Chapter 4

Pixie Pod was sitting pretty pretty in the shade of the glum tree one fine Troopday, whereupon he pondered the misgivings Tree Topper Clive had been giving him. Tree Topper Clive had been off weather of late you see, and Pixie Pod though that it was himself being the source of all said unmirth. Unmirth cast grey clouds over all the forest and all the meadow. Grey clouds which seemed to just about hold back the mightiest and fiercest storms that ever fell upon this world we have come to know. Pod took no notice to these clouds as his notice was decidedly Tree Topper Clive’s long faces.

Tree Topper Clive had been feeling grey himself for sometime, and the more he felt grey, the greyer he felt. Pod didn’t like it when his friend carried this greyness and unmirth with him into all that he met and conversed with. Others that dwelled round about had cause to mention this to Pixie Pod, regarding him as Clive’s closest friend. So that is how we came to be here in the shade of the glum tree, or more correctly reading Pixie Pod in the shade of the glum tree.

Tree Topper Clive returned from a particularly grey walk, during which it nearly rained thrice. So he gave a name to the path he walked such that all who walked that path afterwards would know it’s name. It was grey path. He came to the glum tree where Pod sat reflecting. “Hi Clive”. “Hi Pod”. Clive sat beside Pod.