Doug Climbs a Tree
By Dan Bergstein

Doug couldn’t climb trees. He tried and tried, but couldn’t do it. His arms were too weak, his legs too short and, above all else, he didn’t know how to climb a tree. No one taught him.

The other kids teased Doug. They said, “You’ll never climb a tree!” And then they would run and climb the nearest tree and shout and laugh from the top of the tree.

And Doug was sad.

Doug cried in his room for many days. He even missed his own birthday, he was so sad.

He asked his mom how to climb trees, and his mom didn’t know. He asked his dad how to climb trees, and his dad didn’t know. He asked the mailman and the coffee shop waitress. They didn’t know. He asked a police officer who told him to stay out of trees because they are dangerous and that’s where snakes live. But Doug didn’t believe the part about the snakes.

Doug realized that adults forget how to climb trees. It’s something only kids and cats and squirrels understand. So Doug asked a cat and the cat stared at a wall as if Doug wasn’t there. And Doug asked a squirrel but the squirrel ran away before Doug could finish the question. Doug asked an ant he saw climbing up the side of a tree and the ant very rudely ignored Doug.

No one could teach Doug how to climb trees.

So Doug taught himself.

He grabbed a pile of paper and his favorite pencils and began sketching various ideas for tree climbing. He thought of ropes and balloons, ladders and springs. But nothing would really work.

And then one morning when Doug was brushing his teeth, an idea popped into his head so perfect and wonderful that Doug ran out of the house and all the way to the park with the toothbrush still in his mouth.

He looked at the grass and found a small maple seed. He took the seed to a spot of earth and planted it. And then Doug stood over the seed and waited.

He waited for minutes. He waited for hours. He waited for days. Finally, a small little baby tree sprouted. But Doug still had to wait. And wait. And wait.

He stood over the little tree day and night. His mom would bring his dinner out to him in the park. He learned to sleep standing up in the park. Teachers would send homework to him in the park.

Slowly, the little tree sprout grew. It takes a long while for trees to grow, but Doug didn’t care. His idea was perfect!

And so he stood and waited and the seedling turned into a sapling and grew like a normal tree. And Doug waited. And waited. And waited.

A few years later, when the tree was as tall as Doug, Doug grabbed a branch and held on as hard as he could…for many, many, many years.

Every year the tree would grow taller and taller, and Doug rose higher and higher. He was dangling a few inches off the ground, and then a few years later, his shoes barely touched the ground! Six feet, ten feet, twenty feet up the tree Doug went.

And when Doug was very old he was now very, very high up in the tree!

He looked down and saw all the kids who once teased him. But the kids were now old people, just like Doug. And Doug called down to them, “You’ll never climb this tree!”

And the old people looked angry, because they knew Doug was right. Old people can’t climb trees. They all forgot how. Doug was the only old person in a tree!

He’s still up there. And he’s still climbing the tree. He has plans to ride the tree all the way to moon…if he waits long enough.

The End