With that Clive began to doze, but not quite fall asleep. It was as if a dream was beginning. A dream that if you asked him afterwards, he wouldn’t be quite able to put into words. Tree Topper Clive wasn’t very good when it came to words, anyhows, nuts were his speciality. If there ever came to be a school for all the forest and the meadow, Tree Topper Clive would surely be the nut teacher. Therein, all the squirrel children could come to school and become wise in the way of nuts. Was this his dream?

The tree gestured a thought, ‘Perhaps I may be so bold as to offer my assistance in your quest for nuts?’ ”How?” asked Tree Topper Clive. ‘Well if its nuts that you need, I have some right here’. Just at that moment, Clive’s eyes fell on some nuts hanging from a nut branch just behind him. “Why, thank you”, said Clive as he picked the biggest and juiciest nut. ‘Are you going to eat the nut just like that?’, inquired the tree. “I suppose I am”, said Clive. He bit a large bite from the nut and thought to say, “Do you happen to know any other trees that talk?” ”Ah that would be telling”, said the tree ”anyway”, continued the tree, “I don’t know very many trees to talk to, and I wouldn’t know what other trees looked like at the other side of the forest”. “Aha I see”, said Clive. “Do you?”, murmured the tree.

Clive looked up through the clearing, night was beginning to fall or the sun was going down, which ever way you happened to be looking. All Clive could see though, was that the colour of the little bit of sky which he could see, was bright blue, was now quite grey, and he assumed would shortly become very black. Maybe there would be a star or two to look at as well. “Fancy a bit of stargazing?” asked the tree to the now quiet weary squirrel. “What do you mean, look at two white blips hanging in the sky!” said Clive.