Hope was as confusing as [Trecon = 5√TA2(L/12)3].58
“And this is for you, or whatever,” said Vin. He placed something in her hand, then hurried away. It was an origami unicorn pressed into superthin leather.
Ana Sofía left the LARPers in rapture over their new callings as Squirrel Scouts and hurried to the cafeteria. She checked her pocket three times to make sure the leather unicorn hadn’t fallen out.
“There you are!” said Doreen, waiting by the doors.
“Everyone’s talking about—” Ana Sofía made a sign Doreen hadn’t seen before. Her left hand formed the sign for an S, a fist with thumb across the fingers. Her right hand made a G, the index finger pointing. She swept the G hand away from the S hand almost as if it were a long, beautiful tail flowing behind a very specific girl.
“Wait, what was that?” said Doreen. “That last sign?”
Ana Sofía finger-spelled S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L G-I-R-L.
“This?” Doreen swept the G away from the S. “This means me?”
Her mouth hung open; her eyes were wide and glinty. She did the sign again. And then she laughed.
“What’s funny?” Ana Sofía asked, tensing for Doreen to say something ignorant about her signing or her deafness.
“You made up a name sign for me,” Doreen signed. “You made up a sign for Squirrel Girl, as if she were a real person.”
Doreen picked Ana Sofía up in a super-powered hug and spun around. Ana Sofía’s stomach seemed to follow a second later, and she almost feared Doreen was lifting her to the ceiling. Ana Sofía glanced into the cafeteria to see if anyone had noticed how easily Doreen had picked her up. But everyone was busy stuffing their faces with sandwiches—and jabbering about Squirrel Girl, probably. Ana Sofía couldn’t help but smile. Her cheeks protested, they were so out of practice, but she insisted. Smile enacted.
“So, what are we going to do tonight?” Ana Sofía signed when Doreen had put her down. “Walk the neighborhood? Catch bad guys? Audition for the Avengers? Save the world?”
“Um…well…” Doreen grimaced. “Actually I’m grounded. I told my mom what I did, and I guess I can’t be Squirrel Girl anymore.”
Doreen tried to smile like it was no big deal, but her chin betrayed her, quivering.
And just like that, Ana Sofía’s weird, uncomfortable but somehow sparkly and alluring new bubble of hope popped.
“You can’t?” she said.
“Tail tucked away forever,” said Doreen.59 “But thanks for making me feel like her, for a few days anyway. I really felt like her. That was unbelievably cool.”
They sat at their usual table and ate in silence. Doreen picked through her trail mix, only eating the macadamia nuts and not even bothering with her second and third sandwiches. Sometimes she adjusted in her seat as if her tail were aching.60
Mike joined them, glowering over his home lunch—a bag of chips, a sleeve of cookies, and a candy bar. Without even looking at Doreen and Ana Sofía he began grumbling. Ana Sofía was able to catch some of what he said, and knowing Mike, was able to fill in the rest.
“Everybody’s talking about that idiotic Jersey Ghost thing,” he said. “Clearly not a ghost. Stupid to even call it that. Probably it’s just some freak who was born with a tail. What kind of a freak has a tail, anyway? Some attention-hungry loner messing with other people’s lives. This is the most annoying day ever. If I have to hear one more person gush about whatever thing that freak really is I’m going to explode. The freak better not show up again.”
Doreen sighed, as if to say, No need to worry about that now.
Mike had been sitting at Ana Sofía’s table since last year. He rarely spoke except to complain about how awful everything was. And honestly, she’d never really disagreed with him. Then entered Doreen, bursting like a fireball of optimism. Only now that fireball seemed extinguished. Maybe Mike had things right after all. Maybe there really was no point. To anything.
Ana Sofía pulled her notebook out of her bag. The purple cover was fading and bent from overuse, the edges of the paper soft as tissues. She flipped through the notes she’d been taking for the past two years, again scanning for a pattern.
Maybe she would postpone giving up. Maybe it was time to go hard-core detective.
DOREEN
Doreen was jamming to some dance tunes, so at first she didn’t hear the light tapping of squirrel claws on her bedroom window.
Music was a kind of emotional food to Doreen. She was always hungry for literal food. There didn’t seem to be enough in the world to quiet her demanding belly. Her crazy-high metabolism and thick, powerful muscles needed constant nourishment. And sometimes her emotions were like that—yipping and yapping and desperate for something. Dancing hard to good music was like an all-you-can-eat buffet for her feelings.
“‘It ain’t fair!’” she sang, holding her hairbrush like a microphone. “‘It ain’t right! How you make me feel like my ribs are too tight! My heart just might burst, my head’s all a’swim, but there’s just no way I’ll let you in!’”
The tapping stopped. Doreen spotted Tippy-Toe, who was staring at her with round, wet eyes. She threw open the window.
“Not you, Tip! I’ll always let you in. I’m just trying to jam away some feelings.”
“Chet-chik,” said Tippy-Toe.
“The dogs? Well, you kind of have to expect crazy from wild dogs, right?” said Doreen.
“Chkka-chtl cht,” Tippy-Toe said.
“That’s terrible, but…Ugh! I’m not supposed to go out….”
“Chuck-chuck.”
“Well, if you’ve got a big meeting of squirrel families tonight, I can certainly understand why you’d want to make sure the dogs wouldn’t be a problem. And it’s just not Doreen Green style to let down her BSFFAEAE.61 But I can’t go anywhere but my babysitting job tonight. I’m grounded. Like a tree squirrel whose parents make her live in a burrow while she thinks very hard about her life choices.”
Tippy-Toe sneezed a disappointed sneeze. The sound struck Doreen like a tiny arrow in her loyal heart. She was, in no uncertain terms, totally bummed to be letting down her friend.
After Tippy left, Doreen packed her babysitting bag with all of baby Dante Santino’s favorites—cow puppet, board book about frogs, horse-head mask, and squeaky toy shaped like a banana—adding her bear-eared hoodie and the utility belt the LARPers had made for her. Then she removed the hoodie and belt. Then she put them back on again. What could it hurt, just to check that a friend was okay?
She leaped down the stairs first before tucking in her tail. Leaping was always easier with a five-foot tail out for balance.
“Mom, I’m going to the Santinos’,” she called from the front door.
Doreen expected her mom to say, Already? Aren’t you early? But instead she just said, “Okay, have fun!”
Doreen stopped in the threshold and sighed. Then she went back. Her mom was in her studio in the front room, painting tiny faces onto tiny sculptures of elves.62
“I know I’m grounded, but I’m going to go to the park on the way because Tippy-Toe needs my help, okay?”
Maureen Green frowned. The grumpy cat face embroidered on her sweatshirt seemed to mirror her own expression. She pointed at Doreen with a paintbrush, size 000.
“No tail?” she asked.
“No tail,” said Doreen. “I promise.”
A tiny voice inside Doreen’s head whispered, Maybe she’s ashamed of you. Maybe she wants you to hide your tail because she thinks you’re a freak.
Nuh-uh, Doreen thought at it.
Uh-huh, the tiny voice argued back, sounding a bit like Mike. Why else the obsession with hiding your tail? Maybe the other kids wouldn’t really be jealous, like she’s always said. Mike certainly wouldn’t be.
Doreen couldn’t argue with that.
Maureen was still considering the situation. Finally she said, “Okay, then. A Green never lets down a friend.”
It was still daylight out. The air comin
g from the park was so thick with tree pollen Doreen thought she could eat it. Birds were chirping at the sinking sun, bees still hummed over autumn blossoms.
There sure were a lot of bees out that afternoon. So much buzzing! Not to mention barking.
Three dogs were in the park, yipping and galloping and chasing squirrels. And one another. Anything really. One was barking at a leaf as it twitched in the wind.
“Easy, doggies!” said Doreen. “Calm the freak down!”
Yelling “calm the freak down” didn’t seem to make any difference whatsoever. Since that had been plan A, now Doreen tried to think up a plan B.
Doreen could sense scores of squirrels high in the trees, trembling. Tippy-Toe came leaping from a tree onto her shoulder.
“Chkucht. Chitter-chit,” she said.
“No problem, I couldn’t leave you hanging like that. You’re right, this is weird, and not the good kind. What’s their deal? Plus are you hearing that buzzing? I don’t see any bees.”
Tippy-Toe sniffed. Doreen cocked her head. Tippy-Toe pointed with one tiny claw. Doreen followed, climbed a tree, and zeroed in on something so tiny she almost didn’t notice it embedded in the bark. Her retractable claws came out and she used them to cut it loose. It was the size of a ladybug, made of metal and plastic, and emitted a high-pitched buzz. A small circle of clear glass or plastic in its center looked a little like a creepy doll eye.
Doreen crushed it between her thumb and finger. Its buzzing stopped.
And yet the air was still vibrating with the squeaky hum.
“Chekk,” said Tippy-Toe.
“Yeah, I bet normal humans can’t hear the buzzing at all. But to dogs, maybe hearing that sound feels like someone stabbing a carrot in your ear.”
“Chuk-chuk.”
“You’re right, a needle would hurt worse than a carrot, but I was trying not to be too gruesome. No wonder those dogs are going crazy. And look at this, Tip,” said Doreen, examining the tiny crushed machine. “On the bottom? ‘MM.’ Those letters were on the squirrel traps. The same jerky-jerk who made those traps is now making dogs go so crazy they’re terrorizing squirrels even more than normal. MM sure has it out for squirrels.”
Doreen and Tippy tracked down several more of the strange little shrieking robot bugs, but oodles of them must have been hidden all over the park, because the air still buzzed with the noise of invisible bees.
“I’m sorry, I have to go, Tip,” said Doreen. “The Santinos are waiting for me. Can I at least transport you past the dogs?”
Tippy-Toe and a couple dozen of her clan leaped onto Doreen’s head and arms, hooking onto her shirt and pants, and Doreen ran them out of the park beyond the crazed canines.
The squirrels leaped to a front-yard tree to continue on their way. But one gray squirrel with a fetching pink bow looked back. Her small black eyes seemed to brim with disappointment at leaving Doreen behind.
Doreen sighed. Obviously she could never be a hero, no matter what Ana Sofía said. Doreen would bet her entire glass squirrel collection that none of the Avengers had homework or babysitting jobs. Or lived with their parents who sometimes grounded them for not tucking their tail into their stretchy pants.
Then again, a number of Avengers did wear stretchy pants. Maybe Captain America or the Hulk had a tail in there, rodent or otherwise….
Nah.
TIPPY-TOE
For the time being, I had to drop the dog problem. We were used to avoiding the curs anyway, but until I could manage to get rid of those buzz-machines that were making them crazy, we would just have to be more careful.
Word had come through the squirrel network that Big Daddy Spud of the ground squirrels would meet with me behind the abandoned Burger-N-Bean Bowl. Humans used the old lot to toss their heaps of trash. No self-respecting squirrel would nest there. Neutral territory.
You usually brought two or three escort squeaks to these kinds of meets. I brought Fuzz Fountain Cortez because she could race a falling raindrop and beat it to the ground, and Bear Bodkin because he could crack a nut with nothing but his paws.
When we arrived, a half dozen ground squirrels stopped us, squat tails up. In front crouched Pug Muffintop. She used to be famous, that one. When I was a tot, she came to town with the circus but stayed behind when the circus left. Now she was just an old groundie who used to wrestle cats for peanuts.
“Just you,” said Pug.
Cortez’s and Bear’s tails twitched, agitated. My stomach felt tight as an acorn in its shell. If Miranda’s account of events was slanted, Big Daddy Spud might well be setting up a trap. Could he do me in and then seize leadership of the tree squirrels?
I spotted Puffin Furslide, the groundie who’d called me ma’am.
“Hey, Puffin, did Miranda chitter true to Spud about our little husking earlier?”
“Total peaches,” he said. “Or half a peach, anyway. I thatched the spots that she left out.”
“Cortez, Bear, I trust this squeak. Nest here for a bit. I’m going in.”
“This is some sour bark, Tips,” Cortez said. “You on top?”
“Solid like ironwood, cousin.” I walked into the lot alongside Puffin knowing I hadn’t really answered Cortez’s question.
Big Daddy Spud was perched on a mound in the center of the dump. He was way bigger than a ground squirrel should be. There were rumors that his mother was a marmot.
“Tippy-Toe! Leaves above, it’s good to see you!” he shouted. “So nice of you to scamper by.”
The dump mounds were alive with chitters and the flickering glints of ground squirrel eyes. The territory was not so neutral after all.
“This your burrow now, Spud?” I asked. I looked to the open sky above. “Seems like you could get caught with your tails out. You opening a hawk buffet?”
Spud giggled. It was a strange sound to hear coming from such a large rodent. “No eater-birds pass these mounds anymore, not ones that we can’t beak-shuck and send back to Eggtown. But to answer your question,” he said, gesturing around the lot-turned-garbage-dump, “this is an off-track burrow. Used for special occasions.”
“Honored to be special,” I said.
“You should be,” he said. “But chew before spit, cousin. Let me apologize for the cat-wrangling done to you by Miranda Creepsforth. She was not acting under orders. Not ‘root to branch,’ as you tree squeaks say.”
“Nuts under the hoard,” I said, willing to let it go.
“Nuts indeed,” Spud said. “And peaches in the end, as you wanted to chitter straight.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve seen the traps? The ones made to catch squeaks?”
“Made to kill squeaks, you mean,” he said.
“That’s them,” I said.
“Seen them eye-and-tooth myself,” he said. “And we’ve lost two of our family to them in our very own burrows.”
“Underground?” I asked. “I’ve only ever seen them in trees and parks.”
“The traps nest where squirrels nest. Which, as you know, is everywhere.”
“Ground and tree mean nothing to these bad weevils, whoever they may be. To them we are the same. I think the season has come to unite.”
“But who is root and who is branch, Tippy-Toe?” he asked. “Do you lead my people? Puffin Furslide seems to trust you, but I suspect most of us think you don’t give a nuthusk about ‘groundies.’ Would you allow me to govern your people?”
“Naw,” I said. “I wouldn’t. But the need for unity stands.”
“I have a suggestion….” But he trailed off, his expression distant. Then the big squirrel stood up on hind legs and called out: “POTTY BREAK!”
About fifty ground squirrels, nosing out of the heaps of trash, fell in line behind Big Daddy Spud as he lumbered to a dark mound in the corner of the lot.
Puffin Furslide was at the back of the line, and I called him over.
“Do you guys always do this?” I whispered. “Go potty at the same time?”
“
As long as I can remember, yeah,” he said. “Unified waste management is very important to the boss.”
Squirrels began exiting the potty mound. Big Daddy Spud climbed back onto his perch.
“Now,” he chittered, “where were we?”
“You had a suggestion,” I squeaked, trying not to laugh at the whole potty thing. The situation was tense enough as it was.
“I did,” Spud said. “It is this: I offer you military command of our mighty squirrels, but only to husk the nut of our mysterious enemy.”
There were gasps from the burrows. Big Daddy Spud raised a silencing paw. “This I will do if,” he added, “you are able to prove yourself a worthy warrior by defeating a superior opponent.”
He slapped the ground three times, and out of that distant dark heap, the one they had all gone potty in, thundered an honest-to-nuts true-blood marmot. If I thought Spud was big, this thing was clearly here to teach me what big really was. The creature stomped to Spud’s side, its fur glistening with what I hoped was sweat.
“Gross,” I whispered, unable to stop myself.
“This is Cletus Scampersaw, my brother from another mother,” said Big Daddy Spud.
I wanted to ask him if he was really sure about the “another mother” part, but now probably wasn’t the time. I also wanted to confirm the moisture on Cletus’s fur was sweat. But again, not a good time.
“Cletus is my top warrior,” Spud said. “If you can best him in battle, I will know you have the right combination of strength and smarts to guide my people to victory.”
I fight to survive. Or to right wrongs. Or for revenge. Or, at least on one occasion, for an orange gumdrop. But I don’t fight for sport. And fighting my own kind, even cousins like marmots, felt like shelling a nut twice.
“Isn’t there some way—?” I started to say.
But Spud shouted, “Cletus! Fight!” And the marmot charged.
I leaped, sailing over Cletus, but he bucked his head as I did, knocking one of my legs mid-flight. My landing was not as graceful as I would have liked, and as soon as I was on my feet again, Cletus had turned and was charging again. We moved like this, charging and leaping, charging and leaping. I couldn’t think of a way to win without seriously hurting him, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt him. We might need this warrior’s help in our fight against the trap-maker.