As the new page of The Very Long and True Story of Adora Birch settled into place, the ghostly old voice of the Great PoetTree drifted away on on a breeze. “Everrrry stoooory is aaaa treeeeeee fulllll of seeeeeeds.”
And with that, the Great PoetTree turned into a graceful old birch tree in spring.
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| The FamilyTree |
“Meet my FamilyTree,” said the tiny fairy seed with a flit and a float. “The FamilyTree is my oldest living ancestor,” the little
seed added with extraordinary pride.
The FamilyTree was very lovely but very still, like grownups who seemed to get taller and deaf and farther away when they got busy.
“Dora story,” Hannah complained impatiently.
"What is an ancestor?" Lucy asked, hoping that the answer would reveal how a door could grow out of a seed and how Adora Birch ended up in that door.
“An ancestor is a being who came before you in a very old time,” the little seed explained.
“How old is your ancestor?” Lucy asked the little seed in a whisper, for her mother had warned that it’s not polite to ask old people their age.
But the FamilyTree overheard and swayed a bit as if annoyed at being disturbed and then with a brusque whoosh of its leaves, replied, “A tree is an answer that grows shallow and deep . . . up and out . . . and blows about.”
Lucy felt annoyed that the FamilyTree was speaking in riddles. She’d had enough of confusing trees for one day. Especially from trees who were supposed to guide them on this so-called very long and true journey.
But as Lucy was stewing, Hannah was dancing around, waving her arms like branches and singing, “Up out blows about . . . deep out . . . grows ground to top.”
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| Sneezy Dust |
“Haaa aaaah,” rustled The FamilyTree with a sway that brought down a sneezy dust.”
“A seed is a deed awaiting a need,” proclaimed the FamilyTree. “An achhoo is the who of tree that is new,” said the FamilyTree.
“Oh, my FamilyTree, your words are full of miracles,” cried the fairy seed and then explained to Lucy and Hannah in a tone of high esteem, “Every year, my FamilyTree has made enough seeds to fill a bushel basket.”
Considering how teeny tiny the winged fairy seed was, Lucy was astonished at the thought that a bushel basket of seeds would be up to her knees!
Hannah, growing bored, jumped up, shouted, “Bunnies!” and pointed at the two rabbits that had just popped out of a hole in the ground beneath the ancestor tree. The bunnies went hippity hopping across the grass, pausing between a hip and hop for a bite of bark off the birch tree’s trunk.
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| Funny and Runny Bunnies |
As Hannah scampered off with the bunnies, Lucy began looking around the wide open meadow. “If the FamilyTree made all those seeds every year,” she asked, “where are all the trees?”
"Hooo hoooosh," rustled the FamilyTree then asked in a riddling rush of words, “What is a bark without a bite? What is a bird without a tree?”
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| A Redpoll |
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| Woodpecker |
And with that the air perked up and the whole meadow came alive—the sweet air quivering with a feeling that something was going to happen—something magical. Out of nowhere, birds suddenly appeared—chickadees finches redpolls flitting about the FamilyTree. The birds twittered and pecked away at the seeds in the cones hanging from the old birch's branches. A wild turkey wandered by and pecked up seeds fallen to the ground. As hummingbirds and insects buzzed in for some sap from the old tree’s bark, a
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| Wild Turkey |
woodpecker pecked outside its home in a hole of the tree.
“My FamilyTree works hard all year giving food and shelter to the many,” explained the fairy seed.
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| Finches |
Hannah returned and flopped down beside Lucy, exhausted from her hippety hop with the bunnies. “Hot,” she said rubbing her head. So they all moved under the shade of the old tree and had barely gotten comfortable when a deer peered out at them from a thicket of bushes, then emerged ever so cautiously.
“Deer are so noiseless and ready for their legs to turn into springs,” whispered the little seed, so as not to startle the deer.
Minutes later, the doe was joined by two fawns that leapt so nimbly across the wide open space they almost appeared to be flying.
The doe just stood with the watchful eye of a mother and without
making a sound seemed to call the spotted ones back.
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| Tiny Birch Tree |
“Those are tiny birch trees the deer are eating,” explained the little seed as the deer glided away.
Two squirrels began chasing each other up and down and around the trunk of the FamilyTree.
“Whooo,” called an owl from its home in a hole in one of the birch branches.
“Owls are so whooey, don't you think,” remarked the little seed gleefully.
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| Whooey the Owl |
“Whooo,” called the owl again.
Then from the bushes beyond the FamilyTree, there was laughter and a man’s voice saying, “Sounds like Whooey the Owl is complaining again.”
And through the bushes on the far side of the tree, a smiling family appeared.
They introduced themselves as the Green Family: There was Mr. Shamrock Green, his wife Emerald Green, their daughter Lettuce, their son Lime, and the kids’ Great Uncle Asparagus.
As it turned out, Great Uncle Asparagus and Great Aunt Nature Walker remembered each other from some Nature Walking
expeditions many years before. Great Aunt Nature Walker set her big green book aside and introduced Lucy and Hannah to Great Uncle Asparagus and his family. Great Uncle Asparagus and Great Aunt Nature Walker remarked on how much the old birch had grown since they themselves were young. |
| The Green Family |
“Unusually old for a birch,” was how Great Uncle Asparagus answered Lucy’s question about the age of the old tree. “Over a hundred years, I’d wager,” he surmised, then added, “What a glorious and happy little world there is for so many of Earth's creatures under the branches of this old tree.”
Indeed it was a splendid little world all its own, marveled Lucy as Hannah and the spring grew drowsy and fell to rest on a distant rhyme
A tree breathes out
You breathe in
You breathe out
A tree breathes in
And as the spring fell away into summer, a breeze brought down a flutter of seeds.
“I wonder where each one’s going?” pondered Great Uncle Asparagus as the seeds flitted off in every direction.
“On to the grandest adventures on Earth,” said Great Aunt Nature Walker.
“And one of the seeds is me,” sang the little fairy seed from amidst the flutter flitting across the wide meadow.
And as Great Aunt Nature Walker turned the page, the Green family waved goodbye. And the meadow along with the FamilyTree vanished into the Magical Story Room and those two very difficult questions:
How will that little seed ever turn into a door.
And will there ever be an answer as to how Adora Birch ended up in that door?
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