Nuts to You

by Lynne Rae Perkins

“Anyone as can excape from a hawk, well, there is a thing I have not heerd before,” said a high and scratchy voice.

  “Air y’thinkin’ it’s troo, then?” said another, lower voice.

  “Wail, ’n’ if it is, mebbe he should be king or summit,” said the first.

  “Teller of tales, mebbe,” said the second.

  “King, or summit like that,” said the high voice. “Guv’nor, mebbe. Or hero.”

  “Bein’ lucky don’t make you a hero.”

  “It does, if you ax me. Luck is catchy.”

  “Nobody axed you, though, did they?”

  The voices moved out of Jed’s hearing, and he smiled. It was going to be an interesting day. He took a deep breath, stepped outside, and looked around. And thought, just for an instant, that he saw two gray squirrels through a gap between branches. Not any two gray squirrels, but his best friends, Chai and TsTs. He blinked his eyes. He rubbed them with his paws. When he looked again, sure enough, the gray squirrels were gone. His imagination. I didn’t know I was such a sap, he said to himself.

  Before he could think about it further, three reddish squirrels joined him on his limb. They wanted to hear again the story of how he escaped from the hawk.

  “Tell abowt the woof!” said a squirrel called Phfft.

  “There wasn’t no woof!” said Tsam.

  “Jis’ tell it, then,” said Phfft. “How you excaped, n’all. But first, the snatching bit. The snatching bit is the start uvvit.”

  They settled themselves in the nearby branches to listen. It’s nice when someone wants to hear your story, especially when you are in a strange new place. As Jed told it, more of the reddish squirrels drew close. Some of them shouted prompts when they thought he might be leaving something out.

  Maybe it was because they were sitting so still (mostly) that they heard a rumbling sound start up in the distance. It was an unnatural sound, which rose and fell. Jed paused, and they all listened.

  “Mebbe it’s allus there,” said Chuck. “An’ we don’t pay it no mind.”

  They listened for a moment more, but no one could identify it. They decided it was too far away to worry about.

  “Tell us th’ excaping part,” urged Tsam. “That’s the best part.”

  “Teach us the secret trick!” said Phfft. “Th’ excaping-from-hawks trick!”

  “It wasn’t a trick, exactly,” Jed told them. “It was remembering everything I knew about hawks. It was trying to stay calm and focused.

  “And,” he added honestly, “a lot of it was pure luck.”

  “The trick, the trick!” they called out. “Teach us the trick!” They began to chant:

  “The trick! (thump)

  The trick! (thump)

  Teach us all the trick!”

  The thumps were clapping and foot-stomping. It wasn’t much of a sound, just a beat. Then some of the squirrels began to feel that the point wasn’t so much the trick, but that Jed wasn’t sharing, and a second chant went up, mingling with the first:

  “Share! (thump)

  Share! (thump)

  Show us all how to do that slippy thing that helped you excape!”

  Their hearts were in the right place, but they weren’t very good at rhythm, or rhyming. Even so, they kept at it, and Jed could see there was no getting out of it. He jumped to the ground, and everyone followed. He told them to form a circle around him. First they did some stretches. They took deep breaths. After that, he instructed them to first tense up all their muscles and then relax them. A crash course in Hai Tchree.

  “Like water,” he kept saying. “Make your muscles like water and you can slip through the cracks.”

  The squirrels swayed and wobbled as they tried to figure out how to “be like water.”

  “D’ye mean be as raindrops, or be as a merry brook?” asked Tsam, undulating his arms gracefully. “Phfft is bein’ raindrops,” he said.

  And she was. She was kicking up her hind feet and landing on her bum.

  “It’ll hafta be an offel big crack,” she said. “I ain’t slippin’ throo nuthin’, just yet.”

  “Oim a sweet pond,” said Chrika, who had curled up into a circle on the ground. She yawned, then started to laugh.

  “Oim a be a pond, too, then,” said Phfft. “Looks safer.”

  Chuck concentrated on the tensing-up-then-relaxing exercise. He ignored the bunny-hop line of bouncing squirrels that was forming.

  “Buncha twits,” he muttered.

  “We air but meer drops in the mighty streem!” Tsam sang out from the hopping queue.

  Things were falling apart fast. Jed didn’t really care, but he thought he’d try to at least wrap it all up.

  “Okay, okay, okay!” he shouted. The bouncing line was traveling in a circle around him, and he was able to get everyone to turn and face him again.

  “One last time,” he said. “We’ll all do it together. And don’t get up until I tell you. One. Two. Three. Be like water!”

  All of the squirrels fell to the ground, limp. A couple of them fell asleep. It was a good thing no hawk was in the vicinity. It would have been an all-you-can-eat squirrel buffet. After a few minutes, squirrels started quivering with suppressed laughter. Then Chrika jumped up and said, “Oiken do it now. All dun.” And off she went.

  That was it. Off they all went. But as they went about their business, squirreling through the trees and gathering seeds and whatnot, they turned the Hai Tchree lesson into a game. One of them would shout, “Be loik wooter!” and they would all fall from their branches and drop through the air. The game was to stay limp for as long as possible before flipping around and landing on your feet.

  The rumbling was closer now. It was a sound, and it was also a vibration. It was like thunder, except it didn’t start and stop, it just kept going. It did go up and down, sort of. No one knew quite what to make of it. The conversation about it happened in passing bits and snatches. Some squirrels wondered if it was an unusual new type of weather on the way, maybe a storm. Others favored the idea that it was a horrible beast of some kind.

  “Storm or beest,” said Tsam, to anyone who would listen, “neether is my tops favorite.”

  “And or moin,” said all, shaking their heads.

  “Unregardless,” counseled Chuck. “Wot’s the best is, to ’avv lots o’ food stashed in lots o’ nooks.” Everyone agreed with that, too. So they kept on with their gathering. And as long as you were gathering seeds, you might as well play . . . BeLoikWooter! Squirrels fell from the trees like overripe pine cones. Jed had to laugh. Everyone was laughing. Laughing and falling.

  Meanwhile, a little earlier and a little ways off, TsTs and Chai had crawled from their makeshift drey. Bits of seeds and stems littered their fur. They took a few cautious steps and sniffed at the crisp autumn air. All around, leaves glowed green, golden, vermilion, scarlet, lemony, and amber. Far above was a hazy blue sky. The morning was glorious.

  “And yet,” said Chai, “something doesn’t feel right.”

  “It’s just that we’re not at home,” said TsTs.

  “I don’t know,” said Chai. “I think it’s more than that. Like, what’s with the rumbling noise?”

  “I don’t know,” said TsTs. “Maybe it just does that here.”

  “I don’t like it,” grumbled Chai. He was cranky. He had expected TsTs to wake up and realize it was time to go home. Instead, she was all refreshed and ready to go on.

  “Lighten up,” she said. “I am hungry, though. Let’s find some breakfast.” She plucked one of the seeds clinging to her fur, popped it into her mouth, and made a face.

  “Bleeach. Don’t eat this kind,” she said, pulling another one off and holding it up for Chai to see. She shook her paw to get rid of it. It had little barbs that helped it stick to things like fur.*

  They headed down into the underbrush to search for food. What they wanted was nuts, specifically acorns. But it seemed this wasn’t an oaky part of the forest. So they foraged for seeds, and they found some
dried-up berries. Maybe you have had the experience of waking up in a place where breakfast is different from what you are used to. Let’s say your traditional breakfast food is leftover pizza, and you wake up where they eat hard-boiled eggs or seaweed or oatmeal or termites. Or vice versa. It can throw you off.

  So Chai and TsTs found some food, but there was a part inside each of them (it was the mouth. The taste buds. Stomach-wise, they were fine.) that was still waiting for the acorns to arrive. And the rumbling noise—it was bothering both of them, no matter what TsTs said. Nevertheless, they began their search.

  Yesterday, they had at least had something to aim for. Now it was hard to know where to begin. They climbed the closest tree and made their way along the first bough, scanning to the right and to the left. The branches were strangely empty.

  “I wonder where all the squirrels are,” said TsTs.

  “Someplace with better food, is my guess,” said Chai. And then, without warning, he came to a halt. TsTs nearly crashed into him.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “Why did you stop?”

  “Look,” he said softly. “I found where all the squirrels are.”

  TsTs followed his gaze to a strange and fearful sight.

  “Oh,” she gasped. Looking down through a gap in the foliage, they saw a circle of squirrels lying lifeless on the earth below. Their light bellies faced up, their paws were in the air. There was no blood. There were no signs of a fight.

  “What do you think?” said Chai. “Bad mushrooms, maybe?”

  “I guess we’d better be careful what we eat,” said TsTs. She remembered their weird breakfast.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Okay,” said Chai. “So far.”

  They turned away from the horrible scene and moved on. Before long, squirrels began to appear in the trees. These squirrels seemed very much alive. They were smallish and reddish, and it was hard to make out what they were chattering about. Then all at once, one of them shouted something about water and fell, along with his companion, from the tree. Then it happened again.

  And again.

  The two friends exchanged glances.

  “I think we better be careful what we drink, too,” said TsTs.

  At least it should be easy to spot Jed, she thought to herself. Since he is gray, and there are so many red ones. And as if her thought had made it happen, a gray squirrel darted across a branch a few yards ahead of her.

  “Jed!” she cried out.

  The gray squirrel froze. He knew that voice. But he was sure his homesick imagination was playing tricks on him again. He told himself he would not even look. He took a step forward and whisked his tail. A nervous gesture. That did it. TsTs knew that tail whisk like she knew her own paw.

  “Jed!” she called again. “It’s me! It’s TsTs!”

  Jed could not help himself. He turned and looked and saw not only TsTs, but Chai. Three hearts jumped for joy. Three pairs of shiny black eyes looked from one to another in happy disbelief. They started toward one another.

  But at that instant the rumbling, which had been growing ever louder and closer, exploded into an earsplitting racket of grinding and whining and cracking. And before they could step onto the branch that crossed between them, it shuddered, then dropped right out of sight. Fell to the earth with a crack and a thud. Another higher branch fell, then another. By the time the third branch fell, they were gone. Turning, running, like every nearby creature. Running, flying, creeping, whatever they had to do to get away from whatever it was. No one stopped to see if the noise was storm or beast. There was only scattering, as chunks of tree fell through the air. Scattering to where your ears were not blasted, to where the forest still held together. They scattered with no thought of anything, of any other creature, friend or foe, no thought but escape.

  Behind them, the tremendous racket went on. It was as loud as a thunderclap, but a thunderclap is brief. It’s there and gone. This loudness moved in and stayed, and it was taking the forest apart piece by piece. The friendly tangles of the grove were slashed out of the air, leaving a great raw emptiness. Amid screaming flashes of silver, homes and highways crashed to the ground, where they piled up in heaps of wreckage. There was nothing to do but run. Escape. Scatter.

  THERE were a few creatures who did not scatter. Insects. Burrowers.

  An ancient mink, so old that he was beginning to think he might be immortal, looked out from his hole, shook his head, and went back inside.

  The blue jays hopped or flew just beyond the tumult and screamed back at it.

  And a few brave and curious souls ran only a little way before turning around to try and figure out what it was they were running from.

  TsTs peered from behind the trunk of an ironwood tree. She saw humans, but she had seen them before. Not up in the trees, though. She crawled around the trunk onto a limb and stood watching, paws over her ears, trying to make sense of it.

  At first, she could catch only glimpses of the humans. But as limbs dropped away, she saw that the grinding awful racket was coming from something each of them held in their hands. Was it alive? TsTs couldn’t locate its face, but it was chewing through branches. Chewing, but not eating, like some bizarre type of beaver.

  The vibrations jittered through her footpads. Her front paws were falling asleep from holding them up over her ears, but she couldn’t put them down. The noise was too unbearable.

  TsTs looked away from the sunlit humans and their beaver/tree-chewers, into the shady forest. She couldn’t see a thing at first. Where was Chai? Where was Jed? Surely not far, but which way had they run? Her eyes were starting to adjust when a sudden quiet made her turn again to the place where a grove had been. She squinted at the brightness. The humans were dropping to the ground.

  Noise erupted again as they used the tree-chewers to gnaw the tree parts into even smaller bits, which they arranged into piles. They weren’t making nests for themselves. There were spaces in them that a squirrel could crawl into, but a human would never be able to fit.

  “What’s that about?” TsTs murmured.

  She alternated between watching with a morbid fascination and scanning for Jed and Chai. Where were they? She felt sure they would find her, but she wished they would do it soon.

  The deafening din abruptly ended. The sound of wood falling on wood could be heard, and the voices of the humans.

  After a time, when it seemed that the relative quiet might last, those creatures who had scattered less distantly began to make their way back. Cautiously, they crept to the chewed-off edge of the livable world.

  THERE were three of the humans. They were eating. It had to be said that their food smelled pretty good. Their voices rose and fell in conversation and laughter. The tree-chewers rested nearby.

  Their words sounded like gibberish, but TsTs listened to the sounds they were making. Now that it was quiet, they spoke calmly to one another. As if nothing had happened.

  A stray breezelet lifted an intoxicating scent to her nose. It was both sweet and savory, both nutty and new. It was irresistible and maybe even magical, because without even knowing how it happened, she found herself down on the ground, within harvesting distance. Whoa, she thought. How did that happen? She froze, hoping they had not seen her. But one of them turned and looked right into her eyes. And spoke.

  “Blahblahblah, blah blablah,” it said.

  The other two turned their heads then, and now they were all watching her.

  “Blahblahblahblahblah blablabla, blablablablablalabla,” said one of them.

  The first one spoke again, to TsTs.

  “Blah blah blah blah?” it asked. It tore off a bit of its food and tossed it toward her, gently. It landed at her feet. The aroma was overpowering. TsTs looked at that human, then at the others. The one that had tossed the food took another bite and, while still chewing, said, “Blahblah. Blahblah!”

  TsTs took the bit of food in her mouth and ran to the nearest tree, up the trunk, onto a high s
afe limb.

  “Blah blah! Blahblah blah blah!” one of them called after her, and then laughter.

  Her heart was racing and she took the food in her paws while she calmed herself. She took deep slow breaths, in and out. She tried to empty her mind. While her mind was emptying, her paws lifted the food to her mouth and she bit into it. Oh my. Wow. It was delicious. What was this brown creamy stuff? She had never tasted anything quite like it. She licked at her paws where some of the stuff had stuck. Mmmmmm.

  She looked back down at the humans. What were they up to? She didn’t like hawks and she didn’t like wolves, but she understood them. This was more confusing.

  With a fluttering of wings, a young screech owl settled down next to her.

  “Look at them!” screeched the angry bird. “Hoodlums! Barbarians!” She blinked in the unfiltered sunlight. She had been sleeping, though poorly, when her home split in two.

  “What kind of wild beasts are they?” she sputtered.

  “Maybe they will build some kind of nest now,” said TsTs. “Maybe the destruction is over.”

  “No,” said a familiar voice to the other side of her.

  TsTs whipped around. It was Jed!

  “Jed!” she cried. “Where have you been? What took you so long? Where’s Chai?”

  Before he could answer, she hugged him hard around his middle.

  “I’m just so glad to see you!” she said, half into his fur.

  Jed couldn’t help laughing, but he had no good news.

  “I haven’t seen Chai,” he said. “Not yet. And I don’t think it’s over. The humans aren’t finished. They’re going to keep going as soon as they’ve eaten. Look.”

  TsTs looked where he was pointing and saw that it wasn’t just this grove that had been dismantled. There was a long furrow of empty air, as far as she could see. Empty, that is, except for the buzzpaths and the frozen spiderwebs.

  “They’re making a desert all along the buzzpaths,” said Jed.

  “Why are they doing that?” asked TsTs. “What for?”

  Jed shrugged.

  “Beats me,” he said. “Who knows?”*

  “They’re doing it because they’re idiots,” said the screech owl. “But at least they will move on now and leave us alone.”