The Last Summer of the Treehouse

The treehouse had been built by Jonah's dad and Caleb's dad together when both boys were five. It sat in the oak at the back of Jonah's garden — big enough for two sleeping bags, a milk crate of comics, and a jar of biscuits they kept replacing. It had a rope ladder that creaked, a window that faced east, and a roof that leaked in hard rain but in a manageable, character-building way.

They had been going up there since they were five. They were nine now.

Four years of summers, and some autumns, and a few Christmases when the dads declared it "suitably weatherproof with sleeping bags and a flask."

Four years of arguments and reconciliations and shared silence. Four years of plans, some carried out, some abandoned, all remembered.

And now Jonah's dad had a new job. In Edinburgh. Jonah's family was moving in August.

The last summer had begun.

On the first day, Caleb brought a notebook.

"We're going to write everything down," he said, climbing up the rope ladder with the notebook tucked under one arm. "Everything that ever happened here. So we don't forget."

Jonah sat in his usual corner. He was good at listening, the way Caleb was good at talking. Between them, they made a complete person.

"We're not going to forget," Jonah said.

"We will," said Caleb. "That's what happens. You think you won't and then you do." He opened the notebook. "So we're writing it down."

Jonah didn't argue. He helped.

They called the notebook The Treehouse Record and they filled it over the course of June.

They wrote about the summer they were six and decided to camp out and lasted until 11pm before Jonah's mum appeared at the garden door and they both pretended they'd been planning to come in anyway.

They wrote about the summer they were seven and had a feud — a real one, seven days of pure hostile silence — about something so small that neither of them could remember exactly what it was, only that it was the worst seven days of Caleb's life and that when they made up on day eight they made up completely, without conditions.

They wrote about the summer they were eight and Jonah's dog Biscuit had somehow climbed the rope ladder and been unable to get back down, and they'd had to lower her in a dog-sized basket made of two jumpers tied together, and she had seemed entirely untroubled by the experience.

They drew pictures. They stuck in things: a sweet wrapper from a particular memorable packet, a leaf from the oak that had been exactly the right colour, a folded piece of paper that was a note one of them had passed to the other in class that had made the other laugh so hard they got in trouble.

The Record grew fat and wrinkled and smelled of summer and biscuits.

July was for adventures.

They agreed on this wordlessly — the way they agreed on most things, without needing many words — that June had been for remembering, and July should be for doing.

So in July they cycled to the disused railway line and followed it for six miles until they ran out of steam and had to call Jonah's mum for a ride back. They built a dam in the stream at the edge of the field and watched it fail satisfyingly. They stayed up until two in the morning watching a meteor shower and counting and arguing about whether a particular smear of light counted as one meteor or two.

They did the thing they'd always talked about and never done: they each wrote their biggest wish on a piece of paper, put them in an empty jam jar, sealed it with wax from a candle, and buried it under the roots of the oak, three feet down.

"What did you wish for?" Caleb asked, tamping down the earth.

"I'm not telling," said Jonah.

"Me neither," said Caleb. He paused. "Was it the same thing?"

"Probably," said Jonah.

They didn't say what it was. They both knew.

August came.

The moving boxes appeared in Jonah's house and filled the rooms like a strange tide. The walls developed pale rectangles where pictures had been. The garden began to look the way gardens do when the people who love them are already thinking about somewhere else.

On the last Friday, with the removal van coming on Sunday, Caleb and Jonah spent the whole day in the treehouse.

They brought all the provisions. They read their comics. They talked about everything and nothing — the new school they'd both be starting in September (separate ones, now), the possibility of visiting in the holidays, the plan to text every day.

At dusk, Caleb opened the Record to the last blank page.

"Write something," he said.

Jonah took the pen. He thought for a long time, chewing the end of it the way he always did when he was thinking seriously.

Then he wrote:

This place is not the tree or the wood or the rope ladder. This place is the years of us being in it. And that part comes with us.

Caleb read it.

He sat with it for a minute.

"That's really good," he said.

"I know," said Jonah.

They stayed until it was fully dark and the stars were out and both of their mums had texted twice. They climbed down the rope ladder — Jonah first, then Caleb, both of them slow. At the bottom, Caleb looked up at the treehouse. The oak moved in the wind.

He thought: I am going to miss this so much it will feel like something physical.

He thought: But Jonah was right. The best part comes with us.

Jonah was watching him.

"Same time next summer?" Jonah said. "I'll come back for the holidays."

"Same time next summer," said Caleb.

They did not hug. They were nine-year-old boys and they had a public image to maintain, even with no one watching. But they stayed standing there for a moment longer than necessary.

Then they went inside.

The End.