Stand Tall: Chapters 10–19

She wanted to become a trusted person in their lives, a teacher not just of the fox trot, the waltz, and the tango, but a role model of enduring memory.

Grandpa looked in the mirror Tree was holding up, put rouge on his cheeks, fastened the big white beard.

Only a few stalwart believers sat on Santa’s knee, and he managed.

She ripped a celery curl with chutney cream cheese from Pommerantz’s tiny teeth.

They all ran into the newly painted living room and watched as billows of black smoke blew into the room while the logs crackled in the fireplace.

Tree grabbed a broom from the closet, knelt down by the fireplace, breathing smoke, coughing as his lungs filled with it. He shoved the broomstick up to where the flue should be. Shoved four times, finally felt it pop open.

Mom crumpled on the floor in a woeful heap.

The aroma of perfect roast beef wafted from the oven.

The white oak stood like a skeleton covered with snow. It was hard to look at it and remember how full and lush it had been in the spring, how its leaves had turned to wine in the fall.

Bradley listened intently.

That score stood stark like a tree without leaves.

Jeremy Liggins sauntered up to Tree: “You’re a joke out there.”

He checked heymom.com every day, though.
Clicked on What We're About to read reminiscences of him and his brothers growing up.

“Vietnam wasn’t our war. That’s what the bigwigs in Washington told us.”

He was sticking his leg on, practicing walking in the house with Tree.
A couple of faltering steps.

He placed a letter in a plastic bag and put it on the wet ground for Corporal Michael Diggins.

The northeast section of the weather map showed storm clouds, lightning flashes, and blinking raindrops.
“They started sandbagging the levee in Burnstown.”

Tree stood waiting for it in his iridescent slicker, pummeled by wetness. He felt like some giant glow-in-the-dark road marker.

Tree stood waiting for it in his iridescent slicker, pummeled by wetness. He felt like some giant glow-in-the-dark road marker.

Sully, who’d lost two raincoats last week, showed up completely covered by Hefty bags. He stood morosely next to Tree.

Sarah Kravetz walked out, looked Sophie up and down like she’d fallen off a garbage truck. Didn’t even look at Tree.
Flounced off.

Sully lumbered by on his way to the principal’s office, sent there for turning his hearing aid off in social studies.

“I got the solo at assembly and I got the solo at the Memorial Day concert after the parade. I’m going to be a soldier of yesteryear and play this medley of war songs I’ve never heard before, but I’m going to know them in my sleep by May. It’s going to be a lot of pressure, but I think I’m up to it. Mr. Cloud said I had true feeling for the instrument.”

There is zero tolerance for cruelty at Eleanor Roosevelt.

Aunt Peach arrived at the school, folded her considerable arms, and eyed Sophie like a prison guard.