Squirrel in the House (3 page)

Which sounds to me like we're playing hide-and-seek. So I step behind one of the I-don't-know-what-it-is things on the ledge and say, “Here.”

The dog looks up but can't see me. He goes back to digging at the pile of wood.

I step behind another I-don't-know-what-it-is thing. I say, “Here.”

The dog sniffs at the air. “Where?” he demands.

I think he's asking for too many hints, but I can see he really isn't very good at this game. I go to step behind the flowers, to announce, “Here,” once more, but the container isn't as steady as it should be, and the whole thing—container, flowers, and water—falls off the ledge and lands on the floor with a crash.

The dog tries to leap up onto the ledge with me, but he's not a good climber.

I encourage him, saying, “Here! Here! Here!” as I dodge from behind thing to thing to thing on the ledge.

“Not the lamp!” the dog shouts as a tall glass thing that is like the sun, but smaller, teeters.

Okay, so I move.

“Not the picture of Master's mother!” the dog complains. Pictures look like the things they look like, except flat.

I recognize Master's mother as the woman who lives in this house with the man and the dog.

Okay, so I move again.

“Not Master's first-prize trophy for being voted the best principal in the state!” the dog howls. He's pacing back and forth on the floor below the ledge as though he's trying to decide what to do.

Then he decides.

The dog jumps onto a chair and from there to the low table that has another sun-like lamp, and from there onto the ledge.

“Good jump!” I cheer. It's polite to acknowledge someone's improved effort. I leap onto the cloth that is hanging over the window and climb to the branch-like metal thing on top. “Now I'm here!”

Which is when the man who lives here with his mother comes running into the room.

“Hello, man,” I call out, even though I know people aren't as smart as animals and can't understand us. “Thank you for inviting me.” But the dog is making too much noise for the man to hear me.

In another moment, the man is making too much noise, too. “Cuddles!” he yells. “What are you doing? Come down immediately!”

He grabs hold of the dog's collar, but by this time the
dog realizes how high up he is, and he freezes in fear.

The man has to put his arms around the dog and lift him down. While he's doing this, the man's elbow knocks into the lamp, and the lamp falls. Clearly the man has a love for leashes. Not only does he often tie the dog to the tree in the yard, but in here there's a leash that fastens the lamp to the wall. So it's the man's own fault when this leash pulls taut and topples most of the pictures, including Mother's.

People run into the room. Apparently the man has invited quite a few guests in out of the cold. Which is fine. As guest of honor, I'm happy to meet them.

The man's mother starts yelling. “Sonny!” she demands. “Why are you trying to put that fool dog of yours up on my mantel?”

“I'm not,” the man says, just as his foot comes down on the spilled water from the container of flowers. Still holding the dog, the man slides into the low table and knocks over that lamp, too.

Inside is more exciting than I thought it would be.

The mother starts yelling at the man; the man is yelling at the dog; the dog is barking his beside-himself no-words bark; and the other guests are all giving advice that sounds pretty useless to me.

Things like:

“Hold that dog.” (The man already is.)

And, “Somebody should get a mop.” (Nobody does.)

And, “That rug will never come clean.” (Maybe they could use Tropical Sunset for Dogs with Sensitive Skin to wash it.)

Anyway, nobody notices me, sitting on top of the window.

“Gramma! Gramma!” the two little boys in this crowd of adult people yell. “What's Uncle Buzz doing?”

“I haven't a clue,” the mother says, shaking her head. To the man she says, “You put that fool dog Outside before he breaks any more of my things.”

The man is sitting sprawled out on the chair, the yapping dog on his lap. The dog has left black paw prints on the ledge, on the table, on the chair, and on the man. The man says, “It's too cold for Cuddles to stay Outside.”

“Well, then, lock him in the basement.” Mother stomps her feet as she leaves the room.

“Wow!” exclaims the smaller child. “This is more fun than we ever have at home.”

I know exactly how he feels.

The dog is barking out: “That worthless rodent is on the curtain rod!” But the man can't understand the dog any more than the man can understand me.

“Cuddles!” the man shouts. “Stop that howling!”

The man has hold of the dog's collar and is dragging him out of the room. The other guests follow, still trailing advice:

“You need to give that dog a stern talking-to.”

“You need to send that dog to obedience school.”

“You need to replace that dog with a cat.”

“Hey!” I call from where I'm sitting, on what the dog called the curtain rod. “Where's everyone going? Wait for me.”

If the branch-like metal thing where I'm sitting is the curtain rod, then the cloth must be the curtain. I've just learned something new. Not necessarily something useful, but something new. I climb down the curtain, but I'm delayed because one of my nails gets caught in the cloth. It takes quite a bit of tugging and a little bit of biting before I get free. Now the curtain has holes in it. This is a good thing, because before, the curtain blocked the view to Outside, but now everybody will be able to see Outside without having to push the curtain out of their way. I have helped the people, but there's no one left to see my improvement. At this point, I'm the only one in the room.

I start to follow the people. As guest of honor, it's my duty not to ignore them—but on my way out I notice another little table. Sitting on this one is a bowl of nuts. Nuts are the best thing ever. And
guess what—they're already out of their shells! How thoughtful of the dog and his people! I change my mind: My first duty is not to find the other guests but to show my appreciation to my hosts.

After I've eaten enough that I feel full for now, I look around to see where I can bury the rest of the nuts for later. There are two containers that hold dirt and plants. In one of the containers is a little tree, but not like the ones I'm used to outside. It only has a few branches, and it's much scrawnier. I try climbing it, because that's what squirrels do. But I could never rest in its branches: The whole thing bends under my weight. The people didn't think this out very well. Still, I'm able to bury several of the nuts in the dirt beneath the tree.

The second container is smaller. Its plant has flowers, but it isn't very hardy: Several of the blooms fall off the plant while I'm digging beneath it. They aren't even good-tasting flowers. I wonder what the dog and the man and the man's mother were thinking when they decided to grow this plant. Its container is only good for holding a couple of nuts.

I hide the rest here and there about the room: under the cushions of the chairs, behind the curtains, and in the shoes that the guests have left by the front door. I don't know why people wear shoes, or why these people
have taken theirs off. Some of the shoes smell worse than the dog.

It's while I'm burying the last of the nuts in the last of the shoes that I hear a soft voice say, “Hey! Hello, squirrel.”

It's the smaller of the two people children. He's so small that I think he's probably too young to go to school. This might be a problem.