The Tree that was used for Something Great.

I am a tree. I give shelter to many small animals and plenty of bugs. I love being in my forest, keeping safe all the animals that live here. I give shelter to the squirrels, the monkeys, and the birds. I store food for animals and bugs. I have been in my forest for so many years, and I have made friends with other trees around me. We can communicate with other trees through our minds. Yes, we trees have minds, for those of you that think we don't and that you can just come cut us down like we are nothing. So from that, I'm guessing that you already know that this is my story of when I was cut down from my home. It was one night, at twilight. Some men came up to the hill where me and some of my tree friends were, and they decided that today, I would be the tree they would cut down. I felt so much pain all throughout my trunk, my branches, my leaves, and my roots. It was like...well...dying. It tore me up inside because I wanted to stay on this hill forever.

As they cut me down, the broke my branches, and stripped my leaves from me. My leaves were like my clothes, and now without them, I felt naked. I didn't feel like myself at all. They started to cut my body into smaller pieces, I guess so they could haul me to where I was being taken. It's so hard to describe all the pain that I am in at this moment in time. I'm thinking to myself, "How could they do this? I am a tree that gives homes to animals and bugs and I store food. I am needed in the forest and I don't want to be used for anything different than being shelter." But you know, even if I were to say that, only my fellow trees would hear me. Now I know they're probably gonna make me into paper. Worthless paper. There is not that much use for paper. I'm needed more in the forest than as paper.

Next thing I know, I'm being thrown into the bed of a truck and being hauled off to god knows where. A few days past and the truck is still traveling, making stops every now and then, and I wish I knew where I was headed. I feel so useless just laying here in the bed of a truck, knowing my fate is paper. Useless paper. Another day passes, and finally the truck stops for good, and I am being hauled off of the truck, and I'm being brought into a building with a ton of machines and things like that. I am left here for a few nights before anything is done with me.

Let me give you some information about me. A tree is made of fiber, at least I would hope you know that already because it's common sense. The fibers I am made of are called "cellulose", and cellulose fibers are stuck together with a natural glue called "lignin". So yea, that's what's in me. Fiber. Now like I mentioned before, we trees communicate by hearing the minds of those around us, and here is what a fellow tree told me about becoming paper. Useless, worthless paper. Okay, maybe not worthless, but still pretty useless. This tree, well now stack of paper, told me that our raw wood first has to be turned into pulp, and wood pulp is a watery soup of cellulose wood, fibers, lignin, water and chemicals. Somehow, all that makes paper. The paper said it's too hard to explain. I'm dreading this process. I just wanted to stay a tree.

A few days go by, and then a lady one morning, picks up a piece of me and starts the whole process. I can feel myself being stripped apart. I don't feel whole anymore. I feel like soggy wet mess. Sooner than I think, I am laid on this mat type thing, and I can feel heat. That is all I feel, heat. The water in me is leaving, I can feel it. Then I am moved to this roller type looking thing and then more heat. Soon, there is no water left in me to feel. I'm all bendy and then now. Just plain, boring, white paper. I used to feel so tall and strong. Now, I feel small, thin, and weak. I feel useless. Because like I said, paper is useless. After a few months, I'm sent in a box with a bunch of other stacks of paper. I don't know where we stacks of paper are being sent, but I kind of hope that we will be used for something worthwhile.

A few months have been passed, and nothing has been done with me. But one morning, things change. And they change for the better. My fellow stacks of paper and I have been sitting at a factory for the past few months, and one morning a lady comes and picks up my stack of paper. She puts me through this machine and next thing I know, I'm getting weird looking black shapes on me. I don't know what this means. Then they take this hard type of paper or something and its being stitched to me, and all my sheets of paper are being stitched together as well. That's when I realize, I'm becoming a book. I've seen them before when hikers stop by my tree and sit and read. They're really cool looking and they hold wonderful stories that people will cherish for the rest of their life.

I've been sitting in a library for a few months now with millions of other books. I've picked up that I am in New York in the United States. One day in midafternoon, a teenage girl with her mom comes up to me and freaks out. "Mom! It's the Harry Potter books! The fourth book came out last week! Can I get it please mom?" The girl seemed so happy. I wonder what this Harry Potter is all about. Actually wait. Now that I think about it, the first books film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is set to be released next year. When you live in a library for a few months as a pretty famous book, it's pretty easy to pick up on things. So the mother went on to buy her daughter the first four books me being the third.

This girl can't get enough of this story! It was the year 2000 when she bought the first four books. It is now July 21, 2007, and she just got home from buying the seventh and final book. Throughout the last seven years, she has reread this story so many times. She has seen all the movies that have come out so far, a billion times it seems like. And also, her room is decorated everywhere in Harry Potter things. I never thought someone could love something as much as I did my forest that I stood tall and strong in at one point.

It is now the year 2015. All the movies have been released. The young teenager is no teenager any more. She is now 28 years old, and has a husband and 2 kids. Her first born is 5 and she has started reading the books to her at bedtime. I now realize that paper isn't such a bad thing to be made into. I feel like being made into one of the best known stories in the entire world was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I know that this mom will pass these books on to her children, and they will to theirs, and so on and so forth. Reading is a great thing. It takes you on amazing adventures that you would never even imagine. I'm glad I was made into a paper, and then into a book. It made me realize that there was more to life than being a tree in a forest.