The ‘Loggers’
Florence looked at the three dragons seated on the benches in her cave. Dragons always sat on benches because of their tails, it’s difficult tucking a tail onto a seat.
‘No more today... no more doughnuts, oh that is a shame!’ Marmaduke said. He had eaten far less doughnuts than Cedric and Gerald. He had been thinking about taxes, which was rather silly as dragons don’t pay taxes. Mostly the dragons in this cave just ate doughnuts, which Gerald seemed to do very rapidly even when talking. Talking with his mouth full was very wrong, but he loved doughnuts.
Florence looked at her husband with a worried look. ‘Do you think about nothing else but food and talking nonsense? Now as I said when I came in, listen to what I have to say and then tell me what you intend to do?’ Florence looked at her husband with a worried look.
‘Do, you want me to do something?’ Now Cedric looked worried, the last thing he wanted to do was something he knew nothing about. ‘Do something about what?’
‘The Loggers... you will have to do something about the loggers.’ Florence stopped to give her words more importance.
‘The loggers. What are loggers? Marmaduke looked puzzled, he had never heard of loggers.
Florence continued to explain. ‘The wood sprites are down at the waterfall at this very moment having a meeting – well they were having a meeting, but now they’ve all gone to their homes. The trees are very upset and are also very frightened, you can imagine that if the trees are frightened then certainly something is very, very wrong. They said they can’t thump anyone with their branches because it will be mostly machines and that will do no good.’
‘I wish you would explain my dear,’ said Cedric. ‘I am finding it hard to understand.’
Florence took a deep breath... ‘Loggers are to cut down the trees for their wood, not just a few, but hundreds. It should not be allowed, it will be a massacre of the trees. Not only that if they come into the forest then we shall have them looking into our cave.’
Now the three dragons started to look very, very, very worried. ‘You mean people, people in the forest – looking into our caves; but we can’t have that, people don’t like dragons.’ Gerald was becoming agitated.
‘Well?’ said Florence, ‘just what are you going to do?’
Cedric looked at his friend with a very profound look, well he thought it was a very profound look, but then he didn’t really know what profound meant. ‘I think we should consult the Green Man.’ Now that was the first thing that had made sense so far. The Green Man was the man of the forest, a magical man, who looked a bit like a tree covered in ivy, and he was very green. That was why they called him the Green Man.
‘Yes,’ said Marmaduke and Gerald at the same time. ‘Yes,’ continued Gerald, ‘That would be the most sensible thing to do.’ He thought for a moment then said. ‘Just where are they to do this logging?’
‘About seventy five kilometres to the east, near the small lake.’ Florence gave a tut-tut’ as she spoke, as if Gerald was asking silly questions.
‘Seventy five kilometres, seventy five kilometres, that’s a long way away. How many trees do they intend to cut down?’ said Marmaduke.
Florence, who had been listening to the wood sprites very carefully explained ‘The trees have been listening to the loggers, the trees and wood sprites seem to think that they intend to cut down a least an average of four hundred trees a day at the beginning, then more each day once they really get going.’
‘Now that’s an awful lot of trees, it sounds like thousands of trees to me. I think we should definitely stop this, otherwise we shall have to move, and I’m very happy here.’ Cedric could see that loggers were a menace to the forest. Although he was not certain what it all meant he could understand something dreadful was about to happen.
‘It’s like this,’ the Green Man explained. ‘The people use the wood to make things, like benches. You use the old trees for benches in your cave. Is that a nice thing to do, I mean would you like to be sat on by a dragon?’
‘No, but the trees don’t mind. These are trees that have fallen down, not trees that are still living.’ Cedric had come to see the Green Man by himself. He found his friends always confused things by asking questions and he thought it best to come by alone.
‘Yes, you have a good point of view. However people don’t live in the forest like you and they need a lot more wood than you do.’ The Green Man had been explaining all about the loggers and now he decided that the conversation was nearly at an end. ‘You will have to go and see for yourself, remember this is not just a case of you having to move, the trees are your friends. Also the loss of so many trees could upset the ecology of where we live.’
‘It could?’ said Cedric. ‘Err... what is the ecology?’
‘That you must ask someone else to explain to you, first you must fly over to where they are setting up the logging camp. One of the wood sprites can go with you, but don’t let anyone see you. You know how funny people can be about something they don’t understand, and they will not understand dragons.'
Blog Three -Cedric visits the logging camp
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