Just Imagine
Michael Sutton
About the Author
Michael was born in Portsmouth in 1948. He studied sciences working for ICI as an Experimental Officer during the 60s and 70s.
Michael lives with his partner, Jennifer, near Leeds and their spare time is spent visiting properties owned by English Heritage and The National Trust.
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© Copyright 2011
Michael Sutton
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ISBN-978 1 78069 012 4
First Published 2004 in paperback by Vanguard Press
First Published as an e-book 2011
E-Books Publisher
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CONTENTS
Chapter One
Douglas had a fever – a high fever. He lay in bed ranting and raving.
"How's the patient today, Mrs Douglas?" for he was called Douglas Douglas.
"Much the same. I keep doing as you told me, swabbing my husband down with cold water, but he is still deep in the fever."
"Let me have a look at him, at least check on his temperature."
Douglas sweated, Violet pushed sips-full of water to his burning lips. Douglas sucked the water only as an automaton.
"Still serious, Mrs Douglas. 105 degrees Fahrenheit. I'll call again, but you call me if there is a change for the worse, right?" and Dr Groop left, bag in hand.
Douglas's eyes, through eyes of fire, were unseeing. They just looked, but Douglas could see with his eyes closed. Yes, he could see very well in his world of fever and delirium, sitting as he was on a leaf at the top of a very tall, very old Baka tree, deep in the South American jungle. How he knew it was in South America, he could not say if you asked him. Some other-world consciousness told him that it was.
The leaf he was sitting on was one of many, no one of ten thousand. It had a smooth feel to it, no, an almost silken feel to it – a waxen surface. Douglas knew why the leaf was waxen; it was to keep the rain out. Pulsing with happiness, the smooth dark green leaf sucked in its flows of sunshine, bringing much appreciated energy to the chloroplasts inside. The chloroplasts were like the 'workers' in an ant colony, they kept the interior of the leaf in good order. There was a social order inside the leaf – housekeeping had to be done. The capillaries fed by the xylem and the phloem had to be regularly cleaned out, so that mitochondria could be fed with a constant supply of chlorophyll to produce energy for the leaf to live. The entry tubes to the inside of the leaf were spirochetes or 'breath eyes'.
The leaf had an upstairs and a downstairs; the stairs themselves were made of a single row of cellulose cells, all lined up by the chloroplasts. Similarly, the bed frames were also made of strong cellulose cells, but this time all woven together like a gummed-up paper chain. It was on the top floor that Douglas lay in his leaf-bed now, listening to the world of nature growing in its daily 'life-pains'. The leaf was a hive of activity with the bellows pumping in and out, in and out. Oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, depending on the daylight. The sun's heat was a god-send to the chloroplasts who nipped up the stairs for a touch of sun tanning. They lay in neat rows across the waxen surface of the leaf, until tanned dark green. Then they would nip back inside and deposit their chlorophyll buds into the mitochondria's larder, where it was energised to feed the rest of the tree. The mitochondria were happy in the sunshine. They worked that much quicker, and this tickled the taste buds of the xylem and the phloem tubes who ran hundreds of feet down: starting with the leaf veins, going to the leaf stalk, along there to the twigs, branches and mighty boughs, until the mitochondria fed the very tree trunk – the mighty stem-motorway which was powerful, old, but very vibrant, and kept the whole tree together.
Douglas's fever raged on. He got out of bed, left his body and went on a spiritual journey, sliding in his sweat-stained sheet down and down until eventually he couldn't get any further. The roots were a massive tangle, so to avoid being stuck in a hair root he climbed out of a breathing hole in a tap root. He popped out and was covered in slimy sap. It did not taste too bad so he drank from the tap root which gave him energy. The crumbs of soil were cool to touch, but very large to climb, even so as he climbed he grew.
"It's the sap from the tap root, that's why I am growing bigger," and in a while Douglas was huge, as big as an oak leaf. Now he had to make himself thin to push up through the soil. Tiny pinpricks of light could be seen overhead, so encouraged, Douglas climbed upwards. Getting near the surface he encountered a mighty earthworm. The worm opened its mouth to suck Douglas in, but being quick-witted, Douglas kicked it hard on the snout with one of his shoes. The worm drew back and burrowed off in a different direction. The leaf mulch was infested with all sorts of creepy crawlies. A large black beetle came his way, so Douglas jumped on his back and got a free ride to the surface. The sunlight was glorious, but suddenly a strong gust of wind whipped up the leaves Douglas had just taken a seat on for a rest. The leaf flew high in the air until it rested on a nest in the upper branches of a Baka tree he had previously come down. The nest contained hungry chicks, and Douglas was soon spotted, being the same size as the chicks. He grabbed a piece of strong spiky nest material and stabbed at the soft throats of the chicks, which quickly taught them that he definitely was not a tasty meal. A flying squirrel swept down from an adjacent Baka tree and grabbed hold of one of the Pejakin chicks, and then made ready to sweep down to the next lot of branches. Before the squirrel plunged down, Douglas jumped on its back and hitched a hair-raising ride from tree to tree, until it eventually scrambled down some low branches and went to ground. The squirrel flicked its brush at something on its back, but it was more interested in the dinner it had caught, so while the host tucked in the temporary parasite made his getaway.
The jungle was alive, reverberating with the pulse of life; the fastest moving was the water cycle. With daily afternoon showers and the hot dried out evenings, when many plants and trees deliberately curled up their leaves, stopping the baking hot sun from drying the leaves out. At these times, the mitochondria took a rest, preferring to wait until it rained again the following day, but the chloroplasts all nipped outside tanning themselves to a desirable emerald green. Some of the sun addicts were tanned to the deepest bottle green, which were the envy of the younger chloroplasts. In the late afternoon everything sizzled slowly but surely under the glare of the hot sun. The puddles of water steamed, the surface of the whole jungle floor became a steam bath where the sun broke through. Douglas drank out of the middle of a large trumpet plant; the water was cool but tasted of nectar. Up in the canopy, a hundred feet above, the Squarks cackled and called to one another; they sunbathed in the overhead branches, preening their red parrot-like feathers. The canopy was verdant with living greenery. You could hear the creepers growing, whose abundance of fronds curled about and strangled like a constricting snake all and sundry that it attached to and lived off, to the detriment of the host tree. But where one heavenly-seeking tip of greenery died another came up from the sauna below, where life competed for the sunlight. The rains nourished the roots, the rotting trees nourished the soil, and the sunlight pulled the eager plants up to the canopy where they competed for God's sunlight.
Douglas, back up in the tree canopy, being the size of a leaf, was one of the 'little people', and so he enjoyed sunbathing. Whilst stretched out soaking up the sun, using snail-slime for sun-tan cream, he was tickled all over by a whole family of chloroplasts who had just nipped out from the leaf he was lying on, for a quick whiff of jungle-sizzling sun-in-the-afternoon steam.
Uno chloroplast said to Duo chloroplast, "What type of leaf is this? Its orifices are all in its face. Is it a greedy caterpillar I wonder?"
"It's no kind of leaf I have ever invaded, it has four long veins hanging out. I don't like it at all," replied Duo chloroplast.
"Get off me, you stupid chloroplasts, and go back into your leaves!" shouted out an angry Douglas as he flicked one head over heels, and the chloroplasts ran for their lives. Some were too slow, for Douglas threw them to one side where they tumbled over in the fresh air falling on the blowing breeze until they eventually landed on the tree opposite, which had plenty of leaves to invade.
A Squark caught Douglas's eye as it alighted on a branch nearby. In a panic Douglas crawled underneath the twig, he was on to hide from the preying eyes. While he was sheltering there, hanging on for dear life, with his arms around a leaf stalk and his legs wrapped around a Baka tree nut, a black beetle came steadily along the twig just above his head. Now the beetle was like the size of a cat to a man, so seeing the beetle's large incisor teeth, Douglas was right to be alarmed. The beetle sniffed the air above Douglas's head and flicked its antennae about. 'Food', thought the beetle, and it crawled along the twig and down the stalk holding the nut to the tree. Then the nut fell away from the cusp that had been holding it to the stalk, and so Douglas was sitting on a nut in free fall. Luckily the canopy was so dense that the nut only fell about ten feet before it landed on a springy Cakal leaf, which was about a foot across, much, much larger than Douglas's three inches in height. He slid down the leaf, still seated on the nut, and dropped into the little funnel depression which formed where the stalk joined to the Cakal leaf.
"What are you doing on my leaf?" asked a peculiar creature.
"It's an accident. I don't mean to be here. The beetle knocked the nut out of its growing pod on the Baka tree," said Douglas in a very stern voice, trying to be very brave.
"That's no good – just an excuse. What do you think I am – stupid?"
"Actually, to tell the truth, I don't know what you are. You see I came from the inside of a leaf."
"Stuff and nonsense, you're a boy-child, anybody knows that."
"Well, I'm glad you told me, for I didn't know what I was. You see I've been raised by an army of mitochondria."
"Likely story. What sort of creature are they, boy-child?"
"Oh, they are very tiny. They are fed by the chloroplasts."
"So you really have come from inside a leaf. Must be a very big leaf to have you inside."
"Well, Mr – er – insect person, I was very, very small, but I have eaten some sap from a tap root and now I have grown."
"Ah ha! A liar as well, are we. Roots do not have taps. Only humans in houses have taps. It's where they get their water from."
"No, no, no, not that sort of tap. It's just called a tap root; it means the middle juicy one. You know, like a central root that a dandelion puts into the soil."
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Humans are always so complicated. Can't you speak simply?"
"Well, if I knew what I was talking to it would help."
The bells on the underside of the Cakal leaf had been listening and now they all jingled as they laughed at the boy-child.
"You see, little one, even the bells laugh at you. You don't know very much about jungles, do you?"
"Well, actually, I don't belong in the jungle. I came originally from a house."
"Dear, dear, how boring for you, living in a dead house. Us Skatchels only live in a living tree. You live in dead things, dead bricks and dead wood."
"You're a Skatchel – there's no such thing!"
The bells jingled very loud in their laughter at such merriment from a stupid boy-child.
"I am large as life and twice as big too. Look at my long legs. Watch me jump!"
"Wow! You are a cricket or is it a grasshopper?"
"Pah! What does a grasshopper do, such a small thing, and such a pathetic brain too? All they do is hop from grass to grass, no wonder even the smallest birds eat them up. I am a cricket, and a King Cricket at that. Shake my leg. Come on. I won't hurt you. My name's Upper Skatchel, but you can call me Upper."
Douglas shook hands, or rather hand to leg and the bells did a little jingle as they whispered to one another.
"The name's Douglas Douglas," said Douglas, "but you can call me Douglas."
"Climb on my back, Douglas. Go on, I'm very strong really. Let's go exploring."
So six-inch long Upper had three-inch long Douglas on his back and they set off across the treetop canopy, a hundred feet above the ground, way down below. It turned out that Upper Skatchel was a magical King Cricket. He made his back into a seat shape for Douglas to sit on. So, sitting comfortably, Douglas held on to Upper's antennae, which doubled up as riding reins. Now Upper could jump from one foot to over a yard. He was very agile and extremely strong in the leg muscles for someone only six inches in length. Upper's jumping took them on a jungle journey where they encountered all sorts of unusual and very interesting insects.
"That's a funny twig, Upper," said Douglas Douglas.
"Obviously you are not used to the tree canopy, my friend."
"Well, I mean it's moving – a walking twig?"
"It's called a Long-Reach-Us," explained Upper.
"Oh, I see, it's an insect in disguise!"
"Quick, this friend of yours, isn't he?" Cut in the Long-Reach-Us.
"His name's Douglas. He's an insect size man-child."
"Deary, deary me. Whatever next. Where did he come from?"
"He says from inside a leaf, he has been chloroplasted. At least that's what he claims."
"Likely story," said the Long-Reach-Us. "You know what humans are like. They are all deceitful and liars. Don't trust the one of them."
"It's true, Long-Reach-Us, I did come from inside a leaf. The mitochondria fed me."
"All right, boy-child. I believe you because only us intelligent insects know about the mitochondria."
"Keep still, Douglas. Lie flat along my back. I shall impersonate the Long-Reach-Us," said Upper.
The Pejakin bird swooped down, and alighted on a branch just above them. It snatched up a Long-Reach-Us that had been caught out because he was walking. The Pejakin clamped the prey with its powerful talons to the branch and then quickly ripped its head off with its strong sharp beak. Nobody spoke until the Pejakin flew away on its way to another meal.
"You see, Douglas, because I pretended to be a dead Long-Reach-Us, that nasty bird did not bother to even inspect us. Anyway, both this Long-Reach-Us and myself, being a superior Upper Skatchel, have the ability to change colour to our backgrounds. In that way we become invisible."
"I don't think, Upper, you become invisible, I think you mean camouflaged."
"Huh! Boy-child thinks he knows everything."
"It's better splitting hairs than splitting twigs, because that would give you away, right?" said a very clever Douglas.
"You know, Douglas, if you get too big for your boots, I might just drop you a hundred feet to the ground."
"Now who's being touchy? It was just a joke."
"OK, OK. Let's not split any twigs over it."
"Or perhaps turn over a new leaf," put in Douglas.
"That's enough 'funnies', you, young boy-child, are barking up the wrong tree, tee hee!"
"OK Upper. I'll bough out of any more jokes."
"Do you promise to be rooted in that statement?" asked Upper.
"Well, I'm getting quite bushed with all these quips. It's time to hedge my bets!"
"Who's funny, is it you, or is it me, making all the jokes in the overhead canopy?"
"I've had enough of you two," said the Long-Reach-Us, and he sticked-off at his cautionary pace.
"Bye, Sticky," called out Upper as he continued on his way with Douglas clutching onto his back. They jumped from a Baka tree to a Cabola loaded with fruit.
"Wheee!" went Upper as he sprightly jumped a gap well over a yard across.
Douglas saw the ground below and shut his eyes, just before Upper sprang forward. The drop went on and on forever, but Douglas need not have worried. Upper landed safely on the Cabola tree and immediately asked Douglas to climb off.
"Up here, Douglas. Nobody will disturb us. We have all these delicious fruits to ourselves."
The fruits were about an inch across, quite enormous against Douglas's three-inch height. But not daunted, Douglas took out his pocket knife and sliced one of the fruits open and a red juicy solution dribbled out.
"Delicious!" said Douglas, as he knelt down against the strong stalk and began to suck the slightly sweet juice out. Then he cut into the fruit slicing a large chunk out.
"You know, Upper, it tastes like strawberries and cream – very yummy."
"That's because they are strawberries and cream. The juice is strawberry, and the fleshy inside is the smooth creamy bits."
"You mean this is a strawberry tree?"
"Of course it is, but don't tell anybody else, it is our secret. I teach the other insects that the big red fruits are poisonous and they are not to touch them."
"You, Upper Skatchel, are as sly as a fox."
"Don't compare me to that predator type. Foxes are not so sly, just opportunists where any chickens are concerned. The farmers don't like foxes because they are thieves. It's like putting a cat among the pigeons. It causes havoc."
After lunch it was time to take shelter before the daily rains washed them away. Upper Skatchel jumped down about a foot at a time to fifty feet from the ground where a lower canopy grew, at the limit of its height. Here the large boughs of stout trees were in abundance. Safely placed in a nook under one of the mighty boughs, Upper stretched out and went quickly to sleep, Douglas cut off two leaves, laid them on the bough next to Upper and also went to bed. For a pillow he curled over the end of one soft springy leaf.
Very predictably the equatorial rains came, not a gentle or gradual rain but a torrential downpour. The flowers in the upper canopy took a pounding as several of them sent down pink, yellow and red petals, fluttering in the sudden breeze. The tiny insects either disappeared inside the bark of trees or if they were on the jungle floor, quickly burrowed under the floor of leaves. When the heavy shower stopped the sun immediately came back to bake any surface it penetrated, except of course under the heavily shaded boughs, especially like the one Upper was sleeping under in his snug world dreaming of strawberries and cream. After a while, little furry creatures came out of their hiding places in the tree trunks, and scampered about quickly over the fallen leaves, for there were plenty of grubs to be had. Caterpillars were a favourite of the tree shrews as were other bugs, mostly a little red beetle that had been washed down out of the canopy's flowers. Danger was always lurking on the jungle floor, for the shrews, mice and voles that now were busy hunting for a meal, were themselves likely to become a meal. Snakes knew this was when the little furry creatures fed. They camouflaged themselves wrapped about branches, with their heads lying motionless on the piles of dead leaves. Their technique was to keep very still, waiting for the shrew or mouse to cross their path. Then with lightning speed the head and neck of the snake flashes forward and bites with poison into the victim. When the unfortunate prey stops struggling, the snake points the meal head first, and swallows it down whole. A few days later, the fully dissolved prey has left in the snake's stomach some fur and all the bones, which it regurgitates.
Upper stretches, yawns, "That was a good sleep," says he, stretching his very long legs one at a time.
"Come on, Douglas, time to move on."
And off they go, but not far, the smell of the strawberries and cream is just too tempting, so they share just one for neither is really hungry. Next it is an exciting climb down a tree creeper. It reaches from the tree canopy all the way down to the jungle floor.
"Look what I have found!" exclaims Upper.
"Well, what is it?" asks Douglas.
"It's a sweet chestnut, of course. The rain must have knocked it down."
So Upper shares the delicious meal with Douglas.
"These, you know, are rich in protein, very good for you," points out Upper.
So, for the next period of time, Douglas and Upper are eating sweet chestnuts. Upper, with his sharp incisor teeth, and Douglas, using his own pocket knife to cut the skin away, which is very bitter, to get to the sweet centre. While Douglas was skinning his sweet chestnut, a large black stage beetle decided to try to get onto the meal. The beetle reared up, both pairs of front pincers raised, but even though the beetle was only half of Douglas's size, it was a formidable enemy. Its claw-like pincer snatched Douglas's small knife away and the beetle nearly had him round the throat, only his quick thinking saved him. Douglas snatched up a feather from a Pejakin from the ground and stabbed at the stag beetle with the sharp quill end, and it was only after fencing for a couple of minutes that the beetle dropped Douglas's knife and turned tail and scuttled off.
"Well done, Douglas," chirped Upper in triumph, as he had watched the fight between the two of them.
"Thanks, Upper. You can share my meal now!" and so the two friends-in-arms tucked into the freshly peeled chestnut.
"Come on, chum, Jump on board. I'm going back up to the canopy. It's safe up there!" And so they did.
In the canopy, in the sunny summer afternoon, the passionflowers were nodding their heads, drowsily, in the very slight breeze.
"Now for dessert, Douglas." Side by side, they pushed their heads past the pollen-soaked stamens, into the deepest recesses of the perfumed pink petals and lapped up the nectar.
"Ho! Ho! Ho! You're a right pollen head," laughed Upper, at the state of Douglas's bright yellow mop of hair.
All along the long pointed nose of Upper Skatchel was a frizzy row of pollen. "I say, old chap, have you grown a moustache?" sniggered Douglas.
Looking at his reflection in the hornbill lily's water reservoir, Upper admired his newly acquired look.
"All present and correct, sergeant-major!" snapped Upper
"As you were, corporal. Carry on!"
And on their way they went, across a particularly dense floor of the tree canopy, which suddenly became sticky.
"Red Alert!" said Upper, "the Manacle Spider is about. Mind your big feet on those sticky cobwebs."
Looking up, just above Douglas's head, was a web at least a foot across and on it were two struggling beetles, which the Manacle Spider was busy cocooning in sticky web filaments. They would be food for later, probably to feed her hundred or so young when she lays her next brood of eggs. After that close encounter, Upper went back to cricket hopping which was a much faster and safer way to travel. The pair of them leapt from branch to branch, tree to tree. A little while later they passed above a troop of Grouper Monkeys who were not bothered about them, on the uppermost twigs. They were happy following their parents through the stronger branches of the canopy. There were about twenty Grouper Monkeys. They seemed to be playing a game of chasing-the-tail-in-front. After a couple of hours they came to a part of the jungle which was over water with exposed banks of earth, where kinds of squirrels were foraging in the soil. Then the usual late afternoon rains came.
"Quick, Upper. Shelter under that giant trumpet plant." And they did.
The water cascaded down, knocking nodding flowers off their stalks as per everyday occurrence, but the two friends remained dry. As soon as the rains stopped, the sun's rays beat down mercilessly, drying up the wet, and the canopy and the ground steamed. Going down the creepers, Upper alighted on a small mountain of soil.
"What on earth is this?" asked Douglas.
"You don't know much about jungles do you, Douglas? It's a termite mound."
And Upper immediately commenced putting his very long sticky tongue into the termite holes. The trick was to keep it still. The grubs inside felt the 'stick' and crawled onto it. In Upper's case it was fatal for the termite grubs because they stuck to his tongue.
"Oh, yummy, yummy, tickly tummy," said Upper Skatchel.
"Come on, Douglas, you try. Oh dear, you can't, can you, no protruding tongue. Well, why not try your pocket-knife? Just wriggle the blade in."
And so he did. The larva crawled straight onto the handle. "Oh, yuck, what an ugly brute and so hairy."
"What a cowardy custard, can't even taste the mustard," teased Upper.
"All right then, watch this," and he popped it into his mouth, biting the head clean off.
"Yer quite yummy," and he shoved the rest in, filling his cheeks out. Once started there was no stopping our Douglas. He was like a small boy let loose with a big bag of liquorice allsorts, picking all his favourite colours out.
Next Upper Skatchel was digging at the softer soil beside the jungle ponds where the soil's surface was covered with curly whirlies.
"What, might I ask, oh, excuse my big burps, are you up to now, Skatchel?"
"Hunting for a big meal, earthworms!" he said excitedly.
"Well, you can count me out. I'm a human and humans definitely do not eat earthworms," said Douglas with over-emphasis.
"Got one, got one, got one!" shouted Upper, as he scrabbled at the soft soil with all of his six legs. As soon as the head appeared, Upper's sticky tongue flashed out and lashed itself around the upper exposed part of the worm. A tug-of-war was in action. The worm was trying to back down its burrow and Upper's back feet clamped firmly into the soil while his other two pairs worked at lightning speed digging out the trapped worm. Suddenly the worm came up about three inches, and taking the advantage, Skatchel stepped back, gaining ground. Then, with a muscular pull, the worm started back down its hole.
"Help! Help me, Douglas," said a strangled voiced Upper. Quick as a flash Douglas cut the worm in half with his pocket-knife and Upper had a very satisfactory tasty meal.
"Thank you, Douglas. That was a big son-of-a-bitch. You and me, we are the two musketeers."
"Don't you mean the three musketeers?"
"Well, er, yes. But there's only two of us."
"How about me, can I join in?" asked a Long-Reach-Us.
"Hello, Long-Reach-Us, what are you doing out of the trees?"
"Oh, I was bored and I saw you two teasing the termite grubs, so I came to watch. Anyway, I need a good long drink. So, can I join you on your adventures?"
"I don't see how. I'm a very fast Upper Skatchel and can bound a yard at a time and you're just a stick insect."
"Stick insects, when they want to, can move quite fast. Watch."
Sticky climbed up and down the termite mound at a run.
"Good gracious, I've never seen that before, so why do you normally keep so still?"
"Boy-human, you don't know much about jungles, do you? I keep still so that the Pejakin birds can't see me. You see, I am a master of disguise. I pretend to be a stick."
"So you can travel at a quick walk, if you want to?"
"Of course, us Long-Reach-Uses can if we want to. We've just evolved as lazy. Why should we chase a meal if it can come to those who wait?"
"Maybe us humans have got you stick insects wrong. We assumed you were just stupid slow insects."
"Huh! Stick indeed. Bet you cannot camouflage yourself when a Pejakin bird comes looking for a tasty treat."
"OK, OK. I apologise, Sticky. You can be one of us, the three musketeers."
And so, it is the intrepid three that move on. Shortly they come across a river where the Pejakin birds are attempting to fish. The birds stand about a foot high as they clamp their claws around the branches which hang low over the water's surface and flap their wings for balancing action, as they dip forward plunging their heads under the water.
"What on earth do those birds think they are doing?" queried Douglas.
"I think they believe, falsely, that they can compete with the waders and the kingfishers."
"Nevertheless," put in Sticky, "you have to admire their cheek and daring. Going out over the river to the end of an overhanging branch and then practising acrobatics of aerodynamic proportions is some feat, not to mention gravity defying."
"Well, well, well," put in Upper Skatchel, "who's the brain of the musketeers then? You are an old brain-box on the quiet Sticky, but beats me in that pin size head of yours how you manage it."
"Can you, Upper, or you Douglas, turn into a stick and sway like a tree branch in the breeze?"
"All right, all right, Sticky, I get the message. We apologise, you're obviously too clever for us," corrected Upper.
Too many of the Pejakin birds went out on the same tree limb. Two over confident squarks fell smack into the fast flowing river and got carried away by the current, before they could extricate themselves, during soggy flapping of red wings, from a good soaking.
"It's lucky for the Pejakin parrots that they preen themselves well and keep themselves in a water tight condition," observed Douglas.
"Look at that purple one, he has caught a silver fish," voiced Upper. "Wouldn't mind a bit of that myself."
On the riverbank, the carcasses of bones of the spitfire fish were left reflecting in the sunlight, as the shiny silver skin caught the afternoon rays.
"Come on, all for one and one for all!" quipped Upper as he started a long scramble down a tree creeper to the awaiting feast of the fish scraps.
Sticky almost kept up at a plucky, sticky-footed, three-toed, six-legged run down the long vine to the jungle's riverbank. On the ground Douglas tasted the fresh fish. In his pencil-sized mouth he ate a small portion, which was surprisingly tasty. Upper used his big mandibles to make quick work of the fish skin, tearing pieces off as he and Sticky fought for the softest delicate pieces of under-belly white skin. Luckily, for Douglas, being by far the smallest of the three, his stomach was full as soon as a pea-sized piece of fish was forced into his wide-open mouth.
"Let's cross the river," shouted Upper.
"Are you mad? I'm only three inches high. I'll drown as soon as I touch the water surface."
"No, no, no. No, you won't Douglas, because I'll build you a boat."
"Oh, very funny, and since when have crickets built boats?"
"Show him, Sticky, how it's done."
Sticky was naturally a leaf eater. He set about a wild rhubarb plant growing beside the river. The big waxen green leaf came free and between them, Sticky and Upper dragged it towards the water's edge.
"Jump on, Douglas, and hold tight!" commanded Skatchel.
First on the leaf was the slower Sticky, and as the leaf started to move away with the current, Upper buzzed his back legs and he shot forward with Douglas on his back and they landed in the middle of their rhubarb boat.
"Wow! This is scary," shouted out Douglas, as the three man boat started spinning in the current.
It went down some gentle rapids, but the foot-across leaf sailed, no problem. The leaf stalk at the back projected into the water and acted as their guiding rudder, steering for them with stability. Across the other side of the river now they flowed into a gentler slip-stream.
"Right, climb on Douglas. See that clump of grass by the edge, that's where we hop off. Get it, hop off?!"
Up in the bow, or the very prow of the boat, was Sticky, making ready to do a small hop. Hop and he was off and over, spring, and Upper and 'Douglas landed in the middle of the clump of grass.
"Done this before, haven't you, Upper?"
"Loads of times. Mind you, I normally have to chew my own leaf off to make a boat. Not every day, you know, Douglas, that you get your very own leaf-cutter."
"Aw, shucks. You're embarrassing me," said gone-a-very-dark-green-with-blushing, Sticky.
On the other side of the river they found a rare treat. A beehive.
"Oh yummy tummy," said Upper, "A whole lot of delicious honey, especially for me."
"They don't sting twigs."
"Pardon. They don't sting twigs. What do you mean?"
"Easy peasy, Sticky and I simply move very slowly up to the bee hive and become statues so that the bees will crawl over us thinking that we are sticks, and that dispels their fear. Then we poke our noses into the bee hive comb and eat as much honey as we like."
"Well, what about me? What do I do?"
"Do? You don't do anything."
Sticky and Upper climbed up the tree and played their game of stick-stealing-honey.
Meanwhile, on a tuft of grass, with some beautiful flowers sprouting out, Douglas sat and napped in the warm sunshine. He was awakened by something tickling his ear. On wakening from his nap, he discovered it was the antennae from a beautifully coloured butterfly, which had its proboscis penetrated into the heart of the flower head, extracting nectar.
"Oh sorry, did I disturb you?" said Mrs Butterfly.
"It's quite all right. I was just dozing."
"Lucky old you. I have no time to doze. I only come out for a few days, and then I pupate, so I have to hurry and catch all the nectar I can, and if I sit on the wrong flowers, the birds will eat me."
"Oh, that is sad," said Douglas with genuine concern. "But why do the birds eat you on wrong flowers?"
"Because I am a Redwing Quickly, and the only flowers safe for me to land on are red ones. I must say you do look very much like a human. What on earth are you doing here?"
"It's a long story, Redwing Quickly."
"Usually is with your kind."
"What do you mean by 'your kind'?"
"Well, you are a human, that much I do know, but such a small one. Humans are so complicated, they don't seem to be able to do anything which is really simple."
"Of course I am a human. My friend Upper Skatchel carries me on his back."
"Oh no. No, no, no, not an Upper Skatchel. Where is he now?"
"Up that tree after the bees' honey"
"Well, thank you for little mercies. Us Redwing Quicklies are one of the favourite foods of the jumping, meat-eating Upper Crickets, so I'll be on my way."
And with that Redwing Quickly flapped her beautifully patterned wings and was up and away.
"Oh well. Goodbye then, Mrs Butterfly," called Douglas in a little voice, after the flapping wings.
"Nobody seems to keep still for long in this jungle. I wonder who I will meet next," sighed a sad Douglas.
"Chirp, chirp, chip, chip!" came a shrill sound from just overhead.
"Who are you?" asked Douglas.
"I'm a singer bird, of course. Would you like a song?"
"Yes please, Mr Bird," said a very small, squeaky voice of a three-inch high boy-man.
"My name's Trilling," said the small brown bird with a blue throat and blue side-burns. "What song would you like?"
"How about 'Somewhere Over The Jungle'?"
"Never heard of it. How does it go?"
"Well," said Douglas, "I don't really know. Is it OK if I make it up as we go along?"
"Now that's the first sensible thing you have said, splendid idea."
"Why is it a splendid idea?"
"Because the world is full of magic, only not very many people know where to look for it."
"Well, tell me, Trilling, where should we look for it?"
"Not under a stone, or behind a leaf, but in your imagination – in your mind's magic eye. Do you understand yet?"
"Yes, I have the idea. You make up magic as you go along!"
"For such a surprisingly small human you seem to have got the idea."
"Well, shall I begin? How about at the beginning? Is that a very good place to start?"
"Yes, yes, yes. At the beginning," said Trilling. "What a wonderful place to start! Come on, tell me your story."
"When I was small, no, when I was tiny, no, a lot smaller than that!"
"Silly human, just how big is a 'lot smaller than tiny'?"
"Well, actually it's not big at all. In fact, to some, I could be invisible. You couldn't see me at all!"
"Even sillier, you tiny human; well, if you were invisible I couldn't see you at all, could I?"
"Depends on how small you are. Have you ever lived inside a leaf, seen an ugly mitochondria, been fed on a black slimy Moley-Cules? They are things which live inside leaves. Only to see inside you have to be a molecule-sized person, for inside a leaf is a jungle of cells, chloroplasts, mitochondria and these in turn eat molecules. The mitochondria eat carbon dioxide and the chloroplasts soak up all the sun's heat and then spit out Chlory's Fills, which is a dark green slime that the chloroplasts fill all the Cell-u-lows leaf cells with."
"Sounds very messy inside a leaf," said Trilling, "but obviously an exciting adventure if you are so small that you can fit in. I think I am happy being a song bird."
"Tell you what, Trilling," said a friendly Douglas. "I'll sing you a song now."
"Oh goody, I do love a good song!" chirped Trilling.
"Here we go then," started Douglas.
"Up above in a tree one day, a Douglas man was borne away!
He went via Xylem and Phloem all the way to root-frothing foam.
'Of that tap-root, I'll have some', said he,
And indeed he did and grew bigger than a bee
Now all three inches, Douglas crawled out
From under the leaf-mulch to a blue sky.
'Why hello there, you cute little thing', said a
chirpy cricket by the name of Skatchel.
'Are you going my way?' Well I can't really
tell you, said Douglas, sad to say
'Cheer up, little fellah. Climb on my back and
Soon we'll be there', and that was that.
Now floating across a river by large leaf boat
With my friends Upper and Sticky, Afloat
I disembarked with trembling knees,
To watch them both go after the bees.
Now honey is nice not funny,
Like Upper and Sticky up in the trees"
"Well, well, I am chirpily impressed. Never let a Trilling say he has been bested. So those scallywags up the tree into honey thieving are your friends, are they?"
"Hello, Sticky, hello Upper," said a pointed beaked Trilling, as he hover-jetted at the honeycomb, no spilling any honey.
"How come you know our names, little bird?"
"I've had a very long chat with your friend Douglas, down on a tuft of grass, for the time to bypass."
"Aha! Pint-sized Douglas, he's a nice chap, bit small, but all right for all that."
"I think Sticky here is no longer Sticky, but more like a fatty nodulated twig."
"Belch," said Sticky, "pardon me. I've made a bit of a pig of myself, eating all this tea."
So, by and by, with distended stomachs, Upper and Sticky come down the tree to their waiting friend Douglas. Under a shrub bush, two of the musketeers, no guessing which two, curl up, if that is possible for their shapes, and snooze away into the evening, while the late afternoon monsoon rattles down from the heavens, soaking everything not tucked under a bush.
Looking out into the large raindrops, Douglas notices the earth is beginning to move. A small mound appears which soon grows in size, then a nose pokes out. Up comes a mole, a worm eater. Out of the sodden ground come several worms that are trying to escape the deluge, which has invaded their burrows. Douglas keeps stock-still. Upper and Sticky care nothing for the world as they sleep through the storm. The mole pounces and springs like a miniature kangaroo onto the nearest unsuspecting worm. As the evening came on and his two companions slept off their honey meals, Douglas watched the moles building their molehills, as they dug their way to the surface out of their burrows.
"Come on, you two. It is getting dark. Time for bed up in a safe tree."
"What did you say? Who is it? Oh, it's you, Douglas. Sorry, fell asleep. Come on, come on, time to go, the jungle floor isn't safe at this time of the day."
Up a large tree vine all three climb to the safety of the jungle canopy. Sticky has the easiest job, he simply attaches himself to a nice green twig and hangs up his three pairs of feet, sticks and goes off to sleep.
"What about us, Upper Skatchel? Where are we going to sleep?"
"You can climb into a roll leaf and use the upper curl as your blanket."
Douglas first of all takes some cotton fluff from a Fluffy Top Flower, which is just closing up for the night.
"Hey! What's going on here? Who is stealing my white soft fluff?"
"You can have it back in the morning," says Douglas. "It's just to lay my head on for the night, it's my fluffy pillow."
"A human-child up in the tree canopy, whatever next," sniggered the Fluffy Top Flower. "OK, midget, since you're not a thief, I'll let you keep a little of my fluff."
That night Douglas and Sticky slept, but Upper Skatchel, the cricket, made a confounded noise all night by scratching his back legs together.
"Upper, Upper, for goodness sake, do you have to make so much noise?" asked a tired-out Douglas.
"It's what Upper Crickets do. I'm talking to my Skatchel friends."
"You call that talking! It's just a racket."
"To my ears, it's music."
Douglas took some of his pillow fluff and pushed it firmly into his ears. "Goodnight Skatchel. I'm whacked out."
"Goodnight, friend Douglas." And he went on with his night-time chorus to all the other Upper Skatchels in earshot.
The dawn chorus was a terrible noise, with the Pejakin parrots quarking and squarking and some other species cackling back and forth. Douglas had his head under his fluffy pillow, but it did not help very much. The sun started to rise.
"Good morning to you, Sticky. Did you enjoy your sleep?" asked Douglas.
"Thank you, yes. Now, it's time for a bit of tree walking and a good stretch. I'm going hunting for my breakfast."
"And I," said Fluffy Top Flower, opening her petals to the warming sunshine, "would like my necklace of fluff back now, if you don't mind."
"Of course you can. Thank you for the loan of the pillow."
Upper Skatchel was fast asleep, snoring very slightly. "Not surprised he's asleep," said Douglas, "after all the noise he made last night."
Sticky was very crafty at catching insects. Just as one was waking up and starting to move, his long sticky tongue lashed out and in that yummy tummy was another insect. When he wanted to, Sticky could move with lightning speed. He flashed onto his victim trapping the winged morsel in his quick and bony mouth.
"What am I going to eat for breakfast, Fluffy Top?"
"You need to move to a Packen tree."
"What's a Packen tree?!" asked Douglas.
"It's a medium height tree below the canopy. It has reddish-brown branches with bronze leaves, but the important thing about it is its breadfruit flowers. They, I should imagine, are good for humans."
"Well, where do I find one?" rumbled Douglas's empty tummy.
"Cooee! Sticky! This little friend of yours wants a lift to a Packen tree," sung out Fluffy Top in a melodious trilling voice.
"Oh, good morning, Douglas. I was busy catching my breakfast," said Sticky. So Douglas clung onto Sticky's back, which was most uncomfortable, as Sticky climbed down a tree creeper, exchanged branches with another tree, and walked into a field of waving bronzed leaves.
"This is a Packen tree, Douglas. What do you want here?"
"Fluffy Top said it had breadfruit flowers."
"Oh, I see. Human eating bread. How boring. You can't beat the flavour of freshly caught insects, wings and all."
"Oh yuck! I couldn't eat insects. I would be sure to be sick!"
"Look, I haven't finished my breakfast yet. You carry on, Douglas, and search the breadfruit out, while I continue hunting."
"Well, where are you going? Will I be safe left in this tree by myself?"
"We are a little afraid thing today, aren't we? OK, I'll hunt in this tree, how does that do you?"
"Thank you, Sticky. That's very kind of you."
"No need to mention it, old boy, now may I continue my breakfast?"
And with that, Sticky stealthily crept along a branch to an unsuspecting sleeping insect.
"Where is everybody? I say, where has my new friend, Douglas, gone?"
"Morning, Mr Sleepy Head," said a smiling Fluffy Top. "Sticky has taken Douglas to a Packen tree. Douglas wanted his breakfast."
"Er, morning Fluffy Top. You do look beautiful this morning in the sunshine rays."
Fluffy Top shimmered all her fluffy petals at once and was very happy. Not many insects paid compliments to Fluffy. Shame really when you consider how hard she tries to look butter-gold like the sunshine. Douglas clambered over the sepals, up the stigma, and into the middle of the breadfruit flower.
"I can't see any breadfruit here," said Douglas to himself.
"What do you, you peculiar insect, want with my breadfruit?"
"Who are you, who's talking to me?" said Douglas in a mystified voice.
"I'm talking to you," said a voice coming nearer and looming above Douglas's head from an overhanging tree was a big ugly black spider."
"Are you cross with me, Mr Spider, for wandering onto your tree?"
"You are invading my territory. Think yourself lucky I haven't built a web over you. Yes, I am talking to you, now why do you want my breadfruit?"
"He's my friend, that's why," cut in Upper Skatchel, who was considerably bigger and stronger than the ugly black spider.
"Thank you for coming, Upper. I'm looking for the breadfruit."
"Well, you won't find it in the flowers. Try the yellow buds on the very end of the twigs, that's where the breadfruit is and the spider is waiting for little flies to get caught in the sticky fluffy breadfruit so that he can catch them and then place them on his web as a food larder."
Yuck! I don't think I like spiders very much."
Indignantly the spider spidered off to another branch on the Packen tree.
Later in the day, all three were down on the floor when they came across some sandy-bottomed, shallow pools, which upon investigation by Douglas, had been warmed through by the dazzling sun.
"I'm going for a swim!" said Douglas, unbuckling his jeans and discarding the rest of his clothes.
"You are very white skinned for a human man," pointed out Upper Skatchel.
"Well, I don't come from this South American jungle, I'm a European human."
"Can't say as I've seen the white skin of a European man before," replied Upper.
"Well, if you ask me," said Sticky, "it's a load of fuss about nothing. Humans are brown skinned, Reach-For-Uses are bright green and Upper Skatchels are a sort of bronze colour, rather like a rusty nail."
"Hold on a minute, Sticky, that's going too far, judging me against one of man's rusty nails. Us crickets are a rather clever colour of a mixture of straw, leaf and branch colours, which is why we blend in so well with our surroundings. Even at night, if I am at head-height with a fully-grown human, they peer at you, but still they cannot see us. They only hear our night-time chorus. Chirrup, chirrup; Shirrupp, shirrupp."
"Go ahead and enjoy yourself, Douglas," said Upper Skatchel, for the miniature lake was only six inches deep.
While Douglas swam towards the far end of the shallow water, Upper decided it was time to rid himself of parasites, so he vigorously rubbed his legs together, one pair at a time, then he had a quick wash and brush up.
"Who's a very handsome cricket then?" said Upper Skatchel to his reflection in the water.
The tiny parasites were swimming for their lives having been dislodged by this rare bathing habit of Skatchel, but as soon as they reached the shore little red ants captured them and carried them away to their underground nests, to provide food parcels for the soon to be hatched ant-eggs. They emerge as grubs first, which are ravenously hungry and so need a lot of feeding as they grow very rapidly. The Queen Ant is constantly laying tiny red eggs, which the Guards look after.
"I feel much better now, my friend Upper," chirped a happy and refreshed Douglas.
"Can we go for a hop now? I feel like travelling."
"Sure, my mate Douglas, jump on my back." And again miraculously the magic Upper's back formed into a seat for Douglas to ride on, much like a horse's saddle.
"Hold on tight, Douglas, I'm in a happy hoppy mood." And with that, Upper sprang across the sandy ground bounding about a yard at a time, soon covering a long distance.
Sticky did his best to keep up, but his impression of running was like a stiff-legged marathon race for walkers. He tried so hard to run, that at times he got his three pairs of sticky feet mixed up and he would trip.
"I'll see you later," puffed Sticky. "My feet are not made for walking, they're for clutching at stalks and twigs and things and pulling myself along while suspended."
"Giddy-up there!" urged Douglas, as Skatchel bounded along, obviously enjoying himself.
Soon they came to some grass, all bright green and swaying in the breeze. The sounds coming from the grass were music to Skatchel's ears. "Chirrup, chirrup; Shirrup, shirrup."
"Hello friends. What's cooking?"
"Well, hello there, big boy," said a red-throated lady Upper Skatchel.
"Phew! What a cracker, Douglas. Afraid, old friend, this is the end of the road. I have something to see to."
"I understand, Skatchel. Well, thanks for the ride anyway."
"No problem, little human. Go to a tree and dig out some more sap from a tap root. That way you'll grow bigger again. Bye now."
And with that Upper Skatchel mated with his lady friend and they bounded off together into the thick of the grasses.
"Where has Upper gone, Douglas? I'm all puffed out. I heard his cricket's calling noise so I came straight across."
"Afraid, Sticky, we are no longer three musketeers, only two of us left now. Upper has found another Skatchel to mate with."
"Oh, uh, ahem. I see the situation. Well, it's a call of nature, so we must respect his behaviour," said a rather timid Sticky.
"So what did Skatchel advise before he set off? I mean for your welfare, because stick insects are not as clever as crickets, you know."
"He told me to drink some more sap juice from a tree root, but I don't know which tree he means."
"No problem, Douglas. It will be the tree you were born from."
"Well, I first came from inside the leaf of a Baka tree. So is that it?"
"Why yes, of course it is. Jump on my back. I'll take you to a Baka tree."
Down by the river bank, not far from the water's edge, Sticky started digging.
"Why are you digging down here, Sticky?"
"This soil is sandy and soft. It's easier to dig for the roots."
"Oh, I see, in that case I'll help you."
After a few minutes' digging Sticky completely disappeared down a tunnel he had dug, returning with a long thin root in his mouth.
"Here you are, Douglas. Suck the sap out of this root."
"But how do I get it out?"
"Cut the end off, use your knife, then suck as hard as you can."
Douglas obeyed Sticky's instructions, and sure enough, the sap juice dribbled out. The harder Douglas sucked, the more of the white nourishing milk he produced. In no time at all Douglas was as big as Sticky, so he helped Sticky dig in the soil for a bigger root; and low and behold a tap root was found. This time it was a large root, as big and as round as a pencil. Douglas quickly cut the hair root and the white milk of magical growth dribbled out. Faster and faster, Douglas grew until he was three feet high, the size of a child.
"Sticky, Sticky, can you see me from down there?"
"Yes, here I am. Mind your big feet, do not step on me."
"Would you like to go up into the trees now, my friend?" asked Douglas, bending down to catch Sticky in his hand.
"Yes please. What big eyes you've got, Douglas. Please be careful not to squash me and don't forget the tap root. You must dig down until you find a Primary Tap. Goodbye friend."
"I wonder what he means by a Primary Tap. A tap is something you turn on. Of course, if I cut the end of the arterial tap root off it will gush just like a tap."
On his hands and knees now, using his pocket knife, Douglas cuts through ever so many tiny hair roots in his search for the central tap root. He finds several which are snaked into the ground, but none will release themselves.
"Hey, what are you digging for?"
"Where are you?"
"In the water, of course."
"Where? I can't see you."
"That's the idea," bubbled the reply of the beaver. Then up came the beaver's head followed by a black shiny nose.