Lexi's Tale

by Johanna Hurwitz

  I nibbled on a dry nut that was in my hole. Then I curled up on top of the wool scarf and promptly fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but suddenly I was jolted awake. I heard the loud barking of a dog at the base of my tree. I knew I was perfectly safe, but still I was curious. I peeked out of my hole.

  The barking stopped as suddenly as it had begun. But below me on the ground I could see a very large dog with something in his mouth. I ran halfway down the tree to get a better view. What I saw horrified me: The dog had PeeWee between his jaws.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PeeWee in Trouble

  I raced down the tree, landed with a thud, and ran to nip at one of the dog’s legs. But as fast as I moved, the dog moved faster—with poor PeeWee hanging out of his mouth. I decided to run back up the tree and jump onto the dog’s back. If I succeeded and landed on top of him, he’d be sure to release PeeWee. I heard a moan come from my friend. If I didn’t hurry, he’d be dead before the dog let go of him.

  Suddenly I heard a loud human voice shouting. The tone sounded like the command of a dog owner. But the words were ones I’d never heard before. There, running toward the dog, was that same bearded man who had been haunting us all day, the man who had taken our breakfast.

  He threw himself onto the dog and grabbed it by the throat. I watched the dog spit out my guinea pig friend and run off with his tail between his legs.

  I called out to PeeWee, “Run! Run!” But before there was enough time for him to make any move at all, something else happened. The man bent down and picked PeeWee up. I thought of some words my mother used to say: Out of the hole and into the dirt. Until now I’d never known what she had meant.

  “Bite him,” I shouted. But PeeWee made no effort to escape. He was shivering with fear.

  “It’s all right. I’ll bite him for you,” I called out, and tried to bite the man in the leg. Instead I found myself with a mouth full of his trousers. The man kicked out his leg and as I let go of his pants, I found myself flying through the air. I landed a distance away and, although shaken, I tried to decide what to do next.

  I watched as the man sat down on a nearby bench. He put PeeWee onto his lap and gently stroked his fur.

  “Jump! Jump!” I shouted to PeeWee. This was his chance to get away. but instead of moving, I could see PeeWee’s body relaxing. He stopped shaking and looked very content to be lying on the man’s lap.

  “He’s not hurting me. He’s very gentle,” PeeWee called to me. “And he smells good too. I feel very safe here.”

  I was scared for my friend, but angry too. “Why are you smelling him?” I demanded to know. “Come with me right now and I’ll find you something that smells good and that tastes good too,” I offered, hoping to make him jump down.

  PeeWee still didn’t move. “Don’t forget—I used to live with human beings,” he reminded me, “in the pet shop where I was born and afterward when I was a pet in a home. That’s how I discovered that good people give off good smells. Nasty people have a bad odor.”

  “You shouldn’t let yourself near enough to a human to smell them,” I warned my friend.

  “But this man likes me, and he saved me from the dog,” PeeWee called out happily.

  That was true, I admitted to myself. “But who knows what he’s going to do to you now?”

  “I’m not afraid. I know he won’t hurt me.” And as if to prove PeeWee’s point, the man continued gently stroking him.

  “He may seem good now,” I said, “but we don’t know what he’s thinking. My mother always said, Go dig for nuts, don’t dig for trouble.”

  “Your mother sure had a lot to say,” PeeWee replied. “And you’re always telling it to me.”

  “You could do a whole lot worse than pay attention to what she said,” I told him grumpily. “My mother was a very wise squirrel, and I’ve always followed the advice she gave me.”

  All the while we were talking, the sky above us had been getting darker. A strong breeze began to blow and the tree branches were swaying above us.

  “It’s going to rain,” I told PeeWee. Even as I said it, I felt the first drop on my head.

  Instinctively I began digging for a last nut or two to fill my stomach before it began to pour. I knew it would be a warm summer rain, but like any other sensible creature I planned to go to my home to keep dry. Only the ducks and the geese over in the lake look forward to rainy days.

  The man got up form the bench and put PeeWee on the ground. He looked around and appeared to be a bit confused. He took his funny cap out of his pocket and put it on his head.

  “This is your chance. You must run now,” I shouted to PeeWee urgently. And this time PeeWee followed my advice and rushed, as fast as a slow, fat guinea pig can, toward his hole in the base of a nearby tree.

  There was a clap of thunder in the distance. “I hope the man has a dry place to go to,” PeeWee said, shaking some drops of rainwater from his pelt.

  “Of course he does,” I replied as I continued to dig in the damp earth. “And if he doesn’t have a hole of his own, he can stay in one of the tunnels in the park. That will protect him.”

  “Oh, good. I didn’t think of that,” PeeWee called out as he slipped into his home.

  “See you later,” I yelled to PeeWee as I stuffed a fat nut into my mouth. Then, thinking better of it, I removed the nut and added, “Don’t get out of your hole until I come for you.”

  I didn’t know where the man was going or what his plans were. But in all the weeks that PeeWee had been living in the park, we had managed to keep him hidden from the human beings. It couldn’t be good that this strange man knew he was here. And I was determined to do all I could to keep my friend safe from him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Stranger’s Breakfast

  I don’t know where PeeWee’s rescuer spent the rainstorm or the night that followed. But I do know that the next morning he was still hanging around in our area. I saw him sitting on the nearby damp park bench when I raced down my tree to search for breakfast. The man was watching me as I came down, and he must have recognized me because he began to speak at once. His words were none I’d ever heard before. I couldn’t make out what it was he was saying, and yet somehow I sensed that he was asking, “Where is your friend?”

  Of course I couldn’t converse with him. And even if I could, there is no way that I would have betrayed PeeWee’s hiding place. But a moment later there was PeeWee himself. He seemed to be utterly fearless in the presence of this bearded stranger, and he ran right up to him. The man bent down and picked up my friend.

  PeeWee lay contentedly on the man’s lap. “Lexi,” PeeWee called out to me, “I can hear his stomach rumbling. He’s hungry.”

  “What do you expect me to do about that?” I asked.

  “We must help him get some food,” PeeWee said. He paused a moment, thinking. “I know,” he said, “Take something from one of the storage trees. You said yourself that there was so much food there that it was bursting out of the holes.”

  “That food is for the feast following the Squirrel Circus,” I said. “It is not meant for hungry humans.”

  “He’s not just any human,” PeeWee pointed out. “He saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Wait a minute,” I shouted. “Don’t forget how many times I’ve saved your life too.”

  “Sure you have,” said PeeWee. “And I’m very grateful. But this man saved me yesterday from that huge dog who would have chewed me to bits. I don’t think he has a home. I think he’s living here in the park like we are. And somehow I think we have to help him.”

  “Stick out your tail and you’re bound to fail, my mother always said,” I told him.

  “Lexi, stop quoting your mother and help me,” said PeeWee. As he spoke, he climbed off the man’s lap and made a big jump (for him) off the park bench. “Actions speak louder than words,” he said.

  If I weren’t a squirrel, I might have been jealous of PeeWee’s stro
ng feeling for his new friend. But squirrels don’t bother with jealousy. The world is full of trees and nuts; that’s all a squirrel needs, and we don’t need to compete for our possessions. So instead I discovered that I was moved by PeeWee’s concern for this man who had rescued him.

  The stranger seemed to know that PeeWee would return, because he didn’t follow him. Perhaps he remained seated because he was weak with hunger. I, however, ran after PeeWee as he hurried toward the three storage trees. There were several squirrels in the area guarding the food. “Tell them it’s okay,” PeeWee shouted to me. As if my words would be enough to convince those hungry squirrel cousins of mine to let PeeWee raid the larder.

  Cousin Seventy-four began chasing PeeWee when he saw him sticking his head into one of the storage holes.

  “Seventy-four,” I called out, “my friend was just going to help make an inventory of the food we’ve gathered.” It was a lie, of course, but I was afraid he’d nip PeeWee if I didn’t stop him.

  “Is an inventory something to eat?” my cousin asked as he turned to look at me.

  “No, it’s a list of what’s there.”

  “We don’t need any list,” said Seventy-four.

  Meanwhile, with Seventy-four distracted, PeeWee had circled around and was trying again to stick his head into the storage hole. He seemed to forget that squirrels have eyes that are positioned in such a way that we can see some things behind us. My cousin took a flying leap and grabbed hold of one of PeeWee’s hind legs.

  “Ouch!” yelled PeeWee. “He’s biting me!”

  “A bite is nothing,” shouted Seventy-one, who was nearby. “Wait until you see what Uncle Ninety-nine is going to do to you. He’ll have you for dinner.”

  It was, of course, an exaggeration. Squirrels, even big fat ones like Uncle Ninety-nine, are mostly herbivores. Meat is not usually a part of our diet.

  “Help!” PeeWee cried out.

  “Okay, Seventy-four,” I said to my cousin, “let that fellow go. I’ll keep an eye on him and he won’t take anything.”

  Seventy-four looked at me and then at PeeWee with a very suspicious expression. He couldn’t speak because the moment he opened his mouth, PeeWee would be freed. Finally his jaw must have become tired. “Run along,” he said to PeeWee angrily. “I know where you live. And if anything’s missing, I’ll know just where to go look for it.”

  It was an empty threat. None of the squirrels knew exactly what had been stored away for the feast. Most of them were so foolish that they would waste their time counting the shells instead of the nuts.

  PeeWee and I made our way back toward the bench where the man was still sitting.

  “Well, don’t just sit there. Dig up a nut for him,” demanded PeeWee.

  I wasn’t used to taking orders from my friend, but nevertheless I began sniffing the ground around me. It wasn’t often that PeeWee felt so passionate about something. Every squirrel knows that a nut underground is a meal waiting to be found, and so almost at once I found an acorn.

  I walked over to the man with it in my mouth. As I approached him, I became aware of what PeeWee had said the day before. He did smell good. There was something about this man that made me feel he wouldn’t betray us. After all, he didn’t have to help PeeWee yesterday. I once saw a dog turn and bite a human. This man had risked that possibility when he went to rescue PeeWee.

  I dropped the nut on the ground at his feet and backed away. Then I watched as the man bent down and picked up the nut. He said some strange word that I couldn’t understand and then he reached for a nearby stone. He used it to hit the nutshell. In a moment the shell was shattered and the man picked out the pieces of nut meat.

  “Thanks,” PeeWee said to me. “Do you think you could find him a few dozen more? He’s awfully big and one nut isn’t going to fill his stomach.”

  “One nut is better than a thousand shells,” I said, quoting my mother. But I knew he was right. What would make a fine meal for a squirrel or a guinea pig would never satisfy a human being. I recalled another one of my mother’s sayings: One acorn a day won’t keep hunger away. I’d have to do an awful lot of digging if I was going to try and satisfy this stranger’s hunger. And all because he saved PeeWee’s life.

  Luckily the man got up from his seat on the bench and walked away. “Thank goodness. Now I can get my own breakfast,” I said to PeeWee.

  “He’ll be back,” PeeWee replied. “So we should collect some more nuts for him.”

  I knew Uncle Ninety-nine would be very upset if he saw how I was spending my morning. With PeeWee’s help I dug up more than three dozen nuts. They made and impressive pile, and it made my mouth water just to look at them.

  “What a nice treat,” a voice called out as I was admiring the stack of nuts.

  Even without looking I knew the voice. It was Uncle Ninety-nine.

  “We have enough for the Squirrel Circus feast,” my uncle said as he poked among the nuts in the pile and selected the largest one. He cracked it quickly and ate it even quicker. Then, as I stood helplessly watching, he took a second and a third nut. PeeWee had moved off at the sight of my uncle. Now he was hidden under a bush, watching the pile of nuts get smaller and smaller.

  “Those nuts are for a very hungry human who rescued PeeWee from a dog yesterday,” I said as I saw my uncle studying the remaining nuts. He was too full to eat another and too lazy to bury any of them.

  “What a ridiculous thing. Squirrels don’t give nuts to humans. Humans give nuts to squirrels,” he said.

  It’s true that in addition to the nuts and seeds the trees provide, there is a group of humans who bring bags of nuts to feed squirrels. But I never think of humans as our prime source of nutrition.

  “Bury these nuts for tomorrow,” Uncle Ninety-nine said as he turned away. “And don’t worry about hungry humans. Let humans worry about humans.”

  I certainly had no intention of burying the nuts that I’d spent the last hour digging up. And in fact, now I worried that some of my other squirrel relatives who were running around in the area would smell the nuts and come for an easy snack too.

  Suddenly I had a good idea. I raced up my tree and returned carrying one of the mittens that had padded my hole. With my uncle gone, PeeWee returned and helped me stuff the nuts inside the mitten. I know that’s not what humans use mittens for, but it was perfect. It just shows that squirrels are smarter than the people who use the park. We don’t cover our paws, but if we have a mitten, we can put it to good use.

  As the sun reached its midday position in the sky, the man returned. He sat down on the bench, and at once he noticed the stuffed mitten that was waiting for him.

  He picked it up and then removed one of the nuts from it.

  He looked around and spotted PeeWee and me waiting under a nearby bush. He called out some words, making the same sounds we’d heard from him earlier in the morning.

  “He’s saying thank you,” Pee Wee told me.

  “So now you’ve become an expert in this new language too,” I said sarcastically. But actually I was pleased at the success of my plan. It isn’t easy to hide nuts from squirrels, and except for Uncle Ninety-nine, I’d kept everyone unaware of the meal I’d dug up. But now, watching the man cracking and gulping down the nuts, I could see they weren’t enough. He’d need a lot more than just a mittenful of nuts to satisfy his hunger.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Old Wallet

  The stranger put the now-empty mitten into his pocket. I guessed that like me he was a scavenger, saving whatever came his way. That’s when I thought of something else that was hidden in my hole. I had a wallet!

  The old leather thing made a fine pillow for my head. But I knew humans had another use for their wallets. Many times I’d watched as fathers or mothers opened their wallets and removed pieces of green paper that they stored inside. They exchanged the green papers for ice cream, pretzels, and balloons for their children. The wallet in my hole was thick with green papers. With it this strange
r could get all the food he wanted.

  I raced up my tree to get the wallet. It wasn’t easy. I had wedged it into my hole and it was harder to pull out than it had been to push inside. But finally I pulled it loose, and with one corner of the wallet in my mouth, I ran back down the tree.

  When I landed on the ground, I looked around. “Where’s the man?” I called out to PeeWee, who was hiding under a nearby bush.

  “He walked away,” PeeWee responded.

  “Look what I brought for him,” I said, proudly pointing to the wallet that I had put on the ground.

  Even before PeeWee could come toward me and admire the wallet, two children came running in our direction.

  “Look,” a little girl called out, reaching for the wallet.

  I leaped toward her, but she’d already grabbed it.

  “What did you find?” her friend asked her.

  “You can’t have it! It’s mine,” she shouted.

  That was a lie. It was mine, and I was going to give it to the man.

  “Let me see,” the little boy whined. But the girl wouldn’t show him. She started to run with the wallet in her hand and the boy chased after her. I ran after them.

  Luckily I didn’t have to go too far. The little girl tripped and as she fell, she dropped the wallet. As fast as a midwinter wind, I snapped up the wallet. The little girl was crying over her scraped knees and the boy was laughing at her. But they both stopped when they saw me racing away. I ran up the nearest tree with the wallet in my jaws.