Squirrel in the Museum

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Blah, blah, blah. Too many big words!

  Boring!

  Besides, I hear Security Guard’s big feet. I hear Security Guard’s big voice: “Stop that squirrel!”

  Yet another security guard has joined Security Guard and Bin Guy. Like Security Guard, this new person has a ponytail, but while his is gray, hers is brown.

  Security Guard still has his butterfly net, Bin Guy still has his blue plastic bin, and Ponytail is carrying a puffy coat.

  Ponytail’s voice is just as loud as Security Guard’s when she shouts, “Don’t let that squirrel near the pendulum!”

  It’s not that I want to get near that broken pendulum planet, but—with all those children gathered around the big circle on the floor—near the broken pendulum planet is the only spot not blocked by feet.

  I run. I jump. I land on the planet called Foucault Pendulum. I shinny up the metal cord that attaches the planet to the ceiling until I am higher than the heads of the children and the adults. The cord swings and sways and twists and twirls.

  The museum worker was wrong about the children having to wait for this planet to knock over a pin. It knocks one over right away.

  The children cheer, “The squirrel scores!”

  Security Guard swings his net just as Bin Guy tries to scoop me up with the blue bin. The broken planet swings into a second pin and then a third.

  Ponytail tosses her coat at me but misses, and more pins fall.

  The children cheer, “The security guards score!”

  Three is as high as I can count anyway, and I leap off the cord.

  My skillful jump takes me beyond the circle of children gathered around the Foucault Pendulum planet. Many of the children in this different part of the same room have turned to see what is going on with all the shouting around the broken planet. But a few continue what they were doing, which is watching one of the other children, who is standing on a platform with her hand touching a metal ball about the size of a young groundhog. This is the same girl with the pink sparkly backpack. There’s a teacher with this group of children, and he says, “Notice how the Van de Graaff generator makes static electricity that causes Lydia’s hair to stand on end.”

  My jump—have I mentioned I’m an excellent jumper?—has landed me on the girl’s poufy head. I feel my fur ripple up and away from my body in a tickly way.

  I hear one of the other children call out, “Notice how Lydia has a squirrel on her head!”

  Even if I hadn’t recognized the girl before, I would recognize her by her scream.

  I look around for someplace else to jump. Nearby is another ball—this one is baby-groundhog-sized. It is clear, and it has lightning inside it. A boy is heading straight toward it saying, “I want to touch the plasma ball.”

  There’s a museum worker here who does not warn, Stay away! Lightning hurts! Instead, he lets the boy place one hand on the ball, then gives him a glass stick to hold with the other hand. The glass stick begins to glow.

  Over the sound of the pink sparkle girl screaming, I hear the museum worker say, “My! It’s noisy in here today!” Then he asks, “Does it hurt?”

  I think he should have worried about that before he let the child touch the ball.

  But the boy tells his classmates, “No,” and the museum worker says, “I told you it wouldn’t. Anybody else want to touch the plasma ball and light up the bulb?”

  I do not, even though the lightning does not seem able to get out.

  Instead, I jump onto a table that has balls of different sizes floating over it—they’re not attached to strings, just floating. The table has air blowing out of it, which startles me. (Not frightens—startles.) I back away from the breezy spot on the table.

  And right into another gust of air.

  I move sideways and into another strong blast of wind. And then another. As I move, each of the balls stops floating, one after another. Drop! Drop! Drop!

  Security guards 1, 2, and 3 have picked up their net, blue bin, and coat. “By the Bernoulli air pressure table!” Security Guard shouts, pointing at me. They have seen me, but they don’t see the balls on the floor. The security guards drop, too. Drop! Drop! Drop!

  “Somebody get that squirrel!” Security Guard shouts from the floor.

  The three security guards have gotten their arms and legs tangled, so they are having trouble standing back up.

  I jump off the drafty table and onto the floor. Across from me, a set of doors open, sliding into the wall. I run into the room, but it is very small. It is also filled with a group of children and one teacher. They all back against the walls when they see me. None of them scream, but a few do squeal. I’m guessing they’re happy squeals—since everybody loves squirrels.

  Since there is nowhere to go from here, I’m about to run out the way I came in, but the doors slide back, closing us all in together.

  One of the children says, “Hit the button for the second floor,” and one of the others pokes at a button on the wall just as the teacher says, “No, hit open doors.”

  The doors do not open. The floor shakes a bit, and I feel that the room is moving—like the school bus. I watch the children, to make sure none of them is planning to capture me and make me into a pet.

  “Don’t make eye contact,” one of the children whispers to the others.

  “It’s a squirrel,” the teacher whispers back, “not a crazed ninja hypnotist.”

  But he doesn’t look into my eyes, either.

  And I’m not looking at the teacher. I’m looking at one of the children, who is holding a bag of potato chips. I’m just thinking how very, very hungry I am when he lets the bag fall to the floor. The room isn’t moving that much, so I know he must have dropped it on purpose.

  I leap forward and grab one of the chips. It’s the polite thing to do, since he offered them.

  Usually the potato chips in the garbage can by the playground are small and soggy, but this is big and crispy and oh-so-yummy.

  Then the doors slide open, and the room is like the school bus, because we’ve moved to a different place.

  “Floor two,” says a voice that comes from the ceiling, an adult woman’s voice even though there are only children, one man teacher, and one squirrel present. “Natural history diorama displays.”

  I hold one more potato chip between my teeth, then run out of the small room.

  “Stay on,” their teacher tells me—or maybe he means the children. I can’t stay. I have scientific questions that need to be answered. None of the children from the movable room follow. They just let the doors close again. They must be more interested in moving than in getting someplace.

  I am in a long hallway that has big windows on each side. These must be the natural history diorama displays, whatever that means.

  There are more children here, and they’re running back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and not using their indoor voices. I also hear the same adult voice that I heard in the movable room. But a whole lot of people must have the same voice, because I hear her saying a whole bunch of different things all at the same time so that I can’t even make out the words.

  Every time one voice goes quiet, one of the children runs up to the buttons that are by each window and slaps it, and the voice starts again. The children are so busy running and making the voices talk they don’t even notice me.

  I finish eating my potato chip, then run to one window and look in.

  On the other side of the window is a room smaller than the classrooms at school. In this room there’s the top part of a tree, even though I don’t see the bottom part. I can see sky behind the tree, but I can’t smell anything—probably because of the glass.

  Now that I’m standing right in front of this room, I can hear the voice that goes with it. The voice is saying, “…their summers in the Arctic Circle, but they visit our part of the Nort
hern Hemisphere in the winter. You are most likely to spot a snowy owl by the shoreline or in agricultural fields…”

  Yikes! And in science museums! After noticing all those other things first, now I see that sitting on one of the branches is an owl! Owls eat squirrels! His wings are spread and I know that in a moment he will fling himself off the branch and into the air. Yes, there’s glass between us, but I haven’t had a chance to look closely.

  This might be like the fish-tank room with Mars Rover in it that had no top.

  There’s no time to look now.

  I run.

  I zig and zag among the children. The floor is slippery so that my feet move faster than my body and I go sliding and skidding around corners and into children.

  These children didn’t see me before, but they see me now. Especially when I accidentally run into them. Some of them scream. I take this to mean that the owl is close.

  There are many hallways branching away from the one I first saw. Each hallway is lined with more little glassed-in rooms that are diorama displays, with the voices talking.

  There is no place to hide under.

  A door opens, and security guards 1, 2, and 3 come through carrying their net, bin, and coat. I see stairs behind them, but the door closes before I get there.

  Security Guard points at me and says, “There he is!”

  I have never before met a person who is so determined to make me into a pet.

  I think to myself, Better to be a pet than to be dinner.

  But still I run into a group of children, so that their legs will hide me—from security guards and from the owl.

  Ponytail throws her coat and captures one of the children.

  Over the children’s squeals, I hear Bin Guy ask, “Where?”

  And Security Guard answers, “By the snowy owl diorama.”

  Double yikes! Somehow I have gotten twisted around and ended exactly back where I started.

  And the owl is right there, fierce and ready to swoop and grab me up in his talons!

  But…

  That means he couldn’t have been chasing me.

  Why is he exactly where he was before, in exactly the same eager-to-snack-on-Twitch pose?

  I realize this owl is another model, a toy like T-Rex. Now I can see that even the sky isn’t real but is just a picture. What’s the matter with these museum people, having dinosaurs and lightning balls and owls where they can scare children?

  The doors to the movable room open, and there are even more children in there than before, including the boy in the movable chair, but this time they are coming out. Should I run there?

  The door to the stairs opens, but a whole bunch of children are coming that way, talking and laughing excitedly. Should I run there?

  And another door opens, but there’s only one person standing in that doorway.

  I decide that’s where I need to run.

  “What’s going on here?” the museum worker who is standing alone asks. “What’s all the noise? Quiet, everybody! Children!” She claps her hands. “Indoor voices!”

  She’s so busy trying to get the children quiet, she doesn’t even notice me running past her into the new room. And when Security Guard shouts, “He’s going in the staff lounge!” she only puts her finger to her lips and repeats, “Indoor voices.”

  No diorama displays in here. And no people.

  This room has lockers, like in the hallways at school, but not as many, and tables, like in the cafeteria at school, but not so many of those, either.

  What there’s lots of is places to hide under.

  But there’s also food on one of the tables. It’s been so incredibly long since I’ve eaten! I climb on the table, but by then I’m going so fast, I crash into somebody’s plate and glass, and then—zoom!—slide right off the other end.

  Luckily the dish comes along with me, so I don’t have to climb back up the table. The dish had lots of veggies in it: lettuce and tomatoes and broccoli and radishes. And there’s cheese, too, and slices of hard-boiled egg, which is something people invented that makes my stomach sing with happiness. Without that egg, it would have been hard to choose. I cram some egg into my mouth, then run and hide under a bookcase.

  I wonder if there are books about wolves in there.

  I wonder if there are books about squirrels.

  Probably, because people love squirrels.

  People come running into the room: the museum worker who wanted the children to be quiet, the children (who have not gotten quiet), the teachers who were with the children, and security guards 1, 2, and 3—all pressing into the room.

  “He’s got to be here somewhere,” Security Guard says, swinging his net in the air as though he thinks squirrels can fly. He accidentally hits Bin Guy on the head, making him drop his blue bin, which lands on Security Guard’s foot. Ponytail is looking for someplace to fling her coat.

  People start shouting suggestions about where they think I might be hiding.

  “Find him!”

  “Check behind that couch!”

  “Check inside that couch!”

  “Move that coatrack!”

  The boy in the movable chair is not shouting suggestions.

  Maybe because his chair makes him closer to the ground than anybody else, he tips his head and looks under things.

  He sees me under the bookcase. I will have to leave my hiding spot before I’ve even finished chewing my egg.

  Except…

  He does not tell anybody. He puts his finger to his lips in the same way the museum worker did to signal Quiet.

  Of course I can be quiet. Squirrels are good at being quiet when they need to be.

  There are security guards, children, teachers, and museum workers crowded into the staff lounge room—all searching for me. Most of the people are running around, looking behind things, looking under things, looking on top of things, looking behind/under/on top of things they’ve already looked behind/under/on top of. Those who aren’t running around are shouting advice about where to look.

  “Look in the cabinet under the sink.”

  “Did you move the cushions on the chair?”

  “What about behind the refrigerator?”

  “What about in the refrigerator?”

  All that activity makes me want to run back and forth, too.

  Especially when I see that the person who picked the spilled food off the floor didn’t notice one of those small tomatoes. Nobody else notices, either.

  My empty tummy tells me how very good that tomato would taste. I imagine my teeth pressing into the firm skin, then the sudden pop! and the squirt of juice in my mouth. Mmmm! It’s not very far from where I’m hiding under the bookcase.

  But then someone’s foot kicks it away. And somebody else’s foot kicks it in a different direction, still away. It bounces off the table leg and goes spinning toward one of the chairs. But yet another foot kicks it before it rolls underneath, and now it’s within a quick dash-and-grab of me.

  The boy in the movable chair sees me watching the tomato and he raises a hand the way the crossing guards at school do to signal Stop.

  Someone else kicks the tomato and now it’s farther from me than before. I’d better go for it before it gets too far away.

  But then, before I move, I hear Security Guard ask, “Did anyone look under the bookcase?”

  Uh-oh!

  I back up, but there isn’t far to go. The sides and back of the bookcase go all the way down to the floor, so there’s no way out but through the front—where I can see the feet of Security Guard coming toward me.

  The boy in the movable chair wheels himself between me and Security Guard and asks, “What about the lockers? Shouldn’t you search those?”

  Security Guard stops walking toward me. “How would he get in?” he asks. “They’re all clo
sed.”

  “But they don’t have locks,” the boy says. “He might have. You don’t know he didn’t. Squirrels have hands, and that’s one smart squirrel.”

  I am, I think. I’m a very smart squirrel.

  Security Guard growls, “That’s one dead squirrel if I get my hands on him. I plan to wring his neck.”

  Oooo, so not a pet after all. I wonder if he could be a wolf.

  A little girl starts crying. She’d want me as a pet.

  The museum worker who was in here eating all that glorious food tells Security Guard, “That’s no way to talk.” She tells the little girl, the children, everybody, “Don’t worry. I’m the director of the museum, and what I say goes. We will capture the squirrel live and release it unharmed outside.”

  If I get to choose, that definitely sounds better than neck-wringing.

  The museum worker-director says to Security Guard, “Why don’t you check the lockers?”

  Grumbling, he turns away from the bookcase. He opens a locker, slams it shut, opens another locker, slams it shut…The boy in the movable chair looks at me and pats next to himself, the seat of the chair.

  I think he’s trying to help, but I’m not sure.

  Everybody else is facing the lockers.

  I decide now is the time to catch that traveling tomato.

  I dart out from under the bookcase, and—oops!—it turns out not everyone is watching Security Guard open and close lockers. “There he is!” calls out the girl who was crying before. Then she adds, “You meant that about not hurting him, didn’t you?”

  A little late to check now!

  I run to hide back under the bookcase, but everybody’s watching, so that’s no good. I change direction as quickly as that tomato bouncing off someone’s toe. I go under the table. Too open. The food that spilled has made the floor slippery, and I skid when I try to change directions. I slide away from the chair close to the door and find myself near the couch instead. I climb up onto the couch and run along the back.