Nuts to You

by Lynne Rae Perkins

  She fluffed up and resettled, then swiveled her head around to look at the forest behind her.

  “I only hope all the good cavities aren’t already taken,” she said.

  “Our situation is a little different,” TsTs said thoughtfully. She couldn’t believe that within minutes of sharing food with a human, she was having a conversation with an owl. Screech owls were small and did not eat squirrels most of the time. But. You didn’t talk with them.

  (That’s what disasters do sometimes. They throw us together with those who are our adversaries. Who play for a different team. For a short time, a common enemy dissolves our differences and makes us realize what we share. Until someone gets hungry.)

  TsTs thought about what Jed had said: a desert all along the buzzpaths. If that was true, then their own home was in peril.

  “We’re from further on up the buzzpaths,” she said. “Our families—”

  Her voice broke, and she hid her face in her paws. She had been brave so far, but saying those words out loud opened a floodgate inside of her. How blithely she had left them all behind. But she had never planned to leave them forever. And what would happen now? Her shoulders shook.

  Jed looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t made the connection yet between the buzzpath and the unexpected appearance of his friends.

  “Wait,” he said, “you mean, these are the same buzzpaths? Our buzzpaths? Is that how you guys found me?”

  TsTs nodded, her face still buried.

  “I climbed to the treetop,” she whispered. “I watched you fall from the hawk. I counted the objects.”

  Well, of course, thought Jed. Everything had happened so fast, events had tumbled over him helter-skelter. He hadn’t had time to make sense of them, but now he could see it. Of course it was the buzzpaths. How else could Chai and TsTs ever have found him?

  TsTs was weeping quietly. Jed took her paw and squeezed it.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

  “Why not?” asked TsTs in a quavering voice.

  It was a good question. Jed didn’t have an answer, except maybe, “Because if you keep crying, I might cry, too.” Instead, he asked gently, “How many objects were there? How far did you come?”

  He asked because he wanted to know, but also because sometimes getting someone who is upset to think about numbers can help them to feel calm.

  “Three,” sobbed TsTs. “Three objects.” She began to sob harder. The calming-by-numbers wasn’t working yet.

  The screech owl turned her head sideways to observe them.

  “There’s no use in blubbering,” she said. “Get on with it. Find a hole. Look for food.” She fluttered to the next limb.

  “It is what it is,” they heard her say. Then another rustle of wings and, more distantly, “Move on. Get a grip. Deal with it.”

  TsTs’s sobs were subsiding, but she was still distressed.

  “You move on,” she muttered. “Stupid owl. Oh. Sorry—I guess that’s redundant.”

  So much for interspecies harmony.

  “Think of it this way, TsTs,” said Jed. “It’s really lucky that we’re here right now. That we saw all of this. Because we can go back home and warn everyone. But we have to go now. There’s no time to lose.”

  This had just popped into his head, and he only said it for something to say. But it was a sensible idea, and it shone like a ray of sunlight that finds its way into a dark cave. The light showed TsTs a path out of her despair. Because she was a creature of action. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her paws. She squared her shoulders.

  “Okay,” she said. “What about Chai, though? We have to find him.”

  She turned and scanned the trees.

  “Right,” said Jed. “Absolutely. We have to find Chai.”

  He didn’t know how on earth they could do it.

  But maybe the answer to that would pop into his head, too.

  WHEN the racket came crashing and thrashing through the trees, Chai did not lose his head. He ran a little way, sure. But then he turned to see what, exactly, it was. He was baffled by what he saw, and he retreated, step by step. Reaching behind him with one paw at a time, he shifted his weight steadily backward as he watched.

  They were humans, but what were they doing? The humans he had seen before walked underneath the trees, on the earth. They had picnics. Sometimes they left tasty scraps behind. There were also humans who could knock the life out of an animal just by pointing at it with a stick. Those you had to watch out for.*

  Chai glanced over his shoulder to see if his way was clear, then looked again toward the humans. They were up in the trees. The incredible noise came from what they held in their hands, but it wasn’t the death sticks. It was something different. Chai peered closely: one of them had come quite near. He readied himself to cut and run, but he couldn’t help trying to figure out what the thing was. Part of it was extremely silvery, like the surface of a pond. He sniffed, and the acrid odor wrinkled his nose. He took a step back, then another.

  Chai watched the object enter a solid bough the way a duck’s foot enters water. But while water heals back up and is the same as before, the bough fell heavily to the ground. Thunk.

  Looking down, Chai saw that the bough was not alone down there. A few others had already fallen.

  The sound was shrill and grating. Angry. There were three shouting humans and three harshly whining objects. All the noises bounced back and forth. It was hard to tell which sounds were coming from where.

  Chai covered his ears and stepped back. And again. He thought to say something to TsTs—he turned, thinking she must be close by, but he didn’t see her. And then he was aware of a shadow, a cloud passing over the sun. When he looked up, he saw that the shadow was not from a cloud, but a dark shape, a chunk of bough falling toward him.

  Chai stepped and fell freely through the air. He did not fall far, but it was a panic jump. His form was bad, and he did not spot his landing. He belly flopped hard onto another limb. The wind was knocked out of him. Before he could recover, the dark chunk hit the same limb where he dangled, momentarily limp, and sent him bouncing off on another flight.

  Too bad, he thought, that I’m not a flying squirrel. He stretched his arms and legs out just in case. Maybe he had never tried. Maybe he had ancestors he didn’t know about.

  When he sensed that it wasn’t working, which was right away, Chai looked down in the direction he was falling. Just the ground. And not that far. Okay, he thought, that I can handle. He brought his paws under him for the landing. As he was about to hit the ground, he saw and smelled that he was headed for a slimy dark mess.

  “Nuts!” he said aloud. “Fresh owl barf! From a sick owl!” Which is a squirrel curse phrase. But it was also a simple statement of what he was about to land in. By the time he finished saying it, he had landed in it.

  The pellets of bones, fur, scales, and feathers that a healthy owl coughs up are no big deal. But the ones that come from a sick owl? I think you can imagine.

  Chai sighed as he stepped away from the gooey mess. He looked around for something to wipe himself off on and found a patch of moss. That would do. That would do nicely. As he rubbed the slime from his fur he thought, It could have been worse. It could have been—it could have been—there were any number of foul things it could have been. Still, when a squirrel tries to feel grateful to have landed in sick owl barf, he is not having his best day.

  When he had cleaned his fur as well as he could, Chai stood up. Ready to go again. Which was when he felt that he was being observed. But from where? And by what?

  His position on the food chain told him to run first and ask questions later. Chai bolted back up the tree. Then away from the humans and their falling chunks of limbs. Away, away, away. Just away. Then zigzag. Up and down. Double back. Confuse it. Lose it.

  So where was Chai?

  I wish I could tell you.

  He didn’t know, himself.

  THE human who had shared food with T
sTs unwrapped another sandwich.

  “Peanut butter,” he said. “They love it. This must be so freaky for them, all the noise and everything.”

  “I know,” said one of the others. “Like, ‘Oh, no, it’s the end of the world!’”

  “Don’t worry, animals,” this one called out. “We’re just clearing the power line. We’re leaving you the forest.”

  “You guys,” said the third. “It’s like when you lift up a rock and there’s an ants’ nest underneath. They all swarm off and they have a new colony built in about five minutes. They don’t even think about it. It’s instinct.”

  “There’s always more dirt, though,” said the first one, who had silvery fur with a tail that came from the back of his head instead of where tails usually are. “For the ants. There isn’t always more trees. Aren’t always more trees, I mean.”

  “Well, we are leaving them lots of trees,” said the one that had talked about ants. This one had reddish brown shaggy bristly fur all around its head except where its eyes, nose, and mouth could be seen.

  “They don’t know that,” said the silvery one.

  “Well, maybe you should tell them,” said the one that was a female and had dark head-fur with the texture of lichen.

  “I would,” said the silvery one. “If I could. If I knew how.”

  SWIFTLY and skillfully, Chai ran until he sensed he was safe. Better safe than sorry. Then, because he knew he would have to return to where the awful noise was if he wanted to rejoin his friends, he cocked his ear and listened for it. But he could hear nothing, aside from the normal sounds of the forest.

  Had he run that far? Chai looked around. Not a clue. He sniffed. He listened. Nothing. A deer and her fawn browsed in the undergrowth. A woodpecker tapped nearby. A whiff of skunk drifted up.

  Had he run a great distance, or was the racket all over and done with? Chai went up top to see what he could see.

  When he found the line of frozen spiderwebs poking out of the forest, something was different. Chai squinted. It almost looked as if the forest had been split, chewed away around the spiderwebs, leaving them in a lonely unprotected trough. Up to a point. Then the canopy remained undisturbed. He didn’t know what to make of it.

  He looked for the silver egg and the great beak to orient himself, then descended to traveling level and headed back.

  As he drew closer, he passed huddles of squawking and squabbling creatures. Scraps of conversations reached his ears.

  “Monsters,” said a chickadee. “Giants. Fiends. My heart is still pounding. My down is standing on end.”

  “It was quite frightening,” a rabbit murmured to a groundhog. “I know I am easily frightened, but even so. This was something big. Something scary.”

  “Hoodlums,” came from a small screech owl, screeching to no one in particular from the safety of a hollow in a beech tree. “Barbarians. Idiots. But what can you do? You pick yourself up. You pull yourself together. You move on.”

  And Chai did move on. Presently he came to the third frozen spiderweb. The forest still surrounded it, but not far off he saw the kind of brightness that comes from a clearing. A clearing that had not been here before. He decided to go up the spiderweb for a better view.

  He had climbed just higher than the treetops when a voice from overhead called out, “Jed!” Startled, he looked up. Two reddish squirrels were watching him from a ledge that was part of the spiderweb.

  “Noice ’at, Jed!” said the smaller one, patting the top of his own head.

  “At’s not Jed,” said the other. “Sorry! We thought you was summun else. Summun we know. Name of Jed.”

  “’E looks loik Jed,” said the first. “’E’s gray, n’all.”

  “Jed ain’t the owny gray squirrel there is,” said the big one.

  “Do you know Jed?” asked Chai, climbing higher. “Have you seen him?”

  “’E torks funny loik Jed, too,” said the small one, snickering.

  “Don’t moind ’im,” said the other. He extended his paw as Chai reached their level. “Oim Chuck, roight?”

  “’N’ oim Tsam,” said the small one. Recovering his manners, he added, “We was jest aboot t’ chaow daown. D’yoo keer to partake?” Then he turned to Chuck and, behind his paw, added, “’E prolly don’t know what a pinecone is, neither.”

  “I’m Chai,” said Chai, “and you’re right. I don’t.”

  So they showed him, as they had showed Jed only the day before. They marveled at his story.

  “You gray types is quoit th’adventurous lot!” said Chuck. “We reddish tends to stay put.”

  “So do I,” said Chai. “Usually.”

  Chuck and Tsam were staying put by moving into a large cavity in the corner of the ledge. They showed Chai how they had already begun to cozy it up with grasses and leaves. After the brief tour, they stepped back out onto what Chuck was calling “the verandah” and gazed at the unusual view before them. The forest had been removed from all around the buzzpaths. A long corridor of empty space stretched as far as they could see, until a curve took it out of sight. Some humans sat on the ground at the close end of the corridor, having a picnic.

  Chai didn’t understand why the buzzpaths needed so much empty air around them. But having traveled here on the buzzpaths, he understood that these were the same paths that passed through his own grove. One of them was within jumping distance of his mom and dad’s nest. How frightened they would be if this destruction happened there. Terrified. And then it dawned on him that this would happen there. That’s what was going on. Their home, his home, everyone’s home would disappear.

  He had to go tell them. Warn them. Help them. He would warn everyone.

  “But they’re all dun,” said Chuck, when Chai told them his plan. Tsam stretched, basking in the sunlight. “Lissen at how quiet it is!” he said.

  “They’re not all done,” said Chai. “If they were, they would leave.” Still, he hesitated. Not because of Chuck’s words, but because of Jed and TsTs. They were somewhere in this strange place far from home. Maybe together, maybe each one alone. How on earth could he find them? How could he not try?

  At the same time, in a definite location that he knew how to get to, everyone else he loved was unaware of the mayhem and destruction coming their way.

  He was only one squirrel. There wasn’t much time. What should he do?

  What would you do, if it were you?

  TSTS and Jed circled around the chopped-off edge of the ragged new clearing. They called out to Chai, turning and shouting in every direction. They waited after each shout, listening. They stepped deeper into the forest and traveled back around in a bigger circle, looking and calling and listening. They moved carefully but swiftly.

  They were not alone. Everywhere they met other creatures calling out for their lost ones. Asking, Have you seen a chipmunk with an extra black stripe? Have you seen a young bat? An old opossum with a torn ear?

  TsTs and Jed asked, too: Have you seen a handsome gray squirrel, the best friend anyone ever had? He wears an acorn hat with a sprig of goldenrod in it.

  Are you sure?

  They knew that Chai could be very far away by now. He could be anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. How do you know when it makes no sense to keep looking?

  They crept close to the Edge again and watched the humans.

  “I talked to one of them, Jed,” said TsTs. “Or at least, it talked to me.”

  “One of who?” asked Jed.

  “Them,” said TsTs, gesturing. “The humans. Before you found me. Something came over me. It must have been the smell of their food. They have this really delicious—”

  “So, what did you do,” Jed interrupted, incredulous, “you went down and asked for some?”

  “I—I guess so. All of a sudden I was down there. And one of them, the one with the tail on its head, spoke to me and tossed me some food. As if it was trying to make friends.”

  Jed had never spoken with a human. He didn’t even know it was po
ssible. Leave it to TsTs, he thought. If anyone could talk to them, it would be her.

  “What did it say?” he asked.

  “Who knows?” said TsTs. “Their speech is so garbled. It has so many sounds in it. The thing is, I don’t understand what they’re doing. But I don’t think they mean us any harm.”

  Jed couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s warm heart.

  “The thing is,” he said, “they are chomping their way through the woods. And it doesn’t really matter why. We still have to get out of the way.”

  “Well,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “That’s a good thing to know.”

  The three humans were standing up. Stretching. Moving around. Jed spoke with a calmness he did not feel.

  “I think we have to go,” he said. “Before it starts again. Chai will be okay. He can take care of himself. But think of—”

  He was interrupted by the harsh, peevish, guttural purr of one of the tree-chewers.

  TsTs said, “Okay. But we have to leave messages. A trail.”

  “How can we?” asked Jed. “They’re cutting everything away.”

  “We’ll have to leave the messages right on the buzzpaths,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Jed. “Is it all right if I ask how again?”

  They were standing on a limb right in the path of destruction. The humans walked toward them. TsTs looked around. Hastily, she pulled a nearby leaf from its stem with both paws. She nibbled the edge of the leaf, then tore it halfway, along the main vein. She nibbled a hole in the middle and spat out the leafy pulp. Then she climbed down onto one of the buzzpaths and wrapped the leaf around it. The leaf swung upside down. But it stayed there.

  Jed watched admiringly. It probably wouldn’t stay put in a stiff breeze. And he didn’t know that Chai would recognize it as a message, even if he saw it. Then again, maybe he would. Who else but TsTs would make such a thing?

  “Good idea,” he said.

  TsTs saw his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear his words. The racket had begun. She flinched at the noise, but only because it was so loud and so sudden. She wasn’t afraid of it anymore. It was something you could run from. And they had a plan. Hurriedly, they left messages on the other two buzzpaths. Then they were off.