PeeWee's Tale (3 page)

I ran to a nearby puddle and took a long drink. On my way, I noticed that the ground seemed to be in two parts. Some was covered with something hard, and the rest was softer and had plants growing from it. I nibbled one of the plants and discovered that the taste was much, much better than my old pellets.

“Who in the world are you?” a voice asked.

Startled, I looked around but I could see no one.

“Up here,” said the voice. “In the tree.”

I raised my head and noticed a tall structure, even taller than Robbie's father or his uncle
Arthur. At first I thought this tall thing was speaking to me. But then I noticed a small creature sitting on one of the many arms.

I had never seen such an animal before. He was close to my size and he was a dull gray color, except for his chest, which was white. He came closer to me with amazing speed.

That's when I became aware of the most incredible thing about him: his tail. My tail is a small useless stub, but his was long and full and waved back and forth as he moved. I had seen dog and cat tails in the pet shop, but none that were as magnificent as the one this creature had.

“I'm PeeWee,” I told him when he landed on the ground beside me. “I'm a guinea pig. What are you?”

I'm a squirrel,” the creature said proudly as
he scratched himself with one of his rear legs, “My name is Lexington. But you can call me Lexi.”

“Where are we?” I asked my new friend.

“We're near Seventy-third Street in the borough of Manhattan, which is in New York City,” Lexi told me. “And I was named after one of its avenues. I have brothers named Amsterdam, Columbus, and Madison.”

“I belong to a boy named Robbie,” I explained to Lexi. “But I don't know where his is.”

“It's better to travel alone,” the squirrel replied. “I have many, many brothers and sisters and cousins, but I belong to no one. In fact, there are so many in my family that most just have numbers, like the streets of Manhattan. Sometimes we chatter to one
another as we run up and down the trees. But we're all so busy looking for food and watching for dangers that we have no time for real conversations.”

“Well, I'm glad you're talking to me,” I said. “Robbie's father brought me here last night. But I need to find my way back home to Robbie. You haven't seen a young boy with spots on his face that are called freckles? He has a chipped front tooth too. He would have been looking for me.”

“No,” Lexi admitted. “But I'll climb to the top of my tree and take a look.”

I watched him as he scampered up the structure that I now knew was called a tree. He ran so quickly, jumping from branch to branch, that I grew dizzy, and my eyes could scarcely follow his path.

“I see a boy with red hair,” Lexi called down to me. “Does that sound like your Robbie?”

“Nope,” I said. “Robbie's hair is dark brown.”

“There's another boy walking a dog,” Lexi reported as he came running down the tree toward me.

“That can't be Robbie. He doesn't have a dog.” I sighed with disappointment.

“Well, here. Take this. Maybe it will cheer you up,” Lexi said, dropping something from his mouth. It rested at my feet. “Don't ever say I never gave you anything.”

“What is this?” I asked, looking at a round, hard object.

“Didn't you ever see a nut?” asked Lexi, scratching himself again. “They're delicious. I keep a big supply hidden inside a hole in this tree.”

I moved closer to the object, but before I could attempt to eat it, Lexi stopped me. “Whatever you do, don't forget:
Look before you eat
. It's one of the first things my mother taught me,” he said.

I looked around me and then licked the object, but there was no taste.

“Bite it. Break the shell,” said Lexi. He seemed amazed at my stupidity, but of course, I'd never seen a nut before.

My teeth, which were strong enough to chew the little pellets Robbie gave me, couldn't pierce the shell.

“Look,” Lexi instructed. He picked up the nut in his paws and almost immediately I could hear a cracking sound as his teeth made a hole in the hard shell.

“Now taste,” he said.

I bit into the soft center of the nut, and Lexi was right. It was delicious, but I didn't have much time to enjoy it.

“Watch out!” screeched Lexi suddenly, racing up the tree.

Coming toward me was an enormous dog. He ran faster than Lexi, and even from a distance, I could see that his teeth were very, very large.

“Climb the tree!” Lexi shouted down to me.

I scampered to the tree but my paws could not hold on to its rough surface. I scratched and scratched at the sides and finally got an inch off the ground. But right away, I slipped, and landed where I had begun.

The animal's barking grew louder and louder. It was almost upon me. I closed my eyes and waited for the worst.

Just as I expected to find myself in the jaws of the terrible creature, nothing happened. I opened my eyes to see what was going on. Suddenly, the dog had turned to run in another direction. I shivered with relief as I wondered why he had lost interest in me. And then I saw. It was all Lexi's doing.

My new friend had climbed down from his safe perch in the tree and set himself in the
path of the huge dog. Lexi knew he could avoid being caught by the big animal. As soon as the dog was about to jump at him, Lexi charged off in a different direction. At once, the dog changed course. The dog was too dumb to realize that he would never be able to catch a creature who could run and climb and jump with squirrel speed. Is was an amazing performance.

Before long, Lexi's game was interrupted by a human who came shouting and calling and waving a long strap.

“Figaro . . . Figaro . . . Figaro!” it called out, then shouted, “Heel!”

The animal stopped and looked at the human. He looked longingly at Lexi but he didn't try to catch him.

“Good dog,” the voice encouraged.

I watched as the human connected the strap he was holding to a band around the dog's neck and pulled the dog away. I wish Robbie would come calling for me, I thought as Lexi came running toward me.

“
A leap in time is mighty fine
,” he said. “Why didn't you climb the tree?”

“I tried.” I said. “But my legs are shorter than yours.”

“I climbed trees when I was a baby, and my legs were guinea-pig size,” Lexi responded.

“Perhaps it's because I haven't a tail,” I said.

“My cousin Sixty-seven was hit by a car and lost his tail. He can still climb even without it. You just need lessons” Lexi retorted. “I'll teach you how to climb.
Practice makes perfect
.”

Somehow, I guessed that no number of lessons would ever give me the speed and climbing skills of a squirrel. But I was glad of my new friend's interest in me.

“You need a place to live, too,” said Lexi. “All animals in the park have their own shelters.”

“At Robbie's house, I live in a cage,” I explained. That reminded me. Robbie was probably back home now, and he would be wondering where I had disappeared to.

“There's a zoo with cages here in the park,” said Lexi. “But you're better off finding your own place to stay. Then you can come and go
as you please. The zoo animals are locked up. It's better to have the freedom of the whole park.”

I looked around me. So this was the park, I thought, suddenly realizing where I was. It was the piece of green that I'd seen so often from Robbie's window. The place where he came to play.

“What exactly is a park, anyhow?” I asked.

“It's all these trees and grass and flowers,” Lexi explained. “It's those benches where people will be sitting before long, and these paths for them to walk along. It's the sky above us and the air around us. It's our whole world.”

“I never knew the world could be a park,” I told him. “I come from a much smaller world with a wheel and a door and pellets for food and paper scraps on the floor.”

“Sounds awful,” said Lexi.

“It wasn't awful,” I told him. But I already knew that now I would find my old world very small. No wonder Robbie liked coming to the park to play with his friends.

“We'd better hurry,” said Lexi. “Pretty soon there will be a lot of people around. There will be small children and their parents, park attendants, roller skates, and bicycles. And
many
more dogs. You need a place where you can escape. If you can't climb a tree, you'd better find a hole.”

I looked down at the ground. It was soft and slightly damp under my paws. Without thinking, I began digging into it. Soon, I found myself deep inside a hole that I had made. I didn't even know that I could do such a thing.

“What do you think of this?” I called up to Lexi.

“Personally, I'd hate to be inside a dirty hole in the ground,” he said. “A hole is a fine place for hiding nuts, but I wouldn't want to live there”

For a moment, I was sorry about Lexi's disapproval. But suddenly, I knew that if I could dig a hole, I'd always be safe—safe inside the burrow of Manhattan.

I must have dozed off in my burrow. I woke up feeling both thirsty and hungry. I poked my head out of the hole and saw many humans of all sizes walking nearby. I knew it would be dangerous for a guinea pig to go exploring among all those people. But the noise and activity filled me with excitement rather than fright. If only Robbie were with me, everything would have been perfect.

Cautiously, I climbed out of my hole and found my old puddle. It had become much smaller while I was asleep, but I was able to get a drink. Then I looked about for something to eat. I spotted a round object that had been chewed a bit already by some creature or other. The smell was sweet, so I took a nibble. It filled my mouth with a delicious juice, so I didn't get thirsty as I always did when I ate the pellets that Robbie fed me. There was no question—the park food was much more interesting than cage food.