Once upon a time there was a pig. Pig lived on a small beautiful island under an orange tree. There was only one orange tree on the island and the little pig took good care of it, not least because its fruit was the only thing that he had to eat on this islands. The squirrels and rabbits and birds were able to eat other things but not the pig.
One day the orange tree's leaves began to show yellow spots. This did not alarm the pig at first, nor the birds that roosted in its branches; nobody noticed that the passing breeze shook a few more leaves down than usual. All the merrier for the foxes to play in!
Day by day though the orange tree's condition grew worse. Its leaves grew yellow, then brown, sailing off the trunk one by one like little ships towards the ocean. Only a few pieces of delicious golden fruit still hung from its branches. And then one day, it died.
Pig cried. All his friends cried with him too.
"That is the end of our orange tree," said Master Fox.
"I shall die of hunger," Pig declared.
This was very serious stuff. The animals advised him to go see Owl.
Owl lived at the end of the island in a hollow rock. She was not fond of company but she listened when Pig knocked on her door.
"The orange tree must have come from somewhere," Owl advised him, batting her long beautiful eyelashes at him as she wondered whether she was big enough to eat him. "You must bring a seed back to this island and then we will have orange trees again. Now, go away before I try to eat you."
"Thanks," said Pig.
Pig went away and repeated Owl's advice to his friends. Everyone nodded. They resolved to build him a boat.
Twelve days later a motley raft went out to sea. The foxes had helped carry twigs to the water, and the birds found bits of grass to bind the wood together. The squirrels had made themselves useful by gnawing the twigs from high trees.
"Goodbye!" cried Pig, waving to his friends on the island.
"Goodbye! Goodbye!" They waved back until he could no longer see them. Then Pig settled in for a nap.
It was a very long trip, mostly boring except for the bit where Pig ran into a sea-monster and the bit where he got captured by pirates and the bit where he found a beatiful deep sea pearl and nearly got snatched up by a giant roc which fortunately flew off again when he lobbed the pearl at the bird's eye...
Pig grew gaunt and thin (he was not such a big pig to begin with so it was easy for him to lose weight) and he was just on the verge of death, when--
--a giant shadow fell from the sky--
the Roc returned.
{To Be Continued)
