Not long ago, I started watching Tree Fu Tom with my nephews—one older one with Autism (not quite what the show is aimed at, but anyway), and one much younger one who may or may not have a similar condition.

And some time during the show, I started wondering, just how did Tom meet the Treelings, anyway? How did he get that Sapstone belt and magic powers? I put out the question on Twitter, to no less than Sophie Aldred herself. Well, no answer was forthcoming (yet), but even as I said on there, I'm a sucker for a good origin story, so I tried coming up with a theory of my own. And part of the story here is the result of that.

While catching repeats, I started coming across a few other tidbits, including Twigs' apparent fear of jelly. I tried adding those tidbits to my story where they fit, along with paying close attention to the opening and closing scenes, all which resulted in slightly rewriting some parts of my "origin story," and from those changes, the framing story was born.

I don't see the show anywhere near as much as I'd like. We don't get Sprout at our house, I rarely get to watch NBC Kids, and I don't have the money (yet) to just buy it, so I only get to see it if I happen to be babysitting at my sister's when it's on, or when our cable company deigns to make episodes available On Demand. I can only hope I've seen enough to do a good job at the characterization.

Tree Fu Tom, the "worlds" it takes place in and all characters in this story belong to CBeebies and the studio's respective writers, directors, et cetera.

It was another beautiful day when Tom flew into Treetopolis, and all of the Treelings looked really busy.

"Hey, Tom!" Twigs, the Acorn Sprite, called out from the sky.

Tom flew over to join his friend. "Hi, Twigs. What's going on?"

"Festival!" Twigs replied. "There's going to be scary rides, and gooey treats, and ooh, it's going to be so much fun!" He grinned.

"So where are you off to?" Tom asked.

"The ranch. I'm helping Ariela prepare the food. You want to come along?"

"Sure!"

At the ranch, Tom saw all of his closest Treeling friends gathered. There was Ariela the butterfly, of course, but also Squirmtum the woodlouse, and... Zigzoo the frog?

"Huh. I figured Zigzoo would've been helping with the rides," Tom said.

"Who knows?" Twigs replied. "Does it really matter?"

"I guess not," Tom said. And it didn't. He was always happy to have his friends around. He landed and waved. "Hi, Ariela. Squirmtum. Zigzoo."

Twigs flew down and joined them. "Hello, my butterfly buddy."

"Hiya Tom, Twigs. You boys here to help me out?"

"Yeah!" Twigs said. "Um... what's Zigzoo doing here? I'd have thought Treetopolis' greatest inventor would be working on the rides."

Tom tried not to laugh.

"No, he's tinkering with some kind of food-maker," Ariela replied. "But he's made a game out of it, and he's trying to out-do those trouble-making Mushas, if you can believe it."

"What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"His game's supposed to be really messy," Ariela said. "He's got that contraption filled with peanut butter, and honey, and jelly—"

"Blech, jelly!" Twigs muttered. "That's one game I won't ever play."

"And all kinds of other sticky foods," Squirmtum added.

"Right," Ariela said. "That's why Zigzoo's out here. I agreed to let him set it up near the ranch, instead of out by the castle, so the Treelings who don't mind making a mess can have all the fun they like with it, but others like Twigs," and she chuckled, "don't have to worry about getting all messed up if they don't want to join in."

"Well, that's a relief," Twigs said. "Phew! Thanks for that." There was a sound of a mechanical snap! coming from the direction of the machine. "Um... what was that?"

Another snap!

"Uh-oh! Looks like I mighta spoken too soon," Ariela said. She pointed in the direction of the machine. "Look out!" She took flight to avoid the glob of jelly the machine had launched their way.

Squirmtum rolled away, and Tom joined Ariela in the sky to help Zigzoo shut down the machine. Twigs, unfortunately, panicked and froze up, and before he could escape into his acorn he was covered head to toe in the sticky jelly.

After the machine was shut down, Tom and the others returned to find Twigs passed out, but the jelly was so sticky that it kept him from falling over.

"Oh, my!" Ariela fluttered down to examine the Sprite. "What's happened here?"

"Uh... Twigs?" Tom tried to wake his friend up. "Twigs!" He looked around at his other friends.

"I'll get something to clean him up," Ariela suggested, and she headed into the barn.

"And I'll try to wake him," Tom added.

A few minutes, one spell, and a half a dozen trillicakes later, Twigs was awake and mostly clean, but he couldn't stop shuddering.

"Twigs, I've been meaning to ask," Zigzoo said. "Just why do you hate jelly so much?"

"Why, he asks me? Why?" Twigs stared at the frog in astonishment. "Why, it's only the vilest, most evilest thing ever invented. Why would I ever hate anything like that?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Ariela said. "I might understand if you didn't like the taste, but you won't touch the stuff even when we make it with your favorite berries."

"Or if you didn't like getting messy," Squirmtum added. "But you usually love playing in the mud."

"You keep saying you think it's scary," Tom said. "But that doesn't make any sense, either. It's just food."

"Sure it does," Ariela said. "The little Sprite's scared of everything."

"I am not!" Twigs protested. "I'm not scared of anything."

"Uh-huh. Right." Ariela gasped and pointed. "Look out! More flying jelly!"

Twigs screamed and popped into his acorn.

Tom caught the trembling acorn before it could hit the ground. "It's okay, Twigs, there's nothing there."

Twigs popped back out of the acorn and started gasping and panting. "Right," he said. "I knew that." But he was still shaking.

"This really is bothering you, ain't it?" Ariela said. "I'm sorry, Twigs, I shouldn't have tricked you like that."

"But why?" Tom asked. "Why would you be afraid of jelly?"

Twigs stopped shaking, and he just stared up at Tom. Tears started forming in the little Sprite's eyes, and his lower lip trembled. "You mean... you don't remember what happened?" He sniffed. "You don't remember how we first met?"

"Uh..." Tom tried to think fast. "Of course I remember how we met. I think. I guess I just don't remember what jelly has to do with it." He gave a helpless shrug.

"Oh, fine," Twigs said with a huff. He turned his back on his friends, crossed his arms, and plopped down onto the ground. "If you all really want to know..." he added with a roll of his eyes. A rustling sound behind him made him turn around. Everyone was seated and watching him attentively, and Twigs blinked in surprise. "You... you all really want to know?"

"Of course," Tom replied. "We're friends, aren't we? And it's important to know when something's bothering your friends."

"Mm-hmm," Ariela agreed. "And especially to know why it's bothering them. So we can help you when you're scared. Anyway, we got plenty of time before the festival, so get on with it!"

"Oh. Okay, then. Um..." Twigs frowned. "So where should I start?"

"How about when we met?" Tom suggested.

"What? No, no, no. This started way before we met." Twigs thought some more, then he clicked his fingers. "Oh, right, the Mushas!"

"The Mushas helped you meet Tom?" Squirmtum asked.

"Not exactly," Twigs replied. "I remember it like it was yesterday. Chezz and I had just found out that the Mushas were up to their old tricks again, and I was the only one who could stop them. Chezz, of course, ran to hide back at the castle, but I followed them, sneaking around to see what they were doing, and I waited until the right moment and I jumped out and yelled—"

"Twigs!" Ariela crossed her arms. "The real story?"

Twigs laughed nervously. "All right, all right, so I panicked when I saw them, and I flew straight into a patch of spring weed."

"What's spring weed?" Tom asked.

"Oh, right, you've never seen this stuff." Twigs thought a moment. "Well, remember those bounce mushrooms when we had to help the Mushas in the fungus forest?" Tom nodded. "This stuff is way springier than those. We use a very teeny tiny little bit of it to make toys like... like... oh, kind of like your Tromp and Lean."

Tom chuckled. "You mean my trampoline."

"Uh, yeah, that thing," Twigs said. He waved off the correction as though it wasn't important. "Works great for helping young Sprites learn how to fly, too. But you jump in a whole field of it, and that stuff can spring you up as high as Treetog's tower! So you've got to be really careful. And I..." He sighed. "Well, I was running away from the tower, so..."

—

Twigs went flying through the trees, faster than he'd ever flown before. It could have been fun, if only he had the slightest bit of control over the flight. But the spring weed had launched him into the air as soon as he'd touched it, and he simply couldn't turn aside or stop.

A tree stopped him instead. The impact knocked him into his acorn, and he bounced off one branch, landed on another, and eventually bounced his way to the ground and rolled away from the trees.

Twigs finally popped back out of the acorn, gasping. "I'm okay! I'm okay!" He waited for the world to stop spinning around him, then he fluttered his wings to fly back home. "I'm... ow!" He fell back to the ground. "Oh, my poor wing!"

Twigs twisted this way and that, trying to get a good look at the wing that had crumpled beneath him. "Oh, great, now Treetog's going to make me drink a healing potion. They always taste bad." He clicked his fingers. "Wait! I don't need a potion; I can use a healing spell! And it's the very first spell Treetog's ever taught us, so it'll be easy. I – am – a genius."

He took a couple of deep breaths and stood back up. "Okay, now how did it go? Two steps to the right..." He took two steps. "And a three-quarter spin the left—" He had to be careful with this move. Too slow and the spell wouldn't have enough power; too fast and he'd only end up hurting his wing worse. "Clap, and... Healing Hands!"

Nothing happened.

"Um... okay... I'll try again. Two steps to the right, a three-quarter spin to the left, clap, and... Healing Hands!"

Still nothing.

"Or maybe it was two steps to the left?"

It was no good. No matter what Twigs did, the spell simply wouldn't work. It didn't even feel like he'd messed it up, it just did nothing.

"This doesn't make any sense," he complained. "The magic sap is everywhere in Treetopolis, even the Fungus Forest. Something should have happened. Unless maybe I was..." He shook his head and laughed. "Oh, Twigs, don't be silly, you're just scaring yourself. You forgot the moves is all. Am I right, Chezz?"

Twigs waited for Chezz to taunt him, and he blinked when he only got silence as a reply. "Chezz? Treetog?" There was still no response, and his voice dropped. "Stink? Puffy? Anyone?" He gulped. "Where is everyone?" he asked in a very small voice.

He jumped onto a large rock and stared at the tall grasses. "Where am I?" he whispered. "That spring weed must've sprung me farther than I thought; I don't recognize this part of the forest at all." He sighed. "There's got to be a way to figure out how to get back to the castle, but if I can't fly, I... oof!"

Twigs had begun slowly sinking into the black rock, until he lost his balance and toppled over onto his back. "Huh? Oh! That's how!" He stared up the black rock. "I can look around from up there!"

The rock was a lot squishier than he expected, but its curve was covered with knobs that were perfect for a Sprite his size. Twigs smirked; Chezz loved to taunt him about how small he was, but the bigger Sprites would surely be much too heavy to manage this climb.

The climb was difficult without his wing power, but finally Twigs made it to the top. He looked all around him. In one direction... forest and more bizarre trees and rocks; still nothing he recognized. In the other, he could just barely see the tell-tale glow of magic sap.

The glow was at least a few hours' flight away.

"I'm doomed."

—

"But what about the jelly?" Squirmtum asked.

"Hold on, hold on, I'm getting to that part."

—

The walk back to the forest was long. Twigs was tired and hungry, and his feet were aching, and he jumped at every sound. And it was dark and getting darker.

In fact, it just got a whole lot darker. A huge shadow fell over Twigs, but he was nowhere near the forest yet. Had a cloud covered the sun?

Twigs looked up, and he whimpered when he saw where the shadow came from. It was a great monstrous beast, twice as tall as Treetog's castle, and easily four times that in length. The monster yawned, giving Twigs a very good look at its many sharp teeth, and especially the four long ones, before it spoke.

"Mreow," the monster said, in a voice like thunder that knocked Twigs off his feet.

Twigs yelped and popped back into his acorn. With any luck the monster wouldn't even see him and would keep walking.

But such luck was not with the young Sprite. The monster reached out one massive paw and struck his acorn, sending him spinning along the ground several times before he popped out again.

"Yaah!" Twigs turned and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, while the monster followed close behind. "Where's that rock? Where's that rock? Where's th—ouch!" He ran straight into a strange tree, one that went up at a sharp angle before it was joined by another similar tree.

He didn't even stop to worry if he could climb this one; he just started climbing. He managed to pull himself up onto the upper branches, fought to keep his balance, and toppled onto the springy leaves... and right into a puddle of something thick and sticky and smelling of berries.

The monster simply leaped up after him.

Twigs struggled to get free, but the stuff he'd landed in was too sticky, and he couldn't move.

Twigs could only whimper and shake as the monster came closer and closer.

—

"Oh, you poor thing!" Ariela said. "No wonder you're scared. Trapped like that with that monster chasing you? You must've been terrified!"

"Very," Twigs replied, shaking again. "Very terrified."

"But it's all over now," Tom said. He put an arm around his friend's shoulder until the shaking stopped. "You're safe with us."

"So how did you escape?" Zigzoo asked. "What happened next?"

"Hmm? Oh, I didn't escape," Twigs replied. "I was all gobbled up and never heard from again."

Well there you go. The first chapter to my Tree Fu Tom origin story. Anybody care to guess what all Twigs ran into outside of Treetopolis? ;)

Later entries, after I return to Treetopolis, will no longer have the "flashback" format. That is, the "origin story," which was the originally intended story, will include other characters' perspectives as needed, while the present events of the festival (when included) will remain as nothing more than a framing story.

FYI: Between the show's British origins, and the context in some of the episodes, I'm guessing his fear of jelly is actually referring to jello. I don't recall the American version changing the term, but anyway.
This distinction doesn't change my story any (though "sticky" might no longer be the right term), it's just something I happened to notice.
I also happened to notice that Tom doesn't take this "fear" very seriously whenever Twigs mentions it, at least not in the episodes I've had access to so far. Granted, Twigs does tend to act very silly and overly dramatic, and he's probably doing the same in this case—and maybe some time I'll catch an episode that confirms what this fear really is—but I chose to address it in my story as a genuine fear... and that without using the just-as-serious possibility that it's a total phobia, a fear which has no rational source but is just as real.