Squirrel World (4 page)

You might be wondering how Lenox and I would know Lexington Avenue when we reached it. The answer is simple: When I was an infant, my mother sang me to sleep with a special squirrel lullaby. The song included all the street names on the east side of the park, in order from east to west.

It went like this:

I’d heard those words a thousand times, so of course I knew the names of all the avenues to the east of the park. Similarly, Lenox’s mother had sung a variation of that song to him, using the streets surrounding his namesake avenue. Now headed toward
Lexington Avenue, I reversed the order of the streets in the lullaby. We’d passed Fifth, Madison, and Park. When we came up to street level again, I knew we were close to Lexington Avenue. We moved closer, and I stared at it with great disappointment. It appeared to be about as ugly a place as one could imagine. Why had my mother thought to give me its name?

Lenox must have had the same idea. “This is not a very special place at all,” he complained. “Wait until we get to Lenox Avenue. I know that is much better.”

“You don’t know that at all,” I retorted. “Both the streets we were named after are mysteries. It’s quite possible that our parents had never seen either one. Maybe they just liked the way the names sounded.”

“I don’t believe it,” declared my cousin. “Lenox Avenue is a beautiful place.”

As we talked, we moved toward one of the puny trees that was growing out of a square of dirt. If nothing else, the little tree offered us a branch above the crowd. It was no longer raining, but the day remained overcast. It was quite likely we’d see more rain before long.

We sat there on the same branch, glaring at each other. I was annoyed that I’d wasted a day getting to this place. It was better to dream about Lexington Avenue than to actually see it.

Lenox grumbled, “We should have gone directly to Lenox Avenue.”

“Don’t tell me what we should have done,” I retorted. “This was all your plan. I was happy at home.”

A couple of humans standing close to the tree were having a discussion, too. “I’m not going into another museum for a month,” the man declared. “Maybe not for a year,” he added after a moment.

“It’s all right. We’ve seen the three big ones now. And we’ll tell everyone that we went to the others. Who will know? It’s hard work being a tourist,” the woman admitted.

“Let’s go back to our hotel. I want to take my shoes off,” the man said.

“See?” I said to Lenox. “Even human feet get tired walking on cement.”

Before my cousin could respond, the woman let out a loud wail of protest. “Oh, no!” she cried. “We’re right here on Lexington Avenue, which is where Bloomingdale’s is located. We must go there. I can’t go home to Springfield
without first seeing Bloomingdale’s. You know how much I’ve wanted to go there.”

“All right, all right,” the man agreed reluctantly. Suddenly the woman grabbed his arm. “Look!” she shouted. “Here’s a bus coming. We can jump on, and we’ll get there right away. I promise. After that, we’ll go back to the hotel.”

We watched as the couple raced to catch the huge bus. The doors opened, and some people got out. The man and woman waited to get on.

“Come,” I called to Lenox and leaped down off my perch on the tree. “Didn’t you hear what that woman said? We must go to Blooming Dales, too. That must be why Lexington Avenue is famous.”

“And how are we going to find this
Blooming Dales place?” Lenox shouted after me.

“Just like the humans. We’ll take the bus.”

With that I leaped onto a metal piece on the rear of the vehicle. Not a moment too soon, Lenox joined me.

“This had better be good,” he said.

“It will. It will. Just hold on tight. We’ll get off when that man and woman do. That’s how we’ll know where we’re going.”

The bus lurched and started moving.

“Hold tight!” I shouted.

Lenox held on tight, and so did I.

Our ride was a bumpy one. One moment we thought we were about to be thrown off, and the next thing we knew the bus was slowing to a stop. But just as we were about to relax our hold, it took off again. It’s not easy riding on a bus, I decided. No wonder I’d never tried it before.

At one of our stops, Lenox asked me, “What does it mean—Blooming Dales?”

I wasn’t certain, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Let’s figure it out,” I said as the bus began to move again. “The first part is easy: I’ve heard people in the park talk about the plants. They look at the flowers and say, ‘What lovely blooms.’ Or they say, ‘The flowers are blooming.’ Obviously
blooming
means ‘flowering.’”

“And
dales
?” Lenox asked.

I paused a moment, thinking hard.
Dales? Dales?
I knew I’d heard the word before.

Suddenly it came to me. I’d heard the word in one of the poems that PeeWee read aloud. How did it go?

Oh, dear. I was wrong. The poem said
vales
and not
dales
. The tourist had probably gotten it confused. She meant to say
vales
, I decided. And I’d learned from PeeWee that
vales
means “valleys.”

“Flowering valleys!” I shouted to Lenox, as the bus took off again. I was delighted that my reasoning had produced such a happy answer to our question. “Lexington Avenue may be a disappointment,” I told my cousin, “but Blooming Vales, which is another part of the avenue, will be magnificent.” I began to imagine an area filled with golden daffodils, brilliant red tulips, white and purple lilac bushes, bright pink rhododendron plants, and lush soft green grass. No matter that in our park each of those flowers blooms in a different week. In Blooming Vales, those and
a hundred different varieties would all be in flower at the same time. Also, unlike this part of Lexington Avenue, there would be no more cement and no rain.

“We’ll be there soon,” I promised Lenox.

I could hardly wait.

Each time the bus stopped, its doors opened. Some people got on, and some people got off. Lenox and I watched carefully. Humans look more or less the same to us, so we had to be sure that we didn’t confuse the couple we were following with another pair, a couple who was going somewhere else.

“That’s them!” I shouted to Lenox as the bus came to another stop and I saw the man and woman we were following get off.

We jumped down from our perch. I was relieved to be on firm ground again, even
if it was cement. We watched as the couple stood looking about. Then they began to cross to the other side of the street.

“Come along!” I shouted to Lenox.

I was so busy watching the couple that I didn’t have time to look around. But from the corner of my eye, I could see that this part of Lexington Avenue looked no more interesting than the part where we’d been before.

“They’re going inside that building,” said Lenox.

“Then we have to follow them,” I replied. “It must lead to Blooming Vales.”

We stood waiting for someone to pull open one of the big doors, and then we scooted quickly inside.

At once, I could sense that I was in a place that was unlike any I’d ever been in before.
I could smell the perfume of flowers. It was much stronger and sweeter than the perfume of the flowers in the park. But when I looked around, I couldn’t see any flowers at all. There were paths leading in all directions, and Lenox and I didn’t know which way to run first.

“Look! I never saw a squirrel inside the store before!” shouted someone.

“There are two of them!”

“Make yourself scarce!” I called out to Lenox. I was afraid someone would attempt to chase us away before we’d had the chance
to explore all that this strange building had to offer.

The floor was shiny and slippery, not like cement and not like soil. I could hear my paws scratching as I ran. Luckily, there were so many people and so many nooks and crannies that even without trees or shrubs to hide in, Lenox and I quickly managed find a dark corner in which to keep safe.

We stayed hidden for quite a while. It was good to sit quietly and catch our breath. Since early morning, we had been running on hard cement, exposed to outrageous noises, and bumped about on the back of a bus. Now we both curled up, watching and listening but not making a movement that might call attention to us. My stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I wondered
where the food was stored in this place.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Lenox said firmly. “I don’t care what the name means. There are no flowering valleys here.”

I hated to admit it, but he was right.

Maybe there was something better on the other side of the street, I thought.

Cautiously, keeping low and frequently hiding, Lenox and I headed back in the direction we had come from. It was a great relief when I saw the doors again, and when someone opened one, I charged out. Lenox was right behind me. We’d escaped from Blooming Vales. Now what?

I looked around. The street was crowded with people walking in both directions. There were cars and buses, noise and feet. This was not a good place for a pair of squirrels.

Then I looked across the street. I saw a large building with a huge sign on it. I tried to remember the reading lessons PeeWee had given me last summer.

I had already mastered all 26 letters of the alphabet. So I quickly recognized
N
and
U
. N-U. I tried to sound out the letters as PeeWee had been trying to teach me to do. N-U-T. Was that Noot? No, no, I realized with delight.

“Nut! It says
nut
!” I shouted happily to Lenox.

That’s where I made a very big mistake. I didn’t pay any attention to the other letters:
R-U-S … What did they matter? Nothing is more important when you’re hungry than an N-U-T.

“Come quickly!” I cried. “That’s where we have to go.”

Once again we ran with every bit of speed we could muster. And once again we jumped through an open door. And alas. Once again we were in a flowery, scented house with no flowers, no trees, and no nuts. How could that sign have lied? I was furious.

“Squirrels! Look at the squirrels!” someone shouted.

The people standing nearby began to squeal and jump about. You’d think they’d never seen a squirrel before in their lives.

“I’m starving,” said Lenox, ignoring the humans. “I must find something to eat.”

For once the two of us were in agreement. We ran about sniffing the air. There had to be food somewhere. How could this store have such a big sign for nuts and yet not have a single nut in sight?

Suddenly a huge cloth was thrown over us, and Lenox and I were trapped underneath it. We fought to get out, but the cloth was too heavy for us. We could hardly move.

“I’m going to suffocate,” yelled Lenox, trying to push the cloth away.

“Wait. Wait. Let me think,” I said, attempting to remain calm. I knew we shouldn’t try to fight off the covering. We needed to save our energy. Someone would have to remove it. The humans wanted to get rid of us as much as we wanted to be rid of them.