When his father told him to come outside to see a surprise, Nathaniel followed him eagerly, expecting to find a new broom on the lawn. Instead, though, Father led him to…a tree. Not even a new tree, either – it had always been right there. Nathaniel looked at the tree, then back at his father, and then back at the tree, wondering if Father had gone mad.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“That, my boy, is because you are only paying attention to what you can see.” Nathaniel started to make a face but then paused, torn between curiosity about what he apparently couldn’t see and reluctance to hear a dull speech. His cousin Simon was the only person on earth, including the grown-ups Nathaniel knew, who liked hearing adults talk very much. Before he could settle on a reaction, his father took out his wand with a bit of a flourish, which turned into an elaborate wave.
A ladder seemed to emerge from the trunk of the tree of its own accord, leading up into the tall, broad branches Nathaniel tried jumping for every time Mother announced that she thought he was a little taller. Some of the ones above them seemed to be moving. The outlines of a house appeared among the branches and quickly began to fill themselves in, borrowing higher branches for parts of the roof. In what felt like an instant, the tree went from apparently empty to the support system for a fine-looking treehouse.
“Do you ‘get it’ now?” asked Father.
Nathaniel was too busy staring at his – and his cousin Sylvia’s, of course; since Sylvia’s brother was Simon and Nathaniel’s brother was a baby, Sylvia was his best friend – new possession to answer for a moment. “This is the surprise?” he managed finally. He had known that eventually, someday, he would have access to a treehouse because Sylvia had told him that Uncle was going to build them one at her house, but nobody had ever said a word about building them one here, too. “This is the best one ever!” And without further ado, he rushed for the ladder.
The inside was, if that was possible, even cooler than the outside. He looked around, trying to decide which walls were most likely to have other hidden surprises in them, and noticed two un-hidden things. One was a trapdoor. The other, coming through it, was his cousin.
“Sylvia?” On one hand, this was very convenient, since he could show it to her right now instead of later, but on the other hand… “When did you get here?”
*
Sylvia had been nagging her father for what - to a seven year old - felt like A Very Long time, about how she and Nate needed a treehouse. She hadn't told anyone why, but it was because of The Baby. The Baby had been ok when he had been just that, especially when he'd had the good sense to be born a boy and not steal her status as family princess, but since he'd got big enough to walk and talk, and especially since he'd been able to insist that he wasn't a baby and wanted to play too, he'd been terrible. And then the grown ups had started siding with him, and now they kept telling her to be nice and that it wouldn't hurt to include him once in a while. But he got to play with Nate all the time when the two of them were home together, so she didn't see why he needed to tag after his brother when they came over to play at her house. That was her time with Nate and she and Nate had been best friends as well as cousins since before his snotty little brother even existed. To get the treehouse, she had given the excuse that she and Nate needed the it because they had Important Secrets to discuss (which was also true, and it had been a tough decision to reveal the existence of their Important Secrets, even though, of course, she wouldn't tell what they were, and father had just laughed at that anyway, but it seemed worth it if they got a treehouse out of it), although the other reason was that she was worried that Nate would start to side with the grown ups over including The Baby. Not that Nate would ever choose anyone to be his best friend over her, but he was sweet and polite, and cared about pleasing the grown ups and making sure no one's feelings got hurt in a way that made it very lucky that he wasn't heir because (from what she had gathered) you had to be a bit more ruthless to get things done if you were heir. She was sometimes slightly jealous that she wasn't heir because ruling the world (which, broadly, seemed to be the goal of heirdom) sounded like quite a lot of fun to her.
Daddy had quickly acquiesced to making the treehouse - 'anything for my girl' was practically a second family motto - but he kept having to go on business trips or do other boring grown up things which had made it take time, and having to wait was not one of Sylvia's strong points (although the grown ups were starting to warn her about keeping such things in check, because proper ladies didn't pout or stamp their feet, which was vexing because those things had always worked exceptionally well for getting her what she wanted. Apparently, as a lady, she would have to learn new tricks).
As she came down to breakfast, her father was there reading the paper, which surprised her as she thought he'd gone on another boring, tree-house-delaying trip. That was what mother had said last night...
"Good morning, Princess," he smiled, "What are you going to do after breakfast?"
"I don't know. I might practise my penmanship until Nate can come over," she suggested, because practising things put Daddy in a good mood, and maybe if he was in a good mood, he wouldn't be too busy with work to do what she wanted him to do....
"Oh," he mused. "I thought you might want to go play in your treehouse."
"It's finished? Really, really finished at last?" she gasped, throwing her arms around his neck.
"Sylvia, don't say 'at last' like that - I've done it as quickly as I can," he admonished, but he was laughing whilst he said it, and patting her hair.
Without touching her breakfast, she ran outside, down the length of the back garden, to where the best tree grew, ancient and twisting. The wooden palace in its branches shone, varnished and perfect and complete. Sylvia eagerly climbed the ladder. Her father watched from the doorway, a small smile gracing his features. Between them, he and Nathaniel's father had arranged for the treehouse to have an extra surprise....
As Sylvia opened the trapdoor and scrambled into the treehouse, an even bigger smile broke across her face.
"Nate!" she grinned, though her expression turned to confusion at the odd way he phrased his question. "What do you mean? I just came down from breakfast - Daddy just told me he'd finished the treehouse. But I wasn't expecting you to be here until this afternoon. Isn't this the best though? Now we have all day and a treehouse to spend it in!"
Nathaniel grinned, too, when Sylvia pointed out the advantages of their situation, but he was still confused. “Yes, it is,” he said. “But – oh! I don’t know – I thought the treehouse was going to be at your house. That’s why I was so surprised when Father showed me this one….” He bit his lip, hoping Sylvia wasn’t upset about it being at his house instead of hers.
"What do you mean?" asked Sylvia. As a rule, Nate didn't tease people, and especially not her, so she knew it wasn't that, and her best guess was that he was trying be funny. Or that someone had confunded him, but the list of likely suspects in his own house was very short, unless the baby had done it as accidental magic because of being left out. "We are at my house. I mean, we are in our treehouse, which is at my house, just like we planned," she explained, unable to decide between skeptical and concerned as she still wasn't sure why Nate was being this way. "Look out the window if you don't believe me," she said, gesturing to the window beside her from which there was a clear view of the sweeping lawn up of the family's main estate, and which she felt ought to settle the argument either way.
For a moment, Nate had stopped feeling confused and started feeling kind of stupid, sure he had just somehow had it all turned around all along. Then Sylvia answered him and he went back to being confused. From her expression, he thought his cousin might have just joined him in that particular boat..
Obediently, he went over to the window Sylvia indicated and looked out of it. “Whoa,” he exclaimed. “That is your house – but – “ he waved his hands imploringly, hoping the heavens would intercede and assure them both he hadn’t just gone crazy, and went back to the window on his side. “There’s my house, too, though,” he said, pointing to it. “See? I came from my house, and you came from your house….”
He trailed off for a moment as he put two and two together. “It goes to both of them!” he exclaimed.
Sylvia looked out of the window Nate indicated, her jaw dropping as she saw the garden of his town house. Her heart leapt as her cousin voiced his conclusion. There were rumours of a number of secret passageways connecting the two houses, but they had never managed to find any, but now.... could it possibly be true that they had a private one all of their own? Whilst it was the only logical explanation, Sylvia went down the trapdoor on Nate's side, and then back out on her own, and made him do the same just to be sure, and then once more for fun.
"It does!" she confirmed, eyes shining, "It really, really does!"
She had imagined all kinds of things they could do once they had their treehouse, and now her mind was spinning as she considered all the new opportunities this gave them. This was going to be the best summer ever.
[Cowritten by wilde_at_heart as Sylvia, and bauerandcompany as Nathaniel]