The Weeping Willow Tree

There was a young girl, aged 6, who went to Wimbledon Park with her mother. Her mother was playing tennis with her friend. This little girl asked her mother if she could go and play in the playground. She got on her bike and rode to the playground. She decided to go on the swings. She loved swinging on the swings, the feeling she felt of the wind swishing past her swinging back and forth was such a liberating feeling, it made her feel so free and alive. She was a friendly girl who liked company but she didn’t have anyone to play with. She saw some older girls, they looked about 14, on the merry-go-round so she decided to get off from the swings and walked over to the merry-go-round. One of the girls had dirty, blonde, slightly greasy hair with a bit of a wave to it and it was tied back. When she spoke to the little girl, the girl noticed she had one black front tooth. The other girl had long straight, dark brown hair. The blonde girl was sitting on top of the merry-go-round while the other girl was going round the merry-go-round but on the other side. They got chatting.
‘We’ve got a den. Would you like to come and see our den?’
‘That sounds exciting, yes please’ replied the little girl, ‘But I’ll just have to go and ask my Mummy if it’s ok.’
‘Ok’ said the girls.
They walked out of the playground and around to the side of the tennis courts with the little girl walking her bike beside her, holding the steering handles. There are many tennis courts at Wimbledon Park and the little girl’s mother liked playing tennis there.
The little girl left the big girls and biked around to the gates of the tennis court where her mother was playing.
‘Mummy, I’ve met some girls in the playground and they’d like to show me their den, please can I go and have a look at it?’
‘Yes, ok but make sure you come back here.’ Her mother said to her daughter and then continued to carry on playing tennis.
‘Ok Mummy, I’ll come back here.’ She said.
The little girl jumped on her bike and biked round to the other big girls filled with excitement and curiosity. What was this den? Where was it? What does it look like? How cool that she’s now with two big girls and they’re being friendly to her and making friends and want to show her their den.
The little girl walked with the two older girls through the gate of the park and past the other tennis courts and they followed the path round to the right past the courts near the tennis court office. Then the girls led the little girl up a path to the left the other side of the park. The little girl wheeled her bike alongside her holding the steering handle bars. She felt safe with her bike. They then veered off the path to the left and walked towards a tree which had long flowing branches which flowed down to the ground covering the whole tree so you couldn’t see what was behind the flowing branches and its leaves. The blonde haired girl led the way and walked towards the tree, pulling back some of the soft flowing branches and walked inside, underneath the tree with the other girl. The little girl left her bike just outside the long branches and went inside the enclosure of the tree.
The two big girls looked at the little girl and said, ‘This is our den.’
The little girl seemed unsure. Something in the air had changed.
‘Do you know why we’ve brought you here?’ The blonde girl said to the little girl.
‘No’ said the little girl, feeling a little bit scared now.
‘Because we like beating people up’ the blonde girl said.
An overwhelming feeling of fear and danger swept over the little girl and she felt truly scared and unsafe for the first time in her life.
Then, the girl with long dark hair went outside the tree, picked up the little girl’s bike and rode it off the grass onto the path and was riding it back and forth whilst keeping an eye on the tree.
The little girl looked at the big girl who had dirty, greasy blonde hair and a black tooth and her teeth that were a bit crooked. She now looked mean and nasty and quite determined. Her whole personality and kindness seemed to have vanished and she pushed the little girl over. She fell on the muddy ground which had brown, dead leaves on it. She remembers the smell of the earth and the feeling of the leaves. She brushed the mud off her hands and stood up shaking.
‘Climb up that branch’ said the blonde girl with a strong, forceful nature.
‘No’ said the little girl, frightened.
‘Why?’ said the blonde girl.
‘Because I’ll climb up that branch and then you’ll push me off and I’ll hurt myself.’
The blonde girl walked over to the little girl. As she got closer, the little girl could see how much taller and bigger she was than her. She had this scary, nasty, ferocious look in her eye and she stopped when she was very close to the little girl. Then before the little girl could move, she was also slightly paralysed with fear, the big girl wrapped her hands around her neck and started strangling the little girl. The little girl couldn’t breathe and looked straight into the blonde girl’s eyes with the greatest fear. She couldn’t breathe, she was suffocating. Her eyes went red and water droplets seeped out of her eyes. She coughed, choked but the girl clasped her hands tighter around her neck. The little girl’s face went bright red and the seconds passed by like minutes. She started to fade and thought she was going to die and then suddenly, after what seemed like forever, the blonde girl dramatically let go of her neck and walked back over to the branch. The little girl coughed and spluttered and gasped and took in huge, weaving breaths. To say she was relieved would be an understatement. The blonde girl folded her arms and buried her head into her arms resting on the tree and started to cry.
What had happened to this girl the little girl thought. Why was she so upset? Why was she beating her up? Why did she have a black tooth? Where was her bike? What was the other girl doing biking around outside? Was she keeping watch? What was going to happen next? Why do people do nasty things to people in the world? Why did she feel so unsafe? Why was this girl crying? What happened to her? She forgot to think about herself. She cared about other people so much. It pre-occupied her mind most of the time.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone about this.’ The blonde girl said. ‘You must promise me you won’t tell anyone. Do you promise?’
‘Yes’, the little girl replied. ‘I promise.’
The little girl had recently learnt what promises were and how important it was to keep them and that for someone to trust her and if she makes a promise, then she must keep it. She was a good little girl so knew how important it was to keep this promise.
The blonde girl walked over to her and then walked past her and pulled back the branches of the tree to look outside for the other girl. She was on the little girl’s bike, biking on the path and the blonde girl beckoned for her to come over. When she got there, she got off the bike and then slowly went to the back wheel and started to slowly untwist the plug where the bicycle pump puts the air into the tyres whilst looking straight at the little girl. This hissing sound came from the wheel as the air slowly left the tyre and the little girl knew this meant it would leave her with a flat tyre so she couldn’t ride away. Then the dark haired girl screwed the lid back on the socket and went to the front tyre and slowly unscrewed the nozzle whilst looking meanly, directly at the little girl. The air reluctantly, slowly, sadly hissed and left the tyre leaving it deflated and unusable. She then screwed the lid back on the socket and stood up whilst continuing to keep watch.
The blonde girl aggressively walked over to the little girl and started rummaging through her pockets. She pulled out her tunes (throat lozenges) from her left pocket and her colourful hacky sack. She then went through her right pocket and pulled out her mini Filofax and her pencil attached to it. She then started to look through it. She put it back in the little girl’s pocket which gave the little girl a tiny sense of relief. She threw the hacky sack up in the air spinning the multi primary colours in the air, caught it and put it in her own pocket. She then started to walk away from the little girl but suddenly turned round and pelted the tunes as hard as she could, straight at the little girl and they hit her on her nose. Blood started flowing from her nose and was dripping heavily on her pale pink t-shirt. The little girl picked up the tunes and put them back in her pocket.
‘Can I go now?’ She said with her nose bleeding. She was trembling and so scared. She felt so faint and was so shaky. Her hands had gone pale and cold and they were trembling with fear.
‘Go back to Mummy. But remember….you promised!’
The little girl, shaking, picked up her bike and walked it over the grass and onto the path. It was hard to wheel it as the tyres were so deflated and she felt so weak. This was not a feeling this little girl had ever felt before. She felt unbelievably sad walking away with tears streaming down her face and blood flowing from her nose now soaking her t-shirt. She didn’t know where to go, who to trust, her little world had been shattered, she felt broken and she needed her Mummy.
She walked towards the path that led down beside the tennis office and she saw a man who had just paid for a tennis court walking towards the tennis courts. She thought she could trust him as he had just paid for a court. She went over to him and said, ‘Excuse me’. He turned round and looked at her. He looked so shocked and concerned. Her face was so pale, her nose was covered in dry, crispy blood, her eyes were filled with water and tears were in her eyes and stained on her cheeks. Her favourite plain, pale pink t-shirt was covered in blood and some of it had dried and so was darker in colour.
‘Please will you help me find my Mummy’ she said with a shaking voice.
‘Yes, yes, of course I will, of course……erm…..’ he said looking around aghast. ‘What does she look like?’ He said with great concern and care in his eyes. He looked at her with compassion and sadness. He had no idea what had happened to her but he was definitely going to help this little girl find her Mummy.
He swung his racket over his shoulder and offered to take the bike from the little girl and walk it beside them while they looked for the little girl’s Mummy. The little girl stayed very close to the man, she hoped she would be safe with him but her sense of safety had been violated. They walked around the path beside the tennis courts and through the gate. The little girl was searching for her Mummy with the greatest need she had ever felt for looking for her mother. She had never needed to see her Mummy more than that moment in her life. Suddenly, the little girl saw her mother in the distance wondering around frantically looking for her. She looked so worried.
‘Mummy’ she cried out. ‘Mummmmmmmyyyyyyy!’ Her throat was burning from emotion.
Her mother turned around and saw her daughter in the distance with the gentleman who was holding her bike. She ran over to the little girl and flung her arms around her and the little girl clung on to her for dear life.
‘What happened darling?’ She said with tremendous fear and worry in her voice. She looked at her little six year old daughter and then looked up at the gentleman and said, ‘Thank you, thank you so much’ and he passed the bicycle over to the little girl’s mother.
‘What happened little one?’
The little girl shook her head.
‘What happened darling?’
‘I can’t tell you. I promised.’
‘You can tell me. It’s ok. Trust Mummy, it’s ok.’
‘But I promised and you know what happens when you make a promise Mummy’ the little girl said wishing she could tell her Mummy so badly but she knew she wasn’t allowed.
‘Now listen, I know promises are very important but something terrible has happened to you, somebody’s done something very bad, awful to you and you must tell me what happened so we can tell the Police and try and find them’ her mother said reassuringly.
The little girl burst into tears and through the tears she started to tell her mother the ordeal that she had just been through.
‘Right, we must go to the Police station straight away!’
With fierce determination and purpose, the little girl’s mother swung her racket and racket bag over her shoulder, took the bike steering wheels in one hand and the little girl’s hand in the other and started walking in the direction of the path and the tree!!
‘But that’s where it happened!’ the little girl said again starting to feel frightened.
Her mother picked her up and gave her a big, big reassuring hug that made the little girl feel so safe again. She chained her bike up and then they walked over to the tennis office to find out where the nearest Parks’ Police office was located. The staff directed the little girl’s mother and they walked to the hut where they were directed to go, passing the tree. The little girl pointed to the tree and the mother said, ‘Do you know what those trees are called?’
‘No’ replied the little girl.
‘They’re called Weeping Willow Trees’
‘Oh’ said the little girl thinking to herself ‘That makes sense Mummy’.
When they got to the Parks’ Police hut, the little girl’s mother said, ‘Now you must be brave but I need you to tell the Policeman everything you’ve just told me and exactly what happened’.
‘Ok’ replied the little girl and then slowly she started describing the two girls, what they looked like and what they had done to her.
‘This is happening quite a lot at the moment madam.’ The Policeman said to the little girl’s mother. ‘Only last week, a boy’s arm was broken by some other boys and this kind of thing happens more than you would think, sadly.’
‘Right’ he said, looking at the little girl. ‘I think we need to go in the Police car and look for the girls. What do you think?’ ‘Would you like to do that?’
‘Yes’ replied the little girl, ‘I’d like that.’
This little girl’s favourite programme was The Bill and she watched every programme of The Bill on the TV. She also liked the programme 999. She liked Police cars and was excited climbing into the back of the Police car with her Mummy. She had never been in a Police car before. She felt safe but also eager to find or spot the two girls. The Policeman was very nice driving around Wimbledon near the park and he said to the little girl, ‘See ‘em anywhere? Can you see ‘em?’
‘No’ replied the little girl, so eager to try and see them.
They never found the two older girls that day in the Police car driving around near Wimbledon Park in London.
Eventually, the Police officer dropped the little girl and her mother back at the main gates of Wimbledon Park. They had to walk down and fetch the little girl’s bike which was still chained to the railings with flat tyres. It was getting dark and they both just wanted to get home.
Driving home, the little girl thought about what had happened to her looking down at her blood stained t-shirt and thought about the multi-coloured hacky sack the blonde girl had stolen from her. She put her hands up to her neck and felt around the soft skin and thought how lucky she was that she hadn’t died and that she was safe and back with her kind, caring and strong Mummy but where were the two big girls? What had happened to them? Where were they? Did they have a nice Mummy and Daddy?
When she got home she told her Daddy what had happened and the following weekend she went to see her 8 year old brother who had started at boarding school and she had to tell him too. He looked so worried and upset and she could tell exactly what he was thinking. ‘If I was there, this wouldn’t have happened’ as he always protected his younger sister and they were such close siblings. Why did they have to be apart?
The most difficult thing I sometimes find myself writing is that this little girl was me.
The silver lining is that this true story got me an A* in my English Language GCSE. I am now 34 years old and I haven’t written this story since I was 16.
I’ve always wished to meet the two girls later in life, tell them I forgive them, speak to them, get to know them and find out their life story and what happened to them. I think their childhoods must have been incredibly tough and sadly, no matter how cruel they were on that day to me, I fear the cruelty that the girls may have suffered, particularly the blonde girl’s totally surpassed my experience under that Weeping Willow Tree.

Extract from Our Youth, My Truth by PALICE written on 13/09/18 22:54