Children's Story - The Fight in the Red Gum Forest

by Brendan Doyle

River Red Gum picture with colour - by Natalie Penn

I feel safe here, behind this flap of bark in my big river red gum.  I like red gums.  They’ve always got hidey-holes for little creatures like me.  Just the perfect place to have a snooze.
  
They call me an antechinus.  A yellow-footed antechinus to be precise.  Some people think I’m a kind of marsupial mouse, but I’m not.  I live here in the red gum forest, near the banks of a big river.
  
You know what I love to eat?  Eggs.  Birds’ eggs.  Any eggs at all, really.  Spiders are yummy too.  And nectar.  Mmm.  Wildflower nectar.  Delicious.

Sometimes it can get a bit noisy.  Especially at dawn and dusk when a big flock of corellas decide to decorate the red gums and put on a concert.  It’s a happy sound, so I don’t mind being woken up so early.

I want to tell you what happened to me here in the forest.  I thought I’d lost my home forever.
  
I was in my favourite hole, snoozing, when suddenly I heard this terrifying noise that made the whole forest shake.
  
I peek out of my hidey-hole and can hardly believe my eyes.  Humans in bright yellow colours holding big loud machines that make a deafening, screeching sound, much louder than a thousand cockatoos.  And they’re using these machines to cut the trees.
  
A big tree not far from me starts falling over.  It makes a frightening noise as it crashes into another smaller tree.  Then it hits the ground with a thunderous thud that shakes everything, including me.

I don’t know what to do.  So I hide deeper inside my hole.
  
But the big noise gets closer.  Will the humans notice me, I wonder?  Will they realise someone is living in this tree?
  
I finally pluck up courage and carefully peek out.  The noise is coming closer.  It hurts my ears.  The tree next to mine comes crashing down.  Now I’m really scared.
  
There’s only one thing to do.  I leap from my hole all the way to the ground.  And run.  But where?  My part of the forest is already a mess of big trees lying broken all over the place.
  
Other forest-dwellers are running too.  Possums, lizards, and snakes.  I try to stay away from the snakes. 
  
One of the humans puts his boot on a snake and chops it in half.  Why?  She was just trying to get away.  Then he leans down and tries to grab me, but I bite his finger!
  
I run to a part of the forest near the river where there are no big trees, just reeds, and hide in there.  And I stay there all day, too scared even to look for food.
  
My favourite tree is lying on the ground.  A human is cutting it up into big chunks.  I have to find another home.
  
Near sundown the awful noise finally stops and the humans get into big trucks and cars and leave.  I’m starving.  But there’s not much for me to eat here, only a few ants.
  
I can hardly recognise my part of the forest any more.  It’s just a big mess of  broken trees and branches.  Lost baby animals are walking around or crying for their parents.

A few sunrises later, while it’s still almost dark, only the first pink glow in the distance, I hear noises.  It’s too early for the machines.  A few small cars come quietly into the forest.  And a bus.  The humans leave their cars parked in the middle of the road.  Why, I wonder?  Then they set up tents…
  
After the sun comes up, the machine-men arrive in their big trucks.  But they can’t get through, because the road is blocked by the other cars.  They jump out of their trucks and shout angrily at the other humans.
  
After the big yelling, some of the campers sit on the ground near the big machines.  The machine-men try to move them, but they won’t budge.  After that, there is no cutting for the rest of the day.  Just the campers sitting on the ground and talking a lot.
  
Next morning, they get up very early out of their tents.  They seem to be in a hurry.

Some of them are chaining themselves to the big noise-machines that have been left in the cleared part of the forest.  The machine-men soon arrive in their big shiny trucks.  One of the trucks pushes two cars off the road.  Then there is a lot of shouting between them and the campers who are attached to the machines.

There is no tree-cutting that day, or the next.  For two whole days the forest is quiet again, except for the campers who talk and sing around a campfire.
  
I’ve found another red gum hole to hide in.  Not as big or comfortable as my favourite old tree, but at least I can hide here.
  
What’s this?  Humans, close by.  I can smell them.  Then footsteps on crackly leaves.  Now I see a big human eye looking at me in my hole.  Then a hand grabs me!  It didn’t hurt.  It was one of the campers.  The hand put a stick with numbers on it next to me. 
Now why do you think they did that? 
Then put me back in my hole. 
Just like that. 

Well, apart from interrupting my nap, no harm done, I suppose.
  
I wonder how long all this will go on?  Every morning the machine-men arrive early.  Sometimes they start cutting down trees in another part of the forest.  Sometimes the campers seem to stop them, and we all have a quiet afternoon, like it used to be. 
     
Today a lot of campers and a lot of little humans drove into the clearing.  I watched them from my tree.  They were celebrating something, with lots of singing and dancing.  I hope that means something good has happened, for the forest, I mean.  I wouldn’t want to go through another big fight, would you?

Now it’s full moon again and the forest is quiet and beautiful tonight.

Then one day, some humans in green uniforms come into the forest.  They don’t have any loud machines, thank goodness.  They put up a big wooden sign.  It says “National Park”. 

I wonder what that means?

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