A Game of Fox & Squirrels

by Jenn Reese

  Voices wafted over from one of the windows. Aunt Vicky’s voice. Sam took another look at the forest and crept along the house. She wasn’t trying to listen.

  You’d better not have been eavesdropping. I won’t tell you again.

  But she also couldn’t help hearing, now that she was right here.

  “… it’s not.” Aunt Vicky’s voice was broken and stilted, as if she were crying. “Seeing them there, the looks on their faces … It all came back. All of it.”

  “It’s okay,” Hannah said, and then she asked a question that Sam couldn’t hear.

  “Saturday,” Aunt Vicky said. “How am I going to get through tomorrow? What if they ask me about Grant?”

  Grant was her father’s name. Sam pressed her palm against the side of the house to keep her balance. They were talking about the caseworker coming tomorrow, and about Sam’s dad. Aunt Vicky’s brother. Why would the caseworker ask about him? Hadn’t Sam answered enough questions about her father for a lifetime already? And besides, Aunt Vicky didn’t even know him. She didn’t know anything!

  “I know it’s not easy, Vic, but it’s going to be okay. I swear, it will be,” Hannah said. “Let me call your therapist now. I’ll leave a message on her machine.”

  Aunt Vicky let out another sob. “What if I become just like him? Just like my mother? I didn’t have kids for a reason, Hannah. You know that. You know why.”

  A ball of thorns formed in Sam’s throat, making it hard to swallow.

  “Come away from the window,” a familiar voice said from behind Sam. “Nothing good will come from spying.”

  Sam turned and found Ashander leaning against a tree at the edge of the forest, barely visible in the shadows. She took a step toward him.

  “There’s a smart girl,” he said with a grin. “Now let’s see if you’ve passed the first test.”

  FROM THE RULES FOR FOX & SQUIRRELS

  EARN THE FOX’S FAVOR

  To earn the Fox’s favor, you must offer him cards from your hand—even though you’ve been saving those cards for scoring. Even though those cards represent the nuts that will help you survive winter.

  The Fox demands unwavering loyalty. Do whatever you must to prove it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AS SAM WALKED toward Ashander, Aunt Vicky’s voice faded away, replaced by a ghostly, rhythmic chorus of crickets. Soon she could hear nothing of the conversation behind her. In fact, she wouldn’t have been surprised to turn around and find the house itself entirely gone, swallowed up by the night.

  Ashander, his fur and hat and fancy coat turned gray and silver in the moonlight, beckoned her closer. The wind seemed to push Sam from behind, tousling her hair and urging her to obey.

  “Well?” he asked. “Did you solve the riddle?”

  “I think so,” Sam said. She felt as if she were at the top of a roller coaster, in that weightless moment before the coaster plunged over the edge and the ride became either thrilling or terrifying. Or both. She swallowed. “The answer is … a mouse.”

  Ashander’s eyes lit up like flames. “Very good, Samantha!”

  Sam felt an echoing warmth inside her chest. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she wanted to impress Ashander. To make him proud.

  “And did you bring me my prize?” Ashander asked, leaning toward her. He licked his lips and rubbed his paws together, as if he was expecting a tasty treat.

  Which he probably was.

  Sam’s sudden blaze of satisfaction died out immediately. She wrapped her hand around the computer mouse in her pocket. This was a mistake. A huge mistake. She didn’t know how Ashander would react. Would he think she was trying to cheat? But it was too late to back out of her plan now. All she could do was forge onward and pretend she had all the confidence in the world. Be like Caitlin.

  “Yes,” Sam said, and her voice only wavered a little. “I caught one for you.”

  She held out the mouse on her palm. Its cord tail dangled almost all the way to the ground.

  Ashander stared at it, his face unreadable.

  The fox’s whiskers bristled. Was he angry?

  His ear twitched. Was he surprised?

  Sam’s heart gave a single rabbit hop. She took a small step back.

  And then Ashander lifted his foxy chin and laughed. Laughed!

  “Oh, you are a clever one, Sam,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

  Sam was so relieved that she wanted to laugh herself.

  “And I especially appreciate that the prize you’ve brought me belongs to someone else. Your aunt, am I right? Excellent choice!” Ashander said as his chuckle faded. “There’s no fun in stealing things that are already ours.”

  He took the mouse from Sam’s hand. His fur tickled her palm, his claws lightly scratching her skin.

  “Yes, yes. Quite clever,” he said again, although this time he seemed to be talking to himself.

  “So … did I pass the test?” Sam asked. She wanted to hear him say it. She wanted there to be no doubt.

  He swung the mouse by its tail. In his hands, the simple piece of office equipment seemed to dance and spin as if it were alive.

  “Oh, you passed, dear girl,” Ashander said. “You have officially won my trust.”

  Sam shivered as if a spell had covered her in sparkles. She’d done it! She’d passed the first test! She was one step closer to the Golden Acorn, and to her parents, and to home. She was so excited that she almost didn’t hear Ashander mutter softly, “I hope for your sake that you keep it.”

  “I will,” Sam said solemnly, even though she wanted to do a victory dance around the whole forest. “I will be worthy of your trust!”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he continued. “Are you ready for the second test? Or perhaps you’ve had enough excitement for a while. You need a break! Perhaps some tea and scones and a good long sleep by the fire…”

  “No!” She looked at her watch. Not at the time, but at the tiny glowing moon, almost full. “What do I have to do?”

  Ashander continued spinning the computer mouse. “Well, I did have a test in mind—a good one, too. I was going to send you to the tallest tree in the forest to catch an owl. Oh, how much fun you would have had, up that high without a net! And owl claws are so notoriously long and sharp…”

  Sam gulped. If that was the test he wasn’t giving her, then she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was worse.

  “But I’m starting to think that might be too easy for you. And we must work hard for the things we want.” Ashander smiled. “Now that your aunt Vicky is part of this, I think she should stay a part of it, don’t you?”

  “What? No!” Sam said. She already felt terrible for taking her aunt’s computer mouse. “She doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “Nor should she find out,” Ashander replied. “You see, the second test … is the test of loyalty.”

  Loyalty. Sam shivered again. Heroes were always loyal. They never told the enemy their plans, even when they were captured. Sam winced a little, remembering the night BriAnn had stayed over and Sam had made a bad joke about her father’s temper. Her mother had driven BriAnn home immediately. He’s your father, Samantha. You owe him everything.

  Sam understood loyalty now. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  “Here, then, is your new test,” Ashander said. “Pay it heed, for I will only say it once.”

  “I’m ready,” Sam said, wishing she had one of those fancy phones that could record things.

  Ashander took a step back, deeper into the shadows. Now the moonlight shone only on his muzzle, and his eyes were merely glints in the darkness. He spoke with a whispered voice that seemed to come from both him and the forest at the same time.

  A gift more precious than it seems,

  it is the very stuff of dreams.

  Beloved! Behold

  its radiant gold

  brings joy to she who holds it dear.

  Prove loyalty, and bring it here!


  Sam repeated it in her head as fast as she could, over and over—Beloved! Behold its radiant—but Ashander didn’t wait for her to finish as the squirrels had.

  “You’ve a fast brain, Samantha,” the fox said. “We shall see if you’ve the loyalty to match.”

  Brings joy to she who holds it dear—

  “And since time is running out, you’ll need a good deal of both.”

  Prove loyalty, and bring it here!

  There, she had it memorized! She did!

  “Why so quiet?” Ashander asked. “Fox got your tongue?”

  “I’ll figure it out. I promise,” Sam said. She saw the computer mouse still in his hand and decided to take a risk. What was one more when she had already taken so many? “Since you can’t eat the mouse I brought, I could … Could I take it back?” If she was careful, she could slip it right back into the mess of computer cords on the table and Aunt Vicky would never miss it.

  Ashander stepped toward her, and the moon drenched him in eerie light. He held out the mouse in his open palm.

  Sam hesitated. He seemed perfectly at ease and as dashing as ever. No hardness in his eyes. Those weren’t always reliable signs, but sometimes they were.

  She reached for the mouse. As her first fingertip brushed the smooth plastic, Ashander yanked it away.

  “No,” he said quietly. “You may not have it back. These are not friendly favors, girl; they are tests. You want the Golden Acorn, and this is the price.”

  An animal howled in the distance, as if in warning.

  Sam flinched. “I … I understand.”

  Ashander stared at her and she saw it, the glimmer of something dangerous in his eyes. But then he smiled his old foxy smile and held his arms wide. “You’re doing well, Sam. Very well, indeed! Keep it up, and you’ll soon find yourself back where you want to be. Till tomorrow, then.”

  He bowed with a great flourish and stepped backward into the forest. The shadows engulfed him immediately.

  Sam stood alone in the moonlight, her breath coming shallow and fast, and tried to still the shaking in her legs. The forest felt emptier without Ashander, as if by leaving he had also taken the very wind and leaves.

  “Hail and well met, Sam!” a tiny voice called. Birch raced out from behind a tree, followed by Cedar. Behind them, walking on her hind legs in a far more stately fashion, was Maple. Sam was so relieved to see them that she almost clapped.

  “Congratulations, Sam,” Maple said. “We knew you would pass the first test!”

  Cedar lifted an acorn cap holding three tiny confections. “We made you celebration tarts, but I ate mine on the way here. I could also eat yours, if you don’t want it.”

  “Rude!” Birch chided. “At least let Sam admire my handiwork before it disappears. I mashed the acorn meat particularly well.” She looked up at Sam with the white ruff of her chest puffed out. “Swordplay isn’t the only thing I’m good at.”

  “I can see that!” Sam said, genuinely delighted. She was slightly less excited at the prospect of eating acorn meat.

  Still, people didn’t bake special treats for her that often. Her mom baked special cupcakes on report card day, and that one time Sam had gotten a truly awful haircut and cried for a whole afternoon, her mother had made a strawberry-rhubarb pie. But right now, it was Aunt Vicky’s chocolate birthday cake that came to mind most vividly. Probably because she’d just eaten it.

  Sam knelt and admired the tiny acorn tarts. “Thank you for such an amazing gift. Look how perfectly round they are! Is that a leaf design on top?”

  “Yes!” Birch said, and held her chin so high she was in danger of falling over backward.

  Cedar eyed Sam expectantly, his paw already wrapped around another tart.

  Sam winked at him. “I’m pretty full right now,” she said, patting her stomach as if such a wee morsel of food could make a difference. “Would you please eat mine for me?”

  Birch and Cedar needed no further prodding. They each shoved a tart into their mouths and then began play-fighting over the last one. Sam laughed. It felt good to be nice to the squirrels.

  Maple sighed with a smile and came to stand by Sam’s bent knee. The scarf around her neck fluttered softly.

  “You impressed Ashander a great deal,” Maple said quietly. “I have rarely seen him so proud!”

  Sam felt herself puffing up, just like Birch had.

  Maple put a soft paw on Sam’s leg. “But … you took a risk with your clever answer. Please don’t try to trick him again. It may go very differently if you do.”

  Sam wanted to brush off Maple’s warning, to continue basking in the glow of her victory, but she remembered the look in Ashander’s eyes when he’d mentioned the Golden Acorn and its price. She hugged her arms.

  “I’ll be careful,” she told Maple.

  It’s what heroes were supposed to say, even if they didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MR. SANCHEZ—THEIR NEW caseworker—was due to arrive at ten, and Sam intended to spend every minute beforehand locked securely in her room. Aunt Vicky was bound to discover her missing computer mouse. What if she asked Sam about it? What if she somehow knew? What if Sam had left fingerprints, and Aunt Vicky or Hannah owned one of those personal crime kits and dusted the scene and ran her prints through the computer and—

  “Caitlin! Sam!” Hannah called from the kitchen. “Breakfast!”

  Well, there was no escaping her fate now.

  Caitlin’s door opened. Sam waited a beat before opening her own and was surprised to run smack into her sister.

  “You can go to breakfast without me, you know,” Caitlin said quietly.

  “I know,” Sam answered, chagrined.

  “I know you know.” Caitlin sighed, but not in a mean way. It was like she was trying to say something but didn’t know how.

  “What are you going to say today?” Sam asked. “If Mr. Sanchez asks.”

  Caitlin shrugged. “Same things I said last time, I guess.”

  “I mean about this place,” Sam said. “About … how you like it here.”

  Caitlin held Sam’s gaze. “I’m going to tell him the truth. It’s a pretty nice place, and it’s great having a treadmill in my room. Don’t you think it’s okay?”

  Sam’s mind filled with all the things she missed. The movie nights. The afternoon donuts at the food cart on their block. Her after-school “study sessions” with BriAnn where they did nothing but look at animals on pet adoption websites and assign them superpowers and new names.

  “But what about your softball team?” Sam asked. “All your friends are in another state.”

  Caitlin leaned against the wall. “Yeah, well, they’re still my friends even if they’re not in front of my face every day. And I’ll make new ones here. So will you.”

  Back home, Caitlin was a total grouch half the time when Sam asked her a question. It was weird that she actually answered things here, and without giving Sam a hard time.

  “Just give Mr. Sanchez a chance, okay?” Caitlin asked.

  Grudgingly, Sam said, “Fine.”

  Caitlin punched Sam’s shoulder playfully, like she sometimes did to her softball friends. “There’s the team spirit! Now let’s go eat. I’m half dead from starving.”

  Aunt Vicky and Hannah bustled around the kitchen, pouring cereal, wiping surfaces, and trying to find cabinet space for all the mugs and dishes that seemed permanently at home on the countertops. Sam ate breakfast and tried not to stare at the computers on the table. More specifically, at what was missing from the computers.

  As if she could read Sam’s thoughts, Aunt Vicky said, “Should we move the computers? Does it look bad that they’re on the table where we eat?”

  Sam spooned a huge heap of cereal flakes into her mouth and crunched furiously.

  Hannah gave Aunt Vicky’s arm a squeeze. “This is how we live, and that’s what we want him to see. It’s fine.”

  When someone said things were “fine,” they almost never we
re.

  But Sam didn’t want to think about Mr. Sanchez’s impending visit, or about what was going to happen when Aunt Vicky realized her mouse was gone. Instead, she ate her cereal and thought about her new test.

  The riddle said the “gift” was precious, and that it “brings joy to she who holds it dear.” Clearly it was something Aunt Vicky cherished. Sam would have to watch her closely to see what she loved. It might look suspicious to write everything down in a notebook, so she’d have to keep track in her head.

  Today Aunt Vicky was wearing long shorts and a pink short-sleeved button-down shirt. No earrings or necklace that Sam could see. A watch with a thick green strap clung to her wrist, and a plain gold ring circled one of her fingers.

  Nothing seemed particularly special. Sam’s mental notebook remained blank.

  Mr. Sanchez arrived fifteen minutes before ten, while Aunt Vicky was still mopping the kitchen floor. She put the mop and bucket in the corner, wiped her hands on her shorts, and let him in.

  Mr. Sanchez was taller than Sam’s dad, with arms and shoulders like tree trunks, and he wore the tiniest wire-rimmed glasses Sam had ever seen. They looked like doll glasses on his big, square face. How did they even stay on?

  A woman who introduced herself as Sally Overton-Black had come with him. She was tall, too, but more like a sapling with thin arms and dangly earrings.

  Mr. Sanchez and Sally Overton-Black smiled a lot. Not as much as Hannah did, but still more than people who were responsible for keeping Sam from her parents should. And they wanted to talk to Sam first. Alone. That was nothing to smile about.

  Sam sat at Aunt Vicky’s kitchen table, her feet wrapped around the legs of the wooden chair, her hands toying with the silver ring she’d put on that morning for strength. She knew better than to scowl, but she was thinking it. Scowl, scowl, scowl.

  Mr. Sanchez and Sally Overton-Black leaned back in their chairs on the other side of the table and smiled and sipped from mugs of tea, before Hannah and Aunt Vicky and Caitlin all went outside to see the chickens.