I'll be blunt and start off with the question which fueled this idea by burning my mind: Am I the only one who thinks the animals of the forest could have done something, themselves, to help the Lorax in his cause? It is their home, after all, and they so clearly possess the cognitive potential to take on a much more proactive role than they did. Granted, as an uncle of mine used to say, "The story has to happen," but one of the main functions of a fandom is to allow for deviations in any direction you want. We fans can wipe our brows in gratitude for that!
Like a lot of writers, on a lot of subjects, I've mentally reached the end of this idea before having fully built up to it, and am still paving the road leading to that point. It basically concerns the animals, starting with Pipsqueak (logically enough), realizing they could help find a happy medium in the midst of the conflict between the goals of the Lorax and the Once-ler; thus, they begin searching for a diplomatic negotiation. Right now I intend to portray one approach per chapter, so not knowing how many of these approaches there will be, before they reach their solution at the end, I can't really say how long this is going to be, nor how long its completion will take.
In any case, copyrights are those of Dr. Seuss, Universal and Illumination Entertainment.
"They're chopping the trees again?" Pipsqueak couldn't believe it. "But I thought he said he wouldn't anymore!"
Together with his playmates he had been observing these past few minutes as the Once-ler's brothers began hacking away at the Truffula trees, all the while the Lorax underwent an admittedly comical failed attempt to intervene.
The little Swomee cygnet, Bill,* fluttered over to the Once-ler's tent, in an effort to pick up more details on the sudden change in policy. His tendency to play dumb through expression, though in considerable part valid, was to a degree a self-cultivated tactic for picking up tidbits others might not say around someone who looked keener witted. Of course, with the Once-ler there was the advantage of his moderate skepticism towards the animals' ability to understand what he said; some of the trivial details they'd all learned about him by now were quite surprising.
"Well, what's going on?" Pipsqueak asked when the cygnet returned.
The baby bird shrugged. "Something about his mum being happy."*
This confused both Pipsqueak and the baby Humming fish, Gil. In their experience happiness was the last thing a mother felt about her offspring breaking promises, but then, the Once-ler's mother, as well as the rest of his family, had evoked a rather unsavoury feeling in all of the animals to-date.
Well, whatever was the reason behind his recalling on his word, the animals soon forgot about it as the Once-ler stepped out with his guitar, playfully singing and dancing around with it for them – or at least, welcoming them into the performance. This song he was playing was fun and quite funny, something about doing what came naturally. Pipsqueak didn't focus so much on the lyrics as he did on his own dancing, but he assumed the human must be bragging about his guitar-playing skills or something like that. What came more naturally to him?
That night, however, the Lorax gathered the animals together, to warn them all of what might happen if too many of the trees were cut down. When some of the animals scoffed at the idea that the Once-ler's family would ever push things so far, he assured them in a grim tone that humans, when bitten by greed, were effectively masters at the art of blinding themselves to or overriding anything which opposed the fulfillment of their goals.
Pipsqueak was certain the Once-ler would not let things get out of hand, but he also knew the Lorax was upset over that broken promise, which was that strictly no more trees would be chopped after that first one. He wished the Once-ler could understand what the animals said to him; maybe if the Lorax couldn't persuade him to honour his commitment, he could?
A wheel shifted in the cub's mind. Wait a moment! When the Once-ler did make that promise, that night, it had been after making eye contact with Pipsqueak for several seconds. The cub unabashedly used his adorable charm to tug on the man's heartstrings, and it apparently worked. Well, maybe all he had to do was go and remind him, no exchange of words required? Yes, that's what he'd do! But in the morning, he knew the Once-ler got very grouchy about being disturbed when he was sleeping.
/
A bit groggily, the Once-ler began his ascent up the ladder to the outhouse on the side of his elaborate tent. Not yet fully awake, but able to comprehend the most basic of actions, he undid his fly when inside, and began to reduce the fluid count of his body.
Pipsqueak, meanwhile, followed his friend up that ladder, having awoken first thing that morning to await the engagement of his mission. Inside, he made his way over and scrambled up onto the bench, wanting to elevate himself so as to better secure the Once-ler's attention. Paws behind his back, he waited patiently, watching the man tend to his biological obligations. Someone must have been really thirsty last night.
As always, Pipsqueak thought the systems the Once-ler had for doing the simplest of things both strange and funny. A lot of them seemed unnecessarily complex, but that made them all the more interesting. So interesting, in fact, that Pipsqueak wanted to give it a shot, ahem, and see what it was like to do this like a human. Like the Once-ler, specifically.
The human was a little less sleepy-headed than he was before, but his lids hadn't really lost weight yet. Glancing over at the little Bar-ba-loot cub who, standing on the side, was now merging his "procedure" with his own, he smiled fondly, before turning his focus back onto the job at hand.
That's when he finally snapped awake.
Yelping, he jumped back, haplessly evolving his startled leap into a startling trip down the ladder. It could have ended much worse than it did, however, and he certainly was glad that none of his family had been outside to utter any wisecracks about him still needing proper training or anything like that.
Aligning his pajamas back into a more acceptable arrangement, he looked up at Pipsqueak, now staring down at him from the edge of the outhouse with a face full of "I'm sorries".
"Ugh, Pipsqueak! Remember when I told Moustache that sleep time is a time to leave people alone?"
Pipsqueak nodded. That was after that first night they all spent together! That had been so much fun!
"Well, the same goes for when someone's... you know, taking care of business!"
Pipsqueak loved the animated motions the Once-ler made with his hands when he was speaking, but use of the word "business", which sprang up from time to time whenever the Once-ler was involved in talk about the trees, or was mentioning that funny thing he'd made from the one he chopped, reminded Pipsqueak of what he was here to do.
Sliding down the side of the ladder, he waddled over to the human, grabbing his paw and tugging with all the strength he could muster.
"Whoa – okay, okay what's this all about?" the Once-ler inquired, amazed that the cub actually managed to pull him over into a position primed for being dragged along the ground, though thankfully that was as far as the endeavour went. When the little cub let go of his hand and scampered a few feet away, pausing to look back at him and urge him to follow, the man complied out of curiosity.
Pipsqueak lead him over to the stump of that first tree, which was still encircled by the stones the Lorax and the animals had placed around it during its funeral. Climbing up onto the stump, he faced the Once-ler and sat back down, donning a baby face which could frost 500 cakes.
"Um, okay – I have no idea what you're doing, Pipsqueak."
Frowning a bit, Pipsqueak tried again. Looking down at the stump, he patted it with his paw, looking hopefully back at the human.
All he got was a quiet chuckle and a reply of, "Well as flattered as I am that you think so, I don't think that stump could seat both of us at the same time!" Though of course, if brought up the human would agree, his posterior was most definitely one to be envied.
Alright, now that language barrier was rearing its ugly head again. Deciding to try the sign language approach, Pipsqueak got up and attempted to imitate the motion of a human chopping a tree with an axe. The result was a clumsy pirouette and a tumble off the side of the tree stump. It didn't hurt the cub, thank goodness, but it also failed to deliver the intended message.
"Hey, you okay, little guy?" The Once-ler picked him up and checked him over lovingly. Okay, maybe now he had him; Pipsqueak tried again. Putting on a mopey expression every bit as cute as that first one, he stared up into the Once-ler's face, ensuring eye contact.
After a moment, the man smiled. "Of course, I know what you're after!" Tickling the cub's tummy, he rose to his feet and said, "I don't have any on me right now, but there's a bunch of them inside. Let's get first dibs before everyone's up!"
Well no, marshmallows weren't the initial aim behind all this, but who was Pipsqueak to complain about an offer like that? As the pair made their way indoors, he decided this just wasn't the right time to make his point.
AN: It's painfully clear that approach wouldn't work anyway. As I reminded myself to elaborate by way of asterisk:
1. When I originally posted this chapter, I did not know whether or not the baby cygnet and the baby humming fish had canonical names, and thus I tagged them with random monikers until further notice. Several weeks later I discovered an online copy of the film's script, which identified them with these names, so I promised myself I would make the necessary adjustments for accuracy the next time I brought these characters into a prominent role in the story. I would also like to thank Bellechat, who first informed me that canonical names had in fact been provided to the characters!
2. I improvised a bit on the length of time it took for the Once-ler to go from voicing his justifications to heading outside and starting off the song, "How Bad Can I Be?"; for this story he needs to have remarked on the response he anticipates from his mother, as that's going to play a part in the animals' efforts soon.