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evil clutches, he started being nicer to me.

- Hi, Juli.

- Hi, Bryce.

JULl:

He was so shy and so cute...

...and his hair,

it smelled like watermelon.

I couldn't get enough of it.

I spent the whole year

secretly sniffing watermelon...

...and wondering

if I was ever going to get my kiss.

BRYCE:

Seventh grade brought changes, all right.

But the biggest one

didn't happen at school.

It happened at home.

My grandfather came to live with us.

Mom said he stared like that

because he missed Grandma.

That was not something Grandpa

would ever talk about with me.

As a matter of fact, he never talked

about much of anything with me.

That is, until Juli appeared

in the local newspaper.

- Oh, Bryce. May I speak with you?

- What?

Have a seat, son.

Tell me about your friend Juli Baker.

Juli. She's not exactly my friend.

Oh. Why's that?

Why do you wanna know?

BRYCE:
Now, Juli Baker did not

wind up in The Mayfield Times...

...for being an eighth-grade Einstein.

No, she got front-page coverage because

she refused to climb out of a sycamore tree.

Juli Baker and that stupid sycamore tree.

She always thought it was God's gift

to our little corner of the universe.

Hey, Bryce. Wanna come climb the tree

with me and my brothers?

No, thanks.

Bryce. Come up here. It's fun.

- You can see everything.

BRYCE:
I can't.

My dad needs me to help him fix...

...a thing.

BRYCE:

That's all I needed.

Climb up a tree with Juli Baker.

I'd be dragged right back

into the second grade.

Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree.

Why don't you just make me eat lima beans

for the rest of my life.

JULl:

It's three blocks away.

Two blocks.

One block away.

- Like that's valuable information.

- I hate it when she does that.

I like to think there's at least a chance

the bus won't show.

I think the tree looks particularly beautiful

in this light. Don't you?

If by "beautiful" you mean "unbelievably

ugly," then, yes, I would agree.

You're just visually challenged.

I feel sorry for you.

BRYCE:

"Visually challenged"?

"Visually challenged"?

This from the girl who lived in a house

that was the joke of the neighborhood?

They had bushes growing over windows

and weeds all over the place.

It bugged my dad bigtime.

Oh, there he is.

The bricklayer who thinks he's a painter.

That truck's not ugly enough in real life?

He's gotta make a painting of it?

No, he does landscapes.

Sells them at the county fair.

People say they're beautiful.

Landscapes? Let me tell you something.

The world would have

more beauty in it...

...if he'd do a little landscaping

on that piece of crap he calls a yard.

PATSY:
I feel bad for his wife.

She married a dreamer.

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