I published this book on amazon after a professional elance editor edited it
I would like ur comments as rough as they maybe
its only the first 3 chapters but

Chapter 1

The young boy with red lips and hair like melted chocolate walked out across the grass, into the oval at the center of the schoolyard. His feet crunched through the dry grass as he looked up into the blazing hot summer sun. The sunshine reflected off his powder-white skin.

The wide open oval smelled dry and earthy. Grasshoppers and other insects sang their summer songs of love in the shimmering midday heat.

The boy reached the exact dead centre of the oval in the yard. Then, he stopped.

The other schoolchildren, who were eating their lunch at the edge of the oval, now watched the boy with intense eyes.

"He's doing it again!" whispered a girl who poked the friend sitting next to her.

Her friend looked up at the lone boy standing in the middle of the oval. She squinted her eyes. "What is he looking for?"

The boy then did something extremely strange. He got down onto his hands and knees and started to wiggle his fingers into the earth. Deeper and deeper he plunged his fingers. Then he did something even more strange. The boy kicked his sandals off and started to do the same with his toes. After he dug deep enough and seemed satisfied, the boy relaxed and looked up at the sun again. He remained there, not moving for a very long time.

The school children surrounding the oval were frozen in confusion.

Then it all ended as soon as it had begun. The boy stood up, brushing the dirt from his knees. He walked back across the oval to a golden-haired girl who was waiting patiently for him under the shade of some trees.

The boy stood next to the girl with the golden hair. She looked down at him, since he was a lot shorter than her. "Why did you do that again?" she whispered as she looked around. The girl adjusted the collar of the boy's shirt and picked bits of grass off his clothes and hair.

"Did what?" said the boy, looking at her in surprise.

The girl raised an eyebrow, studying the boy's innocent face for a few seconds. "Well," she said, "you just walked out into the middle of the oval and stuck your fingers into the ground." She paused, looking for a reaction on his face. He only gave her a blank stare in return, not seeming to understand her, so she continued. "I think that it was very strange," she said to him bluntly. She plucked the last piece of grass from his dark brown hair.

"Well," said the boy, "now that you mention it, I suppose that it was a little strange."

The girl raised her eyebrows at him. "A little?" She chuckled.

The boy looked away from her. "I don't know why I did it, but how about you? Why are you always following–?"

The lunch bell rang suddenly and the boy stopped speaking for a few seconds. He then continued. "We have our gym class now, and I am really looking forward to sports today."

The girl nodded. "Another thing," she said, calling after him. "Why the middle of the oval?"

The boy was already walking to gym class. "I need a lot of room," he said.

"Room?" the girl said, running to catch up. "For what?"

The boy and girl walked further down the oval to where their gym class would take place. The gym teacher had already arrived and was laying out orange cones on the oval. The rest of the students had started to arrive, too. Everyone was cheerful, as gym class was very popular amongst the students.

"We are going to have running races today," the gym teacher said without looking up from his clipboard. "Make sure you all warm up, please."

After everybody had done their stretches, the students lined up at the starting line. The gym teacher raised his arm into the air and fired a cap gun. With a loud pop, the race started.

That is when the boy did something else that was extremely strange for a second time that day. The boy rocketed off the starting line as if he had literally exploded from a cannon. His small body was a blur.

The other children staggered to a stop and stood watching in disbelief as the boy practically flew around the oval and back to the starting line in mere seconds.

The boy had stopped at the finish line. He was not even panting. Instead, he stood with an eerily straight posture and looked up into the sun. Again!

Somebody coughed. The boy looked away from the sun and saw that everyone was staring at him. There was complete silence. Nobody said a word. A crow cawed behind the boy. He looked behind himself, just to make sure that it wasn't the crow they were looking at. He then looked back at them and threw his arms up in confusion.

"What?" said the boy.

Everyone flinched in fear.

That's when the golden-haired girl ran over to the boy and grabbed his hand. "I think we've gotta go... now!" she hissed at him. She launched into a run straight out of the school gate and down the road, half dragging the boy behind her.

The children and the gym teacher looked even more baffled than before as they watched the boy and girl go. The teacher called out to them. "Hey, you two, you can't leave the school grounds!" The teacher tried to run after them, but they were both long gone.

The two children jogged down the back alleys through the town, still holding hands. The girl made sure that she chose a path least likely to have people on it. "You have to tell me what you are!" the girl said. She looked back at the boy running behind her.

After a short pause, an unexpected answer came from the boy. "I have got to go into the mountains," he said.

"The mountains?" the girl repeated slowly. She was shaking and nodding her head at the same time. After a moment of thought she relaxed and smiled a big, beaming smile. She didn't know why she smiled. She couldn't explain it. But something just seemed so perfectly right.

She looked back to the boy again. She stopped running and turned to face him. Staring into his eyes, she smiled warmly. She took the boy's other hand into hers and said, "Yes, let's go to the mountains. Together."

The girl had goose bumps all over her body. They both changed direction towards the mountains that loomed to the east, then hand in hand they began running again, disappearing into the dark and foreboding forest.

With every step into the forest, it felt like the world quivered at their approach.

Chapter 2

Giant trees now surrounded them in all directions, and the thick canopy cast a deep shadow over the forest floor. Beneath the children's feet was a soft carpet of moist leaves and other decaying plant debris.

The two children climbed over a large, fallen dead tree. The girl tried her best not to destroy the cute mushrooms and other fungi that decorated it.

For a very long time they walked, the girl following the boy. It seemed as if they had been walking for an eternity and they were now so far into the mountains that the girl was getting scared. With dread, she suddenly remembered that these woods were extremely dangerous. The local townsfolk would often tell horrible stories of bears and wolves coming out from the dark forest to eat small children.

But even with the threat of bears and wolves fresh in her mind, the girl could not stop smiling. She looked at the boy with a sideways glance, wondering who and what he really was. And just like that, the boy disappeared in a blink and the girl jumped in surprise. His image shot ahead at an unbelievable speed and zoomed out of sight.

She looked around the woods, and suddenly the forest seemed very dark and scary. She held her arms close to her body and followed in the boy's direction.

As the golden-haired girl made her way through the forest, weaving around large rocks, she walked past a gigantic fern. A large frog croaked loudly at her from somewhere close. The girl screamed out in fear. She stared angrily at the harmless green frog sitting on a giant leaf of the fern.

"Seriously?" she said to the frog.

After adjusting her hair, the girl knelt down next to the frog. After a few minutes of commotion, she continued to make her way through the ancient forest, her slimy captive now in one hand.

After a time, the boy blinked back to the girl's side and reached for her hand to hold it. Feeling the icky skin of the frog, he snatched his hand away in shock. The girl held up the frog with a mischievous grin on her face. "What is that?" said the boy, wiping the frog's slime onto his shirt.

"It's a frog, silly," she said. "Haven't you ever seen one before?"

The boy looked closely at the slimy creature. "No, never," he said. He reached out, taking it from her. He held the frog up to his eyes in wonder.

"Where are we going?" she asked him. "It will be dark soon, and I want to find a safe place to rest."

"Just up ahead!" the boy said. He started to jog ahead, beckoning the girl to follow. They ran through the forest, jumping over rocks and trees and wading through streams. A large deer and her fawn bolted away from the two children in fear. They finally burst out into an immense clearing.

"Wow!" the girl exclaimed as she walked into the sunlight.

There was a massive boulder sitting not too far away, and the girl wasted no time at all in climbing up. She scrambled to the top of the moss-covered giant and looked all around.

The clearing was huge. It was covered in tall grass and had a small pond with green lily pads. The boy ran over to the pond and knelt down beside it. The frog escaped his hands into its new home.

The sun, now a burnt orange, was sinking below the tree line. The beauty of this place was breathtaking to the children.

The girl sat down cross-legged atop her giant rock. Both children watched an owl fly over their heads and into the forest.

"It's getting dark!" the girl said. "Let's make a fire." She rubbed her arms with her hands, feeling a chill. She turned her head away from the nodding boy and looked back into the scary forest, frowning at the noises coming from its dark places. "I don't think that I would like to come to this forest by myself," she said. She turned her head back to the boy and nearly jumped out of her skin.

The boy had already made two great piles of wood! One was of kindling and the other was full of heavy logs. The speed of the boy was too much to believe. "Um, ok..." she stammered, not knowing what else to say. Was the boy growing in strength?

As if he knew what she was thinking, the boy knelt down and said, "The soil is very rich here." He dug his hands into the black earth.

"I see," said the girl, nodding and pretending to know exactly what in the world he was talking about.

"So... where should we make a fire?" the girl said as she looked around the clearing.

"Over here," said the boy, "in the middle is best!"

The girl giggled and couldn't help but smile. "Of course. How silly of me. You love the middle."

The boy sat down in the center of the clearing, holding two sticks. He started to rub them together. He rubbed them so fast that even a skilled woodsman would have been impressed and shocked at the same time! The wood erupted into bright flames as if it had no other choice. Before the girl could blink, the boy had set the whole pile of kindling on fire.

The girl laughed at him. "I said a fire as in a campfire, not a bonfire!"

The boy turned his head towards the girl, smiling. He then threw some heavy logs onto the inferno.

The two of them curled up into a ball next to the roaring bonfire. The girl put a protective arm around her boy. She whispered into his ear. "This forest scares me. Do you think anything is watching us?"

A very large pop made the two children jump. The fire sprayed sparks and red-hot pieces of wood over the tall grass. The raging tower of fire was slowly collapsing in on itself as it consumed the wood.

The girl turned her attention back to the boy. "Something very weird is going on, don't you think?" The boy didn't answer. The girl waited patiently for him to respond but he was too busy squirming as if trying to get into a comfortable position. "Are you sticking your toes into the ground? Again?!" she said to him. She could feel him trying to get under the dirt.

"Yes. I can't help it," he grunted as he tossed and turned next to the girl as if in a war with himself. He seemed locked into a struggle between snuggling up to the girl or snuggling up to the ground below him.

The golden-haired girl was so happy to be together with the boy that she didn't bother asking him any more questions. She kissed him on his forehead and closed her eyes. But as she drifted off to sleep, she could still feel him digging his feet into the ground and wide awake.

The girl dreamed that she was in a black ocean of emptiness. In her hand, she held the boy tightly. He was just a tiny egg. In every direction the black and empty ocean went on forever and ever! All around her, billions upon billions of lights twinkled.

They were flying.

Late the next morning, the girl awoke. The sun was high in the sky. She looked up and saw the boy, who was standing with his arms outstretched, reaching for the sun. The girl got to her feet and took a few steps backwards, frowning. The boy's legs had sunk knee-deep into the earth.

"This is getting crazy!" the girl cried out. "What are you doing?"

The boy just looked at her.

She studied his buried legs. "Okay, super speed is pretty cool, but why in the world do you want to bury yourself in the ground?! Can we please go?" She tried to pull him out of the ground.

"No. No, I can't," the boy quickly said. "I am stuck here now."

"You're stuck?" The girl scratched her head. "Wait, are you taller too? Even with your legs buried, you seem much taller." She walked backwards again, away from the boy. She thought the boy's appearance was very creepy.

He immediately looked at her, his eyes flashing with fear. "Don't leave me," he pleaded. "I need you to look after me."

A wave of guilt washed over the girl. "I am so sorry," she said, quickly running back over to the boy. She reached up and rubbed some dirt off his cheek. "This is just a little weird for me."

He looked at her. His eyes were very serious. "You are not exactly normal, either."

The girl's head snapped up. She was amazed to discover he could now look her straight in the eyes. The boy continued. "Don't you think it is strange that you and I have not eaten since running away from the school?" Then his voice dropped to a whisper. "And why do neither of us have names?" he said.

Her back stiffened and her eyes were fearful. He was right!

The golden-haired girl slowly nodded. She put both her hands on the boy's shoulders and looked straight into his eyes again. "I am going to go into the forest now. I'm going to find a really big stick! I am going to protect you, no matter what you are, and no matter what happens!"

She bounded off into the forest. As the boy watched her go, a tear rolled down his cheek.

Chapter 3

She walked back into the clearing after a few hours of searching for her perfect stick. Her feet were crunching through the dry leaves. She was making so much noise that insects and small animals scurried into hiding when she came close.

"I found the perfect stick!" she exclaimed at last, stripping the bark off a heavy tree branch. She swung it back and forth like a club at nothing in particular.

She returned to the clearing with the stick. Squinting through the sunshine, she looked up at the boy and came to a stop. She stood there for a few minutes, staring at him in disbelief. Then, slowly, she walked around the boy in a full circle until she was in front of him again and gazing up into his face.

He looked down at her.

She opened her mouth to say something but then closed her mouth again and paused for a moment. She then said, "Are you...?" but she could not finish her sentence. Complete confusion was written on her face.

"Am I what?" the boy called down to her.

"Are you a tree?" she finally asked.

"Yeah, I am," said the boy. "At least, I think I am."

The golden-haired girl studied the boy closely. He was over two adults tall now. The girl could not believe her eyes. Something magical, something insane was happening. Each finger on his hand was now a long thin branch and from each branch, green leaves were sprouting.

The girl laughed. "So this is how trees are born! That's a relief to know," she said as she excitedly clapped her hands together. But then the girl froze. "Wait!" she said. She spun around, looking at the trees on the edge of the clearing. "Why can't the other trees talk?" she asked. "Where are their faces? Oh, my god, will your face disappear too?" Her mind was racing with many questions.

The boy studied the trees surrounding them at the clearing's edge. He could see no faces in them at all. "I'm not worried," he said reassuringly. "Just look at those baby trees over there. They do not have any faces either. I must be a different kind of tree, that's all."

The boy was silent for a moment, thinking to himself. "What I would like to know is: if I am a tree, then what are you?" He looked at the girl inquiringly.

The girl looked down at her stick and continued to strip bark off her weapon. "Well," she said, "I am guessing that originally you must have been a tree egg and that I was your shell. I must be here to protect you, and that's why I'm taller. Something must have happened at our birth and we were separated somehow. Then we both accidentally ended up in that school and forgot why we were even there."

The girl paused, thinking as she leaned on her stick. "That is all I can come up with at the moment," she said, "but I suppose it doesn't really matter now. You can just concentrate on growing as fast as you can. And I will whack any animal that tries to eat you."

The boy nodded. "Be careful with that stick," the boy said, eyeing her fierce weapon cautiously. "Are you sure that it is not too big for you? If it is too heavy, it will slow down your swing."

"I'm fine," she said. "Watch this." She swung the stick back and forth at a blinding speed. She grinned. "See, even you would have some trouble dodging that!"

"Wow!" The boy was clearly impressed. "I think I can definitely concentrate on growing." The boy seemed very happy. He was looking up at the sun and was suddenly very quiet.

The girl watched him for a few minutes, then she decided to let him grow in peace for a while. Now that she had a weapon she felt a lot safer, and so she decided to go and explore the forest a bit. As the girl walked towards the clearing, she looked back at the boy. He seemed to be growing larger before her eyes. He was getting taller and taller by the second.

The girl walked out of the clearing and into the forest again, shaking her head. The great oak trees surrounded her. Small animals scurried along their branches. The trees were very majestic creatures. She decided to talk to one of them. Maybe they could talk like the boy somehow, she thought, even though they did not have a face.

"Hi," she said to one of the great old trees.

The tree creaked in response, and its leaves rustled in the wind.

"Ooh, exciting. Maybe your voice is the creaking you make," she said. She was now obsessed with her new friend. The girl stayed there for several hours trying to copy the tree's sounds and trying to decipher its language.

In the middle of her talk with the tree, suddenly the girl heard something screaming in the woods! Her blood curdled and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Stick in hand, the girl raced through the forest towards the horrible noise. She burst out from the trees to see two fully grown men sawing into the flesh of a giant oak tree. Tree blood covered the ground. "Stop it!" she yelled at them. "Stop!"

Both of the men stopped sawing into the tree and looked up at her. One of the men wiped the sweat off his brow. He let go of the saw handle and turned to the girl. The men seemed very confused. "What is a pretty young girl doing all the way out here?" the first man asked.

The other man moved over to his friend and elbowed him in the gut, frowning. "How is she carrying that log!" He whispered to his companion. "It's bigger than her!" His mind boggled.

The first man paused for a second in thought and frowned at the massive log. "It must be one of those fake paper logs," he whispered back to the second man, holding his gut.

The second man frowned. "Why would a kid be all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, with a paper log?"

The first man scratched his head. "Yeah, strange," he said. He picked something small off his head and flicked it onto the ground.

The first man then held his hands up in the air and made a face like an injured puppy dog. "Please, little girl," he said, "we will stop, but only if you put down your big weapon. And afterward, maybe you can help us drink some tea."

The tree had stopped screaming by now and the girl was very relieved. But there was no way she wanted to go with the two men. She eyed the men suspiciously. "Okay," she said at last, "but promise you won't cut down any more trees." The girl was shocked that she had just accepted their invitation. Why? You idiot! she thought to herself.

"I promise," said the first man with a wide grin.

She followed the men very reluctantly. On the way past the tree, she snatched the blade out of its wound and threw it into a bush. She made a mental note to retrieve the blade later so she could show it to the boy.

A very short distance away, the three of them reached a wooden shack. The door of the shack was too small for the girl's stick to fit through so she placed it onto the ground before entering. The inside of the shack was very dark and ominous. After a few seconds, her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she looked around. There were two beds against the walls and a crude table in the middle.

The girl cringed. All around the shack hung various animal skulls. The girl's face screwed up in disgust. These people are completely crazy, she thought to herself. Why would you put dead animal skulls on your wall?

One of the men bent down and opened a small door on a steel cage.

"Could you get the tea, little girl?" he said. "It's at the back of the cage."

The girl looked at the cage. She did not want to go in there!

Upon seeing the girl's reluctance, the man started to cry. "You don't like me?" he pretended to be deeply hurt. "You don't want to help me? All I wanted to do is offer you some tea. To show you that we are very sorry for sawing down that tree."

The other man put his arm around his friend while looking at the girl with sad eyes.

The girl felt horrible. "I am so sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." She got down onto her hands and knees and crawled into the small cage. It was absolutely filthy. The floor of the cage was covered in dried blood. The girl felt like vomiting.

The man quickly closed the cage door and grinned at his friend while snapping the lock into place. "What a great day today!" he exclaimed in a sing-song voice. "Let's go hunting for deer." The other man slapped his friend on the back. "Tonight we can have a feast," he said, "and then we'll have a tea party with our new friend." They left the cabin in very high spirits.

Alone, the girl bumped her head on the cage roof. It was so small that she sat crouched with her back hunched over. "Sir!" she said. "There is no tea in here and I can't move. Can you help me out?" No response came, and she cried out in a panicked voice. "I don't really like small spaces," she said. Her head was between her knees and she could barely move her arms. She tried to turn her head, but she couldn't.

One of the men called back to her. "Don't worry, sweetie, we will help you out tonight."

The men went walking back into the sunny forest, but the second man suddenly stopped. "I want to check out that log," he said, walking over to the girl's weapon. His friend followed. The second man bent down and took hold of the log with both hands. Still gripping the log, he looked up at his friend with a look that was a mixture between shock and fear.

"Don't play games with me!" said his friend.

The man who was trying to pull up the log started to shake his head. "I am not playing games."

"Here, move out the way!" the first man said, shoving his friend aside and pulling at the log himself. The log barely moved an inch. Now it was the first man's turn to be scared. The first looked up at the second as if he had seen a ghost and then stood up slowly. "She is some kind of forest... monster," he said, staring back at the shack. "Thank the divine that we caged her. That little maggot could have killed us both."

The second man walked up to the shack and peeked inside. The girl was crying.

"Please, sir, can you let me out?" she said between sobs.

The man backed away from the shack in fear. He then walked over to the bush and retrieved the large saw that the girl had thrown there. "That little turd threatened us," he said. "So now it's time to torture her!" He fingered the sharp teeth of the blade.

The other man laughed. He helped his friend with saw. Tree blood started to pour from the wound again.

Inside the dark shack, the girl was absolutely horrified. Tears dripped from her cheeks down onto the floor, where it mixed with the dried blood there. This was an absolute nightmare! she thought. How could people do this?

The school that she and the boy were born into had blinded them from seeing what the world was really like. If she ever escaped, she promised herself she would never trust anyone again.

At that moment, the screaming started for a second time. They were sawing into the tree again. She exploded with anger and spat on her feet. How could she be so foolish and weak? The girl screamed with pure rage.

Outside the shack, the men both jumped when they heard the girl scream. They stopped sawing and froze in place. The first man started to smile. Then both men burst into laughter. "Heave ho!" the first man said, grabbing the saw handle again. The teeth cut deep into the flesh of the tree.

And at that exact moment, the shack exploded!

Bits of wood and steel splinters showered down all over the ground. The girl was destroying the shack with her bare fists, smashing it up into tiny pieces. Her little body suddenly shot out from the top of the ruined shack and into the air. She landed not far from the men. Her face had a savage look to it.

"Mum, help me!" yelped one of the men as he fell backwards.

The other man looked at the girl, his eyes round with fear. "What are you?" he whispered.

The girl's face looked insane.

"I am a shell!" she roared.

i hoped u liked it, its my first book, just search amazon, 'tree boy' for the rest