What if Oncie had someone to stop him, someone whose approval was more important to him than that of his family?
:: ::
The Once-ler's business had flourished from its starting dream. It was large and happy and raking in dough. The town of Thneed-Ville was beginning to grow from a couple of tiny houses to house the workers of the company into streets and villages and homes. Little of the once nourished land was green. In the back corner of the property that was once forest, green grass grew, struggling to live; Truffula Trees still stood tall, struggling to breathe; brown bar-ba-loots ate, though little. And in that back corner of the property, the Once-ler's old friend drove in on a donkey-drawn carriage, much like the Once-ler himself once had.
She looked around and frowned. In the part she was in, there was struggling life, but the farther out she looked, the deader the place looked. In some parts it was green, in others it was a struggling and dying brown, and even farther out it was just gray, dark and dead. This wasn't what she'd imagined from her friend Oncie's letter. He said it was beautiful and bright, and, looking behind her, she could imagine that; but looking in front of her…it was horrid.
She frowned and swung off the cart, patting her donkey on the back as she walked. There was a bear, malnourished and hungry, hiding behind a colorful tree, looking scared. "Hey there, little buddy," she said kindly.
"Hey, you!" a gravelly voice shouted. "You have got to go!"
The woman swiveled around to see the Lorax, annoyed and disappointed. He didn't sound as if he expected to be obeyed. He sounded like a broken record, repeating the same lines, only halfheartedly this time, having been played too many times. Her brown eyes reflected the frown her lips showed. "Can I ask why?" she wondered, leaning down to look him in the eye.
The Lorax gave a soft cough and rubbed his tiny orange nose. His bright green eyes had no shine. He looked out into the graying sky, and then turned slightly to the piling smoke-stacks. "You humans are no good," he said, his voice wise and tired. "You're killing my creatures."
The woman tilted her head, looking thoroughly upset. "Who are you?" she asked, sounding as if she had no intention of disobeying the orange little man.
The Lorax looked up at the woman. She wasn't tall, or as tall as Beanpole, but she had the build that all the humans moving in did—long legs, long arms, thin and long. She had short curly hair pulled into a ponytail, wide brown eyes, and a pair of red wire seeing glasses. He sighed, answering, "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees, which you humans seem to be chopping as fast as you please. I'm also in charge of the brown bar-ba-loots, who played in the shade in their bar-ba-loot suits and happily lived eating Truffula fruits. Now, thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!" He looked up at the woman with pleading eyes. "Who might you be?"
"My name is Skylar, and I'm afraid I don't do anything as cool as speaking for the trees," she answered. She offered the mustachioed Lorax a smile that was almost disarming. "I'm just a traveling saleswoman, here to visit a friend. But this can't possibly be the place he described."
The Lorax coughed, hitting his fist up against his furry chest. "What did she describe?" he wondered, hoping there was a place he could send his bar-ba-loots and swommee-swans and humming fish; a place better than what this one was becoming.
Skylar walked over to her donkey, patting it on the head and digging a sugar cube out of her pockets. It ate it comfortably out of her hand. "He said it was very pretty, with strange colorful trees that had thin, tall stalks. Fish that hum, cute little bears that are in love with marshmallows, and flying swans," she said. She scratched her donkey behind the ear. "There was a lake, he said."
"What's your friend's name?"
Skylar offered another disarming smile, closing her eyes in the process and tilting her head. "Oncie," she responded. "The marvelous Once-ler."
The Lorax scowled, hope fading. It was visible underneath his large blonde mustache. "This is the place," he said, sour.
Skylar's bright brown eyes widened, her winning smile falling off into a surprised frown. She suddenly looked solemn. "This…this can't be it…" she stuttered.
"Oh, but it is," the Lorax muttered. He walked over to the donkey on stubbly legs and patted its large muzzle. "Your friend ruined us. This little corner is all we have left. I am the Lorax," he said, "I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongue. I speak for the bar-ba-loots, for the bears have no sense. I speak for the swommee-swans for swans know no language. I speak for the humming fish, for the humming fish have only gills. And you—you and your Once-ler, your Oncie as you called him, you're making this hard.
"Do you know what the Once-ler made?" the Lorax asked, looking up at Skylar from beside her donkey with bright emerald eyes. "A Thneed—a Thneed from my trees. Chop, chop, chop—Thneed, Thneed, Thneed. That's all he sees—a tree for a Thneed."
The brown bear that was hiding behind the thin bark of the tall fluffy tree crawled out in front of the tree, falling to its butt at the woman's feet. It was shaved bald on its tummy. The bear stood up, using Skylar's jeans as leverage. Skylar kneeled down and smiled, patting the bear on the head and searching her jacket's pocket for something. She found an apple that she was going to save for lunch later and pulled it out of her hoodie, laying it in the bear's outstretched paws. He dug his little mouth to it and ate happily, hungrily.
"He doesn't see the animals," the Lorax grumbled. "He doesn't even see Pipsqueak, hungry and half-starved. Pipsqueak!"
The bar-ba-loot rubbed up against Skylar's palm, climbing her pants and hugging his paws around her neck. Skylar giggled and rubbed its back. Then she turned her attention to the shouting Lorax. "That can't be Oncie. He loves animals," she insisted. Her face was covered in anger and confusion and terror. The man who'd done this to this forest couldn't be her friend Oncie. "He wouldn't do something like…like…" She looked around at the green around her feet; this green was struggling, trying to survive. Beyond that green, there was brown, struggling and dying. And then there was gray, dead, unhappy gray. Gray that was starting to seep into the brown and the green. He couldn't have killed this green.
The Lorax snorted. "Come on then," he said, holding the donkey by its reigns. He tied them to one of the weak Truffula Trees that leaned nearby. "Let's go see what your infamous Oncie has done."
:: ::
The Lorax climbed the stairs as he'd done so many times before, to try and talk some sense into what had become the Once-ler. This time, he was followed by Pipsqueak and the woman to whose hip he was attached. The Lorax climbed the balcony fence and sat, staring off into the gray that used to once be blue, glowering at the dead grass that used to once be blue, scowling at the stumps that used to once be trees.
As expected, the Once-ler opened the huge doors to his office just a few minutes after the Lorax had gotten situated on his usual perch. The glass doors to the balcony were shut and locked, and the Lorax didn't even have to look back to know that Skylar was looking through those doors, brown eyes wide as she saw the greed that had grown inside the blue orbs behind unneeded green sunglasses. He knew Skylar was watching as her Oncie pressed his gloved fingertips to the top of his scale-model city. No, the Once-ler was no longer happy with his village; now he wanted a city.
The Once-ler, of course, was now pulling a countless amount of green bills from somewhere inside his green suit. He fanned himself with the bills and tried counting them, but soon bored, like he always did. Every single day. And then, obviously, the Once-ler pulled out blueprints and looked them over, figuring on biggering even more.
Skylar knocked on the glass door, watching as her friend growled under his breath before even looking to the door to decide whether or not to open it. He didn't even look, just stared more intently at the blueprints. She knocked harder, demanding attention. And attention she got. Once-ler looked up, a glare in his sky-blue eyes. The glare disappeared when he saw who was knocking on his door. A smile cracked his hateful façade. He raced over in his bright green suit and unlocked the door.
"Sky!" he shouted, gleeful. His blue eyes shined even through the superfluous sunspecs. He pulled the woman into a hug, not noticing the bar-ba-loot in her arms. Just as the Lorax thought, the woman reached only the Once-ler's shoulders.
Skylar didn't hug him back, and when the Once-ler realized that, he pulled back, holding her at arm's length, surveying her. "What on earth are you wearing?" she asked, exasperated.
The Once-ler smiled widely. Skylar didn't like it; it wasn't warm and comforting like the one she used to know. It had a cold, greedy edge to it. Oncie spun around, showing off the green atrocity he was wearing. His tailcoat's tails spun behind him just a few inches away from the rest of him. He pulled his sunglasses lower down on the bridge of his nose and looking over the plastic rims. His blue eyes didn't seem any warmer outside of the shaded glasses. The Once-ler offered Skylar a sly-looking smirk. It sent a shiver down Skylar's spine.
"You like?" he asked, wriggling his eyebrows.
Skylar put the bar-ba-loot down near her feet and stared at her friend disbelievingly. Pipsqueak stumbled to hide behind her jeans. "What has gotten into you?" she gasped. "You hate green!"
"Ah, but you know what I don't?" Once-ler asked. He seemed oblivious to how put off Skylar was; if he noticed, he didn't acknowledge it. He rubbed his fingers together and said, "Money. Ever heard the saying, 'Dress like what you want'? Look at all of this! Don't you see the amazing things I've done, just like I told the others? I've got money! I'm the richest man in the world!" The Once-ler strode over to his biggered chair and rolled around in it. "Everyone needs a Thneed!"
Skylar's lips parted slightly. This wasn't the friend she'd known. This wasn't her Oncie. Oncie hated green and loved animals; Oncie loathed greed and treasured generosity. He was...he was Oncie, the one who'd always wanted what was best for everyone. He'd wanted success; he'd wanted to be acknowledged. But he'd never wanted money; he'd wanted his mother's acceptance. Did his mother accept him now? Did that acceptance come with greed and gluttony?
She'd always known that Oncie's mother was—all the names she could come up with were less than flattering—but could the woman's unflattering ways have changed Oncie? Skylar knew the Once-ler; she'd been friends with him since they were in diapers. She remembered when Oncie's dad was still alive. That was back when they were kids, still thinking that marriage was holding hands.
How much had Once-ler changed over the last few months? Skylar knew she hadn't been there to see him off, having left before he did, but he couldn't have changed this much in just the two weeks she'd left before he did. This had to have come with his sudden success…the same success that had the bear, her Pipsqueak, skin and bones.
She looked into Oncie's eyes, searching for what she'd seen before she'd left. Before, she saw happy blue eyes filled with love and hope and happiness, despite his family's cruelness. Now she saw greed. Clear, empty, sad greed that wanted to be fed, though it was already fat and plump and overweight. She saw unhappiness and emptiness. She wondered if Oncie—or what Oncie had now become—knew that he looked like that, wondered if Oncie was happy. He wasn't, though; Skylar could see that.
"You sold your Thneed?" she asked belatedly, her throat tightening at the sight of her best friend covered in his hated color. She longed to rip the outfit off him, don him with his honest white shirt, vest, and stripped slacks. Give him that guitar with three broken strings that had been fixed so many times they were peeling apart. Would making him look like his old self return him to his old self?
"And millions more!" the Once-ler shouted, twirling in his chair and throwing his hands up in the air, as if he were happy. There was even a smile on his face. But it was fake; she'd seen his real one, and it was brilliant and gleeful. This one wasn't. "I have a company! I just passed seven thousand Thneeds made and sold! I might have to bigger everything soon!"
Skylar scowled. Her eyes darted behind her for a second, looking at the deathly gray that surrounded that one corner of beautiful, struggling, strangled green in the far distance. "What happened to the stunning emerald place you told me about in your letter?" she asked. Her voice was serious, quiet and sad.
The question made the Once-ler uncomfortable. He stood up from his huge chair and paced his biggered office, scratching the back of his head where skin met the onyx of his hair. He twitched a bit. "I, uh, had to cut it down to make my Thneeds," he admitted uneasily.
Skylar let her eyes fall downcast. "So…what about those humming fish?"
The Once-ler visibly swallowed. "Um, the lake had to be used to dump the schlopadee scholp we let out," he confessed again. His long fingers scratched at his neck.
Skylar swallowed thickly, just as uncomfortable as her friend was. The Lorax was sitting on the balcony, listening intently as she was proven wrong. Her Oncie had done this to what had once no doubt been a fertile land. "I saw the bar-ba-loots," she mentioned. Her legs were locked in place; she didn't feel like moving about in an office that was the product of nature's sabotage. "They're starved. They ate from those…those Truffula Trees, right?"
"I needed those trees," the Once-ler snapped. His fist slammed down on his biggered white desk. "My company needed them! The customers are buying! The money's multiplying!" He glared at his friend, his greedy blue eyes searching her chocolate ones. It wasn't an angry glare; it was a scared glare, looking for acceptance and love. Skylar watched as Oncie's bottom lip quivered. "Who cares if a few trees are dying?" he insisted.
Skylar swallowed. She knelt down to pick up Pipsqueak. The brown bar-ba-loot had grabbed the bottom of her loose jeans to cover his face when the Once-ler started shouting. She smoothed over Pipsqueak's ruffled, dirtied fur. She kissed the bear's wet black nose and tried for a reassuring smile. Pipsqueak pulled her in for a hug, thankful for the useless reassurance. "Pip cares," Skylar answered. "Pipsqueak is the baby bar-ba-loot you were telling me about, right." Her sentence wasn't a question; it was a statement. "He's hungry. I gave him an apple just a few minutes ago, when I thought I was lost."
Once-ler pulled from the lapels of his tailcoat a marshmallow. He offered it to Pipsqueak, palm open. He could see the hunger in the bar-ba-loot's big brown eyes. They matched Skylar's. The tiny bear sniffed at the squishy confection. His wet nose pushed up at the Once-ler's fingertips, closing up the man's hand. Oncie's face fell.
Skylar watched and dug into her pockets for another apple. She found a tiny one and offered it up; Pipsqueak chomped it unthinkingly. "I think I should go now, Once-ler," she said, detached, as she picked up Pip and took a step out.
The Once-ler blinked. "Stay here," he said. His blue eyes widened pleadingly. "We have the room. Don't leave."
Skylar shook her head, making her dark ponytail shiver. "I don't think I should," she refused. "Bye, Once-ler."
The man's smooth lower lip quavered. "Wha—what h-h-happened to Oncie?" he faltered, desperate. That nickname hadn't been given to him by his mother; it'd been given it to her by Sky. The Once ler's blue eyes shivered and shined with unshed tears.
Skylar looked out one of Once-ler's windows to the gray smogulous smoke. "I don't know," she whispered, pouting at the sky. "You tell me." She turned around to the balcony with Pipsqueak in her hands. "Lorax, let's go back," she said. And she turned around, walking down the stairs of the balcony.
:: ::
Once-ler looked at himself in the mirror. All he saw was green. Green. He scowled. He never liked the color green; when had he started wearing it? Green was such an ugly color—it was the color of envy, the color of money. His father had hated the color green; it was a trait passed on from him to the Once-ler. The only color worse than green was the color yellow. Yellow was the color of greed, the desire for wealth and for status.
The only green that was good was the green of grass—that green was remarkable. It was the green of nature. But this green he was wearing? This green was the embodiment of envy and greed. What was he envious of? What did he have to be greedy over? He had all he ever wanted and more. He had everything. He had money; he had a loving family; he had success.
Granted, his family only loved him because of his money. And he only had money because of his success. That success he owed to the Lorax. The Lorax had been his friend, even if he had thrown him into a river with Pipsqueak. He'd been more supportive than his family had ever been. The Lorax had only thrown him into a river to protect his own family, his forest; he couldn't be faulted for that.
Who was really on his side?
Pipsqueak had been so terrified he hadn't even taken the marshmallow. Pipsqueak, the one who stayed with him down a waterfall, hadn't wanted anything from him. Skylar had taken a look at his clothes, at his eyes, at him, and seen that something was wrong. She'd asked questions; his answers had been wrong. What would the dreaming boy that had come to the Lorax's land the first time said?
What happened to the stunning emerald place you told me about in your letter?
I made a mess of it; I'm going to fix it. Promise.
So…what about those humming fish?
They're sick. I feel so, so bad. I mucked up their pond. I'm going to find some way to filter it.
They ate from those…those Truffula Trees, right?
I'm going to replant.
That is what Skylar's Oncie would have said. Skylar's Oncie wouldn't have done any of those things in the first place. The Once-ler? Not so much.
It struck him how much he'd missed his childhood friend. It'd been months since he'd seen her. Months since he'd seen her shiny black hair, cut at her shoulder blades, pulled back in a tail. Months since he'd seen her warm chocolate eyes sparkling. Months since he'd seen her ebony eyelashes brush her high cheekbones. Months since he'd seen her soft smile. Months since…well, since he'd done something stupid with her.
Skylar had always wanted to climb trees and go where places were marked No Trespassing. The more forbidden it was, the more she wanted to go there. She'd talked him into more schemes than he cared to admit. Like the one time they'd almost gotten shot because they'd climbed the seven foot fence in a hunting area because Sky was worried about endangered animals being hunted. And she'd gotten him to do that twice. There were countless other harebrained schemes she'd talked him into back when his father was still alive, often of them double-visit operations.
The Once-ler's father used to bother him about it, asking him if his little big man had a crush. When a guy does something stupid once, well, that's because he's a guy, he used to say, smiling, the same blue eyes he passed on to his children all but sparkling. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that's usually to impress some girl.
It was almost comedic how right his dad had been. He'd done some stupid things to impress a girl. But it wasn't just a girl—it was his mother, whose approval he desperately craved. The stupid things he'd done for his mother weren't just breaking in uninvited to spring a few deer trapped in hunting grounds; no, he was actively taking creatures' habitats and homes. He'd won their trust; what had he done with it? Wiped the floor with it. Used it as a rag. Thrown it out the window when he was done. Not anymore.
Once-ler yanked his green-striped tie from his neck and threw it at his desk. He wrenched the redundant shades from his face. He threw off the black top hat. He popped the buttons on his suede green suit. He was disgusted. Green—green—green, everywhere. He ripped the green gloves from his arms and pulled off the suit-jacket. He stepped out of his pants. And right now, he didn't really care that he was standing in his underwear with only a rumpled white dress shirt for coverage. All he saw was the pile of repulsive, filthy green next to his biggered desk. What did he even need a biggered desk for? He was fine the way he'd been, in his cottage, harvesting Truffula Tree fluffs instead of chopping down the homes of swommee-swans, knitting Thneeds one by one! There'd been no need to bigger anything!
Oncie shouted through the intercom, "Shut it down, shut it down—shut everything down, now!"
The voice that came back to him was his mother's. "But, Oncie—"
"Don't call me that!" he shouted. His eyes looked out to the gray of what was once a great Truffula forest and they watered. The corner of the property that still had the resemblance of a forest housed the Lorax, Pipsqueak, and now Skylar. "Why can I still hear the machines? I said shut them down!
Through the intercom, he heard the machines stop. "Send everyone home."
"Now, Oncie, what's come over you?" his mother said in her condescending tone. "You're going to lose millions! How can I be proud of a boy who lost business?"
A tear slid from the Once-ler's blue eyes. "Don't be," he almost hissed. "Send everyone home now, I said."
Soon after, he saw cars start to peel out of the parking lot and into Thneed-Ville. Oncie swallowed thickly, throwing the doors open. He raced to his room and dressed, yanking out anything and everything green and splaying it all over his biggered room. He realized how his biggering had just been triggering more biggering. What would have happened if Skylar hadn't visited? Would it have ever, ever stopped?
Finally, he found his gray striped slacks and old black vest. He fixed his rumpled white shirt and dressed himself. He was amazed with how far down his favorite outfit had been. It was amazing how good it felt to be out of that hideous green getup and back into his clothes. His guitar—the old one, simple and black—was sitting in the corner, waiting to be used. Without thinking, he grabbed it. He'd cut down most of all the trees he'd seen when he first entered the Truffula forest, but he felt more in touch with himself. The side of himself he liked.
:: ::
Skylar climbed up a Truffula Tree. These things were incredibly hard to climb; their trunks were mostly smooth and branches didn't start until you got to the fluffy pompom of the tree. She would never know how bar-ba-loots did it so easily, so naturally. But somehow she made it to the colorful pompom, grabbing tightly to a branch and harvesting some seeds. They were circular and swirled and hard to get to. They were decently heavy, but the Truffula branches were equally as strong. It was rare to find a seed down on the floor, so she climbed up to reach them. She'd collected at least twenty-five seeds and planted at least seven. Two were even turning to saplings.
Meaning it'd been at least two weeks since she'd talked to the Once-ler. She missed her Oncie. What would it be like to climb up these trees with him, like they had when they were little? The tuffs were softer than butterfly milk and she wondered what it would be like to sit atop them with Oncie's arm slung around her shoulders, like in their teenage years.
Skylar shook her head and carefully harvested seven more seeds. Cautiously, she scrabbled back down and called out, "I've got seven more!"
There was hardly any clean water to give the saplings, so she and the Lorax were waiting for them to grow before planting the others. There was no need to have the scant Truffula trees fighting each other for survival. They were planted with enough space for each of the new saplings to grow. The only clean water they got without having to pay for Thneed-Ville water was rainwater. That came around every three to six days and the budding saplings had to be watered at least once every day.
The Truffula Tree she was on—because she hadn't completely climbed off—jiggled a little bit, making Skylar look down and grip the tree bark. A smile cracked her face when she saw Oncie there, leaning on the tree. Oncie, not Once-ler. He was in his Oncie gear, complete with his gray fedora. He looked up at her not from behind sunglasses but out of blue eyes, colored in guilt. "Seven more what?" he asked, innocently. In his hands he had two watering cans.
The sight made Skylar slide down the trunk and jump into Oncie's arms. He put down the watering cans and welcomed her, catching her expertly. "Oncie!" she said in greeting. "Oncie, you're back!"
Oncie laughed, holding her tight to him by the waist. "You know I hate green," he said. He held her at arms'-length and looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. When she left to travel, she'd left him with a kiss on the nose; when she came two weeks ago, they parted on wrong terms; now it was just a relief to be near her. His best friend, the nature-lover, the animal-activist, the tree-climber.
"Beanpole's back, is he?" the Lorax's voice said. He walked to the watering cans and tried to lift it, failing because of his small stature. "Where's the water from?"
"Fountains in Thneed-Ville," Oncie answered. "Until I hire someone to clean up the lake. I'm going to have to keep the humming fish in bowls until then, for their own safety, and I'm going to have to take them out today. I don't want them getting sicker."
The Lorax crossed his thin, stubby arms still. His mustache curled with his scowl and his brows knitted together. "What about the air?" he asked, coughing.
"The trees will take care of that, I hope," Skylar answered. She looked up at Oncie with wide, warm, chocolate eyes. "You're back," she whispered, to which the man nodded. She hugged him tight again and pressed a kiss to his nose. But Oncie was quick and moved just in time to catch the soft kiss on his lips. He smiled, watching as Skylar blushed scarlet, and pressed a kiss to her lips again. "What about the Thneeds?"
Oncie shrugged. "Anything worth making is worth making by hand," he said. "Come on, we've got trees to plant.
:: A/N ::
I watched The Lorax twice in theaters and am set on buying the soundtrack and the DVD when it comes out. The song How Bad Can I Be? has been stuck in my head since I watched it the first time and I just went again with my cousins.
Wacca think?