Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is the next chapter of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Previous chapters were published earlier this month.  I plan to publish one chapter each week from here on out until reaching the gripping conclusion!  Thanks for reading! Please leave comments!

SQUIRREL TALES: Chapter 9
by Mary Lee Corlett

PILE THREE: SQUIRREL GAMES

 

Rainy nights don’t usually bother me. Even when I was younger I could stay warm and dry all snuggled in the nest with Nutmeg beside me and Mother nearby, too.  But I remember the first time I experienced a really ferocious storm.  I hadn’t known rain could be like that!  There was booming thunder, and flashing streaks of lightning cracking the night sky, and lots of wind and a relentless, icy rain that viciously pelted the leafy layers that were so far managing to protect us from the worst of it.  But the scariest part was the angry and repeated explosions of the Pole Box across the Dodgeway.  It hissed and smoked, snarled and fumed like some primitive, evil, wild thing.  Nutmeg and I huddled together in a synchronized shiver, waiting with sleepless wide eyes for morning to come and the storm to finally pass.

 

On rainy days, Hazel and Nutmeg would find a sturdy branch in the oak or the poplar tree—one well protected from the weather by a dense cover of leaves. If it were one of those all-day, penetrating rains, they would sit with their tails curled up over their heads as an additional shield against the constant drip of water from above. Once settled in, they would play “Find the Nut.”  This was, of course, a shell game, and they both liked it so well that they would often play it for several minutes at time!  That is, before being distracted by something else, and then having to start all over again just to keep count.  To play, you must hide a small nut or other juicy bit in an empty hickory nutshell (or sweet gum ball), and then carefully line up a few dozen other empty casings along the branch.  The other player had three chances to “find the nut.”  The first player to find the other’s nut five times in a row got to eat it.   It was good practice (the finding, that is, but maybe the eating, too) for the real world.

Hazel glanced down to see that in the rain Mrs. Tiggy-winkle had taken on a bit of a shine.  Her stoic expression, however, remained unchanged, so if she minded the rain, Hazel couldn’t tell by looking.  Hazel liked playing “Find the Nut” but she was beginning to get a bit bored and wished it would stop raining so they could do something else.  Hazel loved games of all kinds, particularly the most active ones.  The kind you couldn’t play in a downpour.  She sighed.  One of her favorites was “Tree the Cat.”  To win, you must lure the cat the furthest distance up into the canopy. Bonus points were awarded for those happy, rare occasions when the cat could be coaxed to climb higher than its comfort zone and then would end up stuck in the tree for a day or so while it worked on mustering the courage to come back down.  But unfortunately, that game could be played only when one of the neighborhood cats came around, and that just wasn’t going to happen in the rain.  The cats hated the rain and were never out in it.

Hazel also loved “Bird Bounce,” the object of which was to incite the neighborhood’s overly aggressive, dive-bombing Cardinal into flying head-first at the Boxel’s big picture window. And then there was “Shadow Dancing,” which involved outmaneuvering your opponent’s shadow.  This was best played at the end of the day, when the shadows were longest.  But her favorite game, by far, was the 100 Picket Dash, played, of course, on the fence.  It was her favorite for one simple reason: she always won!

Nutmeg, on the other hand, especially liked to play practical jokes.  She’d climb out on a limb—one that was sturdy enough to hold her weight, but just barely—and she’d wait.  When one of the adult squirrels happened by—Mr. Chase or Mrs. Fidgets for example—she would take a step toward the end of the branch and then begin swaying and bobbing.  First to the right—“Whoaa!”—then to the left—“Yaaahhh!”—then up, then down, arms flailing, tail swishing, as if she could not catch her balance and was doomed to plunge to the earth below in an undignified, unsquirrel-like manner.  Mrs. Fidgets would fret, “Oh Dear! Oh Dear!” Mr. Chase would holler instructions in the futile attempt to help her save herself. But Mother just shook her head.  She was never one to fall for her daughter’s antics, although she often had to work very hard to hold back her smile.

 

Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is the next chapter of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Previous chapters were published earlier this month.  I plan to publish one chapter each week from here on out until reaching the gripping conclusion!  Thanks for reading! Please leave comments!

SQUIRREL TALES: Chapter 8

by  Mary Lee Corlett

 

PILE TWO: MRS. TIGGY-WINKLE

 

It is sometimes entertaining to watch Boxel antics from high up in the branches.   On a clear day, you can really see a lot.  Yesterday Nutmeg and I watched Boxel pandemonium on the Dodgeway below.   If the rattling and rumbling of all the big Boxel Trucks roaring through the neighborhood hadn’t already gotten our attention, then that dirty orange metal beast with a scooping box and huge teeth on one end and the long arm with another scoop on the other end that they were towing along the Dodgeway on a Boxel Flat Rolling Thing surely would have!  I don’t think the Boxels planned it, because right after it happened they were shouting at each other and waving their arms and pointing all at the same time, but the scoop arm got caught in the low branches of the sycamore tree on the other side of the Dodgeway.  It dragged some of the lower branches with it before the Boxels realized what was happening, which was not until branches finally began snapping and went flying up into the high wires directly overhead. Then the Pole Box sparked and exploded, wires popped off their connections on the Poles and leaves and wood scattered everywhere! What a mess! It might have been rather funny to watch the Boxels cope with their own mayhem, except that it was one of the most important treetop routes across the Dodgeway--our own Sycamore Crossing--that was involved and we held our breath until at last they drove away leaving behind our sycamore tree—badly damaged but at least it was still standing—and lots and lots of dirt, bark, leaves and branches on the ground in their wake.

 

As the days passed, the sisters were mastering their nuts and berries and growing more and more independent.  And they were more daring, too, now able to leap effortlessly from branch to branch, when the distance wasn’t too great, as they used the canopy to race from one side of the yard to the other and back again. It was interesting, seeing the yard from all of its different corners, but so far, it had always been from above.

         Hazel, though, was growing ever more confident, and thought she was ready to move down the tree trunk for a closer look at the garden below.  So today, while Nutmeg was preoccupied with pulling the hats off the acorns she’d found, Hazel decided it was time.  She carefully extended her front paws forward, first one, then the other, and she slowly stepped off of the branch.  Her powerful toes grasped the bark of the tree, her back feet were pointed downward toward the ground, and so was her head.  “There!” she thought.  “Now I am in position.  So, here I go!” 

But she didn’t move.  She found herself frozen in place, unsure of how to pick up one foot in order to move it forward.  “Well,” she thought, “These are my options: I stand here upside down all day.  Not the best choice,” she decided. She was already beginning to feel the blood rushing to her head a bit. “Or, I back up until I am on the branch again.  But then I have the problem of figuring out how to move my foot backward.  Same basic problem, different direction.”  Besides, she knew that by this time Nutmeg was surely watching, and she would not go back up there (even if she could) and face her laughter.  No self-respecting squirrel ever backed up. Anywhere.  She blinked once.  Twice.  Sometimes, when once you’ve begun a thing, she thought, especially when it’s a challenge like this, the best course of action is not to think about it too much. Just give it your best shot and hope it ends well. 

So Hazel chose option three:  “Close my eyes and run like crazy!”  She ran head first, and fast, until she was about three feet from the base of the tree.  Then, with a great leap, she found herself in the grass.  She’d done it!  She’d actually done it! She was “down!”  “Hmmm,” she thought.  “That really wasn’t so bad after all.  Really, it was almost…fun.  Well, it was fun!”  She wanted to try it again.  So, with a bound she was up the tree again, back to her starting branch, and again and again, she raced down, climbed up, each time more confident than the last.  She was chirruping and giggling as she went.  She even ran out to the end of the starting branch a time or two so that she could get a running leap onto the massive trunk and, in a flash, find herself once again in the soft grass below.  Finally satisfied with her achievement, she relaxed under the tree, her belly pressed against the cool earth beneath her, her legs extended outward in the front and back in an elongated body stretch.  She was panting as she recovered her breath.  As she rested, she looked around. 

The garden sure looked different from down here.  Interspersed among the plantings were three curious little stone pile walls, none of which, from Hazel’s treetop view, had looked very imposing, but now that she was on the ground she could see that they were actually taller than they had looked from up above.  When standing directly in front of them, even up on her hind legs, she now realized, she wouldn’t quite be able to see over the top of them.  And the hydrangeas, which from above had looked so dense with flowers and leaves as to seem impenetrable, actually offered secret hiding places beneath their blooms and foliage.

Nestled in among the plantings around the garden, Hazel could now see that there were other little creatures.  She was a little afraid when she first realized they were there, but as she watched them warily, she saw they stood still as stone.  She watched them for a long time, waiting for just one of them to flinch, even just a little, but they did not.  One looked like a dog, but it was the smallest dog she had ever seen, even smaller than she was.  It was tucked under the hosta leaves, curled up, as if asleep.  There was a bird-like creature, with an oversized square beak, perched upon one of the rock walls.  In the dirt near the stepping-stones that led to the garden gate was a tortoise.  It too, stood absolutely motionless.  Under the hydrangeas was a stone-still bunny, barely visible under the leaves.  And on top of the rock wall that was directly in front of the hydrangeas stood the most curious creature of all.  Hazel clambered up to the top of the little stone wall to get a better look.  She thought this one must be a porcupine, but she was unlike any she had ever heard about.  For one thing, she stood on her hind feet, and she was wearing a dress, with an apron tied at her waist.  Her head was covered with some sort of cap, but many pointy spines were still able to poke through it.  Her front paws were clasped in front of her, and she too, was absolutely still—never twitched, fidgeted, blinked, coughed, or cleared her throat.  Hazel watched her for a very long time, entranced.  She was so absorbed in her observations that when the nearby hydrangea leaves suddenly began to rustle and out popped an energetic chipmunk, seemingly from nowhere, Hazel jumped up and twisted around all at once, falling right off of the stone wall where she had been sitting.

“Sorry!  Didn’t mean to startle you,” said the chipmunk.  “You’ve met Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, I see.”

“Mrs. Tiggy-winkle?” asked Hazel.

“Well, that’s what I call her now, because once I heard the little Boxel call her that—so I figure that must be her name.  She’s never confirmed it for me, though.  She just stands there, still as stone.  Never says a word.”  The chipmunk chattered on: “She’s a good listener, though.  I find I talk to her a lot. Tell her my troubles.”

“You talk to her?”

“Yes.  All the time, like I said.  I always feel better after I’ve had a little chat with Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.”

“But if she never talks back…”

“Doesn’t matter, really.  I always seem to be able to work out my problems when I talk them over with Mrs. T.  My Name’s Dart, short for Dartanian. What’s yours?” 

“I’m Hazel.”

“Nice to meet you Hazel. Well, gotta go.”  And living up to his name, Dart was gone in a flash.

Hazel decided that this garden was proving to be even more interesting from the ground than she could’ve imagined.

Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is the next chapter of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Previous chapters were published earlier this week  -  in honor of  The Washington Post's Squirrel Week. The plan is to publish one chapter each week from here on out until reaching the gripping conclusion!  Thanks for reading!

SQUIRREL TALES: 7

by  Mary Lee Corlett

 FOLIO II: LIVING TO TELL ABOUT IT

PILE ONE: THE WAKING HOUR

Leaves.  They were what I saw when, snuggled in our nest, I finally opened my eyes for the very first time.  I remember that I decided I’d better open them because I was being poked.  Repeatedly.  Annoyingly.  “Nutmeg! Stop that!” 

“Hey,” came a small voice out of the darkness. “Don’t blame me because you rolled onto a thorn!”

“A Thorn?  How did that get in here?”  The second disembodied voice belonged to my mother. “Oh My!”

I heard the rustling, then came the muttering, and then more rustling, crunching, and shaking.  “There!” she said triumphantly as she pulled out the offending projectile, tumbling me head over tail in the process.  “Oh yeah, much better,” I thought.  “Now it’s only scratchy.”  I managed to roll back off my tail and drift back to sleep.  It wouldn’t be long before I would be flipping and tumbling without mother’s expert help.  But for now—sleep.

 

        Hazel stretched her cramped hind legs, and looked over to see that Nutmeg was still sleeping.  She and her sister were a little more than three months old, still young enough to be living in their mother’s nest but that was sure to be changing soon. Their mother had noiselessly slipped out a little while ago to begin foraging for breakfast.  So now it was Hazel’s turn to creep out quietly, so as not to disturb her sister—she did this as much to preserve her own moment of peace and quiet as for Nutmeg’s sake.  The oak tree her mother had chosen for nesting was located in the far back corner of the yard, and so Hazel’s usual perch on the branch just a few steps away from the nest was the perfect location for surveying her territory. 

A short while ago the neighborhood had been serenely quiet.  But the stillness of the deepest hours of the night—when even the crickets and other nocturnal insects had given up their night song—always seemed to give way all at once to chatter, and rustlings, and birdsong.  It was the Waking Hour.  

The sun was just beginning to filter through the thick leaves of the backyard treetops, casting broken shadows on the dewy grass.  The dappled sunlight on the lawn caused the wet droplets on individual blades to glisten and sparkle.  A soft breeze was blowing.  A firefly floated by, no glow now though, just silently adrift on the morning air.

Hazel stretched out on the branch and looked down on the tall wood fence that bordered the backyard on three sides.  A Boxel House formed the fourth side of the rectangle that completely enclosed the yard.   Along the fence a variety of shrubs, trees, and flowers were planted in wide, mulched beds.  And in the center of the yard there was a grassy lawn, which was kept cut quite short, although why the Boxels particularly wanted it that way Hazel wasn’t really sure.   But it had its advantages to the yard inhabitants, because tall grass would have provided additional cover for the neighborhood cats, one of whom Hazel now saw was lurking about, oh so casually sunning itself on the fence, an intermittent blink of its eye or a sporadic twitch of its ear the only indication that it was actually quite awake, just waiting for the opportunity to spring one final trap on a distracted mouse or an unsuspecting chickadee. 

Hazel knew, as did the cat, that the bird families had already been up for hours, mostly hidden in the trees, but chattering and chirping across the backyard fences.  Hazel sat up with a start as she realized that the cat was about to be granted its fondest wish.   On the lawn just a few feet in front of the cat’s watchful eye, there was a sudden flit of wings as a sparrow popped down into the grass to begin the hunt for something good to eat for breakfast. 

The breeze picked up, only for an instant but it gently rustled through the trees, shaking loose a twig with several leaves attached and sending it softly to the ground.  The bird turned to check it out, just in case a juicy bug had ridden down with it, like a surfer on a wave. But not this time.  It was a good thing she had looked behind her though, because it was then that she saw the cat, and she flew away in an instant. With that, the cat, now apparently tired of the waiting game, stretched with a lazy nonchalance and then leapt to the other side of the fence and disappeared.

The birds were not the only ones already gossiping and feeding and going about their daily business.  A chipmunk was darting around and behind the ferns and the boxwoods, disappearing in a small brown blur as quickly as he appeared.  A rabbit, too, sat cautiously in the middle of the lawn, ears twitching almost imperceptibly, nose sniffing, waiting, until she was sure it was safe to venture forward, her hops small and tentative.

“Tailed Ya!” With a rebel yell Nutmeg launched herself from behind her sister directly onto Hazel’s tail, giving it a firm tug before she took off running for the higher branches, laughing and screaming as she went.  “Oh!  No you don’t!”  Hazel countered as she, too, let out a screech and sprang into action.  Hazel had been so absorbed in her observations of the activities below that she completely missed the fact that her sister had awakened and had been sneaking up behind her.  It wasn’t often that her sister had the advantage in a game of “Pin the Tail” and Hazel didn’t like it one bit!  She twisted around and flew up the tree in Nutmeg’s wake, but Nutmeg, sensing her own peril, suddenly bounded sharply to the left, setting an oak leaf cluster in motion, which smacked Hazel on the nose. They jumped right, dashed left, sprang up, and dove down, criss-crossing from one sprawling oak branch to another until they were both exhausted and lay panting back where they had started—directly in front of their nest.  The Waking Hour was now officially over. 

 

Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is Chapter 6 of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Chapters 1 through 5 were published earlier this week. I plan to post a chapter each day through Sunday, April 14th - to celebrate Squirrel Week! - and then a chapter a week after that through the finish.  Thanks for reading!

SQUIRREL TALES: 6

by  Mary Lee Corlett

BUNDLE FIVE: TALES TO REMEMBER

Changes, especially unwelcome ones, can sometimes sneak up on you like the neighborhood cat. Our days seemed normal, yet we were all beginning to get the uneasy feeling that something important was happening somewhere, and we knew nothing about it.

         Hazel rummaged around in her nest until she came up with a bit of seedcake left over from last night’s dinner and a half-eaten crab apple.  It was past suppertime.  The sisters were getting hungry, but the rain hadn’t let up much, and who knew where Black Dog had gone off to, so they decided to eat in tonight.  Nutmeg had gone off to her nest on a similar quest and had just returned with a couple of acorns and a peanut.

                 “You’ve gotten pretty good at carrying a bunch of things at once,” remarked Hazel.   

 “It’s not exactly a feast,” Nutmeg noted, surveying their combined provisions, "But it’ll have to do.”
 “I’ll make some more tea.”
“Wish you had some Sassafras.” Nutmeg mumbled again under her breath, careful not to say it so that her sister would hear her. “That would be nice,” she said much more loudly.  “I’d love some.”

They worked while they ate, trying to be careful not to get food spots on the Leaves.  “Pin the Tail!” Nutmeg squeaked as she held up a label from a cranberry juice bottle, now covered with Hazel’s markings.  “I love that game!” 

“Yeah, even though I usually win it,” Hazel returned with a smile.

 “Do not!” Nutmeg protested. 

“Do too!”

 Nutmeg opened her mouth, about to start another round, but then snapped it shut and decided it would be easier just to change the subject.  “Mrs. Such is so pleased that you are writing down these stories.  She seems especially happy that you’ve written down some of her poems and tales!” 

“I know.  She says: ‘When we put all our Tales together, they tell who we are—and who we will become.’” 

I’m not sure I know what she means by that.”

“Me neither actually, but I think it means we have to know about ourselves for the sake of our future.  Or something like that.  She also says, ‘The better we remember, the better we will be.’”

“Ooh…Uh-huh….” Nutmeg pretended to understand, but this line of thinking was starting to give her a headache.  She decided that maybe for the moment she should forget the deep thinking and just focus on sorting the Leaves.

The sisters worked long into the evening, but it became clear that the project was going to take longer than one night.  The stash turned out to be deeper than even Hazel had remembered. There seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of Leaves, each a small testament to the shared lives of all of the squirrels in the neighborhood, each a nugget rich with description or reminiscences, individual moments or collective experiences.

             “Wow, this is an old one!” Hazel had dug deep and was now holding up a tattered, yellowed envelope with a ripped up cellophane window.  “This is about the Garden and Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.  I wrote that during my first Season.” 

                “And she’s still not talking!” Nutmeg giggled.

They poured more tea and retrieved more and more Leaves, all the while sharing the memories the Leaves evoked, the sadness and the celebrations. They talked about all that had come to pass in the neighborhood, struck for the first time by all the things that had changed since Hazel had begun writing. 

 “The stories are all here.  We just need to tie them together so that they make sense.” Nutmeg said with authority.  But organizing them in a way that seemed right proved to be trickier than Nutmeg had first imagined.  They started by making piles, first by individual squirrel or subject, but that didn’t seem to be working: “Shimmy and Digs need to be together sometimes.” Hazel noted. 

            “And how do we combine all the ones about Peanuts?” added Nutmeg. “You write about them a lot, but for a whole bunch of different reasons.  They’re scattered all over the place in your Leaves and they can’t be grouped logically.” 

Next they tried to place the Leaves in the order in which they were written.  “Shoots and Nuts, this isn’t working either,” an exasperated Hazel lamented after a while.  “I didn’t follow any particular pattern when I wrote the Leaves, but we can’t arrange them without a pattern; they won’t make any sense that way.  We need another idea.”

“We need more Piles!”

“More Piles?”

“Yeah!  Lets just keep making piles and then put the piles in an order that is as close as we can get them to the order in which things happened.” 

And so, the sisters made piles.  Lots and lots of piles.  The first piles were, of course, about their earliest days together in Mother’s nest. 

Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is Chapter 5 of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Chapters 1 through 4 were published earlier this week. I plan to post a chapter each day through Sunday, April 14th - to celebrate Squirrel Week! - and then a chapter a week after that through the finish.  Thanks for reading!

SQUIRREL TALES: 5

by  Mary Lee Corlett

INTERLEAF: THE TALE OF SCOOTER FIELDING AS TOLD TO HAZEL BY MRS. SUCH

“The day had started out usual enough for Sheldon Fielding. From boyhood he had hated his name, a family tradition going back generations, and so his friends began calling him Scooter because he had the uncanny ability to scoot along the thinnest of branches to claim the most tender buds at the very tips; and he could do this without causing the branch to sway any more than it would in a gentle breeze.  He had “the touch.”  He was indeed the most agile squirrel I have ever known.  But, I digress….

“As I said, the morning was typical for early summer—bright, but with a touch of humidity and a filmy blue sky overhead that promised rain later.  Scooter sat in the ornamental plum tree that grew alongside the brick walkway leading from the Dodgeway to the front steps of the Boxel House in his yard.  He was munching on one of its juicy plums. This tree wasn’t supposed to even have fruit—it was “ornamental,” meant for decoration.  Scooter knew this because he had heard one of the Boxels say so, and she was not happy when she discovered they were going to have an abundant harvest.  “Just great!” she had moaned, “We will have smashed plums all over the walkway and that means they’ll be tracked into the house!”  Scooter wasn’t sure how you would go about tracking a plum into a Boxel House, although he supposed that if it moved you just followed it closely, but anyway he thought it was a great bonus to have the plums on that tree, even if the Boxel did not!  But, I digress….

“Scooter was sitting in that plum tree, hidden well enough among the branches, when the Boxels, as they did nearly every morning at this time, suddenly rushed out their front door, raced to their Rolling Box (RB) parked on the Dodgeway, and sped away.  They never even noticed him sitting there.  But Scooter, on the other hand, had noticed that one of the Boxels had dropped something thin and long and rather shiny.  It lay on the walkway, glittering in the morning sun.  And so, he climbed down from the tree to investigate.  It was indeed very long and snake-like, but much too skinny to actually be a snake.  And since he’d seen it fall from around the Girl-Boxel’s neck as she heaved her big pack onto her back, he was nearly sure it wouldn’t be alive, or too harmful.  Still he approached it cautiously, step by step, nose twitching, eyes fixed on it just in case it was motionless in order to trick him into thinking it was safe. He breathed a little sigh of relief when he was finally close enough to be almost certain that it was a “thing” not a “creature.”   It was very long indeed, at least four or five times as long as he was from head to toe.  It was made of small silver circles, hollow in the middle and linked together.  It looked as if it had once been connected to form a continuous loop, but the place where it had been joined was now broken.  It just lay there, catching the sunlight on each of its many links.  Scooter was very interested.  He was close enough to smell it now.  He strained his neck forward, sniffing, sniffing…when suddenly, with a flying leap he jumped upward and backward at the same time, two feet into the air, landing on all fours, poised for flight. 

“That thing just moved!” he shouted.  But he didn’t turn tail and run because just as his feet hit the ground he realized, “No. It was just a trick of the light.”  He laughed with nervous relief, then he thought of his very theatrical jump, the memory making him feel a little foolish.  He quickly looked all around to be sure no one was there to catch him in what would have been a hugely embarrassing moment.  Luckily, the place was deserted.

“Slowly now, he reached out and cautiously touched the shimmering circles.  In that split second of contact the thing hooked itself onto Scooter’s claw and he withdrew his front paw in surprise.  But when he tried to shake the thing loose it remained stubbornly attached, whipping upward, downward, and then around and around like a wild thing!  Scooter did what anyone with sense would have done in his situation—he panicked!  He took off running at top speed thinking he could outrun it.  But the silvery creature had released itself from his front claw only to instantly reattach itself to his back one as he tripped over it!  Heart racing, terror taking control of his thoughts, Scooter bolted for the tallest tree—only it wasn’t exactly a tree.  With a great flying leap he was off the ground and racing up to the top of the nearest light pole, which was located directly across the Dodgeway from the Boxel House.  All the while, that thing was still attached and swinging wildly in the air behind him.  To make matters worse, its wild movements caused it to occasionally whip him on the rear end, which only spurred him onward and upward, until at last he reached the top of the pole, where he froze—his only apparent option for continuing on was to traverse the high wires.  But in that single moment when he stood motionless, Scooter realized that his pursuer wasn’t whipping him in the butt anymore, although it was still swinging at a pretty good clip as it dangled beneath his foot.  He sucked in a great gasp of air, happy to discover that he could in fact still breathe, as long as he gave each intake and output of breath careful thought.  The panic subsided.  Scooter looked down.  Not more than a couple of squirrel-lengths beneath him, mounted on the light pole, was one of those deadly Pole Boxes with the wires attached.  And he had just jumped right over that thing!  At least he must have.  He didn’t remember doing it, exactly.  But now, as he sat perched momentarily just above that Pole Box on a crossbeam near the very top of the light pole, the chain was slowly, slowly working its way loose from around his toe until it quietly slithered downward and dropped, unceremoniously, right onto that Pole Box. 

“The explosive sound that followed as metal contacted metal was deafening, and sent Scooter once again straight into the air, his fur now singed in places by flying sparks.  Yet somehow he managed to gain a paw-hold on the branch of a tulip poplar tree that extended out high above the wires, but that he would never have been able to reach if he had not been catapulted into the air by the force of the explosion.  Scooter sat in that poplar tree thinking that he’d just been given another chance at life. 

“Those Boxels in the neighborhood who were still in their houses that morning stepped outside their front doors to try to see what had detonated.  There didn’t seem to be any lights on anymore inside any of their houses, and every last porch light in the neighborhood that had been left on from the night before was now off.  Most of the day passed and several big Boxel Trucks came and went in the neighborhood before those porch lights finally came back on.”

***

"Mrs. Such always tells the ‘Tale of Scooter Fielding’ exactly the same way," Hazel sighed as she looked up from the leaf on which the end of the story was recorded and slowly drifted back into the present moment on the brief, timeless silence that always marked the end of the tale.  “We all know it by heart.”

"But nobody ever minds the repetition," Nutmeg noted.   In fact, it was a point of pride, a sign that you were growing up, to be able to boast that you had heard that particular tale so often you now had it memorized.  "And, still,” Nutmeg continued, “no matter how many times we've all heard it, we always burst into wild applause when Mrs. Such gets to the part where the lights go out in the Boxel neighborhood." 

“Do you remember that time when Digs almost fell off the branch because of the clapping?”  Hazel suddenly remembered with a laugh. 

“Oh Yeah!” Nutmeg giggled, “We were all applauding so mightily, Digs too, that the branch we were all sitting on got to really shaking and Digs was the last one in line on the end farthest from the tree trunk.”

“Flipped right off! He dangled there a while before we’d even realized he’d gone overboard.  It took three of us to pull him back into place.” 

There was no question; Mrs. Such’s narratives—the tale and the telling of the tale—were as much a part of their lives as were nuts or trees. 

Squirrel Tales (Continued)

This is Chapter 4 of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Chapters 1 through 3 were published earlier this week. I plan to post a chapter each day through Sunday, April 14th - to celebrate Squirrel Week! - and then a chapter a week after that through the finish.  Thanks for reading!

SQUIRREL TALES: 4

        by  Mary Lee Corlett

            BUNDLE FOUR: KEEPER OF TALES

Mrs. Such is the Keeper of Tales.  Her knowledge of Squirrel History and Legend is, well, legendary.  No squirrel I know remembers a time before Mrs. Such, nor has even been told of such a time by grandparents or great-grandparents.  Mrs. Such is definitely old, but at the same time she seems ageless.  It’s strange, but when you get to know her, you begin to think maybe her life has spanned generations.  She is, I suppose, a little bit “eccentric” (I love that word.  I want to be “eccentric” some day!)  And she is unusual because her fur is snow white, and as far as anyone knows, always has been.  Her movements are slow, sometimes a little labored, but she has a knowing smile, and a compelling grin.  Her gravelly laugh is downright contagious, and her red eyes sparkle with that wonderful combination of intelligence and humor.  Never a squirrel to prattle on just to hear herself chatter, she does, however, sometimes say things that seem a little odd.  But later, sometimes much later, the meaning of her words suddenly becomes clear to those who are willing to give it some thought.

“Exactly how old do you think Mrs. Such is?” Nutmeg questioned as she set the Leaf she was reading on her lap.  “You know, I can’t even guess,” said Hazel. “But I somehow think she’ll still be around even after we are all gone.  Strange, isn’t it?  Mrs. Fidgets says she remembers being told by her parents that she was not to pester Mrs. Such at home unless she saw her feet!” 

Mrs. Such lived in the hollow of a giant sycamore tree.  Although her nest was quite low to the ground, the surrounding branches were dense and leafy enough to provide the essential protective camouflage.  She liked to sit out in front of the hollow, gently rocking on her favorite bough, nestled in among the foliage and hidden from view, all except for her feet, which somehow always managed to be visible through the screen of leaves. 

Hazel grinned.  “We all knew Mrs. Such was available and welcoming young visitors when we could see those feet below the leaves! It was definitely one of my favorite places to hang out.”

“She called us ‘the peanut gallery,’ remember? I guess because we were so small.  Mrs. Such would tell the most amazing stories about the Boxels,” said Nutmeg.  “At least, they seemed pretty amazing back then.  Now, I think I would believe anything where Boxels are concerned!”

“My favorites were the stories about the world long ago, when there were very few Boxels around.” 

When Mrs. Such told those tales, there would always be some in her audience, and Hazel had to admit that she was occasionally in that group, who looked at the storyteller with narrow-eyed disbelief, simply unable to imagine the way things were so long ago, without Boxels and Box Houses.  Hazel had always been one of the first to ask probing questions, but oddly, Mrs. Such seemed to like that, and even appeared to encourage it.  

Hazel still loved to listen when Mrs. Such described that time long past, a Boxel-less place where, on clear summer nights before the moonrise, the heavens would glitter with thousands of tiny twinkling stars.  “But no more,” Mrs. Such would sigh.  “Not since the Boxels came and began building more and more Box Houses and such, using all of those nightlights so that the evening sky is never really dark anymore.  Now the sky always has such an orange glow from those lights, making it impossible to see any but the very brightest of stars.” 

“Those were definitely among her favorite stories to tell,” remembered Nutmeg.  “I think she had great fun seeing the utter astonishment on our faces when she explained about how things were before the Boxel Apartments and Big Box Food Stores east of Cherry Bridge had been built. I bet it’s harder to get that kind of open-mouthed reaction to a tale from an older squirrel, one who’s been around the block a few times, if you know what I mean.” 

“You’re probably right.”  Hazel agreed.  “Still, she has a special way of drawing you into the story, that’s for sure, even when you’re older. ‘Such a shame when that happened!’” Hazel imitated Mrs. Such’s raspy voice and unique delivery. “‘The air used to be much clearer before the Boxels took down so many trees. And the summers seemed not so humid then as they are now because there used to be such a wonderful canopy of tulip poplars and oaks and sycamore trees to keep us cool.  The RBs were a little bit easier to evade then, too, because they couldn’t travel as fast when the Dodgeway was dirt and cinders instead of the hard black path it is now.’” 

 “Mrs. Such sure could make you feel like you were actually there.” Nutmeg added. “And I remember the first time she told us all about the Great Yard across the Dodgeway on the other side of our fence.  It seemed so mysterious back then, because we could see it from the treetops, but we weren’t allowed to go over there yet.  She said that although it looked a bit like the town park, except for all those curious rows of standing stones, the Great Yard was actually a place where the Boxels buried their dead.  I never would have guessed!  ‘In boxes of course.’ she’d say.   Mrs. Such had certainly seen it happen many times over the years.”

“For sure!” Hazel continued, “’Such a great number of Boxels everywhere today!’ she would say.  ‘Boxels who live in boxes, travel in boxes, work in boxes, play in boxes.  And they certainly build enough Boxes, large and small, everywhere, don’t they?  There are Boxes upon Boxes in every sector of the city!  Why, it amuses me that some Boxels even keep their RBs in a box attached to their Box House!  A Box inside a Box attached to a Box!’  And then she’d laugh that special laugh, and we couldn’t help but laugh with her.”

“And once we were all relaxed and eager for more,” Nutmeg continued, “She would suddenly become very serious, turning her great white head slowly, dramatically, as she made sure to look each one of us directly in the eye, and she’d say in her most somber tone: ‘They also make smaller Boxes and mount them on Boxel buildings or poles to hold wires and other metal bits. And some of these can be quite hazardous.’”

 “’BUT, LISTEN WELL!’” Hazel shouted the words, just as Mrs. Such always did at this point in the story, and Nutmeg jumped, just as she always did back when she was young.  “’You must absolutely stay away from the Boxes they put near the top of certain of the light poles!’” Hazel intoned, so wrapped up in the tale at this point that she didn’t even notice that her sister had flinched. “’The high wires connecting these light poles are treacherous enough, but those Pole Boxes have very dangerous wires attached and must be completely avoided!’” 

“And then,” laughed Nutmeg, “Mrs. Such would just wait, silently blinking, because she knew someone’s curiosity would finally win out and they would ask, usually in a teeny-tiny voice, ‘Why?’” 

“And Mrs. Such would answer very gravely,” said Hazel, “‘Because the Pole Boxes have very mysterious powers.  They command the Boxel’s all-night-long lights, and they are most unsafe for squirrels.’ And when we were sitting there feeling all solemn and somber, Mrs. Such would crack a big, wide smile.  Then she would simply shrug.”   Hazel shrugged her shoulders, bending her elbows and raising her paws in imitation of the elderly squirrel as she continued, “And she would casually admit, as if she hadn’t just scared us all half to death, ‘But at least they are easier to keep away from than the RBs, since the Pole Boxes do stay put on the light pole and don’t come speeding out of nowhere, aiming straight for you!’” 

“Yeah.” Nutmeg finished, “And the picture she painted in your mind of that speeding Pole Box made you want to laugh, even though the thought of a galloping, spark-spewing squirrel hazard shouldn’t have been funny!” 

Hazel laughed, “But it was very effective.  We all remember her Tales.  And I think we always will.”

 

Squirrel Tales (continued)

This is Chapter 3 of my middle grade novel, Squirrel Tales. Chapters 1 and 2 were published earlier this week. I plan to post a chapter each day through Sunday, April 14th - to celebrate Squirrel Week! - and then a chapter a week after that through the finish.  Thanks for reading!

SQUIRREL TALES: 3

        by  Mary Lee Corlett

 BUNDLE THREE: “A CHEERFUL COMPANY”

Among all of the neighborhood squirrels, Mrs. Fidgets is one of my favorite grown-ups.  She never seems to get annoyed with us, even when we get annoying.   We keep trying to guess Mrs. Fidget’s age, but she won’t tell—when asked, she just smiles and changes the subject.  But her brown coat is now almost entirely gray.  She bends over slightly when she moves around, but she still moves gracefully.  Whatever her age, Mrs. Fidgets is old enough to be young at heart.  She laughs easily and she is always willing to think about any new idea.  And best of all, she is a terrific cook!

“Mmmmm.  Peanut butter pie….” Nutmeg closed her eyes and licked her lips, clutching Hazel’s Leaf tightly to her chest as if she might be able to squeeze a pie right out of it.  “Hey! Be careful with that!” Hazel admonished, “You might bend it!” 

Nutmeg opened her eyes and gave her sister that “you’ve GOT to be kidding!” look. 

“Hazel, it’s already bent.  In several places,” she pointed out.  Then she held the crumpled fabric softener sheet out in front of her, making a great show of smoothing it out carefully and holding it oh so delicately between her paws.  She gave it a little shake, for good measure, and then continued reading:

As she has gotten older, Mrs. Fidgets had been finding it more difficult to gather enough food on her own.  But with the help of us younger squirrels, who collect food stuffs especially for her, she is able to make big, wonderful meals several times a week that are then happily shared among all the squirrels of the neighborhood who come to the Dinner Branch.  That way everyone—especially the older folks, mothers with new babies, the sick, the injured—knows they can count on having something to eat.

Mrs. Fidgets makes delicious corn muffins and seed cakes, and, in the spring, mixed petal stew.  Occasionally she tries new things, like bird egg scramble, but mostly she relies on the old “stand-bys,” like her famous peanut butter pie, which is a neighborhood favorite.  She doesn’t often try a new recipe because she worries it won’t be well liked, and food is too limited to waste.  But as far as I am concerned, Mrs. Fidgets can always be counted on to make something wonderful out of whatever anyone brings to her.

            “’Continued on Leaf 2: Cake. See also, Lipton Coupon.’” Nutmeg read aloud. 
 “Uh-oh!  Where’s the rest?” 

But Hazel, having already realized that there were Leaves missing, was digging deeply into the hollow, searching for that next part.  She was reaching so deeply that she nearly fell in twice, her tail madly waving from side to side as she frantically attempted to maintain her balance.  At last she emerged triumphant.  “Here it is!” she exclaimed, a chunk of cake-mix box in hand, a dirt smudge on her nose and a maple seed wing stuck crookedly in the fur at the top of her head, like a misplaced bow.   Nutmeg took one look at her disheveled sister and choked back a laugh, then cleared her throat for cover.  She took the Leaf and read:

Mr. Chase is a special friend of Mrs. Fidgets.  Mr. Chase is also known to be a little forgetful, and although he never forgets a date at the Dinner Branch with Mrs. Fidgets, he has always had trouble remembering the location of his own buried food stores.  This was an especially big problem for Mr. Chase in his younger days, when he liked to roam far and wide, burying his nuts in every corner of the city.  But Mr. Chase also realized that many other squirrels struggled with this kind of forgetfulness, too.  So he attempted to solve the problem for all with his plan to create a squirrel mapping system.  On the trunk of the largest oak tree in the town park he carved a diagram in which he systematically divided the city into squirrel sectors, each identified by a landmark tree.  There was the Poplar Arms sector, marked by a giant tulip poplar tree with branches that curved outward and slightly back in, as if it was preparing to give a hug.  Next to that was the Maple Lodge, which featured a maple with a hollowed out trunk that for years had been home to many squirrel families.  And there were the Sprawling Oaks, Cherry Bridge, and Long Branch sectors, too. 

But, poor Mr. Chase!  After working so hard to create the grid and establish the sectors, he had been unable to devise a way to further pinpoint and identify nut locations within each subdivision.  He had thought small sticks and pebbles on the ground could serve as pointers, but unfortunately they were too easily disturbed and often disappeared altogether. And so he eventually had to abandon the plan. 

“It was a good idea—on tree-bark anyway.  Oh, here’s the Coupon.” Hazel handed her sister the small addendum, and Nutmeg continued reading:

I think that sometimes it takes a failure to make a success.   Take Mr. Chase’s mapping system for example; the sector names didn’t work out as a Nut Location System but they turned out to be very important reference points for all of us anyway and we use them all of the time.  All we have to do is name a sector to quickly describe where something is happening: “Squirrel Games at Cherry Bridge.” Or, “Peanuts!  Get yer peanuts!  Peanut-tossing Boxel now in the Sprawling Oaks sector!”  

            “It would be hard to get by without our sector names, wouldn’t it?” 

“They’re handy.” Hazel agreed. “Wait.  Isn’t there something on the back of that one?”  Hazel pointed to the Coupon, which Nutmeg had just tossed onto the nearest pile along with the first Cake box leaf, so they wouldn’t become separated again.  Nutmeg retrieved it and flipped it over.  “Hazel, you will never be accused of wasting space or being at a loss for words.”  She read:

These days Mr. Chase no longer travels as far nor as wide nor as often as he used to.  He seems content to spend his days mostly in the company of Mrs. Fidgets, who at this time in her life never goes anywhere at all.

“I think they’re in LOVE.” Nutmeg added, stretching out the single syllable of the last word so that it nearly became two, for emphasis.

“Have you found your Leaves about any of the others in the neighborhood yet?  We should make sure to pile those all together,” Nutmeg advised.  She was beginning to see possible strategies for this organization thing. 

“Here. What’s on this one?”  With her head still submerged in the darkened hollow Hazel couldn’t see exactly which one she had found, but not wanting to stop searching she just reached over her shoulder and handed over a ripped portion of a Barbie doll box that still had a couple of twist-ties stuck to it, as well as layers of sticky clear tape barely holding down tangles of thin, white, dangling strings, all of which Hazel had had to strategically write around.  “Oh this is a good one.” Nutmeg read the Leaf:

      Among the younger squirrels in the neighborhood, Shimmy and Digs probably find the most
      adventure.  Or maybe it is the adventure that finds them!  Although older than Nutmeg and me,
      they get themselves into and out of the most amazing jams.  

Dreamer and Diver are just a little older than Shimmy and Digs, and although opposite personalities in many ways, they are the best of friends and frequent diners at Mrs. Fidgets’ Dinner Branch.  Diver is a traveler, like Mr. Chase had been. He is restless, an explorer at heart.  Dreamer is an artist.  He is always on the look-out for things he can use for his creations—the odd-shaped nut, an intricately twisted twig, and Boxel throw-a-ways too, like a bit of ribbon, a piece of glass, or a bottle cap.  He says he likes nature’s offerings best, but of the Boxel-made stuff, he especially loves the shiny things.  I think his creations are wonderfully inventive, and for most anyone who sees them they are sure to spark new ways of thinking about the world.

             Nutmeg looked up a moment from the Barbie box.  “Oh, Dreamer,” she softly whispered. 
             “Yeah,” Hazel answered quietly.  She had just pulled her head out of the hollow, “I wrote
             that before…you know…before everything happened.” 

At that moment a small corner of the Barbie box separated from the rest, fluttering down onto the branch.  Nutmeg picked it up.  “Oh! Here’s one of Mrs. Such’s favorite Dinner Branch sayings.” She read:

“A squirrel could not but be gay, In such a cheerful company.”

“That’s part of a longer poem, isn’t it?” asked Nutmeg.

“Yeah, about finding yourself in a field of daffodils, all gloriously blooming.” 

“Mrs. Such has thought about things I wouldn’t even think about thinking about!  She’s an extraordinary Squirrel, isn’t she.”  It was a statement, not a question.

“She sure is. And yet, somehow she makes all of us feel like we are the extraordinary ones,” Hazel added as she sat down on the branch.  “I think it’s awesome how much she knows…how much she remembers…all the tales she can tell….”