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hate me, I tell you! And I hate them!”
    I cover my mouth with my hands and wish I could take back what I just said. I’ve been rude to the Green Man. He must be disappointed, maybe even angry at me. At any moment, he’ll get to his feet and vanish into the woods, and I’ll never see him again.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to shout at you. Don’t be angry.”
    â€œWhy would I be angry?” He looks puzzled.
    I realize I’m acting as if he’s an ordinary adult who gets mad at disrespectful kids. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I guess I forgot who you are.”
    â€œSometimes I forget who I am too.” He laughs, a big, jolly laugh that rolls through the trees. The kind of laugh that makes other people laugh too.
    I climb the tree and come back with my drawing stuff and some of my weapons and carvings. He looks at each one carefully. He really sees my drawings. Doesn’t say
Oh, this is good, you have talent
and then flip to the next one. He sighs and mumbles and takes in every detail. He turns the wooden swords and staffs over and looks at them from every angle, squinting to see if they’re straight and true.
    The last one I show him is the Green Man’s face I carved yesterday. “It’s not finished yet,” I tell him, “but can you tell who it is?”
    He smiles and sighs and turns the face this way and that way. “Is it me?” he asks at last.
    I nod. “I found your face and beard in the grain of the wood.”
    â€œBut you hadn’t even seen me then.”
    â€œNo, but I’ve glimpsed your face in the leaves and I’ve seen pictures in books and that made it easy.”
    â€œEasy? Work like this is never easy.”
    I smile. He does understand. “It was easy because the face was already there. All I had to do was let it out.”
    He chuckles. “All you had to do was let it out.”
    â€œYes, sir.” I sit back and feel the sun warm my back. I don’t need to ask if the Green Man thinks art is a waste of time. Like me, he knows it’s the most important thing in the world, in both the real world and the unreal world.
    The Green Man gets to his feet and stretches. “Thanks for the breakfast, Brendan.”
    I jump up, suddenly anxious. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
    â€œI’m always leafing,” he jokes.
    I smile so he’ll know I understood the joke, but it’s a fake smile. “No, really, are you going somewhere?”
    He waves an arm at the trees all around us. “I have a whole forest to tend to,” he says.
    â€œCan I go with you?”
    â€œNot today, Brendan. Maybe another time.”
    â€œYou’ll come back?”
    â€œOf course I will.”
    â€œWhen? When will I see you?”
    â€œMaybe tomorrow, maybe next week—it all depends on how much work I need to do.”
    â€œI’ll be here every day,” I tell him, but he’s already turning away, fading into the greenery as quietly as a deer. “Every day,” I call after him.
    But he’s gone, and the woods are silent as if every bird and animal is quiet in honor of his passing.
    I climb up to my platform and work on my carving. Now that I’ve met the Green Man, I have this strange feeling things might get better. I’m afraid to count on it, though. As soon as you let yourself believe something, you’re bound to be disappointed.

SIX
    S UMMER SCHOOL BEGINS . Mrs. Clancy drives me there to make sure I go. The classes aren’t in my old elementary school but in the middle school I’m supposed to attend in the fall. The building is at least twice as big but much older. It was the high school once. I don’t like the looks of the brick walls and narrow windows and steep stone steps. A kid could get lost in there.
    While Mrs. Clancy watches, I climb the steps slowly and push open the heavy green door.