Wilson held the paper in his hand, skipping down the muddy steps of his school bus, his light backpack bouncing  on his shoulders. He kept looking at his picture as he bounced across his lawn, the paper still in his hand as he walked through the unlocked door of his house. As soon as he passed the stairs to the second floor his brother flew down the steps. Wilson looked up, eyes bright.

“Look what I did in school today, John!” He showed his masterpiece to his brother. His brother glanced at it, muttered Nice under his breath, and continued on his path to the kitchen. Wilson wasn’t discouraged.

“You know what I learned today?” Wilson said brightly, placing his backpack on the couch before he hopped after his brother to the kitchen. His brother rolled his eyes, but didn’t answer him, taking two pieces of bread and jam from the fridge. Wilson began to explain. “I learned about George Washington. Did you know our first president was George Washington, John? Did you?” Again, John rolled his eyes, continuing to spread jam onto the bread. Wilson was bubbling with information about George Washington, the first president, and he spurted it out to his brother. “We also learned that George Washington cut down a cherry tree. He cut it down without telling his dad, but he was such a good person, he couldn’t not tell his dad what he did, because George Washington can’t tell a lie. Did you know that, John?”

Here John finally said something, but he didn’t look at his younger brother, and he said it curtly. “That story’s not real, dummy. George Washington never cut down a cherry tree.”

Wilson scrunched his eyebrows. “But Ms.Dewy told us that he did. And Ms.Dewy never lies to us.”

“I hate to break it to you,” John said, without looking sorry at all, “but Ms.Dewy definitely lied to you. That story was made up so that people would feel more loyal to the United States. You’ll learn that in high school”

Wilson kept scrunching his eyebrows, but then he shook his head saying, “Well, George Washington was still a good person. He never lied.”

John rolled his eyes again. “Of course he lied, dummy. Everyone lies. In fact, at some point Washington lied to the British so that they thought the Americans were going to be fighting someplace else, when really they were going to go to New York City.”

Wilson started to tear up. “No, you’re making that up! George Washington never lied, Ms.Dewy said so!”

John had taken a bite of one of the jammed bread. He swallowed, then glared at his brother. “Why are you being such a drama queen? People lie, Wilson, get over it. Come sit down and eat already.”

Wilson had started to cry, shiny tears rolling down his chubby cheeks. “Why don’t you love me?”

John set his half-eaten bread on the table. He turned in his seat, looking at Wilson exasperatedly, his brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t love me. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be so mean. You wouldn’t call me dummy or roll your eyes at me so much. You wouldn’t only say you loved me when Mom and Dad tell you to.” Wilson was shuddering, his breath shaky. “You’re right, everyone lies.” He wiped his eyes and ran upstairs to his bedroom. He put a chair against his door so John couldn’t come in if he tried. He sat on his bed and cried into his pillow as loudly as he could so his brother could hear him.

He stopped crying when he didn’t hear the stairs creaking. He listened carefully, and heard noises coming from downstairs. He heard the pew pew pew of artificial gunfire, and went back to crying, but not loudly this time.

He sat up on his bed and stared at his picture. It was a rough sketch of a cherry tree, the top of the tree looking more like a drawing of a green cloud than leaves. Red dots with brown dashes were sprinkled all over the green cloud, and standing next to the brown trunk was Wilson’s rendition of a young George Washington with his dad, both donning white ponytails. Stapled to the bottom of his drawing was a paper with the phrase “I cannot tell a lie.”

Wilson started to cry angry tears. He thought of ripping his art craft. Instead, he wiped his nose and crawled under his bed to take out a shoebox. He opened the box to reveal a pile of things. In one corner was a little plastic egg and a Snickers wrapper. In the other there was a mini plastic bag with a small tooth inside it. In the center was a picture of an old man in red and white, with baby Wilson smiling in his lap.

The picture of the cherry tree was too big to fit in the shoebox, so Wilson folded it carefully and placed it on top of the photograph. Wilson hid the box underneath his bed and subsequently crawled under his covers, letting his silent tears melt into his pillow.