I woke up and squinted against the slanted light pouring into my dim bedroom between the window blinds. I propped myself up on one elbow and sighed heavily. School.

I was terrified of going to school again. My family and I had just moved from Florida and it was my first day at my new school. My older sister Rachel had been here for a year already, because she spent the last term here in San Jose with our Uncle Jim. I was counting on her to show me the ropes, because I was just a freshman in an entirely new city.

I got up, brushed my teeth, shovelled some cereal into my mouth and threw on my neatly pressed plaid skirt. We lived fairly close to school, so Rachel and we grabbed our bags and started walking.

Rachel looked at me and asked, “You nervous Alison?” I didn’t want to look weak in front of her, but there was no hiding my shaking hands and unsteady breath. “A little,” I said. Rachel laughed, “Don’t worry. Everyone is super nice, so I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine. Plus, since you’re going in as a freshman there will be tons of other people in your grade who don’t know anyone else either.” That hadn’t really occurred to me and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders.

We walked past a small park and I noticed a cluster of trees at the other end of the field. One tree however, was larger than the others, and it seemed as if parts of it were glowing white! I tugged on my sister’s sleeve, a habit I hadn’t broken since we were little, “Hey what’s that across the park?” She turned and said, “What? The tree? It’s nothing, it’s just a normal tree.” “But what’s that white stuff hanging from it??” I insisted. Rachel said, “There is no white stuff. It’s just a tree Alison” I kept my mouth shut after that, but I knew there was something different about that tree. Other people walking in the park didn’t seem to think anything of it either. I decided I’d check it out after school.

I spent the day with my head down, going through all my classes without really talking to anyone. The only class that really stuck out to me was biology, when I first learned about the California drought. The teacher was talking about the percentages of rainfall over the years, the effects the drought has had on California and the restrictions being implemented on us. I hadn’t really heard much about the drought until now, so I was really shocked by the statistics.

After school I told Rachel I wanted to talk to my teachers and that I would walk home by myself a little later, and she left without questioning me. When I felt she was almost home, I started walking around the block towards the back side of the park we passed in the morning. I  walked between the thick cluster of trees until I reached the edge where the strange tree was.

Let me just say, it was not a normal tree. I don’t understand why no one noticed anything about it! Most of it was fairly normal: it was a tall, elm sort of tree. However hanging from each of the branches were these strange, white, glowing orbs. They looked like apples but were a translucent pearly color. I touched one hanging low from a bottom branch and jumped back in surprise. An image had appeared, but faded when my touch left. I hesitantly reached back for it, and held the ball of light in my palm. A hazy image appeared inside; it was an image of ice. I saw vast spans of ice and a family of polar bears walking across it. It must have been the polar ice caps, and it was beautiful.

But the image was starting to change. I could see the ice disappearing in a time lapse manner. In a few seconds nearly all the ice had melted, and the small family of polar bears were left swimming with their heads barely over the water. I released the ball, for it was too much to see.

I approached another ball, one that was dried and dusty, and held it in my hand. An image of a lake appeared, and as I watched the lake level went down, until a dry, cracked expanse of ground was left. Fleeting images of dead soil passed, dried grass, blazing suns and bone-dry landscapes. My mind immediately went back to the talk we had in biology about the California drought.

So this is what’s going on here. My heart felt heavy in my chest from what I had just seen. As I let go of the ball, it fell to the hard ground and a small crack appeared on its surface. It was as if it felt as dry as California… Something needed to be done. I sat down in a small clearing between the trees, and found the dampest soil I could find. There I dug a small hole using my hands and filled it with the leftover water from my water bottle. I placed the dried up ball in the little hole and let the water cover it. Then I filled the hole back up with soil and walked home sadly.

I felt as if I had received a calling. If no one else wanted to do anything, then I would. I went to my biology teacher the next day and begged her to let me talk to the environmental club at school about the drought. It was a little strange at first, a girl who isn’t even from California, who doesn’t have any friends has decided to come and tell people what to do. But I didn’t let it faze me. I prepared a small speech to the environmental club and then decided to take it a step further. At the next school-wide assembly I gave a full presentation with a powerpoint, diagrams and statistics about climate change and the drought, and about what we all need to do to help.

From there it just took off. I was writing letters to the governor, newspapers, and even got to talk on a local radio station. I had a mission that needed to be seen through. Each day I went to check on my tree and my buried orb. The ground above the ball seemed to still look wet and healthy compared to the surrounding dry soil, but nothing else had changed. However each day I pulled myself out of bed and kept fighting. I made a small impact at my school and raised awareness about what we need to do as a community to help our earth, and got recognition in the San Jose Mercury News when my letter to the editor was published. The best part was that after hearing what I had to say, it seemed that people were starting to notice my tree! Maybe all they needed to do was care about what was going on.

A couple years went by and I was exhausted. Temperatures were starting to feel normal again, and it was a comfortable 80 degrees one August afternoon. That day I was listening to the radio and doing homework when I heard something on the radio. The reporter was talking about reservoirs filling up, rainfall increasing over the past year and snow on the mountains. I sat up abruptly and turned the volume up. “The change is pretty minimal, and we are not fully recovered yet, but California, we just might be getting there.” I quickly threw on my sandals and ran out the door, yelling to my mom that I’d be back in an hour. I ran down the street, my steps pounding against the pavement. I ran for about a mile until I reached the park.

I hadn’t visited the park in about a month, for I had neglected my grades over the past couple years and needed to do some damage control before school started again. I pushed my way through the trees on the far end of the field until I reached the tree with the orbs. Nothing about it had changed. Holding my breath, I walked around its wide trunk into the clearing where I planted the fallen orb. But there was no empty clearing anymore. Instead, I saw a seedling tree; fresh, lush and healthy compared to the dry trees around it, pushing through the dry ground and reaching for life.