PeeWee's Tale Read online

  “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.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lessons from Lexi

  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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Picnic in the Park

  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.

  Something whizzed by me that reminded me at once that I had to be careful. I dragged the food toward my burrow, where there seemed to be less activity.

  “I see you woke up,” a voice called out to me. It was my friend Lexi high above. I watched nervously as he jumped from branch to branch of his tree until he made it down to the ground beside me. It did make me dizzy to watch him.

  “Have a bite of this,” I offered when he reached me.

  “Apples aren’t bad,” he said as he gnawed off a large chunk. “And this is a sweet one. Sometimes they are sour. I don’t like sour. Do you know the old saying? An apple a day keeps the aches away. But if truth be told, nothing beats a good nut.”

  He chewed a bit more and then looked at me. “I wish human beings were as fond of nuts as I am. Wherever there are people, you can always find a good meal, because they leave so much garbage. They love to sit on the grass and have picnic meals. Then they drop bits of sandwiches, ice-cream sticks, paper cups, candy wrappers, newspapers, and whatever other junk they brought with them. I once overheard a park worker say that visitors to the park create fifteen thousand tons of garbage each day. I just wish it were fifteen thousand tons of nuts instead.”

  I took in this information and all the new words that Lexi kept using: apple, sandwich, garbage. There was so much for me to learn about here in the park. These were things I never even knew existed when I was with Robbie.

  And that made me think of my owner. “Listen,” I asked Lexi. “You haven’t seen Robbie Fischler yet, have you?” I knew Robbie would be worried about me when he discovered that my cage was empty.

  Lexi scratched himself and shook his head. “I did see a group of boys playing ball when I was up in the tree. But to tell you the truth, all the boys who come to this park look alike to me. I can’t tell one from another.”

  I wished I could climb to the top of Lexi’s tree and have a good look around. I would know Robbie the minute I saw him. Then I suddenly had a new thought. Perhaps if I ate nuts, the way Lexi did, I would grow a tail too. And with a tail, I could balance myself and climb up a tree. Then I could watch for Robbie. On the other paw, it might take too long waiting for my tail to grow.

  “I’m going to have to travel about the park searching for Robbie,” I explained to Lexi. “He’s a great kid. He really wanted a puppy for his birthday. But once he got me he was a good owner. I’m sure he’s out hunting for me right this minute.”

  “Why would he think you’re in the park?” Lexi asked.

  “Where else would an animal go?” I asked him.

  “Suit yourself, if you want to go looking,” Lexi said. “But this park is pretty big. It has eight hundred and forty-three acres. I don’t even have that many brothers and cousins.”

  I thought about what he’d told me. I didn’t even know what an acre was. But from my knowledge of letters and numbers, I did know that eight hundred and forty-three was a very big number.

  Lexi ran around in a circle and came back to me. “I have to warn you. The park can be very dangerous. You’ve only seen one dog in action. But there are things worse then dogs. Out on the roadway, big motor cars come with heavy wheels. I’m sorry to say that I’ve lost more than one of my relatives when they were flattened on the roadway.”

  He stopped speaking while he scratched himself. And then he continued. “Like I said before, you’re better off just taking care of yourself and not worrying about others. Fill your own belly first. That’s the law of nature.”

  I looked fondly at my new friend. He might pretend not to care about anyone but himself. But look what he’d done to help me. Already he had saved my life, taught me a bit about the new world around me, and he’d even given me a nut.

  “I’ll be extra careful,” I promised Lexi. “Where did you see the children playing?”

  “They were in the ball field near the lake.” He pointed with his nose.

  “I’ve got to go,” I told him.

  “Be careful you don’t get caught,” Lexi warned me again. “Everything in the park seems to move faster than you.”

  “I’ll watch out,” I told him as I started off. I felt a bit sad. I liked Lexi, and I knew that if I found Robbie, I’d return to my old cage and never see my new friend again.

  I tried to run with a confident step, but inside, I was quivering. Would I find Robbie? Or would something find me?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Words with a Warning

  Because I had spent more time reading the paper scraps in my cage than using the exercise wheel, I wasn’t very strong. I often had to stop and rest. Remembering Lexi’s warning, I took care to hide myself behind stones or tree trunks. I discovered that I could squeeze myself into the small spaces where the trees grew out of the ground. I felt very safe resting in those cozy holes.

  The best thing about my travels was that I could always find something good to eat whenever I felt a little hungry. I could nibble on some of the grasses or other plants that were growing wild all around me. I also found something that I couldn’t identify, but that tasted especially delicious. It was made of three parts, one on top of the other. The outer sides were the same, but in the middle was something sweet combined with a taste that reminded me of the nut Lexi had given me.

  While I was resting in one of the tree holes, a breeze brought a large piece of paper through the air. It landed nearby, and I was so excited to see such a large piece of paper with so many connected letters that I forgot myself and ran out into the open to investigate. For the first time in my life, I was seeing letters that formed real words. Suddenly I became very excited by the skill I knew I had. At last I would be able to read a complete story. I walked along the paper, sounding out the words and trying to learn their message:

  YANKS BEAT RED SOX 7–4

  IN 12-INNING GAME

  I was able to read the words but they made no sense to me whatsoever. I crawled along the paper looking for another message to read.

  METS SCORE HEAVILY

  IN DOUBLEHEADER AGAINST BRAVES

  It was another meaningless story. What was the point of knowing how to read if the story had nothing worthwhile to say?

  I walked off the paper, disappointed. But at the moment, a breeze flipped another page of the paper into view. I looked again, and this time I found a story that I could understand.

  NEW PLAYGROUND PLANNED

  FOR CENTRAL PARK

  Within the next few days, construction will begin on a new play area for the city’s children. Designed by Steven Zalben, this playground will have ingenious climbing structures and imaginative cubicles in which children can create hiding places and clubhouses for their games. The project has been funded by private money raised by The Friends of Central Park.

  Only eight maple trees, at 73rd Street near Fifth Avenue, will be affected by the construction. They will be cut down to make room for the play area. “We are always sorry to lose one of our trees,” the park commissioner was quoted as saying at a press conference announcing the new playground. “But we know the play area will bring much joy to the city’s children. And that, of course, is one of the primary goals of our park.” The public is urged to keep out of the construction area until this project is completed.

  My first thought was how much Robbie would enjoy climbing and playing there. But then I realized something terrible. Wasn’t Lexi’s tree near 73rd Street? Wouldn’t his home be in danger now? What would happen to all the nuts that he stored there? Wouldn’t his entire food supply be lost when they cut down his tree? I was about to turn back and warn Lexi that he was going to lose his home. But just at that moment, I heard the sound of shouting and
cheering children playing nearby. I wanted to turn back, but at the same time, the voices of the children made me long for Robbie. And so I continued on, away from Lexi, toward the children.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I Meet a Group of Children

  As I neared the children, I could hear their voices getting louder and louder. But soon a group of fat pigeons blocked my way. “Food, food,” they mumbled as they pecked at the dirt. The pigeons were bigger than any of the birds I’d known at Casey’s Pet Shop. They ate a lot more too. And unlike the parakeets at the pet shop, who could speak entire sentences, the pigeons had a very limited vocabulary. They said the same word over and over. “Food. Food.”

  “I don’t want your food,” I shouted to them, although I was getting hungry and tired once again.

  Finally, I could see the lake. It was like a huge shining water dish that could provide drink for every guinea pig in the world. In the play area, there were many children who were busy in a game of ball. Off in the distance, I could see Robbie running with the others. My heart beat fast with delight. As I rushed toward him, a breeze blowing the leaves sounded like cheers and applause.

  “Hey, what’s that?” one of the children called out.

  “It’s a rat!” shrieked one of them.

  “No it’s not. It’s a guinea pig like we have at school.”

  Someone scooped me up and held me tightly. All of the other children came running to get a good look at me. I could see their faces better now. When I looked at the boy who I’d been sure was Robbie, I saw I was wrong. He was the same size and had dark hair, but he didn’t have freckles. I know you can’t wash freckles off, because Robbie had told me that one evening when he was talking to me.

  “What should we do with him?” the boy who looked like Robbie asked.