Squirrel in the House (6 page)

Oh, wait. I guess I've just eaten. But it's still tempting. Even so, I tell myself now is not the time to get distracted—I'm on a mission. And I no longer need to worry about the noise level because no one is talking anymore—they're all staring at me. Well, that's convenient. I say, “Which one of you belongs to the smaller boy?”

One of the people screams, which is just plain rude, no matter how you look at it.

The man who lives here with the dog jumps to his feet, and he grabs one of the bowls off the table. He flips it upside down, which sends pieces of lettuce and cucumbers and tomatoes and radish bits showering down on me. Then he tries to put the bowl over my head, but I zigzag and avoid him. Either he wants to make sure I don't leave until I've eaten, or it's that whole catch-a-squirrel-and-bring-him-home thing.

Except that I already am in his home.

People get confused so easily.

Anyway, I don't have time for this. I run and bound down the length of the table, only occasionally landing in someone's food, then leap onto the curtain—the real curtain, the one covering the window—and climb up
onto the curtain rod. There, I take a moment to lick off the food that's gotten between my toes. Yummy! I don't know where people gather their food, but it tends to be tasty.

Meanwhile, the man has moved his chair against the wall near me, and he's climbed onto it, so I jump onto a tall piece of furniture that's made of wood and glass and that holds bowls and other people stuff. The whole thing wobbles, and the mother who lives here with the man and the dog really starts screaming now, no doubt worried that I might get hurt. But I'm sure-footed and make it safely across the top of that furniture till I can drop back onto the table at the end that's closest to the door. The cloth skids along under me, carrying me and the food and bowls with it, but I jump a heartbeat before the whole thing slithers off the table onto the floor behind me. Several of the bowls bounce on the floor. Several definitely do not bounce. I run out of that room, through the long, skinny room, and back into the room where I originally started.

I sit and wait for someone to follow, so I can lead them outside.

Amazingly, no one takes the hint. Instead, I hear them—still in the room where they were eating—yelling such things as, “Oh my!” and “What was that?”

What was that? Really? Like they've never seen a squirrel before?

Then finally—finally!—someone points out that the smaller child was obviously telling the truth about a squirrel being in the house. And that it must have been the squirrel who caused all the damage in the other room.

Excuse me? That was the dog. And the man. And the two people children.

But in any case, they say the child has sulked upstairs long enough after being scolded for something he didn't do, and someone needs to fetch him—while someone else needs to call Pest Control.

I think it's pretty mean of them to call the boy a pest in need of control, but sometimes families can be like that.

Someone goes up the stairs to fetch him, and that's when the fuss really begins—when they can't find him.

They look upstairs and down. Two of them even walk right by me and open the front door, never noticing me standing right there, chattering, “I know! I know! I know where he is!”

The snow is still falling, falling, falling. The people say, “He wouldn't have gone out in that,” and they close the door again.

These people are hopeless!

How can I get through to these people that their second-smallest guest is outside and needs help?

I could jump on one of them, I think, but there's always the possibility that if I do, that person will hold on to me, and eventually I'll end up in a pink sparkly dress. I'm not willing to risk that. Girls can't be trusted. Even girls who look like adults.

I run back and forth in front of them, but not close enough for anyone to catch me. The trouble is that at this point they have gotten more concerned to find the
missing child than they are to catch me.

Why can't they understand me?

Then it comes to me: I am a highly educated squirrel. These people aren't smart enough to follow what I am trying to tell them.

What I need to do is find someone who is in between squirrel-smart and people-smart.

And then that answer comes to me, too: the dog!

The man said he was going to put the dog in the basement. I don't know what “in the basement” means. Is in the basement like in one of the containers for holding food? I run back into the room where there was the food and those big metal things, including—I suddenly remember—the one with the window.

But the window is dark, and I can't see anything even when I hang upside down from the handle. I tap against the glass. “You in there, dog?” I ask.

No answer.

No smell of him, either.

No, wait—there is. I sniff with my highly developed squirrel nose. There is a faint scent of the dog nearby.

I follow my nose to another door. “Hello, dog?” I call. “Are you in the basement on the other side of this door?”

There is a loud thump as the dog throws himself against the door. “Squirrel!” he barks. “Wait until I get my paws on you!” The door rattles in its frame as the dog hurls himself at it again. And again. And again.

It's a challenge to work with someone who is so excitable. “Stop barking,” I tell him. “I need you to do something for me.”

“You,” the dog says in a sputtering kind of bark, “you need me to do something for you?”

I'm relieved that the dog isn't as not-smart as I worried, that he can—in fact—grasp the situation.

“Yes,” I say.

“Oh, well, then,” the dog says. “Sure.”

I scratch my ear, trying to catch hold of a thought that flitters around in my brain. But it moves too quickly and is gone. “Okay,” I say. “Well, the first thing you have to do is, you have to come out from in the basement.”

The dog's voice is a bit strained—I'm guessing because he's so eager to help me—as he says, “Squirrel. The. Door. Is. Shut.”

“Yes, it is,” I agree. “Open it.”

The dog bounces against the door once more. “IT DOESN'T OPEN!”

Being a highly educated squirrel, I see the problem. “Back away,” I tell the dog. “There's a hook latch.” I know about hook latches because some people use them on the sheds where they store their squirrel food—in order to keep out the neighborhood cats. I climb onto the counter, then jump at the door latch. The hook pops up and the door opens. I say, “Ta-dah! Now you can help me.”

But that same thought that flittered before is hovering again, and there's something about the look in the dog's eyes as he stands there face-to-face with me . . . And I realize I never told him what I needed his help for, so—considering that—he agreed to help awfully quickly.

It suddenly occurs to me that I might want to a little bit of
distance between me and the dog before I take the time to explain about the smaller boy.

The dog and I jump at the same time: He jumps at me, and I jump straight up.

I twist midair—squirrels are very fit and flexible, and we make excellent natural acrobats. So I go up, sideways, and down. The down is into . . . I don't know what to call it: a container or a piece of furniture. It's taller than the dog, but not quite half as tall as people. Inside is hollow and there are empty wrapper papers and eggshells and coffee grounds and a wad of used gum and some toast crusts—with peanut butter on them! I love peanut butter! It's the best thing ever.