Nuts to you, my friend, he thought.
Nuts to us all.
AUTHOR’S ENDNOTE
THE squirrel looked at me expectantly, but my sandwich was gone. I held up my hands, the universal symbol for “that’s all there is.” He chuckled and shook his head.
“Yes,” he said. “I can see that it’s all gone. I’m not a dog. What I’m asking is, was it you?”
“Was who me?” I asked. I could see by his expression that he was beginning to find me a bit dim.
“Are you the one who left the messages?” he asked.
“Oh!” I said. “No. No, it wasn’t me. Why would you think so?”
“Nuts,” he said. “TsTs was always sure it was the human with the tail on the back of its head. And you have one of those.”
I felt my ponytail.
“It’s pretty common,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed. An unfortunate mutation. My sympathies.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s okay.”
We sat there a moment.
“I’ve always thought that one would be interesting to talk with,” he said. “It seemed more intelligent than most.”
“Because it left bits of bread with peanut butter?” I asked.
“That was a gesture,” said the squirrel. “An attempt to communicate. An apology.”
“You mean like, ‘I cut down your home. Here, have a snack,’” I said.
“Scoff if you like,” he said. “I think that human was having a change of heart. Because it met TsTs. She had that effect, you know.”
I nodded.
“How did you come to leave the forest and live among humans?” I asked. “I mean, in a nutshell.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” he laughed drily. “Well, in a nutshell, I didn’t leave the forest. The forest left me.”
“Oh,” I said. I felt guilty. As if I had cut down the forest myself.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I have a nice place over there in the condos. I just wish—” He didn’t finish his sentence.
“Wish what?” I asked. “What do you wish?”
“I wish humans understood how important trees are,” he said.
“I’ll tell them,” I said. He looked at me skeptically.
“You?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll tell them your story. And I’ll plant some trees. Oak trees.”
“Oaks are good,” he said. “Any kind is good. It’s not just for us, you know. It’s for you, too.”
“I know,” I said. “I understand.”
“You’re not just saying that?” he asked. “You really will?”
“I really will,” I said. “I promise.”
“Don’t plant them under the buzzpaths, though,” he said. “You’d be wasting your time.”
“I won’t,” I said. He seemed to feel better.
“Well,” he said, “It’s been nice chatting. I’m off. Nuts to you.” And before I could answer, he was gone. But I’m sure you know what I called out after him. Softly, without moving my lips very much since I was now sitting on a park bench, alone. I say it to you now.
Nuts to you, my friend. Nuts to us all.
1
“DEAD squirrels?” asked Jed. “What dead squirrels?”
The four friends were playing Pick-up Sticks. A handful of pups skittered and careened nearby.
“They were all lying in a circle, belly-up. With one squirrel in the middle,” said TsTs.
“And then we saw squirrels start falling out of the trees. They all said something about the water,” said Chai.
“It was like a horrible omen,” said TsTs.
“Wait a minute,” said Jed. “Did they say, ‘Be loik wooter’?” A smile began to form at the corners of his mouth and in his eyes.
“Yes! That’s it! It was awful and creepy! Why are you smiling?” demanded TsTs.
Jed burst out laughing.
He could not stop for a very long time.
2
“WE left messages for you,” said TsTs. “Did you see them?”
“I was ahead of you, remember?” said Chai. “Did you see my messages?”
“No!” said TsTs. “Where did you leave them?”
“I’m just kidding,” said Chai. “I didn’t leave any.”
TsTs slugged him.
“Ow!” said Chai. “Sorry!”
3
“YOU don’t eat acorns?” said Chai incredulously. “What do you mean? Everyone eats acorns.”
“Red squirrels don’t,” said Tchke. “Food allergy.”
4
“THE mate don’t fancy the modern stoyle,” said the reddish squirrel to his friend. “Prefers traditional. Oy sayt’s roight noice, though. Solid as all get-aht.”
He rapped his knuckles against the wall.
“Not only ’at, it comes with this miracle fiber nesting bisness. Keller of a beauteous sunrise. A mite itchy. But so woorm. Yooshid trite.”
5
THE squirrel formerly known as Tchke’s Grandpa floated downstream on a raft of debris. He had a bump on his noggin, and at this point in time, he could not say who he was. Maybe it would come to him. The day, though, was a beauty.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D like to thank the squirrel community for being so welcoming, both in terms of offering valuable insights into squirrel culture and their willingness to pose for drawings.
Jip, although he can be kind of flaky, was an especially excellent model.
When he posed for this drawing, I told him to think about the funniest thing that had ever happened to him.
I asked him later what it was that he thought of, but he was laughing so hard, I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Then I asked him to re-create his reaction to seeing Jed again, after thinking he had been killed by the hawk.
I found it to be quite a moving and subtle portrayal of the feelings such an event might call up.
Everyone has hidden gifts, don’t they?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHOTO BY LUCY PERKINS
LYNNE RAE PERKINS was awarded the Newbery Medal for Criss Cross. She is the author of two other novels—All Alone in the Universe, a companion to Criss Cross, and As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth. Lynne Rae Perkins has also written and illustrated several picture books, including The Broken Cat, Snow Music, Pictures from Our Vacation, and The Cardboard Piano. The author, who loves peanut butter, lives with her family in northern Michigan, land of forests and squirrels. You can visit her online at www.LynneRaePerkins.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
CREDITS
Cover art © 2014 by Lynne Rae Perkins
Cover design by Paul Zakris
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
NUTS TO YOU. Copyright © 2014 by Lynne Rae Perkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perkins, Lynne Rae.
Nuts to you / Lynne Rae Perkins.
pages cm
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: Carried off by a hawk and then
miraculously dropped from its talons, a young squirrel survives a soft landing and resolves to find his way home, while his best friends begin their search for him.
ISBN 978-0-06-009275-7 (hardback)
EPub Edition July 2014 ISBN 9780062262202
[1. Squirrels—Fiction. 2. Survival—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Forests and forestry—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P4313Nu 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013048701
14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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*The fact that I am referring to “his normal voice” when talking about a squirrel should tell you something. But what can I say? It happened.
*If someone, your teacher maybe, ever asks what “irony” or “being ironic” means, you can say it’s when a squirrel says, “our friend, the hawk,” and you will be right.
*thick water. Or perhaps like a non-Newtonian fluid. Look it up on YouTube.
*There are two ways to pronounce TsTs: it’s easier for humans to say “Tsuh-Tsuh,” but the real way to pronounce it is by making two tongue clicks, very close together. It is currently the most frequently given girl squirrel name, the “Emma” of squirrel names. If you sit and watch squirrels, you will no doubt hear it.
*There is a good chance that her eyes were fooling her. Jed was far away. Very far away. He could not have been more than a dot. But she did see him fall. Probably. Yes, I think she did.
*I am still not certain if a realm is a specific geographical place, like a county, or a measurement, like a mile. Either way, it’s big.
*(allowing it to travel and get accidentally planted far afield, giving it a greater chance for survival as a species)
*They were doing it to prevent the trees from bumping against or severing the power lines, which can cause all kinds of problems, including fires. But how is a squirrel to know that? Let alone an owl.
*Death squirted from the sticks like scent from a skunk. But faster, farther, and louder. Very loud. Loud and sharp, like a woodpecker pecking, times a billion.
**Fortunately, they were easy to spot once you learned how. The first time Chai saw one, he didn’t know what was going on. The hillside seemed all shifty and shimmery. There were floating human heads with no bodies. It made him feel dizzy, and he thought he might be coming down with something. He had to grab on to the tree trunk. But it was an optical illusion. Once you saw the pattern they had wrapped themselves in, you couldn’t unsee it. It was kind of cheesy, really.
*How to pronounce? Make the “ch” sound, then “kah.” Squirrels may laugh at you, but they’ll know what you’re saying.
*They shared the news selectively. They did not, for example, warn any creatures whose diet included small mammals. Which was quite a large chunk of the woodland population. So their news spreading did not slow them down too much.
*Not an adjective. A species.
*“Brk” is pronounced just as it’s spelled, except the r is rolled. It means “moustache” in Croatian, but in squirrel, it’s just a name.
*There is a way of choosing teams for ice hockey where everyone throws their hockey sticks into a pile. Then the captains take turns picking the sticks up from the top. When they pick up a stick, the stick’s owner goes onto that captain’s team. “Tails in” is a lot like that, only with tails instead of sticks. And more teams. You can also negotiate a little, if everyone agrees.
*You may be feeling the same way. It’s understandable.
*For example: What is brown and sticky? A stick. / Somebody said you sounded like an owl. Who? / Why did the mushroom go to the party? Because he was a fungi.
*I know. Another one.
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