Squirrel World Page 3

  We watched as the couple raced to catch the huge bus. The doors opened, and some people got out. The man and woman waited to get on.

  “Come,” I called to Lenox and leaped down off my perch on the tree. “Didn’t you hear what that woman said? We must go to Blooming Dales, too. That must be why Lexington Avenue is famous.”

  “And how are we going to find this Blooming Dales place?” Lenox shouted after me.

  “Just like the humans. We’ll take the bus.”

  With that I leaped onto a metal piece on the rear of the vehicle. Not a moment too soon, Lenox joined me.

  “This had better be good,” he said.

  “It will. It will. Just hold on tight. We’ll get off when that man and woman do. That’s how we’ll know where we’re going.”

  The bus lurched and started moving.

  “Hold tight!” I shouted.

  Lenox held on tight, and so did I.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In Search of Blooming Vales

  Our ride was a bumpy one. One moment we thought we were about to be thrown off, and the next thing we knew the bus was slowing to a stop. But just as we were about to relax our hold, it took off again. It’s not easy riding on a bus, I decided. No wonder I’d never tried it before.

  At one of our stops, Lenox asked me, “What does it mean—Blooming Dales?”

  I wasn’t certain, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Let’s figure it out,” I said as the bus began to move again. “The first part is easy: I’ve heard people in the park talk about the plants. They look at the flowers and say, ‘What lovely blooms.’ Or they say, ‘The flowers are blooming.’ Obviously blooming means ‘flowering.’”

  “And dales?” Lenox asked.

  I paused a moment, thinking hard. Dales? Dales? I knew I’d heard the word before.

  Suddenly it came to me. I’d heard the word in one of the poems that PeeWee read aloud. How did it go?

  I wandered lonely as a cloud

  that floats on high o’er vales and hills …

  Oh, dear. I was wrong. The poem said vales and not dales. The tourist had probably gotten it confused. She meant to say vales, I decided. And I’d learned from PeeWee that vales means “valleys.”

  “Flowering valleys!” I shouted to Lenox, as the bus took off again. I was delighted that my reasoning had produced such a happy answer to our question. “Lexington Avenue may be a disappointment,” I told my cousin, “but Blooming Vales, which is another part of the avenue, will be magnificent.” I began to imagine an area filled with golden daffodils, brilliant red tulips, white and purple lilac bushes, bright pink rhododendron plants, and lush soft green grass. No matter that in our park each of those flowers blooms in a different week. In Blooming Vales, those and a hundred different varieties would all be in flower at the same time. Also, unlike this part of Lexington Avenue, there would be no more cement and no rain.

  “We’ll be there soon,” I promised Lenox.

  I could hardly wait.

  Each time the bus stopped, its doors opened. Some people got on, and some people got off. Lenox and I watched carefully. Humans look more or less the same to us, so we had to be sure that we didn’t confuse the couple we were following with another pair, a couple who was going somewhere else.

  “That’s them!” I shouted to Lenox as the bus came to another stop and I saw the man and woman we were following get off.

  We jumped down from our perch. I was relieved to be on firm ground again, even if it was cement. We watched as the couple stood looking about. Then they began to cross to the other side of the street.

  “Come along!” I shouted to Lenox.

  I was so busy watching the couple that I didn’t have time to look around. But from the corner of my eye, I could see that this part of Lexington Avenue looked no more interesting than the part where we’d been before.

  “They’re going inside that building,” said Lenox.

  “Then we have to follow them,” I replied. “It must lead to Blooming Vales.”

  We stood waiting for someone to pull open one of the big doors, and then we scooted quickly inside.

  At once, I could sense that I was in a place that was unlike any I’d ever been in before. I could smell the perfume of flowers. It was much stronger and sweeter than the perfume of the flowers in the park. But when I looked around, I couldn’t see any flowers at all. There were paths leading in all directions, and Lenox and I didn’t know which way to run first.

  “Look! I never saw a squirrel inside the store before!” shouted someone.

  “There are two of them!”

  “Make yourself scarce!” I called out to Lenox. I was afraid someone would attempt to chase us away before we’d had the chance to explore all that this strange building had to offer.

  The floor was shiny and slippery, not like cement and not like soil. I could hear my paws scratching as I ran. Luckily, there were so many people and so many nooks and crannies that even without trees or shrubs to hide in, Lenox and I quickly managed find a dark corner in which to keep safe.

  We stayed hidden for quite a while. It was good to sit quietly and catch our breath. Since early morning, we had been running on hard cement, exposed to outrageous noises, and bumped about on the back of a bus. Now we both curled up, watching and listening but not making a movement that might call attention to us. My stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I wondered where the food was stored in this place.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Lenox said firmly. “I don’t care what the name means. There are no flowering valleys here.”

  I hated to admit it, but he was right.

  Maybe there was something better on the other side of the street, I thought.

  Cautiously, keeping low and frequently hiding, Lenox and I headed back in the direction we had come from. It was a great relief when I saw the doors again, and when someone opened one, I charged out. Lenox was right behind me. We’d escaped from Blooming Vales. Now what?

  I looked around. The street was crowded with people walking in both directions. There were cars and buses, noise and feet. This was not a good place for a pair of squirrels.

  Then I looked across the street. I saw a large building with a huge sign on it. I tried to remember the reading lessons PeeWee had given me last summer.

  I had already mastered all 26 letters of the alphabet. So I quickly recognized N and U. N-U. I tried to sound out the letters as PeeWee had been trying to teach me to do. N-U-T. Was that Noot? No, no, I realized with delight.

  “Nut! It says nut!” I shouted happily to Lenox.

  That’s where I made a very big mistake. I didn’t pay any attention to the other letters: R-U-S … What did they matter? Nothing is more important when you’re hungry than an N-U-T.

  “Come quickly!” I cried. “That’s where we have to go.”

  Once again we ran with every bit of speed we could muster. And once again we jumped through an open door. And alas. Once again we were in a flowery, scented house with no flowers, no trees, and no nuts. How could that sign have lied? I was furious.

  “Squirrels! Look at the squirrels!” someone shouted.

  The people standing nearby began to squeal and jump about. You’d think they’d never seen a squirrel before in their lives.

  “I’m starving,” said Lenox, ignoring the humans. “I must find something to eat.”

  For once the two of us were in agreement. We ran about sniffing the air. There had to be food somewhere. How could this store have such a big sign for nuts and yet not have a single nut in sight?

  Suddenly a huge cloth was thrown over us, and Lenox and I were trapped underneath it. We fought to get out, but the cloth was too heavy for us. We could hardly move.

  “I’m going to suffocate,” yelled Lenox, trying to push the cloth away.

  “Wait. Wait. Let me think,” I said, attempting to remain calm. I knew we shouldn’t try to fight off the covering. We needed to save our energy. Someone would have t
o remove it. The humans wanted to get rid of us as much as we wanted to be rid of them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Trapped

  Since we couldn’t escape, we did the only sensible thing we could, which was to curl up and go to sleep. With a good rest behind us, we’d both be able to think better.

  We woke to the sound of human voices and to the sensation of human hands in thick gloves lifting us up and putting us into a closed box with mesh sides. I ran around in a panic.

  I could look out of the box, but there was no way to get out.

  “Stop! I smell something good!” shouted Lenox with excitement.

  I stopped and took a deep breath. “I do too,” I said.

  We ran toward the scent, which was like peanuts but even stronger and better. “It’s like smashed peanuts,” Lenox said, eating something he found in the corner of the box. “And it’s delicious. I love it.”

  He was right. It was delicious. But though I was very hungry, I still was sharp enough to realize we were in a terrible situation. “Don’t you see what has happened?” I cried out in despair.

  Lenox looked up, his mouth covered with the tan peanut paste. He licked it from his lips. He looked around for the first time. “We’re in a cage!” he cried out. “Look what you did. You got us trapped inside a cage.”

  Lenox and I ran round and round the mesh cage that we found ourselves in. Never mind that at one end the delicious peanut smell was wafting over us. A cage is the worst possible place that a squirrel can be. There had to be a way for us to get out.

  And if there wasn’t a way out, what did the humans plan to do with us?

  Eventually we were both exhausted. We had to stop, and while we caught our breath, I finally could overhear talk of the proposed scheme for Lenox and me.

  “They belong in a park,” a man’s voice said with certainty.

  “Yes, but I’ve come up with a better idea. In fact, it’s an extraordinary one,” said another voice.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know the display that our window decorators have just set up? It’s a park scene with mannequins, plants, and fake birds. Imagine if we had real squirrels running up and down the plants. People would flock to see our windows. It would be fantastic. Better than Bloomingdale’s. Better than Lord and Taylor. Better than Macy’s. Our window would be better than any of those windows with mechanical objects. This would be real. We can call it Squirrel World.”

  “Do you really think people will stop and look at our windows?” another man asked.

  “Of course. Haven’t you ever walked past that pet shop on Sixtieth Street? There’s always a crowd admiring the dogs in the window. Imagine the people looking at our squirrels. It would be fantastic. And after they finished looking at the windows, they’d come inside and shop. That’s what it’s all about: attracting customers to buy our Nu-Tru Styles.”

  Nu-Tru Styles. I shuddered when I heard those words. I’d once overheard one human tell another that a little learning is a dangerous thing. My little bit of learning had misled me to believe that this was a store that sold nuts. How could I have been so dumb?

  The two men continued their talking. I grew tired trying to follow all they had to say. Finally, despite my fears, my hunger got the better of me, and I began nibbling again at the peanut paste. It was sticky stuff, almost as if someone had pre-chewed it for us. It was good, but nothing could be good enough to make up for being in a cage.

  Eventually Lenox and I were let out of the cage. For one glorious moment, I thought we were free. But then I realized we had traded one cage for another. In place of the small mesh cage, we were now in a much larger space, which looked out onto Lexington Avenue. I made a flying leap and hit my head on an invisible barrier. It was clear glass, the same stuff that they use for car and bus windows. Stunned, I lay on the ground. It seemed to be earth, but actually it was some sort of imitation, made out of paper.

  I looked around me. It appeared that we were inside the park. There was a bench with a pair of humans sitting on it. One was holding a newspaper and reading. Nearby were two children who appeared to be playing. One had a ball, and the other had a pail and shovel. I watched them. No one moved. Not a breath, not a blink. I stared at the large humans. The man never turned a page in his paper, and the woman never glanced at the children. Time passed, and the children never dug in the dirt or whined for ice cream.

  I climbed up a tree, but it wasn’t a true tree, made of wood and bark. I chewed on a leaf, and it tasted like paper. In fact, it was paper. I jumped over to another tree. Perhaps that one would be better. It wasn’t. Nothing smelled or tasted or felt as it should inside this huge cage.

  “Oh, Lenox,” I sighed aloud. “What have we gotten ourselves into? There is nothing real in this place but us.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Squirrel World”

  What followed were days of captivity inside the fake world. I suppose to some it might have seemed glorious. Without the slightest effort on our part, our hunger and thirst were satisfied. Ample amounts of food and water were provided. Each morning, fresh supplies of peanuts were thrown at us. There were enough to keep us well fed all day long.

  But gradually we grew bored with the sameness of our diet.

  I also suddenly understood what my mother had meant when she said, “If you don’t put in a day’s work, you will not find fun in your day.” Though we had nothing to do but eat and chase each other, I grew more and more restless. There was not much satisfaction or triumph in finding food when I didn’t have to look for it. Furthermore, large as this new cage was, it could not compare with our home in the park. Lenox and I ran up and down the phony trees, chasing each other, but we had no other squirrels to play with.

  There was constant sunshine, always coming from the same angle, until it suddenly went out at night. I had never realized how much I loved the variety of weather. Here it never rained. There were no breezes. Even worse, there were no birds or insects or any other life at all. Just Lenox and me running around and getting more and more bored with each other and our limited existence.

  It reminded me of something, and I confess I was slow to realize what it was. “We are just like creatures in the park zoo,” I gasped when it finally dawned on me. “This is what it must be like for them.”

  “Yes. And you got us into this situation,” Lenox berated me over and over again, once he tired of our life in the store window.

  It was no use reminding him that this expedition to Lexington Avenue had been his idea. Who knew that Blooming Vales had only fake flowers in bloom? Who knew that Nu-Tru Styles was a prison? Who knew that we would end up trapped in a cage with humans? Humans who weren’t even real!

  When we became too bored to run around, we looked out at the people who were looking at us. Men, women, and children stood in rapt amazement, watching us. Yes, indeed, it was exactly like being an animal in the zoo.

  In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing such mobs around a single zoo cage. Big and small humans pressed their noses to the window. After a while, we noticed that there were many humans marching back and forth, holding big sticks attached to cardboard signs with messages written on them. I could read some of the letters: A-S-P-C-A. I had no idea what those letters spelled. I certainly needed more lessons from PeeWee. But I feared I’d never see him or my squirrel family in the park ever again.

  Sometimes police officers in their blue uniforms would argue with the people. We couldn’t hear what they said, but we obviously were the focus of everyone’s attention.

  I tapped on the glass window, and I could see that the people were delighted. Immediately someone tapped back.

  “Fools!” I called to the humans. “If you want to see trees and squirrels, go to the park.”

  But they paid no attention. During the course of the day, more and more people stood spellbound. Sometimes bright lights flashed at us as people with cameras took our picture. I thought of the millions of times I had watched humans taking p
ictures of one another in the park. Some of the cameras spit out the picture at once, so over the years I have seen some of the results. Often people leave the pictures on park benches or in the trash cans. Blurred copies of nature, totally inedible. They serve no purpose at all.

  When the sun went off at nighttime, Lenox and I stopped performing. We sat under the phony trees and discussed our situation. “If only we could find a way out,” he said to me.

  But we had searched every corner of our cage, and there seemed to be no crack or hole. There was a sliding door that opened briefly every morning, when the day’s supply of food and water was left for us. But it all happened so quickly that there was no way for us to make a break for it. And if we did, then what? We would end up back inside the store. We’d once again be running away from all those people who had chased us before.

  Occasionally a pigeon or two walked past the window. I tried to attract their attention. Maybe they would fly to the park and get some of our family to help us. But even when I tapped at the pigeons, they just looked up and then away. They seemed to care only about food. They didn’t care about trapped squirrels.

  “I hate it here,” said Lenox. Had he told me that a hundred times? Or was it two hundred?

  I totally agreed with him, but I didn’t tell him that. What was the point of it? I tried to think of the good things about our situation. We were safe. Dogs passed by all day long. Some of them pulled at their leashes and tried to get through the window, but they couldn’t. They growled and pressed their muzzles against the glass, but they couldn’t reach us. In the park, we often had to run from dogs that got free from their owners. I know of more than one squirrel who found himself or herself between the jaws of an unleashed dog.