His father stared into his coffee. “Your great-grandmother’s tree can’t move.”
“Too warm,” Elias’s father said, wiping his forehead in mid-March. “The sap isn’t running.” guided reading questions
“We could leave,” Elias said at breakfast. His father stared into his coffee
The sugar shack had stood at the edge of the forest for four generations. Every March, Elias’s family tapped the maples, boiled the sap, and filled amber bottles with sweetness. But this year, the buckets hung empty. The sugar shack had stood at the edge
The next morning, Elias woke before dawn. Frost glittered on the grass. He ran to the sugar bush. From the spile in the old maple, a single drop fell. Then another. He cupped his hand under the flow—cold, clear, sweet.
No drip. No rhythm.
Elias walked the line of trees alone. He passed the old silver maple, then the twin reds, until he reached the last tree—a giant sugar maple his great-grandmother had planted. Its trunk was wider than his outstretched arms. He pressed his palm to the bark.