Lexi's Tale (4 page)

“Help!” PeeWee cried out.

“Okay, Seventy-four,” I said to my cousin, “let that fellow go. I'll keep an eye on him and he won't take anything.”

Seventy-four looked at me and then at PeeWee with a very suspicious expression. He couldn't speak because the moment he opened his mouth, PeeWee would be freed. Finally his jaw must have become tired. “Run along,” he said to PeeWee angrily. “I know where you live. And if anything's missing, I'll know just where to go look for it.”

It was an empty threat. None of the squirrels knew exactly what had been stored away for the feast. Most of them were so foolish that they would waste their time counting the shells instead of the nuts.

PeeWee and I made our way back toward the bench where the man was still sitting.

“Well, don't just sit there. Dig up a nut for him,” demanded PeeWee.

I wasn't used to taking orders from my friend, but nevertheless I began sniffing the ground around me. It wasn't often that PeeWee felt so passionate about something. Every squirrel knows that
a nut underground is a meal waiting to be found
, and so almost at once I found an acorn.

I walked over to the man with it in my mouth. As I approached him, I became aware of what PeeWee had said the day before. He did smell good. There was something about this man that made me feel he wouldn't betray us. After all, he didn't have to help PeeWee
yesterday. I once saw a dog turn and bite a human. This man had risked that possibility when he went to rescue PeeWee.

I dropped the nut on the ground at his feet and backed away. Then I watched as the man bent down and picked up the nut. He said some strange word that I couldn't understand and then he reached for a nearby stone. He used it to hit the nutshell. In a moment the shell was shattered and the man picked out the pieces of nut meat.

“Thanks,” PeeWee said to me. “Do you think you could find him a few dozen more? He's awfully big and one nut isn't going to fill his stomach.”

“
One nut is better than a thousand shells
,” I said, quoting my mother. But I knew he was right. What would make a fine meal for a squirrel or
a guinea pig would never satisfy a human being. I recalled another one of my mother's sayings:
One acorn a day won't keep hunger away
. I'd have to do an awful lot of digging if I was going to try and satisfy this stranger's hunger. And all because he saved PeeWee's life.

Luckily the man got up from his seat on the bench and walked away. “Thank goodness. Now I can get my own breakfast,” I said to PeeWee.

“He'll be back,” PeeWee replied. “So we should collect some more nuts for him.”

I knew Uncle Ninety-nine would be very upset if he saw how I was spending my morning. With PeeWee's help I dug up more than three dozen nuts. They made and impressive pile, and it made my mouth water just to look at them.

“What a nice treat,” a voice called out as I was admiring the stack of nuts.

Even without looking I knew the voice. It was Uncle Ninety-nine.

“We have enough for the Squirrel Circus feast,” my uncle said as he poked among the nuts in the pile and selected the largest one. He cracked it quickly and ate it even quicker. Then, as I stood helplessly watching, he took a second and a third nut. PeeWee had moved off at the sight of my uncle. Now he was hidden under a bush, watching the pile of nuts get smaller and smaller.

“Those nuts are for a very hungry human who rescued PeeWee from a dog yesterday,” I said as I saw my uncle studying the remaining nuts. He was too full to eat another and too lazy to bury any of them.

“What a ridiculous thing. Squirrels don't give nuts to humans. Humans give nuts to squirrels,” he said.

It's true that in addition to the nuts and seeds the trees provide, there is a group of humans who bring bags of nuts to feed squirrels. But I never think of humans as our prime source of nutrition.

“Bury these nuts for tomorrow,” Uncle Ninety-nine said as he turned away. “And don't worry about hungry humans. Let humans worry about humans.”

I certainly had no intention of burying the nuts that I'd spent the last hour digging up. And in fact, now I worried that some of my other squirrel relatives who were running around in the area would smell the nuts and come for an easy snack too.

Suddenly I had a good idea. I raced up my tree and returned carrying one of the mittens that had padded my hole. With my uncle gone, PeeWee returned and helped me stuff the nuts inside the mitten. I know that's not what humans use mittens for, but it was perfect. It just shows that squirrels are smarter than the people who use the park. We don't cover our paws, but if we have a mitten, we can put it to good use.

As the sun reached its midday position in the sky, the man returned. He sat down on the bench, and at once he noticed the stuffed mitten that was waiting for him.

He picked it up and then removed one of the nuts from it.

He looked around and spotted PeeWee and me waiting under a nearby bush. He called out some words, making the same sounds we'd heard from him earlier in the morning.

“He's saying thank you,” Pee Wee told me.

“So now you've become an expert in this new language too,” I said sarcastically. But actually I was pleased at the success of my plan. It isn't easy to hide nuts from squirrels, and except for Uncle Ninety-nine, I'd kept everyone unaware of the meal I'd dug up. But now, watching the man cracking and gulping down the nuts, I could see they weren't enough. He'd need a lot more than just a mittenful of nuts to satisfy his hunger.

The stranger put the now-empty mitten into his pocket. I guessed that like me he was a scavenger, saving whatever came his way. That's when I thought of something else that was hidden in my hole. I had a wallet!

The old leather thing made a fine pillow for my head. But I knew humans had another use for their wallets. Many times I'd watched as fathers or mothers opened their wallets and
removed pieces of green paper that they stored inside. They exchanged the green papers for ice cream, pretzels, and balloons for their children. The wallet in my hole was thick with green papers. With it this stranger could get all the food he wanted.

I raced up my tree to get the wallet. It wasn't easy. I had wedged it into my hole and it was harder to pull out than it had been to push inside. But finally I pulled it loose, and with one corner of the wallet in my mouth, I ran back down the tree.

When I landed on the ground, I looked around. “Where's the man?” I called out to PeeWee, who was hiding under a nearby bush.

“He walked away,” PeeWee responded.

“Look what I brought for him,” I said,
proudly pointing to the wallet that I had put on the ground.

Even before PeeWee could come toward me and admire the wallet, two children came running in our direction.

“Look,” a little girl called out, reaching for the wallet.

I leaped toward her, but she'd already grabbed it.

“What did you find?” her friend asked her.

“You can't have it! It's mine,” she shouted.

That was a lie. It was mine, and I was going to give it to the man.

“Let me see,” the little boy whined. But the girl wouldn't show him. She started to run with the wallet in her hand and the boy chased after her. I ran after them.

Luckily I didn't have to go too far. The little girl tripped and as she fell, she dropped the wallet. As fast as a midwinter wind, I snapped up the wallet. The little girl was crying over her scraped knees and the boy was laughing at her. But they both stopped when they saw me racing away. I ran up the nearest tree with the wallet in my jaws.

The children came running to the tree, but they couldn't catch me. I sat on a branch and chattered at them angrily. “Go play your games,” I shouted. And after a few minutes that's exactly what they did.

From my high perch I looked around. Where was the stranger? I wondered. Then I saw him, pulling trash out of one of the garbage cans. It was a sure sign that he was hungry, but after almost losing it once, I
didn't want to attempt to drag the wallet all the way to where he was. I'd have to wait until he came closer.

“What do you have there?” a voice called to me.

It was old Uncle Ninety-nine.

“This is just a leather wallet,” I said. “Nothing edible.”

“Then what are you doing with it?” my uncle asked.

If I'd thought fast enough, I'd have come up with a story to satisfy him. But I made the mistake of telling him about the hungry human again. “This wallet is filled with green papers that he can use to get food,” I explained.

“Lexington!” my uncle shouted. I know it's never good when someone who knows your nickname calls you by your formal name instead. “I told you to have nothing more to do with that man. It's bad luck for squirrels and people to interact. I know your mother taught you that. You give a wallet to a man and the next thing you know he'll catch you and put you inside a cage.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked my uncle. “If I'm in a cage, I can never give him another
gift.” Of course I didn't have anything else to give the stranger except another mitten or an old glove and a rubber ball. But neither my uncle nor the stranger knew that.

Uncle Ninety-nine shook his head. “I'm warning you,” he said. “You will only feel regret if you give that wallet to a human. Throw it on the ground. It was lost by one human. It will be found by another. Squirrels have the good fortune not to need green papers in order to get their meals.”

I scratched my head. I'd been taught to respect my elders. Never had I even argued with one in a conversation. But this was one time when I felt strongly that I was doing the right thing. Uncle Ninety-nine was wrong: The hungry stranger with the funny hat would not put me inside a cage. Even if he tried, I
knew I was too fast for him. Besides, I was certain that he wouldn't try. I'd seen how gently he had handled PeeWee.