A/N: Ok, so I really, REALLY, wanted to write this for a long time. But I'm doing it on a different account so none of my friends can laugh at me. :P

If you're reading this friends, HA!

Anyways, here goes!
(My cousin "owns" my OC, it's her name. But I made up everything else. :D)

I'm also looking for a new PenName. Any ideas?

If I get reviews, then I am happy.

If I am happy, then I write more.

Therefore, by the Law of Syllogism,

If I get reviews, then I write more.

:D

~ Oncie's Sweetheart (hate the name Oncie...)


I kept running and running, putting as much distance as I could between the wagon and I. Not that I'd really care if he caught up, but more for me to have an incentive to keep moving. I was getting sluggish these days, always sleeping. I supposed it might have been the shock of my sister's... removal from my world.

A heavyness came over me again. It wrapped its cold fingers around me and squeezed out every bit of happiness as if I was a dish towel. Bleh. After a while, when the sun was actually down, I decided to finally settle down. From what I could see in the darkness, there was lots of puffy clouds around. Good. No rain tonight. There was a sweet smell in the air, and it lulled me to sleep on my haphazardly constructed bed of brush.

I woke up to the sound of singing. Had someone else discovered my secret grove? Or worse, was I sleeping on private property? I inwardly grimaced. This could get ugly. I blinked open my sleepy eyes and looked around. What I saw took my breath away. The colored puffs I had mistaken to be clouds in the dark of the night were actually trees. Great big- truffula trees? Looming above me, the skinny little trees reminded me of something I'd read somewhere. But I couldn't exactly remember...

Now to locate the sound of the singing. After looking all confused for a while, I found two fish behind me singing while lifting up a little bear. No, wait. Not a bear. A Bar-ba-loot. And the fish were Humming Fish. Which means the orange birds flying high in the sky were Swamee Swans. Which means- I was in the world of the Lorax.

I remember now- I know this place. I squinted into the sun and tried to remember the storyline. But the last time I had read that book was over four years ago, and it just wouldn't come to me.

Oh well. I shrugged. Might as well take advantage of the fact that I knew where I was. Kind of. Well, I knew what things were...

I had the vague suspicion that this place would be destroyed in the future. Oh well. I'd try to save it. As long as I was here anyways. I decided to go out and make a shelter for my stay. I didn't have anything to cut down trees with, and I really didn't want to anyways, so I started to use the slightly damp earth to build. Eating truffula fruits every once in a while, I finished my "house" by evening, at about six.

"What do you think guys?" I asked the bar-ba-loots, who had stayed with me the entire time I was building.

Instead of building something that stuck out of the ground and took up space, I had dug into the earth and hollowed out an area the size of two or three rooms. Using the extra dirt I took out, I then made it a "two-story" house by adding stairs that went from 'deepest' to 'deeper'. I aso managed to make some pretty good furniture (chairs mostly) by sculpting the mud (dirt + river water) and leaving it to dry in the hot sun. A stove was something I didn't have, but I built a little hole in one "room" that went up to the surface where I could build a fire and cook. All in all, not a bad job. Tomorrow I would go and buy sheets and things for my bed.

The bar-ba-loots were mostly eating and jumping around, but one little bar-ba-loot (who I instantly named Pipsqueak) went closer to the entrance hole and tumbled in. I looked in and laughed.

"Let's get you out of there little guy,"

I gently picked him up and brought him back to the surface. I frowned. Pipsqueak and other animals couldn't keep falling into my house. I quickly built a little door that would go down only at a certain amount of pressure- not even the biggest bar-ba-loot could make it open. Only another human could, and seeing that there are no humans around here but me... I was safe. I decided to take a bath and went down to the little river. After looking around for a while, I saw a little pool next to it. Perfect.

An hour later, I was clean and hungry again. I decided to figure what tastes good roasted, and what doesn't. At worst- well, I still had those marshmallows I stole...


Never. Ever. Roast. Truffula. Fruit.

Unless you want to die in heaven, they tasted that good.


Dinner over, I dragged out my "bed" of brush from the night before (I wasn't ready to face my house, and anyways, I wanted to sleep under the stars) and lay down with the bar-ba-loots around me. The humming fish sang what suspiciously sounded like a lullaby and I drifted off to sleep.

This routine of work,food, play, food, bathing, food, and sleep continued for about two weeks uninterrupted. I was starting to think my hidden valley was really hidden from danger, and started to relax as the days melted by. Every few days, the animals would manage to get me to tell a story about my life just after dinner (If you could call it that) while they slowly went to the land of slumber. And every time that happened, Pipsqueak would be the only one awake to hear the whole thing. Then he snuggled up to me and fell asleep.

One day, during storytime, ( I was telling the story of the time I had finger-painted the white walls of the staircase- right before Open House) I heard, in the distance, a faint bumping sound, as if something was moving. But all the animals were gathered around me, and I didn't see any trees moving, so I figured it was nothing.

Boy, was I mistaken.

The next day, I woke up as usual to the sound of humming fish crowing, but what I didn't know was that it would be as far from usual as you could get the next few days.

Getting up to collect truffula fruit for breakfast, I noticed the sudden stillness. Where had all the animals gone? I spotted three humming fish on top of a truffula, probably the wake up crew for the morning. But as I looked around, everyone else was gone!

"Guys?" I whispered.

No response.

"GUYS!"

A few Swamee Swans heard, and flew towards me.

"PIPSQUEAK!" I screamed.

Then I heard a vaguely familiar voice, singing.

It grew louder and louder, and I realized with horror it was coming this way. I quickly dove behind a bush and slowly started to climb the truffula next to it. By the time I reached the top, the owner of the voice had reached the clearing.

It was the boy from the hill.

Oh, perfect.

Hoping that he was just passing through, I flattened myself into the soft tuft and waited for him to move on. No such luck. He started throwing everything out of the back of the wagon. That was when I noticed the animals crowded around him. The sharp objects started landed dangerously close to the animals. A fish even got hit with toothpaste! I wanted to tell the animals to back away, but doing so would alert this guy that I was here. Instead, I plucked some of the readily available truffula fruit and threw one.

SPLAT!

It missed, and hit Melvin instead. Oops.

I threw another. This one knocked off his fedora.

"Hey! Who did that?" he asked, looking around as if one of them might have thrown it. Idiot.

I threw yet another. This one hit him squarely on the nose and knocked him backwards. Time to make my entrance? I think not. I kept throwing fruit, hoping to get him scared. Instead, he just wiped it off and took out- was that MY GUITAR?

I slapped myself. I had forotten to take it with me when I left. He threw it aside, but I managed to make eye contact with a humming fish, who caught it, and snuck over to me to hand it over.

I examined it thoroughly. Besides the fact it had just been thrown, it looked in fine condition, so I assumed he had been treating it carefully. Still, the nerve of him! I locked eyes with the fish again, telling him to attack. He quickly spread the word, and soon everyone but Lou (The fattest bar-ba-loot) was geared up to attack. The kid looked scared, and pulled the first thing he could use to defend himself with out of the cart, which just happened to be- marshmallows. Great. They LOVED marshmallows, so my attack plan was pretty much dead. As if on cue, the first bar-ba-loot attacked, and ripped open the bag, causing marshmallows to go flying. It was pretty much an all-you-can-eat marshmallow buffet after that, so as I sighed I could see the relief on his face.

The animals followed him as he picked up an axe and walked towards a truffula. No. This was bad. Very, VERY, bad. I just assumed he would sleep here for the night, maybe eat fruit, but never THIS! The poor animals of course had no idea what he was going to do as he walked towards the tree. NO! I inwardly screamed.

I slipped down from the tree, but it was too late.

CRACK!

The first chop had gone deep into the tree. The boy continued to hack away at the tree until it fell, and then dragged it a few yards away to start doing goodness knows what.

Just then a fish approached and knocked at the tree, testing to see if it was safe. I nearly laughed, because of course nothing would-

BOOM!

The stump shivered and shook and then let out a big stream of (blue?) smoke up to the ever swirling clouds. Thunder and lightning boomed and crackled, and the fish looked scared as his friend slapped him. I didn't blame him, personally. After this climatic spot, everything went back to normal, and I inwardly sighed. Maybe it was just freak weather or something. Then there was a POP! and a furry orange thing with a giant yellow mustache fell out of the tree. He seemed disoriented for a second, then saw the stump and had a breakdown. He spluttered for a second then started to gather rocks and stones to make a little funeral for the tree. I thought it was sweet and started gathering stones and placed them with him and the other animals, who had slowly joined in. When he looked up, he seemed surprised to see me, probably because I was human, but he didn't object. Slowly, we all joined hands and had a moment of silence.

The fuzzy orange guy must have had a thing against humans, because the first person he addressed was me.

"Did you cut down this tree?"

Startled by the question, I replied with "No!"

Looking around, he didn;t see either the tree or anything to cut it down with, so I guess he believed me.

"You know who did?"

"Actually, yes."

"Show me."

Wordlessly, I pointed at the guy, who was whistling and dancing while plucking the tuft off the tree.

The orange thing grumbled, then straightned up.

"Forgot to introduce myself. I'm the Lorax. You are?"

"Rashika."