5
– Under Every Green Tree
Everything was just perfect, plain and simple. The sun sparkled perfectly through the dewy leaves and the lovely and most perfect river spot below that the kids had found. It was like every tree, every crevice, every rock formation and every waterfall had arranged itself to create this perfect beauty of a natural landscape.
As little ducklings waddled along the water, and the birds chirped in the trees, tending to their nests and flying around, the kids looked around in awe at this sight.
Oak tree leaves fell and touched the water with the grace of a ballet dancer. Salmon somersaulted out of the water and dived back in again. Butterflies fluttered this way and that. The grass they stood on was much greener than any grass they had seen before, and scattered across the grass were many pretty daisies and dandelions.
Monica thought she could easily make the world’s largest daisy chain in a day here. The weather was perfect; not too cold, not too hot. Not too dry and not too humid. It was nice.
Jack looked up and saw a cloud that reminded him of an elephant. He could lie here all day and think up fun shapes in the clouds.
The whole area was untouched and much quieter than the hustle and bustle they had grown accustomed to back in the village.
Andrew thought he could sit down and, with the quietness and peacefulness, could concentrate on great ideas and plans for future outings. After all, there were probably a million wonderful places just like this place they had found, only completely different.
Julia had never before felt so free, out here in the open and gorgeous forest. Most days she spent her time cramped up in her Mansion, bored out of her mind, wishing to be taken away on some incredible exciting and overall daring adventure.
And this place was perfect; she felt she could find so many wonderful places to explore, so many rocks to over-turn, so many things just begging to be discovered by her.
Although Matt would never admit it to his friends, he too found himself quite taken aback by the view. He loved every bit of it; it was like he could feel his stresses, his terrors, his nightmares melting away and replaced by a feeling of calm and inner peace. Matt was so very happy to find somewhere he could just lie back and do absolutely nothing. No responsibilities, no worries, no troubles.
In truth, these five kids had already had more than their fill of troubles. Andrew, Jack, Monica, Julia and Matt were, more or less, normal kids who lived in what was, more or less, a normal village, but the lives they lived had been so far anything but normal.
But finally, finally just this once they had a chance to recuperate, a chance to stop and rest and take some time to think about things, to think about their past, present and future, about their lives, their loves, their friends and family.
They were finally free, free to drink in all of nature’s pure majesty and splendor.
It felt like there was nothing else, just them there, together forever in this happy, blissful moment here in this Arcadian avalanche of absolute tranquility.
They could do anything; they barely knew where to start.
They could swim in the river, they could climb trees, they could bury for hidden treasure, and they could even build themselves a tree house so they could come back here again and again and enjoy it.
Nothing could make it any better, except maybe a basketful of kittens or a basketful of puppies. Or maybe even a basketful of both kittens and puppies.
Maybe, one day, they could invite the other villagers of Trouble Valley to come over and enjoy the beauty too. But for now they had it all to themselves. And the five children then lay back on the grass, and were at peace.
And then the world suddenly exploded.
Or at least, that’s what it felt like anyway. The ground shook like an earthquake and there came a loud sound in the distance; this sound sounded like
URRUHHHUUURRRHHHUUUHHHURRRRRHURRURHURU
RRRRHHUUURRRURRRRRURRRRRRUR.
The birds flew away as trees fell down and splashed into the river, making all the poor kids very wet. Julia had bought a new pair of hiking boots only the day before, and wasn’t expecting them to get quite this dirty this quickly. She felt sorry that her shiny new boots were now ruined, along with this beautiful spot they’d found.
With a great, loud THUNK! The fallen trees were replaced with a great big, ugly garish sign reading FUTURE CORPORATE
OFFICE BLOCK.
“You have got to be kidding,” Matt said angrily.
The corporation behind this was the powerful FAT CAT
CORPORATION, who were currently holding a business
conference at the Kingston Hall. They held up signs showing the benefits of the Fat Cat Corporation.
Later, the five children had returned back to Trouble Valley and stood outside the Schoolhouse. A couple of corporate fat-cats enjoyed a hearty lunch at the Inn opposite them.
“It’s not fair,” Monica said, “The Nevermore Forest is beautiful!
Why do they get to destroy it, just to build more corporations?”
“Yeah, I know, it’s wrong, but what can we do? We’re just a bunch of kids,” Matt said.
“We’ve been able to stop aliens and monsters with no problem,” Monica pointed out.
“Yeah, but this is Big Business. You can’t fight City Hall,” Matt retorted.
“Maybe they’d listen to us if we just told them how special and pretty Nevermore Forest is, and then they wouldn’t tear it down!” Monica said optimistically.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Matt said and rolled his eyes.
“I think Monica may have a point; we just need to get these guys to see things our way!” Andrew said.
“Andrew’s right, I’m sure we can get them to see reason!” Jack said joyously.
“These guys are corporate fat-cats; they only care about building their ugly office complexes, they don’t care about aesthetics,” Matt complained.
“What does my asthma have to do with anything?” Julia asked.
“I said aesthetics, not asthmatics,” Matt said.
“I know! I just wanted to make a joke!” Julia said.
“You think this is funny? We’re going to lose Nevermore Forest forever!” Matt exclaimed.
“I’m glad you share our concern for the future of the Nevermore Forest, but don’t be all doom-and-gloom just yet, Matt. I’m sure I can come up with a plan that will save the forest and send the fat-cats packing!” Andrew said.
“Like what, Andrew??” Matt asked angrily.
“We need someone they’ll listen to. Somebody who refuses to ever sit down and shut up. Somebody who always makes sure their voice is heard, that their complaints are acknowledged.
Somebody like you, Matt,” Andrew said.
“WHAT?!?? I don’t complain that often! Uh, do I?” Matt asked, suddenly concerned.
“I meant it as a compliment,” Andrew insisted, “let’s face it, you are more, er, conversationally assertive than most of us.”
“You mean I’m whinier than a squeaky wheel,” Matt said crossly.
“Well, ok, yeah,” Andrew admitted, “But the fact is, when you complain, people listen. These guys will take you more seriously than the rest of us. Won’t you at least give it a go?”
“I suppose,” Matt grumbled reluctantly.
And so Matt went up, up, up the elevators to meet the Fat Cats of the Fat Cat Corporation on Floor 3 of The Wolf and The Craftsman Inn. Currently, the three of them were enjoying a spa bath of money.
“Ahem, excuse me, Gentlemen? My name is Matt; I am a citizen of Trouble Valley.
I understand that you intend to tear down Nevermore Forest so you can build your Office Blocks there,” Matt said.
“Yes indeed, because it will bring us oceans upon oceans of money!” Said the first Fat-Cat.
“Sweet, delicious money!” Said the third Fat-Cat.
“Yes, I understand, money is nice,” Matt said, “However the Nevermore Forest holds important cultural significance to the villagers of Trouble Valley, and they are against you chopping down all the trees. And I am inclined to agree with them; I think there are many fantastic locations out there that would be a better place to build your office blocks,”
The fat-cats stared blankly at him, then…
“Oh, I get it! You’re one of those crazy climate-change con-artists, aren’t you???” The second fat-cat accused, pointed a big, accusing, diamond-ring-encrusted finger at Matt,
“Yeah, one of those shallow creeps who only care about making money!” The third fat-cat said, absent-mindedly fiddling with the golden penchant hanging around his neck.
“Oi!” Matt shouted angrily, “I was trying to be NICE to you guys! And trust me, that doesn’t come easily to somebody like me! You guys are being meshugana!”
“Well, I’m not saying this because you’re Jewish or anything; in fact, some of my best friends are hook-nosed penny-pinching shysters. But clearly you are just plain greedy, trying to use scare-tactics to get us to give you all our money!” The fat-cat said.
“First of all, I’m not a practicing Jew; For Pete’s sake, I had a ham-and-cheese sandwich for lunch! I wouldn’t know the difference between a Purim and a pancake!” Matt exclaimed.
“Hey, don’t make this about your Jewishness, big-nose,” The Fat-Cat complained.
“You’re the one who brought it up! Besides, being Jewish has nothing to do with this!” Matt exclaimed.
“Well, if this has nothing to do with your Jewishness, then you should stop talking about it!” Said the Fat-Cat.
“I think he just wants special privileges just because he’s Jewish. What a greedy guy!” The second fat-cat said.
“Oy vey, you people are idiots,” Matt said.
The fat-cats stared at him blankly.
“This whole thing is so ridiculous. How did you even guess at my Jewish ancestry? Because of my curly hair and big nose?
Look out the window; there’s my three ginger-haired friends.
If this were the Spanish Inquisition, you would have accused THEM of being Jews apropos of nothing but their ginger hair,”
Matt said.
“But anyway, we’ve dragged way off-topic here; my main point here is that you shouldn’t destroy the Nevermore Forest!” Matt said.
“Pfah!” Said the fat-cat, “You may as well give up; your scare tactics will have no affect on us!”
“For goodness sake! This is so wrong! Everything about what you’re saying is just so wrong! And since you won’t listen to me, I’m just going to have to show you how wrong you are!”
Matt said, and then angrily stormed out.
Much later, Matt opened the door again with much fanfare, as a Red carpet rolled out for him to walk out on.
Matt was now wearing a most fancy suit with a shining black cape, and a devil’s goatee hung from his chin; atop his head was a top hat with golden lining. He had applied some make-up to make his long nose more accentuated. His hair was smooth and fancy. He wore small stylish half-spectacle glasses that hung from the end of his nose.
He had a long, villainous moustache that he twirled most evilly.
He let out a Vincent-Price style laugh, and then began talking in a ridiculously deep Transylvanian accent.
Matt twirled his evil moustache.
“Velcome, Velcome, pleasssssse, kahm een to my lair, muwahahaha…” Matt said, “I vill tell terrifying talessssss to you and sssssssohk yor bloahd through your vallet in exchange, Muwahaha…”
Matt twirled his evil moustache again.
And so the three fat-cats followed him into his lair, as Matt rubbed his hands together and twirled his evil moustache. The room was opulent; he sat them down on an opulent couch as he sat on an opulent chair.
“Sssssso, you vink you is very brave with ze not being ssssscared, so vould ze care to prove it? I vill pay mossssst handsssssomely to anyvone who vill ssssspend ze night in ze Nevermore Forest, if ze dares! Muwahahaha! But virst, I must give ze a varning; let ze vich and greedy Count Mattacula tell ze sssstory of ze Bramblelingssssss…” Matt said, all the while continuing to twirl his evil moustache. Suddenly Matt turned serious and began speaking in a narrative-style voice, and began to tell his story.
And then there were badly-synthesized sound effects of lightning and howling wolves and the screen faded to black.
Then, Matt twirled his evil moustache again.
The
Brambelings
One cold November Evening many moons ago,
Lucian and Wolfsbane, two traveling pilgrims
were traveling deeply through the Nevermore
Forest, more deeply than anyone had ever
traveled before.
After much wandering, they found an old,
rickety abandoned campsite cabin.
“What a fantastic place for us to spend the
night!” Lucian and Wolfsbane said to one
another.
And so, they went inside. It was a small place.
There were a few children’s toys, old and dusty,
scattered around the place. There was a large
cracked mirror before them.
Wolfsbane admired his reflection in this dusty
old mirror as Lucian glanced upon the
Reading Room. The Library was mostly empty, save
for some old bibles and dictionaries.
Taped to the wall, Lucian noticed there were
some rather puzzling photographs taped to the
wall.
Most of the images were dark, blurry and out
of focus, and seemed to only focus on such
mundane sights as dead tree branches.
But one of the photos caught Lucian’s eye;
it was a photograph of a deceased gentleman’s
disembodied hand, lying in the middle of the
forest.
But of course, Lucian had seen much stranger
things on his travels with Wolfsbane, so he
decided not to dwell on this grim image,
and instead he joined Wolfsbane who was
currently walking up the spiral staircase
upstairs.
It creaked and groaned as they walked up, and
then they went over and entered the bedroom;
there was an old, dusty queen-sized bed.
“Perfect, just the right size for both of us!”
Wolfsbane said.
And with that, the two of them got under the
blankets, talked about their hopes and dreams,
cuddled a little, kissed each other goodnight,
and went to sleep.
Lucian awoke in the night to the sound of
something scraping against the window.
Probably just a tree branch, Lucian reassured
himself.
The scratching grew louder and louder until
he could ignore it no more;
and so, he left the comfort of his warm bed and
walked over to the windowsill.
Much to his relief, it really was a tree branch,
rattling against the window. He looked out at
the flimsy thing; he noticed that,
seemingly of its own accord, the branch was
increasing in strength; it was no longer merely
tapping, it was strongly battering against the
window frame.
Lucian knew full well that he would never be
able to sleep with that much noise outside, so he
opened up the window-frame, reached out, and
attempted to push aside the tree branch.
Suddenly, to Lucian’s horror, the tree branch
grabbed his hand, and before he could scream,
another branch wrapped itself around his
neck and strangled him. Looking into the
blackness of the merciless night,
Lucian saw two round glowing yellow eyes
staring back at him, and then the branch
pulled him out of the window and into the
dark abyss.
Not long after this, Wolfsbane woke up, quite
thirsty.
He looked to his side and was somewhat
disturbed to find that Lucian was gone.
He got up in the pale moonlight. He noticed the
window was open, so he quickly got up to close
it.
He looked around and wondered where
Lucian had gone. So he lit a candle and began
to walk down the hallway, the floorboards
quaking as he shivered along down the stairs.
Wolfsbane then went to the Kitchen, and
poured himself a glass of water, being careful
not to spill it over the candle.
He then went back to the hallway, when he
noticed writing on the mirror.
There, in blood-red letters, somebody had
written,
REVELATION 7.14.
Which greatly frightened Wolfsbane. He looked
behind him, and there lying sprawled across the
ground was the corpse of his dear friend
Lucian.
The front door was wide open.
Wolfsbane was growing more terrified by the
second; clearly something or someone had
killed his friend.
He then carefully tip-toed to the Reading Room.
By candle-light he looked up at the
photographs.
Looking across at them, he did not notice
anything unusual. Simply nothing more than
photographs of tree branches. But then he saw
the photograph of a dead man’s arm hanging
from his corpse.
As he pondered the circumstances of this man’s
death, and whether or not
they were of any relation to his friend Lucian’s
death, lightning flickered outside and was
followed by thunder.
He looked behind himself, terrified, as he saw a
huge figure looming outside.
No, wait, Wolfsbane thought, it’s only a tree,
outside the window.
But then Wolfsbane had an odd thought;
hadn’t this very same tree been outside the
window when he was in the kitchen fetching
himself a glass of water?
It sounded crazy, but alone in a cabin with his
best friend dead; Wolfsbane was not in the
sanest of minds.
So, bravely he walked out the front door,
holding his candle close to his heart,
the flickering light beginning to dim as the wax
melted.
He looked around. The tree had moved.
He looked this way and that, soiling his pants.
Suddenly, over near a gathering of pine trees,
he spotted a flicker of movement.
He looked closer and saw a pair of glowing
eyes.
“I found you!” Wolfsbane said.
The creature tried to cross from one section
of the forest to another on the other side of
the clearing, and now Wolfsbane could get a
closer look at the creature.
It was a Brambeling.
A terrifying monster who had limbs that
looked like tree branches,
and its face was little more than a beard of
leaves and those two soulless glowing yellow
eyes.
Wolfsbane pointed at the creature.
“I can see you, monster! Your camouflage has
failed you!” he shouted.
The Brambeling rose up to its full height and
looked at him. Its glowing eyes seemed to widen,
and then it started to run straight towards
Wolfsbane.
“You killed Lucian! You monster! You,” but
Wolfsbane never got to finish his sentence, as
the Brambeling proceeded to kill him.
And the last thing Wolfsbane saw before he died
was those two glowing eyes, staring right into
his very soul.
THE END?
“That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” Said the fat-cat, “You’re just making up scary stories so we won’t tear down your forest, and then you’ll steal our jobs and our wives!”
“Yeah, he’s right, and furthermore, your story has several logical errors that I, as a great intellectual and climate change skeptic noticed!
First of all, if both Lucian and Wolfsbane died, where did the story come from?
Who wrote that bible verse on the mirror, and why?
If it was an abandoned cabin, shouldn’t the water have been cut off by the council, or, if they were using a water tank that hadn’t been attended to for years, then the water should’ve been dirty and in no fit state to drink, shouldn’t it have been?
Why did the monster hide? Why didn’t it just kill them both from the start?
Why didn’t Lucian scream when he was taken out the
window? Why wasn’t he more concerned about the
photograph of the disembodied arm?
And why is it that in one part of the story it’s a disembodied arm, and then it’s a full corpse?
Also, there’s the obvious fact that the amount of energy required to give animalistic intelligence to a tree would require a magnetic monopole super-imposed within a super-massive black hole isolated within a Higgs Field times the density of a weakless universe divided by the sub-particle wave length of the root square of an isosceles triangle subtracting the para-statistical metadata equal to the maximum level of sub-atomic exotic particles, then acting under the assumption that in the event of the self-intersection of cosmic strings triggered by inordinate radiation, there would exist somewhere an object that was both simultaneously larger than the entire universe and smaller than an atom, blatantly violating the Law of Conservation of Energy.
Any child over five could tell you that!
But you’re part of the evil Climate Change Cult!! There is no such thing as Brambelings or Climate Change!” The second fat-cat exclaimed, and then stood proudly, thinking to himself,
‘INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORIOTY ACHIEVED!!!!’
“Oh no,” Matt said sarcastically, “My evil plan has been foiled.
Just please don’t go to this particular part of the forest that I’m pointing to on this here map, then you might find out that I made the whole story up! That would be just oh so
embarrassing for me!”
“Aha!” Said the third fat-cat boisterously, “Come on, lads, let’s go off into the forest and prove this complete stranger wrong!
That’ll show everyone how awesome we are!”
The three fat-cats quickly ran out the door and headed off into the depths of the Nevermore Forest.
Matt smiled to himself, and went off to get out of his ridiculous get-up.
Three hours later, the three fat-cats emerged from the Nevermore Forest, newly changed Men.
“Golly, that piece of forest was just beautiful!” one of them said.
“There’s no way we can tear down Nevermore Forest if it means getting rid of that pretty place!” another said.
“Let’s go build our offices some place else!” the last one said, and then the three fat-cats left Trouble Valley and never returned.
“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, just don’t expect me to do anything helpful for you guys ever again; that was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done,” Matt said.
“Thank-you for saving the forest, Matt,” Monica said. She gave Matt a kiss on the cheek, then walked off.
“Aww, are you blushing?” Julia asked.
“…Hey, anyone else in the mood for Ice-Cream?” Jack asked.
His friends all answered in the affirmative, and so they went off to get some ice-cream.