Squirrel in the House (5 page)

I figure maybe he's too cold to be enthusiastic.

But then he turns back the way he was going and continues walking.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” I say again.

He keeps walking.

I keep chattering, “Hey!”

Finally he gets to the corner, where a street cuts across his way. Now he stops. He considers. He sighs.

Because I am a school-yard squirrel and very well educated, I know what's going on. Small people children are not allowed to cross streets without adult people supervision.

I tell him, “Now might be a good time to turn back.” I'm guessing it probably sounds to him pretty much the same as when I told him, “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

Once more he faces me. “Haven't you gotten me into enough trouble?” he asks.

Me? It wasn't my fault the other guests all turned on him.

But still, I feel sorry for him.

Even if he doesn't have the sense to come in out of the cold.

Young squirrels are better trained than that. They would know to take cover in the cold.

But at least the boy is trained well enough that he doesn't cross the street. He turns the corner and keeps walking. And walking and walking and walking.

Until he gets to the next corner.

It must suddenly occur to him that if he turns enough corners, he will be right back where he started.

“It's too wintry a day to run away from home,” I advise him. “This is not a good idea. You can try again in the spring.”

I don't know if he understands this or if he's simply come to the same thought at the same time. His shoulders slump, a sign that he has given up. He turns around to face the direction from which he has just come.

I chatter encouragement.

He takes a step. And his feet slide out from under him. He lands flat on his back, one leg bent under him, the wind knocked out of him.

I chatter more encouragement.

The boy tries to stand, but the leg that was bent under him buckles, so that he falls back into the snow. He tries again. But the leg can't support him. Now that he wants to go home, he cannot.

Lying in the snow, unable to get up, he starts crying. Squirrels don't cry, but people do. I don't know enough about crying to be able to tell if this is mad crying, or sad crying, or scared crying, or cold crying, or hurt crying.

Surely the adult people will come and fetch him, I think. People parents will be as frantic as squirrel parents would be over a lost child.

Except that the wind and the snow are quickly covering the footprints leading here.

How will they ever find him?

The snow covering the sidewalk is too high to let me walk easily. And besides, sidewalks are not the squirrel way of doing things. Traveling by tree is a lot easier. And a lot more fun.

Elm to maple to spruce . . .

I do get somewhat distracted when I come across a woodpecker huddled in his tree hollow. True, I accidentally stepped on his tail. But that's no reason for him to say, “Hey, watch it, fur-for-brains!”

I tell him, “Just because you have a headache from
banging your head against tree trunks to get at bugs is no reason to get annoyed with me. Try eating something easier to get to, and see if you're less cranky.”

Still, I'm on a mission, so I can't visit long.

Two walnut trees, a crab apple, then up into my own maple tree, with that wonderfully warm, cozy nest, which is going to be so incredibly comfortable to snuggle down into . . .

I catch sight of the house where the dog lives and remember the other guest, the little boy, hurt and out in the cold. Without a cozy nest. I sigh.

Then I again jump onto the roof of the house and make my way to and then down that long entryway, landing once more on the pieces of wood that are at the bottom.

The people are gone from the room, but someone has picked up both the lamp-thing and the scrawny tree that knocked it down. Each appears to have pieces missing.

Beyond this room, I see a long, skinny room with many doors and also stairs. I know about stairs. The school has
three stairs going up to the entrance. Here, there are a lot more than three. Even though I am a well-educated squirrel, my brain gets to feeling numb with numbers bigger than three. I stand at the bottom and count, “One, two, three—one time. One, two, three—two times. One, two, three—three times.” There are still more stairs. Obviously more stairs than it's worth counting. So I don't climb them.

I notice voices coming through one doorway, but interesting smells coming from another doorway.

I go to the interesting-smells doorway. This room has big metal things, one with knobs and handles and a dark window; the other almost reaches the ceiling and hums. They are not as big as the cars and buses that bring the people children to school, but just as mysterious.

There is also a long counter with various containers on it. Finally, something about the people who live here makes sense!—because these containers contain food, which is what containers should contain. I get up on the counter to investigate.

One container is short and squat—like the dog's water bowl that he has Outside in warm weather. This bowl has something that's red and smells like strawberries, but it doesn't look like strawberries because it's one big, almost see-through piece. It jiggles when I poke at it. I scoop out a pawful. Its taste isn't exactly strawberries, but it puts me in mind of strawberries, which doesn't usually happen when the snow is falling, so I decide I like it after all.

Another of these bowls contains potato chips. I know potato chips from the school yard. They are the best thing ever. I eat two or three of those. Maybe four.

The trouble with potato chips is that they make you thirsty, so I spit the last piece back out into the bowl for someone else to enjoy.

Looking around to see if there is a bowl of water, I bump into a tall, skinny container. It falls over, and what's inside spills outside and drips off the edge of the counter onto the floor. What spills looks like water, except it has bubbles. It tastes sweeter than regular water and is sticky, and it makes my nose feel fizzy. I sneeze into the container of cupcakes. I know cupcakes from school celebrations.

The last bowl has sunflower seeds. I love sunflower seeds. They are the best thing ever. Even though I already ate until I was full, time has passed, so I eat the seeds.

By now, I've worked off the chill I got trekking through the snow Outside, and I'm just thinking about taking a nap when I remember why I came Inside:
because of the small boy who has wandered off. And his frantic parents.

Not that they actually seem frantic. They aren't even looking for him.

Well, then, I'll look for them.

I follow my ears to the doorway, through which I can still hear people-talk.

This room has a long table, and the other guests are sitting around it. “One, two, three—one time,” I count. But then I decide it doesn't make any difference how many other guests there are. More than three. Fewer than during recess at school.

I stand in the doorway and call out: “Have any of you lost a smallish people child?”

The people keep talking to each other and don't notice me.

The trouble is they're noisy, which I can't do anything about, plus I'm on the short side. Below their eye level. People have a tendency not to look up or down but only straight ahead. That I know how to fix.

There is a cloth, very similar to the curtain in the other room, but this one covers the table. The larger boy is sitting next to an empty space, which might be where the smaller boy is supposed to sit. I jump and
catch hold of the cloth. Everything on the table shifts a bit in my direction.

The people all slam their hands down onto the table covering to keep it from moving, then turn to the boy and start telling him to behave.

He protests that he hasn't done anything, but then he looks down and sees me hanging on to the cloth next to his leg. He jumps up so quickly that his chair falls over.

This gives me even more space, so I continue climbing up the cloth until I'm on top of the table. There's lots more food here, which is tempting to a squirrel who hasn't eaten in . . .