Chapter 10
SORT OF ON ACCIDENT
The door slammed, bringing silence. Mother-Honey had left but not Daddy-Dean. Pippi didn’t dare call for Max and put both squirrels in danger.
She wandered along the metal tunnel, stopping at every sound, imagining humans ready to grab her. Finally, she came to a ramp and crawled up to the top point. Everything seemed the same as the place where she’d started into the tunnel, but this ramp didn’t have a hole leading into the nest.
Down the other side, the tunnel became flat again. She didn’t spend as much time exploring. With no openings to the outside and unmovable walls, the soffit had no place for her to get out.
When she reached another ramp, she heard Lana crying. This one had a hole at the top—the same hole she’d clawed out of the nest. She’d circled the outside of the building and returned to where she started.
Wiggling through the hole proved just as tight as from the other direction, but she managed to pull her body back into the nest. “Lana, what’s wrong?”
“Pippi, is that you?” She lifted her head from the insulation she was lying in and wiped her eyes with her tail. “Pippi!”
Lana ran up the rafter and threw herself at Pippi, hugging her so tightly Pippi lost her balance and fell. Her head hit the wall by the hole. A chunk of dusty wall fell into the tunnel, making the hole twice the size it had been before. She gripped the edge with her claws, so she didn’t fall to the ground.
After she steadied herself, she rubbed a paw over her sore head. No one had ever been this happy to see her. She would have enjoyed it if Lana hadn’t given her a human-size headache.
“Why were you crying?” Pippi asked.
Lana swiped her eyes with her tail again. “You were gone so long I didn’t think you were coming back. I thought you found a way out and left me or the people got you.”
“Nobody got me. I found Uncle Louie’s tunnel, and I’d hoped it would lead to a way outside, but it just circles back to this hole. If you hadn’t been too scared to come with me, you could have seen for yourself.”
Pippi wiggled around her sister and down the rafter to the floor. She’d been so excited about the hole that she’d skipped her morning seed ration, and she was starving.
Lana raced in front of her, blocking her path, her black eyes wide and bright. “I did try to follow you. But I couldn’t fit through the hole. If you had found a way out, I still would have been stuck here and would have starved to death.”
Lana was chubby enough she wouldn’t starve any time soon. But once Pippi’s food ran out, she didn’t have layers of winter fat to keep her alive. She didn’t want to eat in front of her sister, but she also didn’t want to share with someone who didn’t need the nourishment. She needed it for herself.
“The hole’s bigger now. How about we go through the tunnel together so you can see what it’s like?” Pippi suggested.
“Great idea.” Lana sounded more excited than usual. She even put her paws on Pippi’s shoulders and turned her up the rafter toward the tunnel.
Pippi tried to shrug her off. She wanted to sneak back for a bite of seed or an acorn, so she had energy to walk around. “You go ahead. I’ll follow you.”
“No!” Lana said in alarm. “It’s dark in there. I need you to go first.”
Glancing at the corner where her seeds were hidden underneath the insulation, Pippi sighed. If she didn’t eat one now, they would last longer. And she didn’t want her sister to cry again.
Lana hung on to Pippi’s tail while they walked through the tunnel. They crawled slowly, first because Pippi worried about Daddy-Dean. Also, Lana had trouble walking and holding Pippi’s tail at the same time, and Pippi didn’t like having her tail pulled.
By the time they made it around the circle, Lana had become brave enough to let go. Pippi started to wiggle through the hole.
“Let’s go around again,” Lana said.
Soon they ran faster and faster, racing each other around and around the loop. Pippi forgot about human dangers and finding a way out as she raced for fun.
“I win!” She jumped through the hole, ran down the rafter, and dropped into the insulation, exhausted but happy.
“Wait,” Lana called. She stopped giggling and sounded like her worried self again. “Where are you going?”
“I’m starving.” She dashed to her food.
“Wait. I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Pippi lifted the foam padding. She was so hungry she planned to eat a whole acorn, even if Lana drooled and begged for a bite.
Nothing was under the insulation but bare floor. Pippi stared at the spot, sure she’d hidden her food there. She didn’t forget where she buried things. Mama had trained her better than that.
She sniffed the ground and scratched through the layers of insulation. Her scent was still there. “I know I put my seeds in this corner.”
“Uh, Pippi,” Lana said from behind her. “Remember when I said I didn’t think you were coming back?”
She glanced at her sister but was too hungry for a serious discussion. “We can talk after I eat. Right now, I need to find my seeds.”
“That’s the problem,” she whispered, biting her claws. “You’re not going to find them.”
“What?” She stopped searching and stared at her. “What did you do with them?”
“Stop yelling at me.” Her voice trembled.
“Lana!” Pippi yelled louder, jumping at her sister and slapping her paws on other squirrel’s shoulders. “Where are my seeds?”
“I didn’t think you were coming back. If you didn’t return, you didn’t need them.”
“I came back, so tell me where you put them.”
Lana paused and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I sort of ate them.”
“Sort of ate them?” She dug her claws into Lana’s shoulders. She couldn’t believe her own sister would do something so awful. They’d made a deal when they split the food. She never thought her sister would go back on her word. Max, yes, but not Lana.
“On accident,” she whimpered.
“On accident?” Pippi dropped her paws and stepped away, too angry to touch her without hurting her. Eating her food hadn’t been an accident. No wonder Lana had become too fat to fit through the hole.
“You know how I eat when I’m nervous,” she explained in a tiny whisper. “I was a little hungry too, and I didn’t have anything left, and—”
Pippi crawled to the corner where she’d hidden her seeds and lifted the insulation again. Completely gone. She couldn’t believe Lana had eaten everything, even Pippi’s three special acorns.
Her stomach growled. Her throat ached.
Lana crawled up behind her. “I’m sorry.”
Pippi turned around and bared her teeth. “You’re not forgiven. Go away.”
“But—”
“Go away. Leave me alone.”
Lana looked close to tears, but Pippi was already crying. She couldn’t take care of her sister. Her stomach was too hungry for her to take care of herself.
Chapter 11