Nita had always wondered about the trees. They grew throughout the library, thriving despite the filtered light and bottled water they fed on. They seemed perfectly healthy - more healthy, really, than a lot of their cousins lining the roads outside, exposed to the endless fumes of passing cars.

But they couldn't really be happy, could they? Caged inside, kept in pots, even their autumn leaf-fall managed and monitored. And just look at where they were...

So one evening, just as the library was closing, with only a couple of people left in the building, she seized her chance. Propping a foot on one of the benches as if to tie her shoe, she leant in and murmured, "I have to know: how do you do it? How do you grow in a building surrounded by books written on your own kin's remains?"

The tree shivered above her, and a single leaf drifted down to land atop her head. Oh, little one, the tree whispered back. What do you think I want to be when I grow up?