The One Tree of Luna by Todd McCaffrey Read Free Book Online

herself as she added, “We thought that there was still time.” She shrugged and pulled herself together, letting out a little sigh — the sort of sigh she gave when she was forced to admit that I was growing up faster than she wanted. She gestured to my bed. “Sit, we’re going to be here for a bit.”
    â€œBut my homework!” I cried. “My projects!”
    â€œThey’ll wait,” mom said, grabbing a chair and pulling it to sit opposite me. She let out a long sigh. “Your father should be the one to tell you but I think it’s time you knew.”
    â€œKnow what?” I asked. Was my dad some sort of Japanese elf or a wood spirit? And then I knew. “She’s a wood spirit, isn’t she? That tree, dad’s tree, she lives in it.”
    Mom looked amazed and then smiled, reaching forward to ruffle my hair. “Very good! Very, very good! You’re as smart as your dad, little one!” She shook her head ruefully. “I suppose I’ll have to stop calling you little one, won’t I?”
    I shook my head. Mothers say silly things — it’s okay.
    â€œBut you’re only part right,” she said when she brought herself back from her reverie. “Your father’s tree died long before he came to the Moon.”
    â€œIt died? How?”
    And my mother told me. Now my mom has always been the smartest, most logical, scientific person that I’ve known — and I’ve got lots of other people who agree with me on that. So the story she told me was so far from what I’d expected that my eyebrows rose to the top of my forehead and stayed there pretty much the whole time.
    â€œMom,” I said slowly when she’d finished, “are you sure that dad wasn’t just pulling your leg?”
    â€œIt’s how he won my heart, honey,” Cheri Ki told me with a shake of her head and bright spots
     in her eyes. “I’m a botanist first and I know my craft.” She shook her head. “I not only
     examined the wood but I went to the other plantings —”
    â€œPlantings?”
    â€œThere were six seeds,” mom told me. “Your father planted five on them on Earth and the sixth one here.” She nodded toward the forest. She smiled at me. “You know, we’re always learning and we’re always discovering that we don’t know everything. It was your father showing me those saplings that showed me how much more there was to know and learn.” She paused for a moment. “So when he asked if I’d like to live with him on the Moon and make a new garden, I could only say yes.”
    â€œBut you’re a nutritionist!”
    â€œI grow things,” mom reminded me. “I grow things that help us breathe, that let us eat, that let us grow and survive.” She gestured with one arm in a wide arc, taking in all of the Moon. “We’ve made life where there was none, built a promise for the future.” She smiled as she met my eyes. “Built a home for your children.”
    â€œYou said that dad’s tree died,” I said, remembering her story.
    My mother is a very smart, very empathic person: she caught my unasked question with a twist of her lips. “The tree he planted here in the forest, that’s your tree sweetie.”
    â€œWhat happened to the other trees?” I asked in a very small voice.
    My mother heaved a deep sigh. “Your father is trying to find out.”
    â€œBut what happened?”
    â€œWe don’t know,” mom said. “All we know is that they’re all dead.”
    â€œSo mine is the last tree.”
    Wordlessly, Mom nodded.
    â€œWell then, that makes things simple,” I said, rising from the bed and moving toward my diagnostic unit.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œI’m going to save my tree.” My eyes went to the model rocket ships on my shelves and suddenly I realized that I’d