The Bravest Squirrel Ever
Chapter 4
THE MYSTERIOUS HOLE
A couple days later, when the girl talked, Pippi grinned at Max and lifted the insulation over her head. Using two paws, she scratched on the bottom of the nest.
A moment later, the floor underneath her vibrated with a hard knocking sound.
Pippi jumped. Nothing had ever scratched back before. Ears quivering, she pushed the foam and studied the giant board, flat and wide for as far as she could see. Scraping with one claw, she sniffed the dry, dusty wood.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Pippi shrieked and scurried onto a rafter.
Max laughed. “Scaredy-rat.”
“I’m not scared. It just surprised me.” Her heart raced. She’d thought the floor had been about to collapse but couldn’t let him guess her fears. He’d tease her for weeks.
She marched to the spot where the banging came from. Pushing away the foam, she scratched the floor with both front paws.
Underneath her, Natalie screamed. “Mother, it scratched back. Listen.”
“It’s warm and sunny outside,” Lana said from the ceiling pipe at the top of the nest. “Our cousins are playing Red Rover. Want to come out and play?” She looked from Max to Pippi. “What are you doing?”
Before Pippi could answer, pounding vibrated through her paws. Her heart thudded almost as loudly, but she managed not to freak out and run away. She might not be able to see the humans, but they seemed close enough to grab her. She lifted her paw to scratch.
“Don’t do it,” Lana shouted. “Never tease the people. Do you want to end up like Uncle Louie? Mama says you have to let them think you’re more scared of them than they are of you so they’ll leave you alone.”
Max smirked. He wasn’t afraid, and he’d never pretend for them. If Pippi showed fear, he’d call her a scaredy-rat again. The humans couldn’t get her in here, but she had to face her brother all the time. She scratched the floor as hard and fast as she could.
“Well, what do you know? There is something up there,” Daddy-Dean boomed.
She jumped back. Natalie had called for Mother-Honey, not Daddy-Dean.
“I told you so,” Natalie and Lana said at the same time.
“Pippi, you ruined the game,” Max complained.
“But—” Her throat tightened, and tears blurred her eyes. She didn’t know Daddy-Dean would hear her, and if she hadn’t scratched, Max would have made fun of her for being scared.
“If we don’t get the creature out, it will chew up the wires and destroy the house,” Mother-Honey said. So, she had come when Natalie called. Pippi just had the bad luck that Daddy-Dean came too and ruined everything.
“Heaven forbid if it dies up there,” Mother-Honey continued.
Pippi shivered. Could she really die in this safe, warm nest?
“I’ll look in the attic,” Daddy-Dean said. “But I can only stay there for a couple minutes. The insulation gives my asthma fits.”
“Find out what kind of animal it is,” Mother-Honey said. “I’ll call my cousin Fred to take care of it this weekend.”
Pippi didn’t know what she meant by ‘take care of it.’ They’d been taking care of themselves and didn’t need a human’s help. Just the thought of one close enough to touch her made her shiver in fear.
“We have to get out of here,” Lana said. She turned around on the ramp to face the pipe again.
“No.” More than anything, Pippi wanted to run away too. But they couldn’t go that way. “Daddy-Dean is going to come in. You’ll get stuck in the pipe with him.”
Lana scrambled away from the hole in the ceiling. “I thought the humans couldn’t fit in there.” She glanced at Max’s food pile and nibbled on one of her claws.
“I didn’t think he could. But he said he was coming in, and that’s the only hole, so people must have a special way to squeeze through tiny pipes.”
Lana raced down the rafter, dropped into the foam, and ran to the farthest corner. “What do we do?”
When a human approached, they were supposed to run. But what could they do if they couldn’t run away like Mama had taught them? The only squirrel who hadn’t run was Uncle Louie, and he flopped.
“You stay out of my food.” Max growled at Lana.
“I wasn’t—” She stopped and looked at the acorn in her paws. “Just one. Please Max. If the humans get you, you won’t need this extra food.”
He scampered to her and knocked the acorn out of her paws. “We’re not going to get caught. We’re going to hide. When Daddy-Dean leaves, we’ll come out of our hiding place. He’ll never know we were here.”
THUMP!
Pippi jumped, so terrified she couldn’t tell if the sound came from underneath or above her. Max ran and burrowed under the insulation. Pippi dashed in the opposite direction, so he wouldn’t see how scared she was and tease her later.
She crawled under the foam too, but she couldn’t remember which direction Lana went, so she stuck her head out to look. Her sister still stood in the same spot, hugging her tail around her and shaking.
“Hide,” Pippi whispered as loudly as she dared.
“We never should have come here,” she cried into her tail. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Be quiet. Hide.”
BUMP! THUMP!
The noises sounded louder and came from below them, not up on the roof.
Pippi ran to Lana and pushed her down. Then she pulled the foam insulation over both of them with her teeth. The thumping continued, followed by a terrible creak. The entire floor shook.
Lana whimpered, but Pippi was too scared to comfort her.
The floor vibrated as if a human were coming up through it, but the awful sounds had be from a person trying to fit down the tiny pipe in the roof. The creaking and shaking surely meant he was breaking the entire building.
She peeked through the foam. If the building broke, they’d have a new hole in the ceiling to escape through.
Bright light filled the nest, the light coming from five steps away where a square of the floor rose into the air. Human hands (because according to Uncle Louie, people didn’t have paws) followed the square up, lifting it higher, then shifting it toward Pippi’s hiding spot.
The piece of floor lowered on top of the insulation, inches from crushing her. This place was more dangerous than Lana’s worst predictions. Instead of getting trapped and flopping in a bag, they could be squashed to death. If Pippi got out alive, she’d never, ever come back.
“The humans have a secret entrance,” Lana whispered, nibbling on her claws. “They’re not coming in our pipe.”
Which meant the squirrels didn’t have to keep hiding and hope Daddy-Dean didn’t discover them. They could get out now. Pippi clamped her paw over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud with relief.
The light from the new hole suddenly went away, plunging the nest into darkness. An awful, humungous shadow rose through the floor. Daddy-Dean sounded scary and looked even scarier.
She crouched as low as she could. Next to her, Lana sniffled, shaking so hard the human would notice the insulation moving.
Pippi dug her claws into Lana’s fur to make her stop. “He’s slow. We can outrun him and make it out of here safely.”
“Hand me the flashlight,” Daddy-Dean boomed. After some scuffling, a bright band of light flashed over the area where Max hid.
Pippi lay as still as she could. She tried not to twitch her tail or ears, but her fur poked through insulation. Once Daddy-Dean noticed, they were so close to the hole he could reach over and crush them with his giant feet.
“On the count of three, we’re going to run for the pipe,” she whispered. “Ready?”
Lana shook her head no.
Pippi didn’t have time to argue. The light swung toward them. Lana had to run whether she wanted to or not. “One, two, three.”
Just before the light reached them, Pippi jumped up, digging her back claws into her sister’s shoulders to make her move. Then she took off across th
e insulation toward the ramp to the ceiling.
The bright beam of light shone on her.
“It’s a squirrel,” Daddy-Dean shouted. “Honey, do we still have Fred’s trap?”