Finding Handholds
J. Robert King

The beginning places the character in the setting. Wow,” said Reggie. He stood in a sandy wash in Tucson, Arizona, staring at a huge palo verde tree. Its gnarled roots sank deep in the sand, and its twisted trunk rose ten feet up before green boughs spread in blue heavens.

Reggie wasn’t looking at that glorious tangle of branches, but at the magnificent tree house they held. A wide main floor nestled in the crotch, with wooden half walls and lookout points. A narrow ladder rose from it to a second floor platform. And climbing freehand, one could reach the lofty crow’s nest.

Reggie has a problem: how to climb into the tree fort. Theoretically.

It was not a tree house for third graders like Reggie, but rather for sixth graders, like his brother, Al.