Chapter 6

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Pete led Julie into her back yard, at which point he insisted that she look down, not up. Her parents and what looked like half of Tupelo followed at a respectful distance.

“OK, now just stay looking down,” Pete told the eager teenage girl, “OK, now on three-two-one you can look up. Ready?”

Julie was almost vibrating with excitement.

“Yes, yes I’m ready!”

“OK then,” Pete told her. “Three, two, one ... Look up!”

Julie looked up and gasped.

“Great Shades of Elvis!” she breathed.

Several of the neighbors were also seeing the treehouse for the first time. There was a general sort of appreciative noise.

“It’s beautiful,” Julie said. “And it’s all mine?”

“All yours,” Pete assured her. “But I hope you let your parents in from time to time.”

“Yeah, sure,” Julie agreed, grinning. “I mean, if they can do this for me, I can sure let them in from time to time. And Gramps and Grandmamma and Uncle ... Can we go inside?”

Pete chuckled at her excitement. He was always a little nervous showing the treehouse to a client for the first time, especially when it was a surprise to the client. But that Julie loved it was never in question from the first moment she laid eyes on it.

“Yes, we can go inside,” Pete told her, “but I need to show you something out here first.”

The man led Julie over to the tupelo tree. Paul and Paula followed, because they were not about to miss this.

“Your dad told me how important this particular tree was to you growing up,” Pete said. “Well now it’s important to this treehouse. It’s hollow so we can’t use it to support a lot of weight, so we brought the electrical and plumbing up through the hollow part. Then, we have this water purifier, which takes the run-off from the showers...”

“I have my own shower!” Julie blurted out.

Pete nodded. “You have two of them, for when you have guests. So this water purifier,” he continued, “takes the shower run-off, filters it to almost good enough to drink, and uses that to flush toilets. It only uses city water for that if there isn’t enough shower water. And then if it rains, that’s collected too. This collecting of rain water makes the toilets even more green and environmentally friendly.”

“What about the electricity to run the purifier?” Julie asked. If this was going to be green, it should be green for real.

“Solar,” said Pete, simply.

“That’s great!” Julie said. “I’m doing my part for the planet now.”

Pete suspected that Julie had been doing her part for the planet for some time now; she knew to ask about the electricity. But instead of asking about that he took her inside the treehouse. Julie gazed at her new home with her mouth hanging open. She ran her hands along a bookcase.

“I never had room before to put my books and manga,” she said softly.

Pete showed her the bathroom, with the big shower. She looked like a kid on Christmas morning when he showed her the lights, sound system, and three shower heads.

“Oh my God!” she cried. “You could almost have a whole party in here!”

Paul and Paula looked at each other, and Paul rolled his eyes. Paula was hiding a grin as Pete showed Julie the large closet.

“There’s plenty of room for clothes and stuff,” he told her, “but look at this. We’re leaving the decision of where to hang your posters to you, but our designer Tori has provided thirty poster frames and put them in the closet for when you need them.”

Julie looked almost like she might cry. But when Pete showed her the pull-down ladder and she climbed up to the loft, there really were tears in her eyes. For a moment she couldn’t get the words out.

“A big bed!”

Her parents had followed her up the ladder, and now her father put his arm around her.

“There’s a reason your mother and I have a queen bed,” he told her, “and now so do you.”

Julie hugged her father tight, and then hugged her mother just as tight.

“There are some rotten parents in this world,” she announced, “but I got the best ones.”

And indeed the fact that her parents didn’t just demand respect from her but also showed respect to her was even more important to the young woman than this wonderful treehouse.

They all went back down the ladder and watched as it re-folded itself back against the ceiling.

“Now I want to show you the deck,” Pete told Julie, “but first go over to that stereo and put some music on. And crank it up, real loud.”

Julie walked over to the stereo and saw the CD lying on top.

“Ah,” she said, “the latest Babymetal.”

Then she looked a little closer.

“Oh my ... Is this autographed!? How ... How did... ?”