Chapter 1: The Orange Tree Revolution

  Back then, we were just a bunch of friends. It’s funny how friendships come together when you’re young, almost by accident, as if the universe arranges it for you. There was Ethan—me—the quiet one who always had something to say but rarely did. Then there was Lucas, a tall and slender guy, with a quiet strength about him, the kind who could stand in a room full of noise and still make you feel like the most important person there. Max, on the other hand, was short, a little scrappy, with a laugh that could make everyone around him laugh too, whether they wanted to or not. And then there was Omar, a bit healthier than the rest of us, a Muslim kid whose kindness and sense of humor always made him the mediator when our little gang needed a voice of reason. Together, we made a good team, although back then, we never really thought of it that way. We were just… us.

  We spent our days at Willowdale High, a place where the rules were simple and the teachers were familiar. It wasn’t the kind of school where extraordinary things happened—at least, not that we noticed. But there was something about it, something that made it ours. It was a place where we could run around without fear, make mistakes, and learn some important life lessons in the process. It was also a place where something ridiculous could turn into a full-blown adventure with the snap of a finger.

  The orange tree was one of those ridiculous things.

  It wasn’t the biggest tree, but it stood out. In front of our classroom, there was this massive orange tree—about 15 feet tall, with thick, sprawling branches that seemed to reach out and grab the sky. It was the kind of tree that could easily be overlooked, hidden in plain sight by the other trees that lined the schoolyard. But not for us. No, we had our eyes on it. Every day, as we sat in class, the tree was right there, its oranges hanging like bright little treasures, just out of reach.

  There was another tree too, a bigger one, but that one didn’t catch our attention the way the orange tree did. We didn’t care about it. This orange tree, though, was the one that held our fascination.

  But there was one small problem.

  The teachers didn’t allow us to climb the tree. They’d warn us to stay away from it, maybe because they knew how kids are. If you give them an inch, they take a mile. So, no one was allowed to touch it. No one could climb it, no one could pluck the oranges, and certainly no one could share in its bounty. The rules were simple: look, but don’t touch.

  Of course, no teacher would ever let students climb a thorny tree like that one. It was dangerous, and it made sense in some way. After all, it was covered in sharp thorns, and I don’t think anyone expected us to have the sense to climb it safely. But to us, it felt like a conspiracy.

  You see, we believed the teachers were hiding something from us, hoarding the oranges for themselves and denying us our rightful share. It didn’t make sense, but to our young minds, it felt like an injustice. Day by day, the feeling grew stronger, like a weight on our shoulders. We could feel it in the air—this unspoken wrong that needed to be righted. We weren’t just kids anymore. We were revolutionaries.

  One afternoon, the inevitable happened. After school, in our usual hideout near the back of the playground, we convened for a secret meeting. We gathered around, crouched low, whispering urgently as if the walls themselves were listening. The plan would have to be perfect.

  “We water that tree every day,” Max said, his voice fierce with determination. “We pluck the weeds and the grass from around it, but we can’t even taste the fruit. It’s our fruit, too.”

  A spark of realization lit up in each of our eyes. It was tyranny, plain and simple. The oranges were ours. Why should we be denied? It wasn’t fair, and it certainly wasn’t right.

  That’s when the plan was born. The revolution was underway. Max would climb the tree when no one was watching, pluck the oranges, and throw them down to us. The rest of us would collect the fruits and make our escape before anyone caught us. We didn’t need much time—just a minute. It was a foolproof plan. Or so we thought.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  But, as we all know, plans rarely go smoothly.

  Max was the smallest of us, and, by all accounts, the most daring. When the time came, he was the one to act. He scaled the tree with surprising speed, the thorns catching at his clothes and skin, but he powered through. In the excitement of the moment, though, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Max was in a rush, desperate to get the oranges and prove our point. And that’s when the thorn got him—a sharp scratch across his arm, causing him to wince and almost lose his grip. But he didn’t falter. No, the revolution would not be stopped by something as trivial as a thorn.

  He plucked the oranges, one by one, his hands trembling with the weight of what he was doing. Each orange fell to the ground with a satisfying thud, and we scrambled to catch them. We could hardly believe it was working.

  It took longer than we anticipated, of course. The plan was supposed to take one minute, but it ended up taking closer to two and a half. Max, with his scratched arm and his haste, wasn’t as quick as we had hoped. But eventually, the oranges were ours. The victory was ours.

  But what followed wasn’t exactly the celebration we had envisioned.

  We gathered the oranges and began peeling them with eager hands. We were ready for the sweet reward of our hard-earned fruits. But, we encountered a problem. The peel was tough, the pieces stubbornly stuck together, as if the orange itself was resisting. It wasn’t the juicy, sweet fruit we had imagined. No, it was bitter.

  Bitter doesn’t even begin to cover it. The taste was overwhelming, the kind that coated your mouth with an acrid aftertaste that lingered for far longer than it should have. We all took a bite, and instantly regretted it.

  Thu-thu-thu… We spit it out, each of us grimacing in disgust. The bitterness clung to our tongues, and for the next fifteen minutes, it felt like we could taste nothing else. The oranges weren’t just sour, they were foul, and we all wondered how something so bitter could ever have looked so appealing from a distance.

  It wasn’t just the oranges that were a problem. The peel had been so tough and stubborn that by the time we managed to get to the fruit, it had absorbed all the bitterness of the rind. Every bite was a painful reminder of our miscalculation.

  And just as we were trying to recover from our first big failure, we heard a voice behind us.

  “Hey! What are you kids doing?”

  It was our teacher.

  We stood there, frozen, orange peels in our hands, bitterness still clinging to our tongues. Max had an orange half-stuffed in his mouth, his eyes wide with the kind of fear only a kid caught red-handed can understand. Omar was still trying to scrape the taste off his tongue with his sleeve. Lucas looked like he was contemplating whether he could make a run for it.

  And then there was me—standing there, pretending I had nothing to do with this, even though I was quite literally holding an orange in my guilty hands.

  The teacher’s eyes scanned the crime scene: the peeled oranges, the scattered rinds, Max’s scratched-up arms, and our faces—each one an artistic blend of panic and regret. She took a deep breath, the kind that teachers take when they are so done with their students that they need a second to gather their will to keep going.

  “Explain,” she said, arms crossed.

  Max, ever the brave one, swallowed hard and stepped forward. “We… um… we thought the tree was, uh… unfair?”

  Unfair? That was the best we had? We had planned an entire revolution, risked life and limb (okay, mostly just Max’s limbs), and this was the grand explanation?

  Omar tried to salvage the situation. “We just wanted to see if the oranges were, you know, worth it.”

  The teacher blinked. “And?”

  We all looked at each other, then collectively grimaced. The taste still lingered in our mouths like a punishment from the universe itself. Finally, Lucas spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “They weren’t.”

  The teacher sighed. “So let me get this straight. You climbed a thorny tree—against the rules—risked breaking your bones, stole unripe oranges… and now you’re telling me it wasn’t even worth it?’’

  We nodded, ashamed.

  She shook her head in utter disbelief. “And now, what? You thought you’d start a black-market orange business?”

  Max, unable to resist, muttered under his breath, “Well, we will consider it…”

  That earned us a glare so intense that even the tree behind us seemed to shrink a little.

  And then, to our surprise, she laughed.

  It wasn’t a long laugh, more of a sharp chuckle, the kind teachers let slip when they can’t believe how incredibly dumb their students are. “You’re all cleaning the classroom after school for the next week,” she said. “And if I ever catch any of you near that tree again, you’ll be cleaning the entire school.”

  Omar groaned. A week of staying back after school, scrubbing desks and sweeping floors? This was worse than the oranges. Lucas smacked him on the back of the head. And as we walked back toward the school, the taste of bitter oranges still fresh in our mouths, we couldn’t help but laugh.

  ---