In The Woods

Chapter 3

The Beginning          
         The day the trouble started, it seemed like a pretty normal day. Maple spread out her branches, reaching to the afternoon sun.  She sat contentedly, taking long draughts of water from the soil.  She sighed and looked around at her lovely green home.  A bird pecked at the ground close to her roots.  "Hello, Robin!  It's a lovely day, isn't it?"  Robin jumped full circle and looked up, a bit startled. "Oh, it's only you!" she twittered, just a little bit agitated, "It is a lovely day.  And I have a lovely new nest.  I've laid three perfect eggs this spring!" She chirped proudly.  "Oh, that's wonderful!" smiled Maple, shaking down a few leaves.  A small leaf landed on Robin's head, making her look like she was wearing a little green bonnet.  The bird twittered out a laugh.  Then she pulled the stem under her chin and through the other side of the leaf.  "I've always envied your leaves.  Now I can wear one of my own!" she sang.  She smiled and flew away with her bonnet and a bunch of worms.
         The tree just sat, as most trees do, and smiled to herself.  Then she heard a slow, mournful, moaning creak.  She turned her attention to her left, where Willow stood hunched over and weeping.  "Willow, what's wrong?" she asked softly.  "I lost my biggest, most beautiful branch. My pride has died!" he wailed.  "Oh, Willow.  You have the most beautiful branches in the forest! Surely one isn't so bad, you have so many," she said.  "But this one was the best one!  It took years to grow..." "And you have many more years to live.  Birch has lost many of his branches, and his roots have been cut out many times by many people to make birch beer.  He has never once complained.  Contain yourself, Willow.  You're quite fine without that one particular branch!" she scolded firmly.  The pessimistic tree drooped lower and sulked, knowing he had not won any sympathy.
         Maple let out an annoyed sigh and rustled her branches.  She noticed one drop.  "See, Willow?  I lost a branch, too!  The problem is, 'this one is the best one, and it took years to grow!' I can't believe it!" she said in mockery.  "Humph," was Willow's childish reply.  "Eh'hem," coughed Elm. "Maple, don't be so hard on him.  He's a tree, too," he reprimanded her gently.  "Oh, I know, but he's so... difficult! He's so negative!" she huffed.  She crossed her limbs across her chest in defeat.  Willow snickered at her, feeling somehow triumphant.  "Willow!  That goes for you, too.  All your sulking and whining!  You should be a proud and noble tree, not a sorry disgrace to the forest.  Don't laugh at Maple when you're the laughingstock of the woodlands!" He bellowed from somewhere deep in his trunk, and Willow shook deep down in his roots and concealed himself in his drooping branches.
         His strong face still hot with anger, he turned to Maple ignoring Willow's cowardly whimpering.  "Sorry 'bout that," he replied gruffly.  Maple stared wide-eyed at him, petrified with disbelief.  "It's okay," she said quietly.  Not many trees had ever seen him so angry.  Suddenly, a long, thick grapevine swung down from the topmost branches of  Willow. "Psst!" she said in a hoarse, old voice.  "Listen!  I got word that some guy is headed toward our forest with..." she paused for dramatic effect and looked around anxiously as if someone might be listening in, "with a chain saw!" 
         "A chain saw?" repeated Maple. "When will he be here? Why is he coming?" Worry entered her gentle face and her leaves rustled.  Elm even looked worried, yet he stayed calm. "Just lettin' ya know, just in case," her scratchy voice said sinisterly.  "Don't worry, Maple," said Elm hiding the worry in his own voice, "That old gossipy Grapevine knows only rumors, nothing more than that."  "How do you know?" she snapped.  She turned her back to him and threw up her limbs in dismay. "How do you know whether or not she has real news  or not?  She was right before, warning us about a man with an ax!  You, of all trees, should know." Then she broke down and cried.  "I knew the Exterminator would be back! I knew he would! And this time, he's bound to chop you completely down!  Don't be so quick to put down old Grapevine!  You remember what happened."  He looked at her sorrowfully, then caressed poor upset Maple with his leaves.  He turned his gaze down to the horrible twisted and gnarled scar that was left from an ax caused gash.  He cringed remembering the pain associated with those three blows into his trunk ten years ago.  The memory was unbearable; 

         A crazed man in his early twenties walks into the forest one golden morning with an ax dragging behind him."You blasted trees!" he screeches maniacally into the woods, "It's time we were rid of you.  You creak and rustle and keep light from touching the earth.  You ignite and allow flames to kill humans in and around you. You hold territory from the grasses and mosses.  You allow yourselves to fall on humans' loved ones and send them to their graves. It's time we were rid of you!  Yes, it's high time I cut you down!"  Then he plunges into the forest shrieking into the darkness and piercing it with shrill battle cries.  He stops at a beautiful old fir tree, tall and strong, and hacks at it viciously. A cold fire burning in his eyes, he chops her down. 
         Without one word, she, Firly, allows herself to be cut.  She lands with a soft thud on the warm forest floor and, she lies dead. He works his way to an oak and a peach.  Peach cries out in agony before she falls.  Maple, only about ten years old, watches in horror. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out. The man stumbles in front of Elm, whipping his ax around and around.  He lets out a hiss and begins to chop young Elm, too. He cries out loudly. Then the squirrels attack the man and woodpeckers drive him out of the forest. "I'll be back for my revenge, just you wait! And I'll shoot apart the squirrels and decapitate the woodpeckers!  Wait and see!" he screeches. Bees and wasps use nesting material to hold in Elm's sap as much as possible so he does not die as the others had.  He cries in pain. He wants to die, the pain is so unbearable.  But he is saved, and the man is gone.

         Elm shook himself back to reality.  "Yes, Maple, I remember.  I remember it well," he said gently, with pained sadness in voice.  Maple turned around with watery eyes and looked up into the great, saddened eyes of her close friend.  Then she, too, looked down at the gnarled scar that held that terrible memory.  The scar always made her queasy, yet it stabbed at her heart every time she saw it.  She looked up again, beginning to cry, and Elm bent down to put her in a comforting embrace.  They looked behind them as they heard several sets of running legs coming toward them.  They separated themselves and turned around.  They saw a small group of four familiar animals; Mole, Squirrel, and their wives. Mole and Squirrel led in the front, their wives hurried behind them. All four looked very troubled. Squirrel spoke first.
         "Elm," Squirrel chattered gravely, panting slightly. "I ran as fast as I could to warn you." "Warn me of what, Squirrel?" asked Elm, his voice deep and low. "Of the Exterminator, my friend," replied the usually chipper Mole. His wife came up behind him and clasped his arm in her light paws. "We came as soon as we heard.  He carries a chain saw, and a group of around thirty men are following him. They are no less than fifty miles away.  They are traveling very swiftly.  We haven't much place to go, nor have we much time to get there." If it wasn't for the news he carried, anyone could have laughed at the mole.  His funny buckteeth stuck out, yet his smiley mouth was pulled into a grimace.  "I don't know what to do!  Anyway, it isn't up to me.  Consult the Old Oak.  He'll know how to deal with this kind of problem," Elm replied feeling helpless, yet keeping his voice level and full of authority.
         Mole and Squirrel saluted in unison to Elm as Molly and Squirrelette scurried up to Maple and sobbed into the base of her trunk.  Then the foursome scurried off in search of Old Oak, the oldest, wisest tree in the forest.  Maple cried into the coarse bark of Elm as he caressed her soft leaves.  After she got herself back together, she called to the birds to warn them of the danger.  Elm took the hint and called to him the bears and they continued this until every animal knew; those that were sick and could not come were brought the message along the Grapevine.  Willow wept and could not stop, and he sobbed for days without ceasing.  He was so busy worrying himself and freaking himself out, he did not prepare for whatever was to come.
          He hid within himself and didn't ask for help or comfort.  He kept it all in and let his fear grow within him.  He did nothing until he heard the ferocious, blood curdling sound of a distant chain saw rip to life.  Then he panicked, and he passed out.  Many large branches fell to the ground.  The largest branch fell off, containing a screech owl's nest.
         The screech owl found her nest turned upside down on the ground, and the eggs were crushed, scattered across the ground.  In her fear and grief, she screeched an earth shattering shriek.  It echoed through the woods.