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.
People Children
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.
Living in a school yard, I know all about school. School starts at that time of year when the very first leaves are just beginning to change color and when, if the air hasn’t already gotten nippy at night, it will soon. Of course everybody loves squirrels, but the ones who love squirrels best are those children who are just old enough to go to school. And during those first few days of school, the year’s new batch of children-just-old-enough-to-go-to-school always want to catch us and bring us home with them. The little boys chase us, but the girls are worse. They say, “Oooo, that squirrel would look so cute in my doll’s pink sparkly dress.” I have very nice fur. I don’t need a pink sparkly dress.
The teachers at the school have to teach the new batch of children the same thing they had to teach last year’s batch: None of us who live in the yard—not squirrels, or chipmunks, or rabbits, or mice, or voles, or robins, or the butterflies who are passing through, or worms or even the beetles—not one of us wants to go home with the children.
So I’m looking at the boy—this other guest in the house of the man and the woman and the dog—and I’m thinking: I don’t believe this one knows that whole please-don’t-try-to-catch-the-squirrel thing.
I especially think this when he extends his hand toward me and comes closer.
From the direction where all the people went when they left, I hear another voice, the older, slightly bigger boy calling him, telling him it’s time to eat.
I take a moment to ask myself if I’m ready to eat again.
Meanwhile, the smaller boy turns to answer, and I use the opportunity to jump back to the pile of wood where I first landed when I came Inside, and I snuggle down low.
When he looks again, the younger boy no longer sees me. “Hey!” he says. “Where did you go?” And he steps to where he last saw me, by the shoes near the door.
The larger boy enters the room. Sounding impatient, he tells the smaller one, “Gramma said now.”
The smaller one picks up the shoe by which he saw me standing. He turns the shoe upside down and three almonds and a pecan fall out.
Next starts an argument between the two boys, with the older pointing out why it is not acceptable behavior to store foodstuffs in people’s shoes.
The smaller one denies putting the nuts there and says, “The squirrel did it.”
Of course the larger boy hasn’t seen me. He points out why it is not acceptable behavior to make up stories.
When the smaller one denies that he is making up stories, the older boy points out why it is not acceptable behavior to delay long enough that one of the parents will come looking for them.
The older boy encourages the younger to get moving by pulling him toward the door.
The younger boy tries to resist, but the bigger boy is big enough that the smaller one is sliding in the direction the bigger one wants him to go in.
At which point, the smaller one grabs hold of that scrawny not-good-for-climbing tree to keep from being dragged away.
The older keeps pulling, the younger keeps sliding . . . and the tree tips over, knocking down another of those lamp-things, which hits the floor with a crash.
Wow! People sure keep a lot of breakable things Inside!
The other guests come running in, and—once again—everyone talks really loudly and without listening to anybody else. Mostly, they talk about why it is not acceptable behavior to not mind, and to break things.
I appreciate having been invited Inside to get warm and to eat nuts, but how’s a poor squirrel to get an after-eating nap with all this noise? So I climb back up the entryway, cross the roof, jump onto the branch of my sturdy, climbable tree, and go back into my nice nest hollow. It’s cold here, but it’s quiet. And my tummy is full, which is always a good thing.
I’m just about to fall asleep when I happen to glance once more out of the hole and in the direction of the house where the dog and the man and the man’s mother live, and where their guests have gathered.
The smaller boy has just come out of the front door.
Mostly people children who are that small do not travel alone, so I keep one eye open to see if anybody is following him.
Nobody.
By the way he’s stomping his feet, I can tell he’s angry. Probably because of the whole not-breaking-things conversation.
He is wearing his shoes. I’m guessing he took the nuts out first, unless he’s keeping them there
to eat later. But the only body covering he has is what he was wearing Inside.
People aren’t lucky enough to have fur, much less an attached-blanket tail. Mostly people children wear a lot of body covering when they go Outside. Especially in the snow.
This, I think, is not good.
Not a Good Idea
A polite guest of honor is alert to be sure the other guests don’t feel overlooked. Therefore, one of my duties as guest of honor at the dog’s house is to see that everyone is comfortable. I do not believe the smaller boy could be comfortable when he is Outside with body covering that is meant for Inside.
I get out of my nest, which at this moment I am positive must be the warmest, coziest, most comfortable nest in the best tree hollow in the world. As soon as I step through the hole in my tree, both my eyes snap open wide at the cold.
I find a branch that overhangs the front section of the yard, and I run along its length, chattering at the boy: “Hey! Hey! Hey!” It would be too much to expect the boy to understand, but I’m hoping to at least catch his attention.
Either he does not hear me or he’s ignoring me.
And, of course, there’s no reason for him to ignore me.
I jump one tree over, where there are lower-hanging branches. “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
Nope.
I leap onto the clothesline and use that to get to the last tree I can reach without going to ground level and putting my little paws onto that cold, cold snow.
He has his head down as he walks into the wind. His arms are wrapped around himself, and his shoulders are up, which is not much protection against the snow that is falling. He has to step high to make his way through the snow that is on the ground. I suspect that he’s already regretting his decision to come outside but is too stubborn to go back.
“Hey!” I call.
I sigh and climb down the tree.
Oooo, that snow is cold!
I jump from foot to foot to foot to foot, but that snow is not going to get less cold anytime soon.
The boy is not heading toward the back of the house and to the school yard—which would be the one place that would make a little sense, if he wanted to play there the same way I like to play on the rides around the squirrel feeders. Instead, he walks on the sidewalk in front of the house—or, rather, where the sidewalk would be if it wasn’t for the snow. My guess is that he isn’t so much walking to someplace as away.
The snow is fluffy, not good for walking on top of, so I follow where the boy has walked, bounding from footprint to footprint.
“Hey!” I call again.
This time he hears me and he turns around.
I have to call, “Hey!” again before he figures out to look down.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”
For some reason, he doesn’t sound excited when he says this. Usually when people acknowledge me—adult people as well as people children—they have more energy in their voices.
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?
Table Manners
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 containe
rs 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.