Brother Eagle and the Old Pine Tree
...it's also the written version - if you like it, you have your choice of telling it yourself or reading it - and, as you'll see, you even have a choice about plot near the end...) 
Once upon a time, in a land very far away, and in a time very long ago, Andrew, Max, Hannah and Cameron, and their special friend, Brother Eagle, were playing in the back yard of their home, the tallest castle in all the land.
It was a late summer's day, beautifully gusty, with a high sky and billowing clouds racing and perpetually building even larger castles against a brilliant blue, and the sound of oak leaves chorusing how very grand a day it was. A day to be alive, to feel one's vitality and hopes bursting from one's chest, too big to be completely contained. A day of darting and chasing and tackling and tickling and laughing oneself silly in the streaming light and racing shadows. A day that held just a hint of Autumn soon to come, that would see the fall of those same leaves now roaring with pleasure.
There was a fence at the very back of the yard, a very nice, low, white fence that had no real outward purpose, since there were no very large beasts of prey in the woods behind, but it had been put there, nonetheless, as a token of grace, a sort of half-formed thought that childhood, even as safe and joyous a childhood as was played in that yard, should have a safe margin, like a simple, pretty, unobtrusive frame round a painting of vivid color and bounding action.
Today, however, Brother Eagle had left the childrens' game and was perched on the fence, gazing far into the distance at the mountain across the valley. Something about the mountain had caught the corner of his eye while snatching the bonnet off Hannah's golden head and whirling it to Cameron with a flick of his talons and a scream of laughter, this distant mountain, because he saw something he had never seen before but recognized instantly from old stories from very old owls he had known as a child himself.
Brother Eagle was no longer a child, but he was the children's best friend, playmate and often ill-informed advisor, though certainly well-intentioned, unknown to the children's parents, but known to all the animals and plants for miles around. What he had seen made him feel desperately worried. He was worried for his old friend, before the owls, even; his dear friend the Old Pine Tree.
For Brother Eagle had seen the top of the mountain - lift off. Blown right up into the air. The sound of the mountain-top lifting off had not quite reached them yet, it was so far away, but there was now a flash of yellow-orange where the top had been - and above it a black, towering mushroom-shaped mass that had been blown into the distant sky - and so Brother Eagle shouted to the children, never taking his eyes from the mountain, "cover your ears! The sound is coming!"
They just had time to clap their hands to their ears and turn toward Brother Eagle with startled eyes before the great wall of thunder slammed into them. The long roar of faraway bursting boulders and bellowing furnaces rolled over them, leaving them sprawled on the gound. They crept up to Brother Eagle, Andrew first, as the biggest, Hannah second, as the fiercest, and Max and Cameron together just behind, Max having instinctively grabbed Cam - for they called him Cam for short, although he was starting to shoot up, catching up to as tall as they were - as the most cautious, though equally game for anything. Cameron and Max were far more delighted than frightened, however, a delighted grin growing across both their faces and their mouths forming un-hearable, above the din, exclamations such as "Wow!' and "Sick!" and "Massive" and - and here Hannah shushed them (no one could hear each other, but she could lip-read, as well as talk sign-language), for she had seen the expression on Brother Eagle's face.
He was very distressed, the most upset they had ever seen him. Tears were being whipped away by the continuing wind, and each blink would release a fresh spray. His beak was open and motionless, as if his mind was struggling to overcome some monstrous horror and begin to know what to do. Andrew asked him, gently, though he had to shout very loud, what was wrong, and Brother Eagle only shook his head. It was impossible, this thought that was forming, but he didn't know any other way.
He was on the verge of giving up, of finding a way to hide his secret so the children would not be drawn into his terrible knowledge, when the look on Hannah's face and the dying down of the wind gave him the permission he needed to ask for help from his friends. Staring at the fire from the distant volcano, Brother Eagle said, "It's the Old Pine Tree." He paused, he didn't know how to go on.
All four of the children saw the wretched look on his face and instinctively, with sinking hearts, they all turned and looked at the molten lava gouting from the top of the volcano. As they imagined they could feel the heat despite the distance, they saw what Brother Eagle had seen: the fire starting to creep down the sides of the mountain, engulfing every animal, plant and wood in its path.
Max, the one whose middle name might have been Justice if it had not already been Christopher, said to Brother Eagle, "We must save him!" Now, let us pause here and ask ourselves, dear reader, "How did Max know The Old Pine Tree was a male?" Indeed, do trees come in male and female? I do not know, and I am sure none of our five heroes knew, this might be something for you to look up for yourself, but they did know The Old Pine Tree was somehow an old man, and that he was about to be burned to ashes.
One of the many, many reasons the four children loved Brother Eagle was that he was always, always game for whatever adventure they might present - except, of course, as we all know, when he was too frightened and tried to hide under one of their beds - but the children always found him and dragged him along, so in fact he had never actually been absent for a single escapade. And Brother Eagle was certainly not going to be absent from this one, not when it involved his first and dearest friend, The Old Pine Tree.
So Brother Eagle told them to jump on his back. "Bury yourselves in my feathers," he warned the children, "so the sparks don't get you", and they did, gladly, as the hot, ashy air threatened to burn their hair and scorch their skin. Off they flew, from the bright backyard into a deepening gloom of smoke and burning embers. Brother Eagle had no trouble taking off, for that year the children were still quite small and did not weigh much at all.
"Brother Eagle," said Cameron, "you smell of old dusters and bed-quilts!" "Cameron!" cried Hannah, "he does not, he smells lovely, like honey and cloves and pumpkin!" "Huh?" answered Cameron, "what land do you live in? You've been riding in too many coaches made of pumpkin and drawn by mice!" which was not very nice and earned him a sound punch on his arm from his sister. He would have punched her back but just then a gust of particularly fiery wind made all of them hang on as tightly as ever they could, for fear of being swept away into the burning darkness.
When, at last, Andrew had begun to wonder if it was ever going to end and how Brother Eagle could possibly fly another stroke, Brother Eagle made the nicest landing, against cross-gusts and sparkly-whirlwinds, to the very top of the tallest, oldest pine tree they had ever seen.
As the children carefully climbed off Brother Eagle's back onto the top branches, holding tightly, Cameron nonetheless managed to give Hannah a return punch, saying, "there!" as he did so, and then giving a short shriek as he almost fell. It was a good thing Cameron was such a superb athlete and could get in a punch just not too hard whilst turning a somersault in mid-air and finding a grip with the other hand on the very tip of a perilously small branch. He would someday invent karate, jai-alai and, later, baseball, and these inventions would find their way east, west and west again through the Mongol-oppressed Chinese, the Mayas and an American named Doubleday, or Cartwright, depending on which version of history you believe, but that's getting far ahead of our story. It was also the reason Hannah also punched him not too hard, that along with the fact that she loved him so dearly, but that's also a different story; this is a story of a sort of Christmas in a land long before Christmas, and of trying to save an old tree from a fiery death.
"Old Pine Tree", Brother Eagle whispered, "I would like you to meet my friends. These are Andrew, Max, Hannah and Cameron." Then he brought his head close to where the four children's heads were huddled together near the trunk, out of the hot wind's blast, and said, "Children, I would like you to meet my oldest, dearest friend, The Old Pine Tree."
Now, the children looked at each other in a little bit of surprise, never having tried to speak to a plant of any sort before, much less a tree, but with Andrew leading they all gamely said, in their politest voice, "Hullo, Mr. Old Pine Tree, we are very glad to meet you", and then they waited, not sure what would happen next. What happened next was a brief lull in the wind, as if the wind were listening too and knew the Old Pine Tree wished to speak, followed by a shivering that ran all through the old pine's needles and twigs, a shiver that whispered to them in the briefly still air:
"Hello, children. I am very glad to meet you, too." Max laughed, as he sometimes did for no reason anyone could figure out, and Hannah shushed him, as she often did for obvious reasons, but then Max's face grew solemn and he said, "Mr. Old Pine Tree, Brother Eagle tells us you are his oldest friend, so we are here to save you." The Old Pine Tree replied, in his whispery, shivery way, "Thank you. I would like that very much." Then Cameron blurted, "Are you afraid?" and the Old Pine Tree said, "I have been through many a fire, but this time the fire is from lava, so, yes, my little friend, I am very afraid." Hannah said, "I am sorry this is happening, and we're going to get you out of here!" at which the Old Pine Tree laughed gently, his branches swaying slightly, and he said, "I wish you could." Then Brother Eagle broke in and practically shouted, "Yes, my old friend, we will save you!" but then he stopped.
For how were they to save the Old Pine Tree? As the wind blew again they all huddled against the Old Pine Tree's trunk, deep within his branches, and talked about it. Andrew said, "He's awfully big. I don't think we can dig him up." Max said, "Well, let's find out. Old Pine, how about if we dug you up and rolled you down the mountain?" Max had thought up the part about rolling Old Pine down the mountain by himself, he was very proud of it. But the Old Pine Tree laughed again, and said, "Thank you so much, my brilliant young friends, but I could never leave. My roots are too deep, I would die if you cut them." Max shouted back, "But you're going to die if you stay here!" and the Old Pine Tree replied, "Yes, I'm sorry to be such a difficult old man, but there's no help for it."
Then Andrew spoke up and said, "Well, if we can't move you, we will have to figure out how to protect you," and everyone agreed with Andrew, and started popping ideas about just how to do that. Now here, gentle reader, is the place where, if I were telling this story to children, as I have done many, many times, I would warn them that although there was absolutely nothing Brother Eagle or the children could do to save The Old Pine Tree, I was happy to try out any ideas they might have.
Children being the same, no matter the time or place or race or nation, they would come up with idea after idea, and no matter how many failed, they would come up with still more, convinced that there surely must always be a way. You and I, much older and wiser, of course, know better, which is a very sad thing, and one of the great tragedies of life…for without hope, nothing can be done, and yet sometimes nothing, indeed, can be done. However, children have to learn this for themselves, sooner or later, I suppose…and I do wish this story had a magical way out for our new friend the Old Pine Tree, but against a volcano, what can be done?
Still, I always, always let them have their say, and we try every single idea - or at least all the ideas we can until it is obvious that if I don't start wrapping things up the bell would ring before I finished, and that would never do. Perhaps it would be better to tell the children listening that there are two endings, and they can hear them both: the one where Brother Eagle and the children magically save the Old Pine Tree, and the other where they - don't.
I think I will try that next time, and you, dear reader, are certainly welcome to try it out yourself, but in this story I hadn't thought of that yet, so in this story, they - don't. Nonetheless, they tried their very best, which is all anyone can do.
So, the children carried buckets of water to try to put out the volcano, and that didn't work. And then they strung hoses all the way from the castle to the top of the volcano, even though garden-hoses would not be invented for another thousand years, but all that did was drain the fish-pond dry. And then a bright little girl suggested fire extinguishers, invented even later than garden-hoses, but those, of course, failed too; it's not easy to put out a volcano, as the people of Pompeii found out the hard way. As the helicopters and B-52 bombers dropping train-loads of water and fire retardant also failed to stop the volcano. And then, inevitably, the idea of the fire ditch came up, and the lava simply filled it to overflowing and ran down the mountain straight for our old friend. And then there was the concrete wall, replaced by the steel wall, replaced by the wall made of un-meltable diamond, replaced by the wall of un-crackable platinum-diamond alloy, but they all melted, or cracked, or crumbled, or were submerged under the onslaught of the molten rock.
And so it comes to pass that the room grows silent, the children begin to understand that this story really is a bummer, that Disney is not the arbiter of all reality, and the realization grows that the Old Pine Tree is going to burn up. Surprisingly, I've never had a child cry or yell at me at this point; I'm not sure why, you would think they would be furious with me, but no, they start to think hard about what I'm really about, notice that the hour is almost up and I'm going to be in trouble if I don't wrap things up soon, and so settle down to wait me out.
Part of the reason acceptance finally comes at this point, too, I think, is that, in the end, children are pragmatical creatures at heart, and as much as they love fantasy, even if they're the one dying, they're willing to let go; I think perhaps they understand death better than we grownups do. And so we find our five heroes huddled again against the Old Pine Tree's trunk, exhausted, crying, defeated, shielding themselves as best they can from the savage heat of the lava that was oh, so close now.
Brother Eagle asked miserably, "what do we do?" and before Andrew or Max or Hannah or Cameron could think of an answer, the Old Pine Tree said to them, shivering his very bark, "You must leave, my friends." "No!" shouted Max, "we won't leave!" "Yes!" agreed Andrew, "there must be a way!" "Old Pine Tree" pleaded Hannah and Cameron together, "tell us what to do!" And the Old Pine Tree whispered to them, "there is nothing more you can do. I thank you with all my heart, you have been the best and truest friends a person could ever have, and you have fought for me most bravely and brilliantly. But there comes a time when you have to say good-bye; it would hurt me terribly to know I was the cause of harm to you, so please leave now while you still can."
Since he asked so nicely there was nothing they could do but agree, so Brother Eagle climbed to the top and said his goodbyes, telling the Old Pine Tree how much he loved him, which is all anyone can do in the end, really, and then the children climbed up onto Brother Eagle's back and, one by one, also said goodbye.
"Goodbye, Old Pine Tree" said Andrew. "Goodbye, Old Pine Tree" said Max. "Goodbye, Old Pine Tree" said Hannah. "Goodbye, Old Pine" said Cameron. "Goodbye, Andrew, Max, Hannah, and Cameron", said the Old Pine Tree, "it was very nice to meet you," shivering his needles with the most courtly elegance imaginable. "Very nice to meet you, too," chorused the children, shivering their own hands as they spoke, unknowingly imitating the Old Pine Tree. "Goodbye, my dearest friend Little Eagle," whispered the Old Pine Tree with a break of grief in his shivering voice, and Brother Eagle sobbed back, "Goodbye, old friend, I love you." "I love you too," shook the Old Pine Tree from his roots to his top in a low thunder, and at that, Brother Eagle tried to take off.
But he couldn't take off; the wind was too strong, they would all have been blown right to the ground and dashed to pieces. So Brother Eagle asked the Old Pine Tree to help, for Brother Eagle was now very afraid for the children, and the Old Pine Tree cried out with all his parts, "Sister Wind, Sister Wind, please be kind enough to allow Brother Eagle to take wing," and because Sister Wind had heard the whole thing, as she hears everything, she called to all her sisters on the mountain-side and they all, for a moment, paused, holding back the mountain's fire.
In that moment Brother Eagle sprang into the sky, shouting "Goodbye" for the last time - for as soon as the word was out of his beak, all the Sister Winds released the mountain's fury and hurled our heroes in one searing blast from the side of the volcano all the way across the sky to a little bit beyond the backyard fence, where Sister Wind dropped them gently onto the soft, warm grass, Brother Eagle's precious burdens intact.
The children spent the rest of the afternoon consoling Brother Eagle, holding his talons and his wings, Hannah stroking his back and telling him everything would be all right, and they saw streaming out of the burning forest and swimming across the steaming river every mammal, amphibian and reptile imaginable, and even birds who walked this day rather than flew, filling the meadows behind the fence, predators at peace with prey, all crouched together on the ground, panting together, their eyes shut - but that's the next story, for a different day.
And so the next story came and went, and many after, and Autumn came and went with rain, and leaves, gold and red, and then, Winter, with her knee-deep snow and more stories on the hearth-rug in front of the fire-place in the castle's vast family room - for in the castle, the family room was for everyone who lived in the farms and shops around - and then spring came round again, bursting with bird-song and early berries and snow-melt and promises of summer, and the day came that they found themselves in the sun in the backyard again, all looking together at the now-silent volcano in the distance.
They used to just call it the mountain, specifically the Distant Mountain, but now they all called it the Volcano of Recent Memory. Brother Eagle was so sad, and this was such an unusual state for Brother Eagle to be in that all the children were worried. They were sad, too, of course, but they feared that Brother Eagle's grief was overpowering, and at first they didn't know how to help.
Finally, Hannah asked Brother Eagle to tell them about the Old Pine Tree, and Brother Eagle told them about how, when he lost his parents while just a fledgling, the Old Pine Tree took him in, taught him the ways of the forest, persuaded Sister Wind to help him fly, cajoled the squirrels into showing him how to survive on grubs, the squirrels all the time pointing out to the Old Pine Tree that this was a very stupid thing to do, since once Little Eagle was large enough he would switch from grubs to them, and Little Eagle had to solemnly swear to never touch a hair on their heads, which, when word got round, earned Little Eagle more gifts of food from the chipmunks and woods-mice and shrews - for the littlest folk of the forest knew a good bargain when they heard it - but the rabbits, silly selfish creatures that they were, either could not be bothered or could not be convinced, so as Little Eagle grew into the giant Eagle he really was - for in those days, my dear readers, Eagles were giant creatures, almost as tall as a man when walking upright, tail dragging on the ground, wings folded behind their backs - he was able to keep his bargain with the squirrels and chipmunks and shrews and mice of all kinds - for Little Eagle chose to include all the woods-mice cousins of field, vale, thicket and stream - by gobbling happily the big, fat rabbits who had not had the sense to help, all the while talking to Old Pine each evening while the stars circled overhead and the moon came and went, learning about life…it is a good thing to learn about life from one who has lived many hundreds of little folks' life-spans, better even than very old books…and sharing his dreams.
When the day came for Little Eagle to explore the world, he had only to fly across the valley to the castle with the four children to enter into adventures beyond any normal eagle's wildest dreams. When Brother Eagle had finished, they thought about what they might do, and Andrew suggested they make a memorial, and Max said for everyone to bring one small, precious gift to place on the memorial, and Hannah said the memorial must be where the Old Pine Tree's roots had gone into the earth, and Cameron said he was first.
So Brother Eagle took off once again toward the distant mountain, now called the Volcano of Recent Memory, and because a year had passed and the children had grown quite a lot, he found them a much heavier load than before. "Goodness!" exclaimed Brother Eagle, "how heavy you all are! I can hardly fly!"
And shortly after that he gave out a great giggle, for indeed he was so weighted down he could barely clear the trees, and the tree-tops kept tickling his belly as he flew! (If you were telling this story to little children, here you might make your one hand Brother Eagle, and the other hand pointed up like the top of a tree, and you would show how Brother Eagle would brush the tops of them, one after another, each time getting tickled and rushing upwards in a frenzy of giggles, then dropping down again because of his load to be tickled again, showing how they made their way across the forest in a long series of swoops and climbs, with great giggles from one and woops of laughter from the four, and from your listeners, until they made their way all the way to the side of the Volcano of Recent Memory.)
Here they landed in a desolate space covered in a foot of ash, and began looking for what might be left of the Old Pine Tree. At first they found only rocks and shattered pine-cones and bone-dry shards of what they would rather not think about, but after a long, arduous search largely in silence, punctuated occasionally by cries of "Oh, look!….Oh, never mind!", Brother Eagle called out confidently, "Look! Look what I have found!" and they all rushed over, each carrying their precious gift, and there, beneath the ash, green and shiny and freed by the brush of Brother Eagle's wings, stood a tiny baby pine tree.
They all sank to their knees in the ash and stared in wonder. Cameron said, "What a beautiful little baby pine tree!" Then they all hung their remembrances on it carefully, each a tiny thing that was no great weight to such a sturdy little tree: Cameron, who even though he was the youngest had called "First", a porcelain white horse so delicately cast it hardly weighed a grain of wheat; Andrew a tiny, precious snow-flake of finest glass; Max a tiny, brave sword of silver-foil; and Hannah a tiny, perfect heart of ruby set in gold leaf - and they all, all admired how everything sparkled in the sun, the green, shiny needles, the brilliantly smooth white horse, the frosty snow-flake, the gleaming silver sword, and the glowing red heart.
Brother Eagle, being an animal, had nothing to bring, but he brought his breast aching with love, and he brought something else, something none of them had expected. He brought a sudden thought.
Hesitantly, timidly, he lowered his beak alongside the little baby pine tree, and then he whispered, so quietly they could all just barely hear him, "Hello, Old Pine Tree". And the little baby pine answered, shivering its minute needles and causing the precious things to tinkle together: "Hello, Brother Eagle".
And then the children, bursting with gladness, shouted "Hello, Old Pine Tree!" and the little pine tree shivered and tinkled to each in turn, saying "Hello, Andrew", "Hello, Max", Hello, Hannah", "Hello, Cameron", "It's so nice to see you all again."
Now here, gentle reader, a child would always, always ask: "How did the baby pine tree know Brother Eagle's name?", and I would always, always answer, "I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?" and instantly twelve voices would shout at the top of their lungs "it's the Old Pine Tree!" followed almost immediately by five other voices worrying "but how did the Old Pine Tree survive the volcano?" and, of course, this was always, always a great teaching moment - which is an awful thing, really, because children cannot be taught, they can only figure things out - where the idea would be introduced that perhaps the pine-cones, which carried seeds and which had been shattered by the heat, had thrown out seeds that gave rise to baby pines.
All, all would think about this, nod their heads in solemn understanding and then smile, satisfied at last by a well-rounded, complete, esthetically pleasing end.
But then, as we were all, all gathering ourselves in preparation for the inevitable bell, there would always, always be the tug at my elbow, the earnest little pair of eyes, the wondering lips: "but how did the baby pine tree know it was Brother Eagle?" and I would have to tell the truth: "I don't know. There are some things you just believe".
