Once In a Blue Moon Read Free

seem to move with a life of their own, and sometimes it sounds like voices. Something the Tree heard, long ago. But the words are from a language no one speaks anymore, or even recognises. A language of a people who no longer exist. So no one now can understand what it is the Tree is remembering. The Tree is old  . . .”
    “And birds of every species come here from all over the world,” said Hawk. “Every shape and size, and all the colours you can think of, including some specimens long thought extinct . . . just to perch on the golden branches and sing to the Tree. They sing a thousand different songs, yet somehow they’re always in harmony.”
    “Though you never see a woodpecker,” said Fisher. “I think they sense they’re not welcome.”
    “None of them are, when they’re sounding off outside my bedroom window first thing in the morning,” growled the Administrator. “Bloody dawn chorus. I’ve had to move my bedroom three times. I swear the bloody things are following me.” He glared at Hawk. “Have we indulged in enough whimsy yet? Can I just say I don’t give a damn about any of this in a loud and carrying voice, so we can finally get to the damned point?”
    “The Millennium Oak is a wonder and a miracle,” Hawk said firmly. “Haven’t you ever wondered who it was that originally hollowed out the Tree’s interior, to make hundreds of rooms and halls and interconnecting corridors, so long ago that no one now remembers who or why? Seventy-five years the Tree has been home to the Academy, and we still haven’t occupied half the available rooms. A Tree with a city inside it. Who would have thought?”
    “Not forgetting the city of tents that surrounds it,” said Fisher. “All the student population, set out in ranks and circles round the trunk. I can see a dozen different flags from here, from countries near and far, flapping proudly in the breeze . . . Though I’m glad to see everyone is following tradition, and no one flag is set any higher than any other. I’d hate to have to go down there and punch someone. I really would.”
    “I did enjoy it when you set fire to the last flag that tried to flout tradition,” said Hawk solemnly. “And the way you set fire to the flag’s owner when he objected. In the end they had to wrap him in his own tent and roll him back and forth in the mud to put the flames out. He cried real tears.”
    “The Millennium Oak has never flown a flag,” said Fisher. “The Tree is in the Dutchy, but not of it.”
    “Go back a couple of hundred years,” said Hawk, “and there is the story of one Duke who tried to occupy the Tree. To make a point, over who was really in charge here. The Duke led his army of some three hundred heavily armed men inside the Tree; and none of them ever came out. We’ve never even found a trace of the bodies. The Tree’s roots dig deep, and no one has ever sought to discover how deep, or what nourishes them.”
    “I think we should take a tour through the tent city on the way back,” said Fisher. “Show the students we take an interest. I mean, yes, they’re expected to provide for and look after themselves; that’s the whole point of not letting them take it easy inside the Tree. Self-sufficiency starts at home, and all that. But it wouldn’t hurt to remind the students we’re still keeping an eye on them.”
    “Someone’s started a still again, haven’t they?” said Hawk. “What’s the matter? You not getting your fair share?”
    “It’s the principle of the thing,” said Fisher.
    “Won’t be long now before the Auditions begin,” said Hawk. “Look at the shadow.”
    The thousand-foot Millennium Oak cast one hell of a long shadow, and the tents that lay within it were always markedly cooler than those without. So the older and more experienced students struck their tents inside the shadow during the hot summer months, and outside it during the winter. All the newer students thus had no choice but to do