Authors: Johanna Hurwitz
Squirrel World
• A Park Pals Adventure •
ILLUSTRATED BY
Kathi McCord
For Juliet, Fiona, & Ethan.
You’re a special part of my world!
—J. H.
Chapter One: The Arrival of Spring
Chapter Three: Pee Wee Comes Home
Chapter Five: A Hole in the Ground
Chapter Seven: In Search of Blooming Vales
Chapter Nine: “Squirrel World”
The Arrival of Spring
If you want to find me, look up. I’ll be sitting on the highest branch of the tallest tree. I’m a squirrel, and I live in a park in the heart of New York City.
My name is Lexi, which is short for Lexington Avenue. It’s a street that runs north and south in Manhattan. All the squirrels in the park are named for streets. There’s Madison, Amsterdam, Columbus,
Lenox, Astor, Irving, and many others. In addition, because there are such a lot of us, many in my family have numerical names, just like the city streets. I have a fat, bossy uncle named Ninety-nine and sisters named Sixty-three and Sixty-four and Sixty-five.
Most squirrels spend their time running up and down tree trunks, jumping from branch to branch, chasing one another, and digging for and eating food. I do all those things, too. But last year I made a special friend who is not a squirrel. He’s PeeWee, a guinea pig who was abandoned in the park. Without me, he wouldn’t have survived a day, much less a whole year. I can’t say I took him under my wing, because I don’t have any wings. But I helped him find a place to live. I taught him what to eat and what
to avoid. And I cheered him up when he felt homesick for his former home.
Nowadays PeeWee has a guinea pig mate, named Plush. They have four babies: Perky, Pudge, Pip, and Squeak. No one would believe that guinea pigs could survive the ice, snow, and cold of winter. My mother always told me,
“Don’t be so sure of yourself that you fool yourself,”
and I tell you she was right. The guinea pigs managed to survive winter by moving into the rain forest at the park zoo. But now it is spring, and they are ready to return to their former home in the park.
On the day of their return, I was waiting up in a nearby tree. I watched and listened, and soon I heard PeeWee’s voice.
“Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye,” I heard him call to all his new rain-forest friends
inside.
“Adiós, adiós, adiós,”
he added, using the Spanish word that he had learned from them.
Back in November, when the guinea pigs first arrived at the rain forest, it was easy to guess which were the parents and which were their children. Now, as they came into view, I saw that they were all comparable in size. In fact, Pudge was just a bit bigger than each of his parents. He loves to eat. Even Perky, who had once been very small and timid, had developed in the sunless damp of the rain
forest. And then there were Pip and Squeak. The two female guinea pigs are inseparable, spending all their time together, chattering to each other during the day and sleeping curled up against each other at night. Looking at the whole family, I knew they would no longer be able to live in one small hole.
“Come along,” I heard Plush calling to her children.
“We know the way,” Pudge responded. He hadn’t gone two yards, and already he’d spotted something that looked edible.
“Watch your step,” warned PeeWee. “Go at your own pace. We’ll meet at our old tree this evening. Tomorrow evening at the latest, in case you get delayed. I’ll have to start scout- ing out a couple of additional spaces. But remember, you’re not safely inside the rain forest any longer. Watch out for dogs and bikes and baby carriages and humans and—”
“Oh, hush,” Plush said to her mate. “One must be cautious in the park, but we can’t be afraid to move about. People aren’t expecting to see guinea pigs, so most of the time they won’t see us. They’ll think they’re spotting dandelion fluff or a bird in the grass or some other thing. The last thing they’re anticipating is a guinea pig.”
“Hello there,” I called down to my
friends. All the guinea pigs, even Pudge, looked around to see me.
“Hello, Lexi, what’s up?” PeeWee shouted to me.
“The sky,” I responded. “The sky is up.”
“It’s wonderful to see it,” said PeeWee. “I missed it so while we were inside. And I missed you, too.”
“Well, come along,” I said to the guinea pigs. “I’ve already found a couple of possible homes for you, but you’d better hurry before some other animal moves inside.”
“Oh, Lexi, you are so good to us,” Plush called to me. “I’ve missed you during the winter.” She paused a moment, taking a deep breath. “And I’ve missed the fresh air and the sun.”
“And the seeds,” said Pudge, his mouth full of food.
“You don’t look as if you went hungry inside the rain forest,” I commented.
“There was plenty for us to eat,” PeeWee said. “And the other creatures were willing to share with us, too.”
“But not much variety,” grumbled Pudge, biting off a bud from a nearby bush.
“Look,” called out Perky. “There’s one of your cousins, Lexi.”
“And there’s another,” called out Pip.
“And another,” called out Squeak.
I didn’t even turn my head to look. The park is filled with my cousins—and brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Sometimes we stop to greet one another or to chase one another up and down a tree, but mostly
we’re busy looking for our next meal. There’s plenty to eat in the park, but until the food’s inside our mouths, it doesn’t count.
“Chew up your nut before you talk about it,”
my mother always used to say.
I watched as the guinea pigs began their journey home. Poor creatures. Their legs are so short that the guinea pigs move very slowly. A distance that I can cover in a moment with a single flying leap takes them many minutes to travel. And of course, guinea pigs don’t have tails, and they can’t climb trees. So although I’m very fond of them, I’m truly grateful that I was born a squirrel and not a guinea pig. A pair of humans walked by, and I thought to myself, thank goodness I’m not one of those creatures, either.
And then, because it was such a beautiful spring day and because I was feeling so especially pleased with life, I did one of my spectacular double somersaults from one tree branch to another.
