The Secret Story of Gerald Jr the Christmas Tree
by Ian Osburn
www.ianosburn.com
Copyright © 2012 Ian Osburn
All Rights Reserved
Illustrations created by Anna-Louise Felstead, RCA (www.alfelstead.com)
For my parents, my two Elizabeths and, of course, for you. I hope this story makes the minutes it takes to read more fun.
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Bertram Wants to Tell You a Story
Far away, on a chain of islands with few inhabitants is a huge, dense forest. It is a beautiful forest with a few huge trees at one end which, depending on the time of year, throw their colours or winter branches around the heights of the sky. Smaller trees, still huge to us, mingle around the roots of those great trees and under those smaller trees still and plants of all shapes and colours. Under those is, while you are standing, something that looks like a carpet of soft green but if you lie down and press your nose against it is actually a patchwork of thousands of grasses and mosses, each different from their neighbour. Life thrives everywhere within the forest even in the very raindrops that fall upon it for most of the year. But this forest is like no other. This forest has a secret locked within it. Not a little secret. No. A huge secret. A secret so huge, so special, that if a human ever learned it, it would mean the end of the great forest. But you are lucky. I want to tell you a story and as my whole story is based around it, I shall have to tell you the secret. So here goes. The big secret is.....is.... . You know, I'm not sure I should say. After all you are human aren't you? And that makes me worry. 'But aren't you human?' you may well ask. Of course not, not me. 100% unhuman. Humanfree. You see I am in fact a Badger. Mr Bertram Frederick Gustave Badger to be precise and I haven't a bit of human in me. For if I did I would not know the secret, and I know alright, I know. All the animals do. But you... you are human. You would need, simply not be able to resist, to spread the secret and THEN! Then scientists would come, with saws and axes, chopping off bits of tree here and bits of animal there. You see the trees in the forest.....well.....the trees....er... the trees... This is silly! As long as I don't tell you where the forest is, everything will be okay, so here goes...the trees in the forest....the trees in the forest could....could....the trees in the forest could talk....and walk. Yes, they could talk and walk. Walking, talking trees, they were. There I'm glad that is over with, now I must be careful not to tell you that the forest is in N.....DAMN, damndamndamndamndamn. I'm stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I almost told you where the forest is. I'm so annoyed that I could just stop telling this story right now! The trees would never forgive me. I would be outcast. Forever...
Ok Bertram. Calm down. Take a deep breath in......and out, you didn't tell them so calm down. I must apologise dear listener but I almost told you where my magical home is. Try to imagine....you are in a situation where if you whisper, in even the lowest of whispers, the place where you live it would all be destroyed, you, your family, your house and all the other houses in the town, all destroyed. Horrible isn’t it? Anyway, I didn't tell you so I shall get back to the story. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the trees, well the trees can talk and also they cannot talk. Confused? Yes I can see why. Let me explain before I confuse myself too. The trees cannot talk as you and I do, but to communicate they rustle their leaves and creak their branches. By doing this the trees can talk even when a human is present. The trees can also walk but this is very dangerous as to do so they lift their great roots from the soil and walk like spiders. It means they rise about ten feet into the air which, as you can guess, attracts a great deal of attention. Also it leaves a lot of churned up soil where the tree once stood and this would arouse suspicion especially to a human who happened to be walking in the wilderness of the forest. So they don’t move around so much even though they would like to stretch their roots. Trees that stroll and communicate brings me to my next point, names! Yes, trees, like humans, have to have names. It’s the only way of distinguishing one tree from another. But unlike humans, trees are named by their species and character. For instance, there is a family of trees called the Laughashes, named as they are: ash trees of a jolly and happy nature. There are many different families of trees, the Grumpyoaks, the Toffelms, the Tubbibirches and the Kindpines. Ah, yes, the Kindpines. The Kindpines are a very respectable family of pine trees that live at the very centre of the forest. Every tree in that huge forest, even the ones on the very edge, knows about the Kindpines. And one Kindpine in particular- Gerald Jr Kindpine. Gerald Jr, I'm afraid to say, let the family down sometimes but always unintentionally. For Gerald Jr saw himself as the inventor in the family. And in some ways he was for he was very resourceful and cunning but his nature, or perhaps we should call it his young blundering, caused his talents to be misused from time to time. For instance, one of Gerald Jr's worst inventions was during the annual drought. It was in 1977 (which may seem along time ago to us but to the trees it is quite recent). The summer drought was exceptionally bad. The ground was so hard that the trees could not even lift their roots to walk. Not that they wanted to as they were concentrating on absorbing as much water as possible. Gerald Jr whilst stretching his roots came across a pipe, and after being told many stories by Mr. Housemouse, who is a mouse of the world, he knew exactly what it was and what it contained: water! Without telling anyone he started to undo the bolts connecting one part of the pipe to another. After the third bolt water began to trickle out of the joint. Success! Still Gerald Jr continued to loosen the bolts for he had no reason to keep the pipe a secret from the other trees. After the seventh it was gushing. And it was already too late. Even if Gerald Jr had stopped undoing the bolts then it would have had little effect- the vibration of the water rushing out had started to loosen the other bolts and they were beginning to fall off. The water level rose and rose until it was above the surface of the forest and the water kept on coming and coming until Gerald Jr, realising that the soil was flooding, used his main roots to try and push the pipes together. But to no effect! The water pressure was too great and the water carried on flowing. For two hours this went on. The water had turned the soil around Gerald Jr like a bog. Then the waterboard came which angered the trees. They do not like humans in the forest for the more humans, the more chance the trees’ secret will be discovered. Gerald Jr had to pay the price. When the waterboard came he still had his roots around the pipes. He daren't move them for fear of being discovered so he had to remain very still as the workmen cut off the ends of his roots which didn't hurt much but was very irritating. He described it to me once and it seems it felt as though someone had cut your claws, er fingernails, but cut them too short so the sensitive skin underneath is exposed and it is very irritating when you keep knocking it on things. It took about five years for the trees to forget that incident. Luckily for Gerald trees have relatively short memories. And it is here that Gerald Jr is really different from other trees, for he has a very long memory, very long, so long that he could even remember when he was a little pinecone. Some say that he never forgets which is true most of the time except when it comes to incidents like the one I have just described when he pretends to forget and never mentions it. The reason that the Kindpines lived at the centre of the forest was because of fear. Fear of being cut down by the inhabitants of the island. You see, my story takes place in December...
A Conversation in the Night
The 5th of December. The village folk were getting ready for one of their annual festivities called Christmas and this caused humans to venture into the forest to find a pine tree to cut down and take back to the village so they could hang decorations on him or her. It was late at night, glowing
snow had started to gently fall over the moon-lit island, forming a crisp blanket of white over the icy earth. Gerald Jr gave a sharp shiver. He hated the snow more than anything for it always caused a shiver to run right up his trunk. He shuffled closer to his grandma and Grandpa (his mother and father had been cut down just two days after Gerald had fallen off his mother in the form of a pinecone). His Grandparents were asleep for they were old and tired pine trees. To be honest the only pieces of youth left on them were the evergreen pine needles that dance gaily about in the morning breeze. As for the rest of them, well, their bark is old and grey with patches of moss growing in the cracks. Their branches weary and sagging. It takes Grandpa Kindpine great effort to straighten his branches when a human comes and he could only have bold straight branches for a little while as the strain was tremendous. Gerald however was quite different- bold, strong branches that stretched out straight as poles and his bark brown and tight. He couldn't sleep. He was too