Somewhere in the middle of a forest, about half-way between the park-rangers’ office and the camp site, was a look-out tower. From the top of the tower it was possible to see the ridges to the North, scarred by the trails that meandered their way from the bottom to the top. To the South and West, all you could see was vast expanses of red wood trees. And finally, to the East, you could just make out the far edges of the lake - the near edge being hidden by yet more red woods.At the top of the look-out there was a window that ran round all sides of the tower. At the bottom was a door. Between them, and holding everything together (although some might argue otherwise), were bricks. Lots and lots of bricks.

And in this sense, apart from those lookouts that were made of wood (not brick), it was much like other look-out towers. Except for, perhaps, others might have additional doors and windows on different levels.

What mainly made this look-out tower different from others was how noisy it was. I don’t mean the forestfire warning siren, that goes off every Monday morning to test it.

No. There was nothing different about that either. Not really. It was the constant bickering.

This is the kind of thing that would happen.

One day, I think it was a Tuesday, when it was the door’s time to speak (that is to say the morning, which was always the preferred time for the door to speak - as he liked to be the first to talk) the door called up to the window at the top of the lookout tower. And this is how it started:

“Oy Window! I bet your glad I’m here. Without me no-one would be able to look out of you!”.

“Well” said the window “without me, you might as well not be here anyway. No-one would want to use you. What would be the point! And it would be too dark! So there!”.

The bricks gave a collective sigh, but the door had more to say on the matter.

“You could put another door in and just open the door”, it argued.

“But then the rain and wind would come in! And someone might fall out! What about small children? Did you think of that?”.

A few of the bricks noticeably yawned. They had heard this so many times before they were a little tired of it.

And so it continued for about another hour or so; the window claiming the higher importance and, ironically - even though it was on the ground floor, the door trying to do the same.

On a particularly bad day the staircase, that was normally reticent to join in for fear of being criticised for being a bit rickety, might pipe up too.

“Well, neither of you would be needed if it wasn’t for me! Who needs a window at the top that you can’t get to and why have a window on the ground floor in a lookout tower? And, while I’m at it, why bother coming through the door, if I’m not here to get you to the top?”

The ladder, leaning against the wall, thought briefly about joining in but realised it was too short to be able to make a solid enough argument.

Then, promptly at eight-thirty o’clock, the park rangers would arrive and neither the door, nor the window or the stairs (or the ladder for that matter) wanted to be caught arguing. So, they would curtail their argument until the rangers had left at the end of the day. By which time they were all a bit tired, the sun was either going down (or was already down), and they were all in need of some sleep. And that would be when the lookout fell quiet once again. Punctuated by the click of the door closing and the key being turned in the lock.

If you listened very carefully you might hear them snoring. Or it could just be the timbers creaking as they cooled down with the sun setting.

On one particular day, when the argument was in full swing (this time with additional debate about the best colour paint, or the hardiest type of wood each was made of), one of the bricks had just about had enough. It eased itself out from between its neighbouring bricks and jumped out of the wall, bounced down the rickety staircase and landed by the door.

“Ouch! that hurt!” whined the staircase.

“Watch it! That nearly hit me! You might have scraped my paintwork!” shouted the door angrily.

The brick took its time to find its balance again and, when the timing was just perfect, made its announcement. “Now then” said the brick “I’ve had just about enough of you lot moaning!”

“Hear hear!” shouted many of the other bricks.

The first brick, the one at the foot of the stairs by the door, waited for them to all calm down and be quiet, before continuing:

“I would like to suggest, and I am fairly sure it has been born out by the frustratingly circular arguments over the last years, that not one of you can really claim to be the most important one.”

A solitary brick, somewhere on the door side of the tower and about half way up, thought about starting the cries of “hear hear”. Thankfully, after noticing some disapproving glances from some other bricks, it decided better of it just as the very first ‘H’ began.

This caused the whole tower to pause for a moment and try and figure out what the sound was.

The brick (the one on the ground floor) resumed his speech. “You don’t hear me claiming to be any more important than anyone else! Now do you?”.

Secretly all the bricks thought they were more important than the window, the door, and the staircase - but this probably wasn’t a good time to raise it. So they kept quiet.

Just as the brick was about to expand on his point, the key turned in the lock of the door. The door whispered “shhhh!”, the tower fell silent once more and the brick by the door lay very still indeed.

The head park ranger entered and almost tripped over the brick, sending it skimming across the floor and crashed into the bottom step of the staircase. The staircase winced but managed to remain silent. Or at least silent enough that it wasn’t heard over the echo of the bang of the brick against it.

The assistant park-ranger flicked the light switch on and lamps fizzed into life all the way to the top of the tower.

It was at this point that the door and staircase made mental notes on how to counter the window’s insistence concerning light being needed for the tower to operate. They would save that for later.

The door was closed and locked. The assistant park-ranger walked across the base of tower and picked up the brick that had lodged itself (maybe it was hiding. We’ll never know) under the bottom step. The park ranger held it aloft, inspected it himself and then showed it to the head ranger.

“Looks ok!”.

The brick felt a little woozy, as a result of being waved around in the air for what seemed like ages, but did a good job of hiding it.

“Looks like this has come out of the wall up there somewhere.” said the head park-ranger, pointing up at the small brick shaped dark area on the wall above their heads.

“Its probably worth getting the ladder and checking it out.” suggested the second park-ranger.

The ladder felt a tiny glow of pride well-up in it its rungs.

“If there is a problem with the bricks, we will have a problem. At best it will be some repairs to make sure that the walls are safe and won’t crash down and damage the door.” Before tactfully adding “Or the window and staircase”.

“At worst, who knows? Without solid walls the whole thing will probably have to come down. It would be a shame, but once the walls have gone, there aren’t many options.”

Somewhere in the tower, there was a gust of wind that caused a draught that sounded a tiny bit like a crowd saying “ahh!”.

The park rangers pause for a moment and listened.

When the wind appeared to have stopped, the head park ranger returned to the door and, after placing the brick on the floor, he spoke to the assistant park ranger:

“I’ll leave this brick here and we can come back later, when I have the required tools, and get up there to take a better look. Then we’ll see how bad the problem is, before we can make any decisions.”

“Good idea. I’ll bring ropes and harnesses. We don’t want anyone falling.” responded his assistant.

“Just what would happen if you had a door on the top floor - instead of a window.” muttered the window under its breath. Something either no-one heard, or they all chose to ignore.

The head park ranger and his assistant left the tower and secured the door behind them.

For almost a week the tower was not used and the door remained locked. There was an air of apprehension in the park rangers office and, if you thought about it very hard, probably in the empty lookout tower too.

At the end of the week the rangers came back with all the equipment they needed. Thankfully it looked like there wasn’t anything more serious. Neither of them could quite figure out why one solitary brick had fallen from the wall. As far as they could see every other part of the wall was solid and sturdy. It looked like the problem was isolated to this one brick.

The head park-ranger even called out a specialist from the big city, to come and take a look. But, apart from one more head being scratched and the expert exclaiming that he had never seen anything like it before, very little information (of any use at all) was added to the investigation.

And so, deciding everything was safe and the single brick was reinstated where it belonged, the park-rangers and the lookout tower resumed their normal duties. The siren went off when it was supposed to every Monday morning, But, and this was the strangest thing, the staircase creaked a little less than it used to, the door seemed a little less draughty and the window seemed to open and close better than it did before.

The Head ranger put it down to the wood drying out - what with the slightly dryer and warmer weather, now the summer was on its way. But no-one could quite remember it being that quiet before. Or, perhaps, they were just having a particularly warm and dry spring.

Either way it was nice for them all to be getting on with their jobs. once more.

And for everyone to be working as a team - without anyone feeling more important than any other.

THE END