Teddy waited beside Barnes, wide-eyed and half expecting the tree’s roots to crawl out of the maelstrom after him. But when the cloud cleared, there was nothing left but a pile of dust on the lawn.
“It was rotten to the core the whole time,” Barnes said.
“No,” Teddy corrected him. “It was starving.”
At that moment, a gigantic flock of seagulls from the river swooped in. They passed over the A-house, then rose into the sky like a single ghostly-white sheet. It was magnificent, and Teddy smiled for the first time he could remember in days. He couldn’t wait to tell Albert.