Lexi's Tale (2 page)

“We're living in paradise,” I told PeeWee. “Don't forget it.”

“You're right,” he agreed with me again. “This park has just about everything, even if it doesn't have other guinea pigs. The food here is a hundred times better than my old cage food. I can't believe that I was once satisfied eating little dry pellets.”

“Speaking of food,” I said, “I haven't eaten my morning meal yet. Have you?”

“No,” PeeWee said.

“Then let's not waste our time talking when we can be chewing,” I told him. “Remember what my mother always said:
Early to rise, early to dig, makes a squirrel happy, healthy, and big
.”

“Guinea pigs too,” said PeeWee, pulling a perfect apple out of a pile of leaves where some foolish human must have thrown it. There were no apple trees nearby, and besides, it was far too early in the seasons for the park's apple trees to be growing fruit.

“Come and have a bite or two,” PeeWee called to me.

What a friend! PeeWee is always quick to share whatever he's eating. Squirrels never share. All squirrels seem to fear that the nut they're eating is the last they'll ever see. Our only sharing is by chance. We all bury extra
nuts and seeds, and when we relocate them, we rarely know if they are actually the ones that we hid or if they were buried by a relative instead. It seems to balance out, however. There's always something good to eat hidden beneath the soil.

I heard the rustle of footsteps on the ground nearby and looked up from the apple PeeWee and I were sharing. Coming toward us was the bearded man I'd noticed earlier. “Hide,” I whispered to PeeWee. “There's someone coming. You mustn't be seen.”

At once PeeWee scooted under a nearby bush. It wouldn't do for a human to see a guinea pig here in the park. But no one seems to notice us squirrels. There is a definite advantage to being part of such a large population. I climbed part-way up the maple tree and watched.

The man walked past. He wasn't talking now, but his head was down and he seemed to be looking for something. To my amazement, he reached down and picked up the apple that PeeWee had dropped. He brushed off some dirt and took out a small pocket knife. He trimmed the chewed section of the fruit away and then he took a large bite.

The man walked away munching on my and PeeWee's meal. I shouted angrily at him in my squirrel tongue, but of course he couldn't understand. What did he think he was doing? How awful humans can be, I thought as I began digging for something to take the place of our missing apple. How dare that man steal our breakfast!

Squirrels may be very independent creatures, keeping to themselves most of the time, but there is one big exception: Once a year we squirrels hold a huge gathering in the park. It's not only my brothers and sisters living nearby who attend; cousins and relatives all journey from the far edges of the park to the affair. They travel from other parks in the city too. On this night we hold our famous Squirrel
Circus so we can all show off our talents at jumping, climbing, balancing, and running. The big event was going to take place just six nights from now.

“How do you know exactly when the circus will be?” PeeWee asked me. He was very curious about it and eager to watch our acrobatics. He reminded me of myself when I was a newborn squirrel, looking forward to my first Squirrel Circus.

“It takes place on the night of the full strawberry moon, even if it rains and the moon can't be seen. We'll gather when the clock strikes ten,” I added. I was referring to the hour on the mechanical clock that is a famous park landmark, not my young cousin Ten.

“It's strange to be ruled by human time,” PeeWee commented.

He was right about that. Every other day squirrels rise and sleep by the angle of the sun. The weather affects our actions too. But on the day for the Squirrel Circus, we rely on the mechanical clock because its chimes can be heard from a great distance and it will not be silenced by a cloud.

There were two things I had to do before the night of the Squirrel Circus. I had to rehearse my own special act, and equally important, I had to deliver the foods that I was contributing to the feast that would follow the gymnastics.

For the past couple of days more squirrels than usual had been rushing about carrying nuts or seeds in their mouths. The food was being stored up for the banquet in three centrally located tree holes. I wondered how so
many squirrels could be in one area of the park without any humans noticing.

Then PeeWee reminded me that I had once told him that all humans looked more or less alike to me. He'd said, “Did you ever think that humans may feel that way about squirrels?” PeeWee was right. The people who were nearby would never know if they'd seen three squirrels or thirty.

Up in my tree hole I had put a half-full box of Cracker Jack that some child had left on a park bench. I don't know which was harder: resisting the temptation to eat the candied popcorn myself, or dragging the box to my hole. Now I reversed my steps and brought the box to the storage sites where the food had been accumulating. Uncle Ninety-nine always put himself in charge of watching over the
food supplies. I know I'm not the only squirrel who suspects that he samples the goodies before the circus. I even think he hides some of it away for himself.

After I added to the food stored in the tree holes, it was time for me to rehearse my tricks. I raced up my maple tree and jumped across to a neighboring one. The average squirrel can leap between trees that are eight feet apart. But I'm not your average squirrel. I'd been working on my leaps and was now confident that I could perform a ten-foot jump. I looked down from my high perch. Below me I saw PeeWee, half-hidden beneath some leaves that he used for camouflage during the day. I made clucking sounds with my mouth to call him.

Then I turned my head, and to my disgust I recognized the man who had stolen our
breakfast apple. He was standing just a few feet away from PeeWee. I said that usually I can't tell one human from another, but after the bad trick he'd pulled on PeeWee and me, I wasn't going to forget this man so fast. What was he doing here? Was he watching for something else to take from us?

I shook my head to get rid of my angry thoughts. When you perform a trick like I was about to do, you need to concentrate on just one thing. I ran around the trunk of my tree to prepare myself. Speed is important when you make a leap. It gives you momentum, and to jump ten feet, one needs a lot of that. “Here I go,” I shouted down to PeeWee as I flung my body through the air.

What happened next had never happened before. Instead of feeling a rush of air through
the hairs of my fur, followed by the solid thud of my feet landing on the tree branch where I had aimed my body, my feet clawed only air. I didn't feel a branch. For a moment my feet pedaled the air and then I felt myself falling down. My tail acted like a parachute, and a moment later I landed with a hard thump on the ground below. I was stunned. I was certain that I could do that jump.

I didn't move. I lay in the grass trying to catch my breath.

“Lexi! Are you all right? Are you alive?” a worried voice shouted out to me. At the same time I noticed the apple thief rushing toward me. There was no way I was going to let him get his hands on me.

My animal instinct returned before the movement in my legs did. “PeeWee,” I called as the man came closer, “get back under those leaves.”

I stood shakily and ran toward the trunk of the nearest tree and climbed to the first branch.

PeeWee returned to his screen of leaves, but he was still calling to me. “Lexi, what happened? I never saw you fall before.”

“Stop worrying,” I called back to him. There was an unusual tingling sensation in my limbs, but I knew that nothing was broken.
I wouldn't have been able to climb this far if there was a break. “You've heard that a cat has nine lives, haven't you? Well, squirrels have double that—eighteen. So now I guess I only have seventeen lives left.”

“Eighteen,” said PeeWee, his voice full of awe. “I never knew that.”

I moved up to a higher branch as I saw the apple thief coming toward the tree. Worse than the fright and pain of my fall was realizing that this man had seen my failure—and he had seen PeeWee too. Well, I'd show him, I thought. If he wants to keep watching, he'll see what I can really do—and it might help distract him from the knowledge that there was a guinea pig on the loose in the park.

He held out his hands as if to take hold of me, but I managed to scramble higher out of
his reach. At the top of the tree I ran about, circling the trunk a couple of times. The tingling was fading. My limbs felt fine now.

“Lexi, don't jump. Rest a bit more,” PeeWee's anxious voice floated up to me. But I paid no attention to my earthbound friend. I was going to jump, and jump I did. And this time I made it.

“Bravo!” I heard a voice shouting.

I looked down and there was the bearded apple thief wearing his funny hat and clapping his hands together as he looked up at me.

I didn't need his praise. Squirrels have existed for more than
35 million years, and we've done it without human praise or assistance. It was all my relatives I wanted to impress, not this man with the funny hat.

I couldn't wait until the night of our circus. And I didn't need this man hanging around while I was practicing. Why didn't he just go off about his own business like all the other people in the park?

The stranger stood below me looking up for a while. Then he bent down and began to look around on the ground. I knew he was trying to find PeeWee. Luckily my friend had hidden himself well, so the man finally gave up and walked off. Relieved, I climbed into my tree hole for a much-needed nap. I could still run and leap, but my joints were a bit stiff from that big fall I'd taken.

A squirrel's day is divided between eating and sleeping. Most of our exercise occurs when we're in pursuit of one or the other of these activities. The running and jumping that we do happens while we're searching for our next meal or looking for a comfortable place to take a little snooze. But of course my favorite sleeping place is my own home.