It means you can be funny and cheeky and not afraid to get your hands dirty, and maybe one day you'll make your own magic. It means that even when your arms are tired you don't give up. And it means that when someone says there's nothing you can do, you say, "You bet I can! I can eat and drink and be merry and I can even get through the worst of times." I know that this story isn't about me, it's about the things I've been lucky enough to learn from my grandparents, and my parents. But it's for me and my kids, and for everyone with an older brother. It's the story that says no matter how old you get, you can still sit in a roomful of strangers and talk and laugh with them and tell them how old you are, because they will laugh along with you and wish they were young too. For as long as there have been people in this world, there have been people who want to hear a good story. The story begins. # 1 # FALLS CREEK _A.D._ # \- 1 - THE PEOPLE AT THE top of Falls Creek Falls lived in a fortress. When they first built it, the Falls were a lot closer to the ground, and the men of this village were able to sit in their wooden houses and watch the water rush and crash past. They could see the fish swimming up and down with it. They could see fish, and bears, and deer, and even fish-eaters, which the men called birds, come down to drink from the creek. But after the glacier got stuck halfway up the mountain and stopped, the Falls became higher and further away. The whole reason the men decided to settle here was so they could watch the water slide off of rocks and carve out little canyons. It was one of the reasons they first settled near Falls Creek Falls. The women made the village into a home, and they helped the men to build the wall around it. Because the wall was made out of rocks and clay and boulders and trees from a long time ago, it was impossible to tell what time it had been made. The wall was as tall as the trees, and when the men and women first built it, there were trees even higher than this wall. When they died, the wall just got taller. The village had many secrets. It was a secret in the trees, and a secret in the rocks, and a secret in the water. It was a secret when the warriors walked past the women washing their clothes near the creek, and a secret when they left off their clothes on rocks by the water and left. The village hid secrets in all sorts of places, and some of the secrets were so big they could take up whole villages, while others were small and could hide themselves in your ear. One day, when the men went hunting, they found some of the people had left their houses for some reason. The houses were full of women and children and babies, and little babies had fallen on the ground and were crying. The hunters did not like to hear babies crying, so they got very quiet. They crept very quietly back to their village and walked to the place where the women and babies were hiding. The men walked very, very slowly, making themselves invisible, until they came to the edge of the forest. There were so many women and children crouched on the ground in terror that the men could not move for a moment. It seemed there were so many people that some had been crushed and were lying still where they had died. But the baby who was not there looked very much like one of the people who was still there, so they thought they must have accidentally killed it in the fall. As soon as the men got closer to the people, they noticed that all the women had their hands over their mouths, even the ones who were not pregnant or had been born already. The men noticed that the women's lips and mouths looked very red, and that they looked afraid and very angry. The men knew that their women had learned from the birds how to make a baby. The girls could turn a little piece of wood and some cloth and a little animal bone into a person. The women told the men how to do it too, when they got tired of making their own kids, but only sometimes. The men knew very well how angry the women were, because there were no babies to be seen. There were only a lot of people and dead people who had come from somewhere else. The men decided to leave some stones so they could remember why they had come there in the first place. It was very important to remember why the people came to Falls Creek Falls, even though most of them had forgotten it, or died. And that is why today, in the village of Falls Creek Falls, there are stones carved with words telling you how many people there were when people first came. Some days, the stone looks like this: SOME STONES ARE OLD AND WEAK. MOST OF THEM GET BENT OR SCRAPED OVER, OR CRASHED INTO THE ground AND LAY IN WAYS THEY WOULD NOT LOOK. IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO LOOK AT ALL THE STONES IN THE WHOLE VILLAGE AND FIND ONE WITH A CLEAR AND NEWSTONE-LIKE CARVING. SOME STONES HAVE BEEN MOVED OVER TIME, SO THERE ARE SMALL STRAINS THAT KEEP THE STONES FROM LOOKING CLEAR. SOME STONES WERE MOVED BY RAIN, HUMAN HANDS, DOGS OR MONKEYS. IT IS VERY COMMON TO FIND STONES MOVED BY ANIMALS WITH SMALL BABY-DOGS. YOU CAN USE THOSE STONES TO LISTEN TO THE BABIES WHEN THEIR MOMS OR DADS IS PLAYING CAREFULY ON A SKETCHY LEAF OR FLANNEL OF CARDBOARD. IF YOU SCREAM THE STONES WILL LET THEIR MOUTHS TASTE WHAT YOU SAY. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THE STONES WILL ACTUALLY MAKE A SOUND. IF A STONE HAS A SOUND, IT WILL LOOK LIKE THIS: YOU CAN SIT ON THE STONE AND MAKE YOURSELF READY TO COME OUT IN THE FOREST WITH THE BEES, OR IF YOU ARE LUCKY YOU CAN LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS PLAYING A BIG DRUM ON THE TOP OF THE HILL. IF YOU POUR WATER ON THE STONE YOU CAN FORGET WHAT SOMETHING SOUNDED LIKE THE DAY BEFORE. The baby's breath used to be used to remind people about the sun, but people never found it anymore. It is very common to find a place where the people have left their handprints, like this: THE EMPTY OLD STONES GIVE A CHANCE TO TURN AROUND AND SEE THE STONES OF THE ANCESTORS, AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHO LIVED IN THAT HOUSES. SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN THOSE HOUSES HAD BEEN FRIENDS OF THE EARTH. THEY STAYED TO GIVE THE COOKWARE TO THEIR LOVED ONES, OR BROUGHT USED SILK ON THEIR BACK TO LAY ON TOP OF THE ROCKS TO LAY WET AND HARD AND EASY TO BUILD INTO THE TOP OF HOUSES SO PEOPLE COULD BE IN THE HOUSE AND COOK THEIR FOOD. Some of the stones are carved to remind you about the things that happened. THE GOLDEN DROP IS A STONE THAT MIGHT LOOK STRANGE AT FIRST, LIKE A GIANT PIECE OF PLASTIC. SOME STONES ARE MADE OUT OF A COLORFUL PRESSING MAT, AND THE ROUND GLASS POT IS A STONE PIECE MADE OF GLASS. IF YOU FIND THE DAMP TOUCH OF A STONE ON THE BEDROOM FLOOR, YOU CAN SIT ON THE STONE AND WATCH IT MOVE, AND THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU LAST SMELLED IT UP CLOSE. # \- 2 - # IN WHICH NIGHT FALLS # \- 1 - ONCE UPON A time, Night Falls did not want to be a person. Night Falls wanted to be a leaf and not have to put up with all the other leaves and animals and flowers. Sometimes Night Falls would wake up and see the stars twinkle in the sky, and try to take the stars for real. Night Falls tried to get so close to them that when the stars started to blink, Night Falls would be there to catch them when they fell. But Night Falls wanted to get even closer. The other animals and the leaves called Night Falls stupid, but she didn't care. She just tried to make friends with the trees and the leaves, because she could talk to them. She knew all the names of the trees and the flowers, and she knew that no one else could see them, or hear them, or smell them or see them when they cried. "What is this? A flower or a man?" Night Falls asked her