Chapter 9
SO CLOSE SHE COULD SMELL IT
Pippi clawed at every part of the nest where light came in. She bit at every edge and corner until her teeth hurt. But she couldn’t even make a teeny, tiny hole.
However, she did make dust—lots of it. It got in her mouth and nose and made her cough. In fact, coughing kept her awake half the night.
When she finally stopped coughing, a splinter in her paw started hurting and kept her awake for the rest of the night. When the sun came up, she limped up the ramp to the pipe. She held her paw to the light coming through the cloudy cover and pulled out the splinter with her teeth.
Lana didn’t help her look for a way out of the nest or check on Pippi’s injuries. She curled her body around her acorns and nibbled nonstop.
By the third day, Pippi had only two scoops of seeds and three acorns left. She stopped clawing at the ceiling and pushed her head and paws against the walls.
“Can’t you do whatever you’re doing quietly?” Lana grumbled.
“I’m trying to find a rotten spot in the wall that I can push or bite through.”
“The humans will hear us again.”
Pippi knew better than to tease the people. But she couldn’t stop searching for a way out. She climbed the rafter and clung to the ceiling, making her way to the tallest side of the nest.
With her head, she pushed against the top of the wall. Squishier than the boards but not as soft as the insulation, the wall shook a little. Nothing else she’d pushed on had wiggled.
Excited, she scratched the wall. Dust flaked against her paws.
“Stop it. You’re getting me dirty,” Lana complained.
Pippi ignored her and scraped harder. If she made a hole, it would be worth a night full of coughing.
Lana huffed and moved away from her dusty bed.
Pippi looked down at the bare insulation where she’d been lying. “Where’s all your food?”
She bit her claws and wouldn’t look up.
Excitement evaporating, Pippi’s heart fluttered with fear. Lana couldn’t have eaten everything already. Even if Pippi made a hole, it might not help them escape. “You don’t have to tell me where it is. But you hid it, right? You didn’t eat it all?”
“You’re not Mama. You can’t tell me how much to eat.”
Lana had eaten all her food. But she wouldn’t stop getting hungry just because it was gone. She’d want to eat Pippi’s seeds, even though Pippi ignored her hunger and ate bite-sized portions a couple times a day to make her supply last longer.
She looked down at her piggy sister again. Lana wasn’t just piggy. She’d gotten fat from eating so much.
Pippi scratched harder. The harder she scratched, the hungrier she got. The hungrier she got, the madder she became. She scratched harder and harder. Finally her arms and paws ached so much she couldn’t scratch anymore. She stood on the rafter and stared at the wall. She’d made a tiny hole all the way through.
She poked her claw in and tugged on the edges of the wall, making the hole big enough to stare into. She couldn’t see anything but darkness.
She looked down again to make sure Lana wasn’t eating her food.
She wasn’t. Curled in another corner with her tail wrapped around herself, her body shook as she cried silently.
Pippi didn’t want to feel sorry for her. It was her own fault. Now more than ever, they had to find a way out. She couldn’t watch Lana starve. And Pippi’s pile belonged to her. She didn’t have to share.
She scratched at the hole all day and night. By morning she’d made it big enough to stick her head through.
“What’s in there?” Lana asked. She uncurled her body and crawled up the rafter.
“I don’t know.” She wished she’d made the hole a little bigger. She had to wiggle and squirm to pull her body through. Once inside, she crawled slowly down the wall into the darkness. After a couple steps, her paws touched a metal floor. There were tiny holes in the bottom, so small she couldn’t stick a claw in them.
Standing on the pointy top of a ledge that sloped down on both sides, Pippi sniffed for clues and danger, then crept down one of the ramps. Keeping her nose close to the floor, she smelled grass and leaves and even a hint of acorn. She was so close to the outside.
“What do you see?” Lana called.
“Nothing. It’s dark, but I think I’m in a tunnel. It smells like it leads outside.”
“Be careful.” Lana didn’t follow, but Pippi could hear the excitement in her voice.
After a few steps, the tunnel became flat. She sniffed the tiny holes and scratched the corners for an opening. Pushing her weight against the walls, she attempted to break through.
If only another squirrel could tear at the walls from the outside or at least tell her what kind of tunnel she was in and where it went. “Max,” she called.
No answer. Pippi scratched again. Something tapped directly under her. She jumped back and froze. Had a human knocked on the tunnel?
Her heart pounded, filling her eardrums with the thudding sound. The wind could have knocked a branch against the metal floor. She didn’t dare tap or scratch in return. She’d learned her lesson about teasing the humans.
Lifting her claws off the metal so they didn’t click, she shifted onto the backs of her paws and got ready to sneak away.
A door slammed, and Pippi froze again.
“Dean, why are you standing on the picnic table?” Mother-Honey asked, her voice clear and very close.
“I was relaxing on the deck with my coffee when I heard something in the soffit,” he said. He banged on the place where Pippi had been standing before.
Oh no. The soffit. She’d found the tunnel where they’d trapped Uncle Louie and made him flop.
“That’s impossible,” Mother-Honey said. “Fred sealed off the soffit when he trapped that other squirrel, and he checked it again when he sealed the roof. Nothing can get in.”
If Fred had sealed Uncle Louie’s hole with the same fiberglass he used on the roof, Pippi wouldn’t be able to get out either.
Ugh. She’d been so sure she was close to getting free. She could smell how close, but she still needed a hole to the outside.
“I’m telling you I heard something,” Daddy-Dean said. A couple weeks ago, he didn’t believe Mother-Honey when she’d heard the creatures in the attic. Now she didn’t believe him. If Pippi didn’t want to get out so badly, she might have laughed.
“Fred took care of it,” Mother-Honey said. “You watched him seal the roof. If you want to worry about a squirrel, get the one that keeps stealing the food from the birdfeeder.”
The birdfeeder. Yes. The birdfeeder was near the deck. If Daddy-Dean could tap on the tunnel while he stood on the deck, that meant her tunnel was only a few feet from the birdfeeder where Max gathered seeds. If he heard her shouting, he could get help from the other squirrels. As soon as the humans left the deck, she and Lana could get free.
“I’ll do that,” Daddy-Dean said. “I’m going to sit out here with my coffee and figure out the best way to trap that squirrel.”