PARTY POOPER
Pippi crawled under the insulation and pulled it over herself like a blanket. Staring at the squishy stuff between her and the ceiling, she noticed a piece of seed wedged between the soft fibers. She grabbed it, devouring it in a single gulp. Instead of feeling better, her stomach hurt more.
She licked the dust from the floor where her food used to be, hoping it would taste like seeds. But it tasted like yucky insulation.
Finally, she fell asleep. When she woke up in the pitch darkness of nighttime, her stomach hurt too much for her to go back to sleep. She crept over the boards and rafters, sniffing and digging for any scrap Lana might have missed.
“Are you still mad at me?” Her sister’s voice came through the darkness from her corner. She hadn’t been able to sleep either.
“Yes,” Pippi said, but she didn’t have the energy to feel as mad as before.
She sniffled. “What are we going to do now?”
“There’s no food left, so you can’t eat.” Pippi was being mean, but she didn’t care. Lana had a fat, round, full tummy from eating Pippi’s meal while she’d been trying to find a way to get both of them out.
Lana whimpered. “Are we going to die?”
“No, we’re not going to die.” She tried to sound sure, but she wasn’t. If they starved to death, she would die first. She didn’t want to die. She’d rather flop than starve to death.
She crawled to Lana and wrapped her tail around her sister. They curled together in the insulation and cuddled without talking.
They must have fallen asleep because Pippi’s growling stomach woke her up. Light shone through the sealed pipe. She had to find a way out to get food. Shifting her tail off Lana, she tried to scoot away without waking her.
Lana opened her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going in the tunnel. One spot is close to the birdfeeder. If any squirrels are around, they might hear us and be able to help.”
“Like Max or Mama,” she said.
Pippi looked at the hopeful smile on her sister’s face and couldn’t feel angry anymore. “Do you want to come with me?”
Lana nodded. They crawled through the hole and into the tunnel to the spot where Daddy-Dean had noticed Pippi. They took turns yelling for Max and Mama and their cousins.
Nobody answered.
“Anybody?” Lana whispered after Pippi’s throat was too sore to yell.
They huddled in the dark tunnel. Nobody missed them. Nobody noticed they were in trouble. If their family and friends didn’t hear them and they couldn’t find a way out on their own, who would rescue them?
The door to the human building slammed, and Daddy-Dean’s voice boomed below the metal floor. “Scat, shoo.”
Pippi and Lana looked at each other. They’d been sitting silently for a while. Why had Daddy-Dean started yelling after they were quiet?
Unless he wasn’t yelling at them.
“I’ll eat all the seeds I want. I’m not scared of you,” Max shouted.
Max was out there!
“Max,” Pippi yelled, ignoring her sore throat.
Lana nudged her with a paw. “Shh,” she whispered. “Daddy-Dean will hear you and notice us.”
“As long as you keep putting seeds out, I’m going to keep eating them,” Max chattered.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that squirrel was talking to me,” Daddy-Dean muttered, his voice right under the tunnel.
Ugh. Why did her brother yell at the human who couldn’t understand him instead of answering her? “Max, we’re out of food,” Pippi shouted as loud as she could. “You have to help us find a way out or get seeds in to us.”
“Aha,” Daddy-Dean said. “He’s not talking to me. Something is in here.” He tapped on the metal floor under Pippi’s paws.
Lana froze then scurried backwards. But Pippi couldn’t give up what could be her only chance to get help. Daddy-Dean would only make her flop. She’d already discovered what would be worse than flopping.
“I’m not falling for your tricks this time, Pippi,” Max said. “You got me out of the nest so you could eat my food. You can’t trick me into giving you the birdfeeder supply too.”
“I never tricked you.” She couldn’t believe he was still mad about that when he was safe and had as much to eat as he wanted. She hadn’t had a seed ration in two days, and she’d stopped being mad at Lana for eating her food.
“Get away from here. Scat, shoo,” Daddy-Dean yelled.
“Too bad, so sad, Pippi.” Max’s voice faded, like he was scampering away.
“I’d like to punch that boy in the nose,” Lana muttered, stepping close to Pippi.
He wouldn’t help them, and Mama was too busy with her babies.
Pippi kicked at the side of the tunnel. The sound echoed off the metal walls.
Daddy-Dean tapped the bottom, vibrating the floor under her back paws.
She started to stomp again, but Lana wrapped her paws around Pippi’s legs and hung on tightly. “Don’t make a sound,” she whispered. “They’ll trap us or grab us with their hands. We could flop.”
She shivered at the thought of a human touching her. Then her stomach growled again. If they flopped, what would happen? Fred had supposedly taken Uncle Louie to the country, but no one ever saw him again, so she didn’t know for sure.
The country probably had food, but if it didn’t, she didn’t have any here either. At a new place, she might be able to escape and find something to eat. She’d tried every possible pipe and hole and found no escape from this nest.
She couldn’t get outside. If she ever wanted to taste a seed again, she had to try something crazy.
Trying to think of what, she followed Lana through the tunnel and into the nest. Dropping onto the insulation, the idea came to her. “We have to get the humans to help us.”
Lana gasped. “No. They’re our enemies.”
“They’re our only hope. Even if Max wanted to help, he can’t open our entrance. If he could, he would have come in and kicked us out so he could have this place to himself. The people sealed it too tight for any squirrel to get in. They have to open it.”
“No.” Lana shivered. “We’ll end up like Uncle Louie.”
“If they trap us and flop us, we’ll get out of here. Isn’t that better than starving?”
She chewed on her claws, then shook her head. “No, I’d rather starve than flop.”
Easy for her to say. With her round, full stomach, she could probably live a long, healthy life off her fat. Pippi wanted to see the sunshine again. She wanted to run in the grass and jump from branch to branch in the trees. Even if it rained, she wanted to be free.
The girls huddled together as daylight faded to darkness and back to light again. Pippi’s stomach stopped growling and just hurt. After a while, it stopped hurting, and she felt weak. She didn’t have the energy to walk around, let alone claw her way through a hole. She needed the humans to make the hole.
“That’s it,” Pippi shouted, amazed she’d never thought of it before.
Lana opened her bleary eyes and hugged herself. “My tummy hurts.”
She had the growling stomach and hunger pains Pippi had already gone through. She wouldn’t live a long life off her fat. She would only last a couple days longer than Pippi before she died too. They had to get out before it was too late.
“There is another hole. Remember when Daddy-Dean came up out of the floor? You know, the day he saw me?” Pippi looked around and found the square outline in the floor a couple feet away from where she and Lana were lying.
“You’ll never be able to lift the floor with your claws,” Lana said in her party pooper voice.
“I won’t have to. Daddy-Dean will do it.” Finally, Pippi had hope, and hope gave her energy. Maybe they could escape without flopping.
Lana didn’t argue as she closed her eyes. She didn’t share Pippi’s hope.