Priya's Tiny Juniper

Priya's Tiny Juniper

1On her tenth birthday, Priya's neighbor, Mr. Haddad, gave her a small juniper tree in a shallow clay pot. It was no taller than a water bottle. "This is your first bonsai," he said. "A bonsai is a tree that you shape a little at a time, for many years."

2Priya had admired the bonsai trees on Mr. Haddad's porch all summer. His oldest one looked like a windswept pine on a mountain cliff, with a thick, twisting trunk and neat clouds of green. Next to it, her tree looked like a messy green brush.

3That evening, Priya decided she would not wait for years. She found a pair of scissors and began to snip. A branch here. A branch there. Each cut made the tree look a little more like Mr. Haddad's, she thought, so she kept going. When she finally stepped back, her heart sank. Her juniper was mostly bare brown sticks with a few tufts of green at the tips.

4The next morning, she carried the pot next door. "I ruined it," she said, her voice shaking. Mr. Haddad turned the pot slowly in his hands. "It is not ruined," he said. "It is tired. You took away too much at once, so now it needs time to grow." Priya asked how much time. "Maybe until spring," he said, and she groaned. He pointed to his oldest tree. "My grandmother started this one before I was born. Everyone who cared for it waited. That is the real secret of bonsai."

5So Priya waited. She kept the tree outside where it got morning sun, and she watered it whenever the soil felt dry. She wanted to snip, but she kept the scissors in a drawer. Some weeks the tree looked exactly the same, and she wondered if anything was happening at all.

6Then, one cool morning in spring, Priya noticed tiny bright green tips growing from the tufts of green on the branches. She ran next door with the pot in her arms. Mr. Haddad smiled and handed her a small pair of bonsai scissors. "Now," he said, "we cut one branch, and then we wait to see what the tree tells us."