Jack was sitting at the kitchen table fiddling with a fork. And just as mum was about to say, “Jack, the fork’s meant for eating, you know.” Jack noticed something. He saw that when he laid the fork flat on the table and gently pushed one end the other end rose into the air. He’d press ‘down’ and the other end would move ‘up’.
He said, “Did you see that?” Mum rolled her eyes and said all she saw were sticky finger marks all over her clean fork. Jack said, “No, mum. Look. It goes up!” Poppy came over and looked at the fork bobbing up and down. She said it was a sort of lever. Dad heard that. He turned to look and he said, “The shape of the fork is making a fulcrum.”
Well Jack said he didn’t know about any of that, but he knew when he pressed one end the other end went up. “It’s like a swishy branch on a big tree!” he told everyone. And Poppy said, Yes. And Jack and her both knew a tree exactly like that; a big tree with swishy branches. So, in no time flat, they were both calling and jumping and rushing out the door, through the gate, along the footpath and onto the hill. Up and up they went towards the big tree with the swishy branches.
Soon they were there. Poppy put her hand on the trunk of the tree and looked up. “It’s big, Jack,” she said. Jack nodded. He reached for a long, dark-coloured branch. There were only a few leaves on that branch, so it could shake and move and swish quite easily, and at the end it had a shape like a hand with three fingers. Like fingers held open, ready to hold something. Jack gently pulled it back. It tugged on his hand. He pulled it back a little bit more and it tugged at his hand again. Jack smiled. Then he let it go and the big branch swayed away. He smiled and said, “It’s still swishy, Poppy.” She nodded.
Then Poppy looked around and said, “Let’s try it out again, Jack. What shall we swish?” Jack said there was an old bird’s nest a bit higher up the tree and that would make a good thing to swish. Poppy screwed up her face. Really? An old bird’s nest? But Jack was already scrambling up and he came down with a prickly round old used bird’s nest. “There!” he said. “Let’s make this go swish.”
Poppy was grinning now and the two of them put the nest into the hand at the end of the long branch and held on to it tight and slowly walked backwards. The branch tugged at them but they kept slowly, slowly walking backwards. The long branch creaked and tugged some more. It was a strong tug now but they kept walking slowly back. Then they stopped. The branch was really tugging now and quivering. They aimed the branch, paused and let it go! Swish! The branch whipped away and hurled the bird’s nest high into the air. It flew away, turning and tumbling towards the sky.
Jack and Poppy jumped up and down shrieking and cheering. “Jack, it went like a rocket!” Poppy yelled. Jack laughed. “It completely disappeared!” Poppy said, ‘More! Let’s do more!” and they scurried around looking for something else to swish.
But as they looked, Poppy suddenly stopped and grabbed at Jack’s arm. She said, “Jack, look. There!”
Jack spun around and he saw it too. High up in the branches of the next tree they could see a little bird’s nest. A fresh one. One that had tiny little baby birds in it. And a mother bird was standing up in the nest and jabbing her head up and down. Faster and faster and going ‘Peep! Peep!’ Danger! Danger!” Somewhere near there was danger.
And then they both saw it. Poppy squeezed Jack’s arm really hard. “No,” she whispered. A slinky brown cat was creeping along the branch towards the brave mother bird and her nest. “No!” Poppy said again. But the cat took no notice. Rather, it crept closer and closer. Carefully putting one paw after the other. Moving steadily along the branch. Silent and mean and bad.
Jack said, “Poppy, we’ve got to do something!” But do what? The cat was high up in the tree and they were down on the ground. Even if they yelled the cat wouldn’t stop slithering slowly nearer and nearer to its next meal. What could they do? And then Poppy spun around to Jack. She said, “Jack, put me in the swishy branch and swish me up there like a rocket. I’ll send that bad cat running and tumbling!”
Jack grabbed the branch and held it down low. Poppy plopped into the little hand at the end of the branch and Jack began walking backwards. The branch tugged. Jack kept walking. The branch tugged again with a heavy tug. But Jack didn’t stop. It was getting harder to pull back, but he leaned and bent himself and kept walking backwards. By now the branch was tugging like a madman but Jack kept a tight hold. Then he stopped.
Poppy got ready in the hand at the end of the branch. Jack aimed as best he could. His hands were shaking. The tugging was really strong now. And then … swish! He let go and the branch snapped back.
Poppy went flying! Up and up she flew. Higher and higher towards the tree. She squealed and shouted down. “Jack, it’s working!” And Jack yelled, Yes it was, she was really flying. And now she was crashing through the leaves and little branches in the next tree, going straight for the bad cat.
It suddenly saw her and stopped. “Got you!” Poppy said with a big yell and smashed into the branch it was on. The cat got the fright of its life and it leapt off, tumbling down and down; crash onto the ground! Then it raced away as fast as its cat’s legs would carry it.
Jack jumped up and down and cheered. The big branch came gently swishing back down towards him and he grabbed it. Poppy was laughing and pointing up at the nest. She plopped off the branch and said she hadn’t known the tree could swish that far. Jack nodded and looked up towards the next. The mother bird was sitting down now, not making any ‘peep!’ noises and tucking the little chicks safe into the bottom of the little nest.
Jack said Poppy had been amazing and brave. Poppy told Jack he was very strong because he’d pulled that swishing branch a long long way back. And they chuckled and smiled all the way down the hill, along the footpath and through the gate.
Mum and dad were together on the garden seat, enjoying a coffee. But when Jack and Poppy told them about the swishy tree they were so amazed they put down their coffee mugs and dad ran his hands through his hair. He said, “That was great, Poppy. Remarkable.” Although mum wondered if it was a little bit, you know, dangerous to go swishing that high.
Then dad said it reminded him of the time Jesus had seen a bad force attacking a poor man. “Jesus stopped the bad power,” dad said. “Just like you two did.” Jack said he remembered reading about Jesus doing that, one bedtime. And mum said that deserved a quiet celebration and asked if Jack and Poppy would like to have a fresh muffin.
Jack said they’d love a muffin and they wouldn’t swish it away. Then he thought about that and said, “Although it would fly like a rocket if we swished it from our big tree.” Mum smiled and said, “Don’t even think about it, you two Swishers!”