The 'Loggers' & The Dragon Family

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

Dragon Cave

Cedric wriggled his toes inside his slippers and then looked nervously at his wife Florence, he always liked to wriggle his toes but Florence had forbidden him doing it inside his slippers as his talons made holes.
‘I was thinking,’ he said.
‘Don’t’, said Florence, ‘Just sit quietly, and stop wriggling your toes.’
Cedric thought for a moment trying to work out how she had seen him wriggling his toes. Then he went back to his more serious thinking. The Green Man had been explaining to him about the economy, and now Cedric was trying to work out why people, humans that is, wanted to put a tax on important things like crystallized fruits, and then use the money to spend on building bigger roads. Surely Cedric thought it would be easier to make fewer cars, and then spend the money saved from not buying more cars on buying important things, like crystallized fruits and doughnuts.
At this point he started thinking about doughnuts and for a little while he concentrated on doughnuts. Which was unusual for a dragon, but not for a dragon like Cedric, he was a dragon who loved doughnuts, all sorts of doughnuts. And also he was not impressed by cars, as he always flew everywhere, and couldn’t get into a car even if he couldn’t fly.
‘Shall we invite Marmaduke and Gerald over this afternoon, just for a chat, about important things that the humans are doing?’ He looked at his wife waiting for an answer.
Turning carefully to face him, dragons always had to turn carefully otherwise their tail would knock things over, she said. ‘I suppose you are thinking about what the Green Man said. I don’t know why you worry about such things. Still if you must then invite them over. I shall take Boop out for a walk in the forest.’
Now Boop, who was a very young dragon, on hearing his name mentioned, look up from where he was playing with his friend a young wood sprite. ‘Can we go to the waterfall?’ Moonbeam said there are some goldfish in the pond just below the fall.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Moonbeam, ‘I said wouldn’t it be nice IF there were goldfish there.’ The wood sprite looked at Boop in an annoyed way. ‘You didn’t understand me as usual.’
‘Be quiet, your fathers thinking,' said Florence. 'And as usual is concerned about the silly things grown up humans are doing. Pity he doesn’t think about eating less doughnuts, and not making holes in his slippers.’ She turned back to the sink where she was making some apple turnovers and carefully peeling the apples.
‘Right that’s decided it, if you’re going out then I shall invite them,’ said Cedric, and he promptly spoke to the tree just outside the entrance to the cave, just to tell him to pass a message to his friends Marmaduke and Gerald.

‘Well I’m not sure that it will make much difference if you send a message to the people who decide on things like taxes,’ Gerald looked at his friend. ‘Can you imagine what they would say; Just had a message from a dragon called Cedric, said we should spend the money we get on taxes on doughnuts, and please to send him some.’ Gerald was pleased to come and talk with his friend, and there was nothing dragons liked doing more than chatting while eating doughnuts but he was not sure Cedric understood that it wouldn’t be wise to let people actually know dragons existed. ‘Remember they don’t believe dragons exist and it’s better that way. ‘Just because some witches and warlocks know about us; and the wood sprites and elves are our friends does not mean humans would be nice to us.’ With that Gerald took another doughnut from the plate and popped it whole into his mouth carefully brushing the sugar that fell on his chest onto the floor.
‘Yesss, maybe your right, anyway I asked the Green Man what he thought and he said he wasn’t going to waste his time writing and who exactly did I wish him to write to?’
‘There that settles it, err are there any more doughnuts in the cupboard, we seem to have eaten all those on the plate,’ Marmaduke having listened to his friends talking had not been paying attention to the number of doughnuts that Gerald had been eating. Gerald had been talking with his mouth full of doughnuts and had consumed more than was polite. But then Florence made exceptionally good doughnuts.
At that moment Florence returned from her walk to the waterfall. ‘I see you have eaten all the doughnuts, and no there are no more in the cupboard, at least none for today. Instead you can listen to what I have to say!’

But what Florence had to say is for the next blog about Cedric and his friends......