Eagles vs. Humans: Saving the Trees | Teen Ink

Eagles vs. Humans: Saving the Trees

September 9, 2013
By williamyyee2000 SILVER, Porter Ranch, California
williamyyee2000 SILVER, Porter Ranch, California
9 articles 0 photos 0 comments

The small town of Hillside, twenty years into the future from now, was a very peaceful one. It was a quiet and rural town in the outskirts of Vermont, with mostly farmland and forest. It is generally sunny, although it sometime rains in the autumn. This town was heavily populated with eagles, mainly bald and golden eagles. This period of tranquility did not last for long, though, as a selfish man named Ronald Bermingham soon came into town and caused a war that may have never ended.

It all started one warm day in March. Ronald Bermingham, a handsome, blond jobless man in his early forties, sat down on his couch and pondered for business ideas. This man had been expelled from high school and was a college dropout, with no promising future ahead of him. After a while of thought it soon hit him: how about paper? Paper had never been a really big marketing product, so this was his chance. This was his chance to strike it rich once and for all. He immediately went to an old map and searched for places to cut down the trees needed to make paper. One place caught his eye, a place that the map labeled as “unknown forest.” Filled with dreams of eternal wealth and happiness, he had a trip all set for this “unknown forest” in a week. Sadly, this “unknown forest” happened to be the town called Hillside. Upon Bermingham’s arrival at Hillside, he instantly set to work chopping down trees. The neighbors noticed him, but didn’t see him as a huge threat yet. About a month later, Bermingham had gotten quite rich. The neighbors then realized that he was chopping down these trees to make paper and get money. He had built a massive factory with the ten acres of land he and his two hundred men work crew had cleared. Due to this threat circling Bermingham’s future business, Bermingham gave all the citizens free pieces of paper and made speeches about how he was just trying to make an honest living. He had them convinced for a while that it was true, as Ronald was a charismatic speaker and manipulative person. If only a short, fifteen-year old kid named Billy Roberts didn’t exist, it would have worked out perfectly.
Billy Roberts could see right through Mr. Bermingham’s speeches from the beginning.
He saw right through that sweet smile of Ronald’s, right through the charming. He could see when every morning the citizens of Hillside came to retrieve their free batch of paper, how it was a way to delay their stopping his paper corporation. Billy cared about the eagles’ homes that this very man was chopping down. He also cared about the trees themselves, as this was Billy’s home and the trees were what made it special. Soon enough, Bermingham was rich, being the CEO of Paper & Co. He had achieved what he wanted, but he wasn’t satisfied. He had become power hungry. Now, Billy knew he had to do something before it was too late. Every day he would awake to more squawking as scared eagles fled to find new homes, and yet another tree was chopped down. A thousand trees had already been chopped down, and the neighbors were still oblivious. Billy did have an advantage though, and that was his popularity with his neighbors. He had a reputation around town as a helper and giver who was very generous. So Billy Roberts went to each and every door, pleading the neighbors to turn against this man whose outside was good and inside was evil. They listened and did as they were told. They would ambush the factory tomorrow, along with the king of the eagles, Bartlett. It was all planned out and ready to go, the neighbors knowing that this was a long shot at something with little to no chance of working.

The battle began around five in the morning, when Bartlett squawked a war cry. Bartlett was the bravest and most courageous of them all, he was big, intelligent and an amazing fighter. This was the first battle. The eagles launched big rocks at them while Bermingham’s crew were trying to cut down the trees with giant machines. It was very intense, and Billy was running around, trying to get more citizens to join the battle. There were no casualties, lots of blood though, and many broken panes of glass from the machines. The humans surrendered in defeat, as all the machines were destroyed into pieces. This was only one of three, and they kept on getting worse. The second one was an ambush of flames when nobody was expecting it. Bermingham’s crew took torches and threw them into the branches of trees, starting a whole forest fire itself. The eagles all scattered and the neighbors found themselves defenseless. More importantly, about half of the half trees left that haven’t been cut down burned and died. This was a clear massacre for the humans. In the third battle, the work crew used fire again, but the eagles were prepared with ice cold water from a nearby lake. The water extinguished the fire and the humans were left shivering in the cold.

After what seemed to have been the final battle, while Billy was on the road campaigning to neighbors, he got caught and surrounded by some of Ronald’s work crew with guns. Here Billy was faced with a choice: to surrender to Bermingham’s crew or continue fighting and risk his lives for the eagles. He was very nervous as he stared into the points of ten guns, all facing him. “You must make a choice, Billy Roberts,” one of the men spoke. “Is it the eagles or your life?” A cold sweat broke over his forehead as his heart doubled its adrenaline speed. Billy’s thoughts flashed through his mind: him lying on the floor, dead, or him running back to the eagles to continue fighting. While he was trying to decide he remembered something his dad had told him back when he was young. “What is right is right, and you can’t change it. Do what is right and you will be all right in the end.” He suddenly kicked a guy in the leg, forcing him to collapse to the ground. “I choose the eagles!” he shouted defiantly, and broke out running. He could hear bullets whistle by his head, but nothing actually touched him. He ran and ran until his legs felt like bricks, all the way to where the eagles were cowering. They were cowering in a cave, waiting for the cops that one of the neighbors had dialed. Police sirens came from somewhere just then, and they all stood up and hugged each other. The cops got out of the car and arrested Ronald and the rest of his crew. The police office said, “You have been officially charged by the state of Vermont for chopping down trees and harming the national bird of the United States.” Then the cops shoved the man into the police car and drove him away. After this celebration all the citizens of Hillside worked night and day, restoring the fallen and burnt trees. Their worked paid off after two days, when all the eagles returned and everything was just like old times. Then Billy went back to his house and got a good rest, something he had not had for a long time. Just before he fell asleep, he realized that what his dad said was true: what is right is right, and you can’t change it. Do what is right and you will be all right in the end.



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