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sings out a little too happily, and my eyes pop open.
    There are certain phrases people say to me that I
always
have to respond to. Saying
good night
is one of them, and Jessie knows it.
    “ ’Night, Jessie,” I say as quickly as I can, trying to make it sound as if it’s the last time we’ll be doing this.
    I’m about to drift off when she does it again.
    “ ’Night, Cory.”
    “Stop doing that, Jessie!” I yell back, and quickly follow it up with another “ ’Night, Jessie.”
    This isn’t like her. Jessie is almost always on my side, but lately things are changing. She used to let me join in when her friends came over to play, but now she takes them right to her room and locks the door. I guess it’s hard for her to have a brother like me when she’s trying to be regular.
    Yesterday she deliberately got me in trouble. When my mother wasn’t around, she told me that it was okay to pee in the bathroom sink. And when I did, she told on me.
    It’s easy for Jessie to trick me, just like she’s doing tonight. She’s smart and plans ahead much better than I do. A while back, she made up a rule that whoever yells
Front seat
first gets it when we go for a ride. I agreed because I thought I’d always remember, but so far she’s won about a hundred times in a row. Occasionally she remembers to call
Front seat
when we’re still in the house. And every time she wins, she laughs in triumph.
    I stay awake for a long time, waiting for Jessie to say it again, which is just as bad as her doing it, but finally, when nothing more happens, the medicine takes over and I drift off into . . .
    “ ’Night, Cory.”
    The gleeful little call splits open the darkness, and I sit up in bed and yell for my mother, who shows up fast.
    “What’s the matter, Cory? Are you all right?”
    “Jessie won’t stop saying ‘ ’Night, Cory.’ She’s doing it on purpose.”
    Mom ducks into Jessie’s room and scolds her until she promises to stop.
    Finally, sleep arrives, and with it my best dream. I’m riding a motorcycle on a highway that goes on forever. I’m traveling faster and faster, bent down over the handlebars, passing everyone else. I’m not thinking about anything as the cars and trees fly past — except the thrill that’s rippling through my body.
    Eventually I’m going so fast that my motorcycle races ahead of the sound of its roaring engine, and I’m moving in a state of blissful quiet, as if I’m the only one at the very tip of a spaceship. A wonderful voice talks to me, telling me that this is how happy I will be someday.
This blessed freedom will be mine.
    And then comes another voice, from another place and time, a softer one, just loud enough for me to hear.
    “ ’Night, Cory.”

Part Two
    ONWARD AND DOWNWARD
    The Lure of Branches

Chapter 18
    I STARE UP at the two-hundred-year-old tree in my backyard, almost out of breath from the excitement. It’s more than a hundred feet tall. I wonder how many storms it must have survived to still be here, waiting for a barefoot kid with an unusual urge to climb.
    The tree trunk has to be at least twenty feet around and looks like a huge elephant’s foot. I wonder if I’m really crazy to be doing this, but I don’t think so.
Crazy
is someone who kills people because his dog tells him to.
    I have to climb because there’s no other way to get rid of the urge that’s building up inside me. It’s as if I have wires in my brain that light up at the thought of it, but they’re wired to the wrong places and don’t allow the electricity to turn off.
    So this isn’t about being crazy. This is about bad wiring.
    Right now I should be at school with the other fifth graders, but today I can’t sit still long enough to make it through the whole day.
    So this afternoon, while the other kids are learning English, geography, and math, my assignment is climbing.
    Lucky for me, the kids who lived here before left a homemade rope ladder that’s still attached to the first