Her fight to save the Tree wasn’t going well, so she was ramping up her plan of action. She was going to hold a sit-in. When I got up at 5:00 am Friday to catch the 6:00 am Greyhound, the only sign of Mom was a note on the kitchen table wishing me good luck beside a brown-bag breakfast of muffins and fruit. I guzzled some oj, mowed down a couple of muffins and headed for the bus station. The street was empty except for the squirrels—until I came to the big corner lot where the Tree stood. There, sitting in a fork of the massive trunk, was my mother. She was wearing a navy-blue tracksuit, drinking tea from a thermos and reading a report titled “Guidelines for Planning Sustainable Neighborhoods.” “Good luck, Connor!” Mom waved. “Thanks, Mom,” I muttered. At least I’d be getting out of town before the entire street woke up and discovered my mother perched in the Tree like the Lorax, except less cute and fuzzy. I got off the Greyhound in suburban Toronto and took a city bus to the Ontario Racquet Club.
