This is the true story of the papaya tree that saved Jackie's house. I know it is true because it was told to me yesterday by the papaya tree in my garden. Honest! As you all know Jackie owns a house right next door to the offices of JC Group. Why he owns this house no one knows, but he does. And currently he is busy renovating and redecorating the house. The house came with a well established garden with many fruit trees but by some quirk of the previous owner one lonely papaya tree was planted right by the back door of the house. Perhaps they had dreams of picking papayas from the tree without even really going outdoors. Perhaps they wanted a sort of home grown convenience store.

Now the papaya tree would really rather have been planted with the other papaya trees at the bottom of the garden. She felt very lonely growing all by herself up against the house. Even though she saw a lot of very interesting things with the workmen carefully putting up scaffolding around her, making sure that they did not hurt her in any way, she was still lonely. She listened to the conversations of the workmen as they discussed what needed to be done on the house. She even saw Jackie on several occasions when he visited the house to see what progress had been made and listened carefully as she overheard the plans Jackie had for the old house.

"This man really cares about this house," she thought to herself after one of these conversations. "He really wants it to be special. And he cares that none of the trees in the garden get hurt while the workmen are here. He keeps on telling them to be careful of the trees and to pick up all their litter."

Slowly the tree came to like Jackie more and more. She realized that Jackie cared very much about the house, and the garden and caring for the environment. Day after day went by and nothing happened to make the little papaya tree change her mind about Jackie. In fact the more the little papaya tree saw Jackie the more she liked Jackie.

One day Jackie noticed the fruit growing on the papaya tree. "Wah!" he said "those looks like such lovely papayas." He patted the tree in a friendly way and said, "I am going to enjoy those papayas when they are ripe." The tree swelled with joy. Jackie was going to eat the papayas she was growing. She was going to make sure that these were the best papayas she had ever grown. From that moment on the little papaya tree put all her energy into growing the fruit and forgot to grow a thick strong trunk.

The summer days passed by and Typhoon season came. So far the weather had held out and although the days were very very hot, there had not been any really strong storms and the little papaya tree just grew her fruit bigger and bigger. One of the biggest papayas was just starting to turn yellow.

One day a BIG storm arrived. The sea dragons were really angry that they had not had a chance to blow and blow and fly with the wind inland, bringing rain. They swirled round and round getting stronger and stronger. "We are going to blow and blow!" they whistled. "We haven't had any fun for such a long time. Nothing is going to stop us roaring and flying up to the mountains and back!"

The wind grew and grew. The rain came. The dragons roared back and forth having such enormous fun. The people of Hong Kong did not think it was such fun though. The airplanes could not fly. The boats could not go out. Tiles flew off roofs, the streets poured with water. The poor little papaya tree bent and bent over with the wind. "Ooh!" she thought. "My poor trunk can't take much more of this!" Just at that moment the dragons noticed Jackie's house and decided that it would be fun to blast off the roof of the offices and swirl around the scaffolding and blow the netting and scaffolding off the house (along with anything else that was loose and would blow away). The little papaya tree saw the dragons collecting along the roof top and called out in a very scared voice, "Oh please go away and leave us alone. The man who owns this house is a very nice man. He won't like you destroying all the hard work that has been done on the house."

The dragons just laughed at the little papaya tree and roared around her making her bend even more than she ever thought he could. "How will you make us, little tree!" they taunted him. "Uproot yourself and make us!" they laughed meanly at her. "We are having fun roaring and blowing everything away! You can't stop us!"

At that moment the little papaya tree's trunk broke with an enormous crack. It was so loud that the dragons all got a huge fright. They forgot all about blowing the scaffolding off Jackie's house and blew themselves right out to sea again, leaving Hong Kong to pick up the pieces from the storm.

Later Jackie came to see if the storm had done any damage to the house. When he came round the back to the house and saw the broken papaya tree on the ground. He came over to see if it could be saved.

"Poor tree" he said, "that storm has broken you in half." Dimly the papaya tree saw Jackie pick up the fruit that he had been looking forward to eating. "Perhaps we can save some of the fruit," Jackie wondered aloud, as he looked up at the house and realized that the papaya tree was the only thing that had been damaged. "Thank goodness that the house survived the storm," he commented as he picked up the fallen papayas. As the little papaya faded away, she managed just one final thought. "I saved Jackie's house and that is more important than some papayas."

The little papaya tree should also know that she is famous. Jackie called Kath to come and take photographs of the fallen tree. The photographs were shared with all of Jackie's fans who were sad at the plight of the fallen papaya tree. The papaya trees also shared the story of the little papaya tree; not much happens in the lives of papaya trees and the news traveled fast. Even so it has taken a little while to reach the tip of Africa which is why I am only sharing the story with you now. But now you all know what really happened to the little tree and you can be happy for her, that she managed to save Jackie's house. And remember that caring for the environment will always have a happy end.