Squirrelified

Chapter Two:

After listening closely in the silence that followed, Mel could hear a horrible screeching squeak. But here comes the odd part, the squeaking lowered in pitch and sounded like “No. No squeak.” coming from the big Oak.

       “Huh?” asked Alex with a questioning look on his face.

        “Watch the tree.” mouthed Melody. Soon enough an older looking squirrel came out on a branch, sighed, looked straight at them for a moment and shook his head. While he crawled back into the tree, Mel stared at the squirrel, then at Alex. Alex stared right back at her. When they had gotten over the initial shock Mel asked incredulously;” Did that squirrel actually sigh and shake its head at us?” Alex shrugged.

In the fading light his blonde hair looked fiery red. ”Wait a moment!!” She yelped, “Fading light! Oh no!”, as she glanced at her watch. “We haven’t put up camp and it’s already 6:30pm! It gets dark at 8:00pm! The last time we tried to put up the tent, it took us two hours. But now we have only 90 minutes! 1 ½ hours!!” Mel was getting hysterical.

        “Calm down, Mel.” said Alex. “That was a practice round. Now we have experience.” When he said that, he raised his eyebrows in a comical way causing Mel to laugh with relief. Walking over to the tent Alex examined the tent. “Well I think to start we have to put these poles together. Then we have to thread them through the loops and together put the ends in those metal things.  There appears to be three poles…“He went on talking, pretending to be a professor in a lisping kind of voice.

       With this commentary they had the tent up in 45 minutes and using the 45 minutes left they made a fire pit with a fire in it and got out the food. Alex decided he was the cook for the night which gave Mel time to change out of her cold wet clothes and into her pajamas.

        Meanwhile in the Oak the Squirrels had finished dinner at 7:32pm and were searching the Oak for Papa and Lisa. Both had been missing at dinner. This is most peculiar. Papa, Carla was sure, had never missed a meal in is life. Lisa was very punctual and was always there at seven on the nose, hands washed and face cleaned. Dinner was chaotic without Papa. Carlito wouldn’t eat without Papa. Jeff, Hans, Nathan, Mary and Carla had their paws full telling the children that Papa was tired and wanted to sleep right now. But the question kept coming to their minds. Where are Papa and Lisa? Only the little children could voice it.

Early the next morning Mel and Alex awoke and went outside to watch the sunrise and instead noticed the little squirrel perched on a very small branch, gazing into the darkness of the woods.

Feeling saddened by the missing Lisa problem, Carla decided to race around the tree. They would accomplish this by running around and around the tree starting on the bottom and running around, moving upward fast or slow depending on their mood and how fast they were running. While doing this Carla found Lisa, squatting on the most rotten branch on the whole tree. Racing straight up instead of around, Carla reached Lisa in no time at all. “All night, Lisa?” questioned Carla.

       “Yeah.” monotoned Lisa in such a horrible voice it made Carla’s heart ache.

        “We’re having breakfast in the kitchen.” said Carla, hopefully. “Come eat.”

                “Why, Carla? Why?” moaned Lisa.

        “Why what?” Carla asked.

       “Why even live? Why me? Why us? Why everything!!!” shouted Lisa.

  

 Alex could see them talking and wondered “What are they saying? Why are they talking? Squirrels don’t talk.”

       “Oh yes they do!!! If they didn’t, I couldn’t be talking to you!!!” Shouted a small voice from behind him. “I talk just as well as you do and I’m only 8 inches tall!”

       Turning around, Alex, to his shock saw…

“Hey look, there’s Papa!” shrilled Carla. From almost every one of the wooden knot windows of the Oak, appeared heads, each one screeching “I found Papa!! No, I found Papa first!”

       An extremely bewildered Melody heard “Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!” shouted in nine parlously shrill voices. Then she noticed ten squirrels pouring out of the Oak headed straight for Alex. Lissa, Jeff, Hans, Nathan, John, Mary, Anna, Leah and baby Carlito with Mama came running to meet Papa but stopped short when they saw Alex and Mel.

Staring up in awe of their towering forms, every squirrel’s, except Papa’s, mouth hit the ground or so to speak.

                    

After a few minutes all the squirrels except Mama and Papa had turned tail and raced back into the house. Carlito couldn’t run because Mama was holding him but he sure looked like he wanted to. “What is your business here, humans?” demanded Papa.

       “I-I I’m.” stuttered Alex

       “We are on a vacation and just stumbled upon your lovely home.” insisted Melody. “We mean no harm. We just need a place to stay for about 2 weeks. That’s it, nothing else. I hope its okay with you. Seeing as this is your clearing…“Mel was starting to babble. She was nervous. Talking to a squirrel about how lovely their clearing was. Ridiculous and nerve-racking. What do most people do when they are nervous? They babble.

Twenty minutes later Papa interrupted her. “Are you quite finished?”

During her babble time her voice had risen in pitch. “The young ears of baby squirrels are quite sensitive. And since you are almost yelling I think that your husband would most appreciate quietness because, I’m afraid, he looks as if he’s had a heart attack.”