The tree is huge and has three main branches: two in a fork, straight up into leaves and sky, and one which grows parallel to the ground for a great distance. This species of tree, unlike the banyans of my homeland, does not produce tendrils that on touching ground grip and swell into air roots; the horizontal branch, fifteen or twenty metres long and connected only at its base, is always in threat of breaking.


This great tree around which the whole park is built has long since been fenced off for that reason, and supports placed under that errant branch. There will be no walking along the branch as if it was the great plank of a pirate ship, and anyway as adults we must now work from prudence - there are people who do not wish us to do some things, who are important enough to override all our other desires.

You used to be such a great climber. Something in the fingers, I think - the last phalanx of your fingers can bend to form a hook, which mine never can. I was the only one who saw you when you sneaked from branch to thin branch, all the way to the 20-metre-high canopy, and let loose a howl that affrighted half the people on the plain below; they thought you were some strange tree beast, I saw you up there, and I was the only person shielded from your sight under great boughs of leaves.