Squirrel World (2 page)

As I’ve mentioned, I have hundreds and hundreds of relatives all through the park. I’ve never bothered to make a full count of all of us, although once a human did attempt to do that. What humans don’t know is that the best counters in the park are birds. They seem to be born with an ability to know numbers. It’s a skill they need in order to keep track of the eggs in their nests.

The day that PeeWee and Plush left the rain forest, I arrived back at my tree home to discover an unexpected visitor. It was my cousin Lenox. I must confess he’s not my favorite relative. He tends to be gloomy and grumpy much of the time. He complains a lot. It’s as if every seed he ate were sour and every nut rotten. But as we had not seen each other in many, many months, I greeted him in the traditional friendly-squirrel manner: I chased him up and down my tree three times. We didn’t attempt to speak. The chase is just a show of our speed and stamina and good health. Then, when we had completed this rite, Lenox joined me on a limb outside my nest.

“Well, Lenox,” I said to him. “How has
the weather treated you? Did you enjoy the winter?”

“Winter, summer, spring, fall—it’s all the same,” grumbled Lenox.

“What do you mean?” I asked him. “Every day is different. Every day brings us something new: a nut, a seed, a flower, a friend.”

Lenox scratched his right side with his left paw. Then he scratched his left side with his right paw. “I’m bored with nuts and seeds and flowers. And I haven’t made a new friend in ages.”

“Well, stick around for a few hours,” I suggested. “My friends PeeWee and Plush and their children will be turning up later in the day. I think you’ll enjoy them.”

“PeeWee? Is that the fat furry fellow I’ve heard about? The one without a tail?”

“The very one,” I said, nodding. “He doesn’t have a tail, but he can read stories and poems to me,” I bragged. PeeWee is the only nonhuman in the park who has mastered the art of reading. “He—”

“Forget him,” said Lenox, interrupting. “I’m looking for something more exciting than a tailless creature. And I have a plan.”

“What sort of a plan?” I asked, puzzled. It was not like Lenox to make plans.

“I want to take a journey, and I want a companion.”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked my cousin.

“All my life I’ve been called Lenox. You’ve been called Lexington. Haven’t you ever
wanted to see the street that shares your name?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are there nuts there? Are there seeds?”

“Of course there are nuts and seeds on Lenox Avenue. It’s covered with nuts. And so is Lexington Avenue,” Lenox said confidently.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked him. “You’ve never been there.”

“Why would our parents have named us for barren soil?” said Lenox. “I know these are fine places, and I want to go and see them. I want to go to Lenox Avenue. And I’m inviting you to join me.”

“Thanks very much,” I told him, “but no thanks. I’m staying right here.”

“How can you give up this chance for an adventure?” Lenox demanded.

“It’s easy,” I said. “I’m satisfied with my life in the park.”

“Please come,” Lenox begged me.

I shook my head. I had no interest in Lenox Avenue at all.

“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll go to Lexington Avenue first. And after that, we’ll go to Lenox Avenue.”

“I’m still not interested,” I said. “It’s a long distance from here. It might take us a whole day. Maybe even two whole days.”

“Of course. That’s part of the adventure,” my cousin said. “Think of all you’ll see and taste along the way. Aren’t you even a little bit tempted?”

I sat there thinking. In recent days, as spring arrived in the park, flocks of
migrating birds had returned, too. I had scanned the skies, watching for old friends. In some ways, I wasn’t so different from the human bird-watchers who came to the park, carrying their peculiar devices for spying birds. I didn’t need binoculars to see who had come home again. I also enjoyed sitting on a tree branch and eavesdropping on the conversations of the robins and some of the other birds. I heard them discuss their journeys to the south and back again. I’d never seen any part of the world except the
park, and I admit that sometimes I envied the birds their opportunity to travel. I thought it must be wonderful to see other places, meet others of my species, sleep in new holes, and taste new foods.

I looked over at Lenox. It occurred to me that I’d never seen him show even a little bit of enthusiasm about anything. When the sun shines, he usually complains that we need rain. And of course when it rains, he grumbles that it’s too wet. His usual attitude is not pleasant, and I guessed he’d been turned down by some of our other relatives before he arrived at my tree. I didn’t believe I was his first choice for a traveling partner. And yet I began to realize that I was more than a little bit tempted by this
idea of an adventurous journey to the street that bore my name.

I let Lenox nag a bit more while I thought about it. The average squirrel has a home range of about seven acres, but I have never been considered average. I’ve traveled all over the acreage of the park. Why shouldn’t I travel still farther afield, like the birds? And so when Lenox finally stopped for breath and for new arguments, I found myself agreeing to accompany him. First we would go to Lexington Avenue, and afterward we’d travel to Lenox. He had won me over.

“I’ve waited my whole life for this moment,” Lenox declared triumphantly once I had agreed to accompany him. “Let’s get going.”

“If you’ve waited that long, it won’t make much difference to wait another day,” I told him.

This didn’t please him at all.

“I want to be certain that PeeWee and Plush and their children arrive home safely.
And I want to show them the fine new tree holes I’ve found for them to live in, too.”

“Since when have you gone into the real estate business?” asked Lenox, his voice full of disgust.

“Now listen here, Lenox,” I said to him as patiently as I could. “If you want my company on this adventure of yours, then you’ll have to agree to my terms. I’m not ready to depart today. So if you want to go now, go. Good-bye. Have a good time.”

I had him there. Lenox talks big, but his courage is small. I knew he didn’t want to go alone. And I also knew that there were not many other squirrels who would be willing to accompany Lenox when he ventured into the unknown. They did not want to risk falling off the edge of the world by going
where they had never been before. Even my brother Columbus, named for an avenue that was named for a brave explorer, would not have wanted to leave his cozy nest on the west side of the park.

“What’s safe is safe,
” my mother had taught us. But while Lenox might be motivated by boredom, I myself had a fascination with the unknown. The unknown is waiting to be known, I thought. I repeated that statement a couple of times to myself. I’d only just made it up, the way my mother had always made up her sayings. But the more I said it, the more I believed it. And the more I believed it, the more excited I felt about the adventure that Lenox and I were going to embark on. But I still felt a sense of responsibility to my guinea pig friends.

It was not until late afternoon that the exhausted band of guinea pigs arrived at their old home, just a few trees away from mine.

I introduced them to my cousin. “Lexi has more relatives than any other creature I’ve ever met,” PeeWee said. “But the guinea pig clan is growing.”

Even though she was very tired, Mother Plush immediately pushed her way inside their old tree hole. At once she began tossing out wet leaves that had blown inside during the winter.

She stuck her head outside. “It’s too damp. This hole must dry out overnight before we can move back inside.”

“And what about the size?” asked PeeWee. “Can we all fit in?”

He looked proudly at his grown offspring.

Plush shook her head. “Somehow our hole has become smaller while we were away.”

“More likely, your family has grown bigger,” I told her.

Then I led the way to the two new spots I’d located for them. Both were nearby and well hidden. It was quickly agreed that these new tree holes would perfectly serve the guinea pig family’s needs. PeeWee was delighted that the holes were near each other. And all six guinea pigs were thrilled to discover the
welcome-home banquet that I’d arranged for them: nuts, seeds, a cone from a human’s ice cream, two apple cores, and half a doughnut. It had taken Lenox and me all afternoon to scout about and find these delicacies.

“How come you didn’t have a feast waiting to welcome me?” Lenox had grumbled as he dug in the park soil.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” I reminded him.

Twice I’d caught him taking little bites from the food we’d collected.

“Lenox,” I scolded him the second time. “If you aren’t going to share and give, you aren’t going to be a good traveling companion.”

“No, no,” he insisted. “I was just checking to be sure that nothing was rotten. You don’t want to give your friends bad food.”

I nodded and pretended to believe his excuse. But my words did serve to make him behave. Now PeeWee, Plush, and their four children began to eat. And as they were nibbling, gnawing, chewing, and chomping, I told them about the trip Lenox and I were planning to take.

Last spring, when he first arrived in the park, PeeWee would have been distraught by my news. He desperately needed me to watch
over him. But with time and my training, he has become totally familiar with the park world, and he now has a family of his own to watch over. I am happy to know we will be friends forever. However, now that he’s got a mate, I know I’m not the number-one creature in his life. And it was just because I no longer had the enormous responsibility of protecting PeeWee that I could go off with Lenox.

“You will return here, won’t you?” asked PeeWee.

“Of course,” I reassured him. “My mother always said,
‘East, west, one’s nest is best.’
”

“You will have many good stories to tell us when you come home,” commented Plush, looking up from the apple core she was holding in her paws.

“You may find another world that you like better,” PeeWee pointed out.

“Impossible,” I insisted.

I reminded myself that unlike all the other rodents in the park, PeeWee had not been born here. He was born in a pet shop and had for a brief time been the pet of a young human. So he’d already seen other worlds. In fact, it had taken him time to adjust to this life, with its freedom and its dangers.

I didn’t know much about Lexington Avenue, but I knew that even if I liked it better than the park, I’d come back. I’d tell my stories to PeeWee and Plush and their children. And I had promised Lenox that we’d go in search of Lenox Avenue, too. I had a lot of adventures ahead of me.

I turned to Lenox, who had joined the guinea pigs at their meal and was busily chewing on one of the seeds we’d gathered.

“We leave at dawn,” I announced to him and to the others.

Lenox swallowed the seed and let out a cheer. “It’s about time,” he grumbled, as if I’d been keeping him waiting for weeks.