize, especially in only two weeks.

  When Mama gets back from the violin recital, she comes upstairs to say good night, and Violet tells her about the oak tree and the parking lot and Johnson’s Tree Services.

  “Do you think there is even a small chance we will be able to save the oak tree?” Violet asks.

  “If the decision has already been made, then probably only a very small chance,” says Mama. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying, if it’s for something very important.”

  Mama has some vacation brochures in her hand, and Violet suspects she is thinking of the important honeymoon as well as the important oak tree. But as she goes to sleep, she thinks about what Mama has said. The oak tree is very important. So it is worth trying.

  The next morning is Saturday, which is market day for the Mackerels and Vincent. They have a stall with Mama’s knitted things on one side and Vincent’s china birds on the other and a section in the middle where china birds sit in small knitted nests. Violet likes the middle section best, and when she goes with them to the market, it is her job to choose the right nest for the right bird. But this morning Violet is going to Rose’s house instead. She is going to take her notebook in case they need to do some plotting.

  Even though it is normal for the Mackerels and Vincent to wake up very early on Saturday mornings, lots of other people sleep in on that day, so Mama says Violet needs to wait for quite a while before she goes next door. Violet uses the extra time to work on a chant about saving the oak tree.

  She would quite like to write one with numbers like Nicola and Lara’s, so she starts by writing One, two, three, four in her notebook. Unfortunately, there are not very many oak-tree-related words that rhyme with “four.” However, Violet has been doing fractions at school, and she has the good idea of trying those. She writes One, two, two-and-a-half, three, which turns out to rhyme quite well with Please do not chop down our tree. Violet smiles. Then she draws possible costumes for herself and Rose until it is time to go next door.

  Rose and her mama are having breakfast smoothies from their special smoothie maker when Violet arrives, and there is enough left over for Violet to have one too. Rose is quite excited to hear about the petition and the signs and the little plane. She also likes the chant and the tree and bird costumes.

  She agrees, though, about the problem of there being no people in the park to join the protest and also about the slight trickiness of organizing even a very small plane. But Rose’s mama says there is some cardboard in the recycling so at least they can start by making a sign.

  They find two cereal boxes that they open up and stick together with sticky tape to make one biggish piece of cardboard. On the gray side where there aren’t any pictures of cereal, Rose writes save our oak tree because her writing is the neatest, and Violet draws the tree because her tree drawings are quite good. They have to leave a little space where the tape is because the pens don’t draw there. Violet and Rose look carefully at their work. It is not a bad sign. But it is not much like the one in their minds’ eyes.

  Rose frowns. “I think for an enormous protest, what we need is a really big sign,” she says, “so everyone will see it and want to join us. I’m not sure if anyone will notice a small grayish sign.”

  Violet thinks. “Rose,” she says, “you and I would notice a small sign, no matter what color it was.”

  “We would especially notice a sign if it was small,” agrees Rose.

  “And we are the sort of people who mind a lot about things like tree chopping.”

  Rose nods, and Violet thinks a bit more.

  “It might be that the sort of people who notice small signs are the sort who care most about small things,” Violet says. “Things like birds not having nests and people not having a place to collect acorns.”

  Rose smiles. Violet writes her idea down in her notebook. She calls it the Theory of Seeing Small Things.

  “That is a very good theory,” says Rose.

  Although the cereal boxes were the biggest pieces of cardboard in Rose’s recycling, there are lots of smaller pieces that are not gray and do not have pictures on them. They are perfect for making small signs that say catchy things like: and there is still space underneath to write SAVE OUR OAK TREE, so people will know exactly what they mean. Violet and Rose make quite a lot of small signs while they practice the fractions chant.

  Late that afternoon, when Mama and Vincent are back from the market, Vincent would like to finish reading Honeymooning on a Shoestring, so he goes with Violet and Rose to Clover Park again. Their small signs are just the right size to carry in their pockets.

  They put a few of them in special places along the path that runs through the park, and Vincent helps with the high-up places. Violet and Rose also do their chant, even though no one is there to hear it except for Vincent. They also do a sort of protesting dance, which ends up going around the trunk of the oak tree.

  “Don’t worry, ants,” says Violet to three small black ones crawling up the trunk. “We’re going to save your home.”

  “Don’t worry, birds,” calls Rose up into the branches. “We’re going to save your nests.”

  If Violet and Rose stand on opposite sides of the tree and give it a very big hug, they find that they can hold hands around it.

  “Don’t worry, oak tree,” whispers Violet into the scratchy bark.

  “We are doing our very best to help,” whispers Rose.

  They stay under the oak tree for a long time.

  Violet saves the last of the small signs to tweak between the wooden slats under the Eva brooch on the bench. After that, Violet and Rose look around at the protest they have begun. It is quite different from the enormous one their minds’ eyes first saw. This is more of a pocket protest. But they quite like it and are both feeling very hopeful about the Theory of Seeing Small Things. Perhaps someone who cares about small things will spot one of the signs and know exactly what to do to save the oak tree. Even though the wind is picking up and the leaves are starting to rustle together, hardly any of the signs are blowing away.

  Vincent is feeling quite hopeful too. He and Mama sold a lot of china birds and knitted things at the market this morning, so they really might be able to do one or two of the ideas in his honeymoon book.

  But when Violet and Vincent arrive back home after saying good-bye to Rose, some bad news is waiting for them, which is rather a lot of water on the floor.

  Mama and Nicola are mopping it up with towels, and Dylan is building a dam of socks in the laundry doorway to stop the water from flowing out. Everyone is in a slight panic.

  “The washing machine leaked,” says Mama, handing some dripping towels to Vincent to wring out over the sink.

  Violet adds more socks to Dylan’s sock dam and watches the water puddling in the laundry.

  Even though it seems like quite a big flood at first, the water has not leaked too far past the sock dam, and with all five of them working, it doesn’t take very long to clean it up. Violet doesn’t mind the feeling of bare feet on wet towels, with warmish soapy water coming up between her toes. Plus, the laundry floor looks quite a lot cleaner than it did before. But Mama and Vincent look a bit gloomy.

  Later on, when Violet is having some warm milk before bed, Vincent says it will be hard to get by in a house with five people and no washing machine. By the end of one week, that is seventy socks alone (which is why Dylan and Violet were able to build such a good dam). And the Mackerels and Vincent wear a lot of other clothes besides soc
ks. Mama says the washing machine was already quite old and is beyond repair, and they will have to use the honeymoon savings to buy a new one.

  “Oh well.” Mama sighs. “It was fun thinking about the honeymoon anyway.” Vincent gives her a hug and so does Violet.

  Even though Violet had been feeling hopeful on the walk home from the park, she is feeling a lot less hopeful now. Mama has put the vacation brochures and her list of favorite honeymoon ideas away in a drawer, and she is sighing and unpicking part of her knitting that has gone a bit wrong. Vincent is calling his friend Buzz to see if he can help with the washing machine in the morning.

  Violet is sad that Mama and Vincent will not be having a honeymoon, not even the shoestring sort. And there is another reason Violet is feeling glum. The small wind that was rustling the leaves at the park has grown into quite a strong one, and now the sound of rain is starting to batter against the window. Normally that is a sound Violet especially likes. But not when she is thinking of the small signs blowing and washing away.

  Violet makes one last small sign on a piece of paper from her notebook, just to cheer herself up. She writes rights for honeymooners. In the corner she draws a towel that has been cleverly folded into the shape of a bird. Before she goes to bed, she sticks the sign on the fridge with a magnet.

  The Theory of Seeing Small Things might be trickier than it first seemed. Not even Violet or Rose would notice a small sign in the park that had been washed or blown away. And the only people who will see the honeymoon sign on the fridge are her family, and they all wanted Mama and Vincent to have a honeymoon anyway.

  The next morning it is still drizzling, but there is a nice cheering smell coming from the kitchen because Sunday is the day that Vincent makes pancakes. Today he is making quite a few extra because his friend Buzz is coming and Buzz never says no to a pancake. Neither does Rose, who arrives under a beautiful umbrella that her papa brought back from Japan. It looks a bit like an upside-down teacup without a handle.