Gooseberry Park and the Master Plan

by Cynthia Rylant

  “Meow, meow, meow,” said Conroy for effect.

  Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark!

  “Hurry!” said Kona, coming from behind the fire house with Stumpy and her children. “Hurry inside!”

  Stumpy and the children ran inside the fire house and hopped onto the tank truck, while Kona went off to contribute to the dalmatian agitation.

  Stumpy took a look at the water tank plug. Twist, twist, snap, lift. Four seconds flat.

  A box of four hundred straws was strapped to Top with a rubber band. And Bottom had his arms around the big ball of chewing gum Morton had dropped off that morning. Stumpy unstrapped the box, opened it, and put the gum ball into position.

  “All right, children,” she said. “Go!”

  Top, Bottom, and Sparrow set to dunking and plugging. They were amazingly quick. But then Top noticed the shiny fire house pole over in the corner of the room.

  “Wow!” he said. “A real fire house pole! I’ve never seen one in person! Look how shiny! I bet it’s so fun. Do you think I could—”

  “Dunk!” shouted Sparrow. “Dunk!”

  Top resumed dunking after the ten-second distraction that had been calculated into Herman’s flowchart.

  But as the children dunked and plugged, and Stumpy stood by, ready to hand the full straws to the owls when they arrived, a bit of a problem was brewing back in the park.

  There, 199 owls had shown up to be fliers, just as Augustina had promised. But the two hundredth owl was missing, and that was Augustina herself. She had sprained a wing and was on bed rest for a week.

  And no Augustina meant no teamwork. A group of owls is called a parliament for good reason: They rely on a leader to give them direction. Without a leader they tended to argue. Even brawl. A parliament in a brawl is a disaster. Nothing gets done, and everybody ends up looking scruffy.

  So in Gooseberry Park, 199 owls were huffing and puffing about the right way to organize the flying—in a straight line or in ranks of seven or in pairs of two or in a pyramid style. And the seconds that Herman had so carefully calculated were ticking away, because naturally every owl had his opinion and he voiced it quite rudely, and a few owls even started to shove and push a bit. And when all this occurred, just as Kona had anticipated it might, the worst possible result happened:

  The owls became demotivated.

  So while the squirrels in the fire house dunked and plugged with all their might, and Conroy meowed, and Henrietta swung upside down in the Town Square, 199 owls started to question whether this was all really necessary, and why should they work for a crow and a dog anyway, and what if they became trapped inside the fire house, and would it not be easier to go back home and just wait for the drought to be over? Because after all, nothing in life is permanent, and that includes droughts, and why not just approach the whole problem by way of the mind, rather than the body, and just visualize rain coming? That should work. Just visualize the water problem going away, and surely the power of the mind would show itself to be superior to flying 1.7 miles out and back in pairs. Or ranks of seven. Or in a pyramid style. Or a straight line.

  Better just to call it a night and go home.

  “Wait!” called a strong voice from high in a tree. “Wait!”

  The owls all looked up. And there was Morton, wings spread wide, a kind of glow all around him (it was Stumpy’s watch, which Murray had loaned him for some drama).

  Morton began to speak. He had thirty-five seconds, so he knew he’d better make it good.

  “There is in each one of you,” Morton began, “a hero. And this is your moment of reckoning. Your moment of reckoning! Will you listen to the voice within you that wants you to fail? Or will you be better than that? Will you fly to the heights of greatness you never imagined? This is your moment of reckoning!”

  Morton pulled out every motivational line he’d ever used on a crowd. Group hypnosis was really what it was all about, and Morton was a master. He spoke passionately, intensely, meaningfully for thirty-two seconds, and then he finished with the zinger that always worked at the end:

  “If you can dream it . . . you can do it.”

  And 199 owls, eyes shining with a new glow of self-awareness, pulled themselves together into one long, straight line, and off they flew.

  Morton dropped the watch back to Murray, and then he caught up with the parliament.

  The owls were short one set of toes. And Morton could carry two straws as well as Augustina could have done.

  And besides, Morton thought, maybe this was his moment of reckoning, too.

  12

  . . . You Can Do It

  There is perhaps nothing so sweet in this life as to be in need, to hope for help, and to have help arrive. And so it was that remarkable night in Gooseberry Park.

  Most creatures—in fact, perhaps all creatures—are brave. They try to meet life’s challenges with courage and with action. The earth’s forests and prairies and mountains and seas are filled with greatness. Animals ask almost nothing of life except that it give them a chance—a chance to be their best.

  So it had been a terrible blow to the animals in Gooseberry Park to be rendered nearly helpless in the face of forces beyond their control. They could not control the movement of the rains. They could not control the heat of the sun. They could not control all the new machines that had created so many poisons for which the good green Earth was unprepared.

  The animals did their best. They adapted. They conserved their energies, they learned to eat different things, they had fewer babies.

  But water: Water was vital, and without it they would die. And who among them had ever imagined that right there in Gooseberry Park—where humans strolled with their infants and had picnics and threw Frisbees—there would be so great a risk to the lives of many of the park’s creatures, namely the very young and the very old.

  Fortunately, many creatures have not only great courage but great heart as well. And this night those hearts were beating strong.

  At precisely 10:40 p.m., 199 owls plus one volunteer motivational speaker left Gooseberry Park on a mission of mercy.

  The owls flew silently. With binocular vision they could see the fire fighters attempting to wake up Henrietta (as her eight babies ate granola bars someone had thought to bring). The owls could see a yellow tabby cat in a tree with a dalmatian barking vigorously beneath it, a chocolate Labrador cheering him on. The owls could see the fire house door, wide open, and the four squirrels inside with four hundred straws filled with precious water for pickup.

  Then, capably and swiftly, the owls flew through that open door with precision and grasped a straw in each foot, and, capably and swiftly, they flew away.

  Morton, lagging behind because the owls were such strong fliers, straggled in for the last two straws.

  “Morton!” cried the squirrels in unison.

  Morton gave a big grin, and at that moment he looked exactly like his younger brother, Murray.

  “I stopped talking the talk and decided to walk the walk!” he said, grabbing the final straws.

  Away he flew.

  “What did he mean, Mama?” Sparrow asked her mother.

  Stumpy smiled.

  “He meant that love is not just what you say,” she answered. “It’s what you do.”

  Stumpy looked at the beautiful faces of the three young squirrels.

  “And tonight, my good children, you loved.”

  13

  Perfectly

  Murray had a reputation for bumping into things. His bat radar had always been a little deficient. But whenever he borrowed Stumpy’s glow-in-the-dark watch, Murray was a brilliant navigator.

  So this night, when the two hundred fliers arrived back in the park, Murray was at the top of his game. Flying with the glowing watch hanging around his neck, Murray led the owls to each and every nest and burrow in the park that waited for a delivery. Mouse mothers stood in their doorways watching for him. Old chipmunks sat up past their bedtimes. Help was
on the way, and no one would be thirsty anymore.

  During the unfolding of the Master Plan this important night, two members of the planning team had been engaged only in spirit.

  In her glass bowl, with its exotic palm tree and sparkling blue pool of water, Gwendolyn had watched the evening sky as she meditated on all things succeeding and had asked the good spirits of the universe to help her friends this night.

  And Herman—his job as the behind-the-scenes mathematical genius now completed—was in his home reading The Incredible Journey, the book in one foot and a stopwatch in the other. His mother and his four sisters were reading books, too. And when, every few minutes, Herman would click the watch off and say something like “The cat is in” or “The tank is open” and then click the watch on again, his family would stop reading and smile approvingly.

  Thirty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. Herman had never lived so intense a time in his life as when he counted down the minutes and seconds while the Master Plan unfolded that night, experiencing every moment with his imagination, becoming every character in every scene, scanning every detail and every movement until, as Herman dreamed it could be, the very last delivery was made to the very last address.

  It was a challenge to concentrate on both The Incredible Journey and the countdown of the Master Plan, but Herman did it anyway because he had always been good at thinking about two things at once, and also because he thought the stress would give him a terrible stomachache if he didn’t.

  Herman read. He counted. He waited. Until, at 11:18 p.m., someone softly called out from below. It was the call for which Herman had been waiting.

  And just as had happened in a time that now seemed so long ago, Herman’s shiny black head appeared from between the tall upper branches.

  “Herman?” called Kona from below.

  “Did we solve the problem?” asked Herman.

  “Perfectly,” said Kona.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I’m going to bed now,” said Herman.

  “Me, too. Good night, Herman,” said Kona.

  “Good night.”

  14

  Home

  Rain had now been falling for nine days in a row. Professor Albert had every window in the house open so he could smell it. The drops splashed through the window screens onto Kona’s brown nose and into Gwendolyn’s sparkling blue pool.

  Everything had started growing again. Bright green needles were sprouting on the pines, and even the hydrangea bushes—which everyone had thought were long gone—had lifted up and produced tight, round, tiny balls of pink and blue flowers. Earthworms pushed up through the wet brown soil of all the yards and gardens, and even hummingbirds were sipping from the salvia again. Spiders wove strands of silk glistening wet with chains of pearls. Basements even flooded a bit; but fortunately for Kona and his friends, the basement in Professor Albert’s house stayed nice and dry, all the Christmas decorations still safe, and Murray’s stash of cheese curls tucked into the angel tree topper still crispy.

  When Stan the Weatherman had finally predicted rain, almost a month had passed since the Night of the Owls (as everyone now liked to call it), and Kona and Herman and Gwendolyn had started worrying they might need a Master Plan Part Two. But they didn’t after all.

  Still, the drought was sure to be remembered by everyone for a long time. Already flower beds in the Town Square that had not survived the heat had been replaced by little cacti and succulents, which needed hardly any water.

  “Those are called ‘hens and chicks,’ ” Stumpy explained to Murray as they explored the square one evening to see the changes.

  “Ohh, I see them!” said Murray. He pointed to a large, round succulent in what used to be the petunia bed.

  “There’s the hen,” he said.

  Stumpy nodded.

  “And all those little ones are the chicks,” said Murray.

  Stumpy nodded again.

  “I think we should name them,” Murray said.

  “Murray, you want to name everything,” said Stumpy.

  “Let’s call the hen Fluffy,” said Murray.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Stumpy.

  Flower beds were, of course, not the only things that changed when the drought finally ended. Many people up and moved away, and so did many animals. It had all been too much. A lot of them headed for the rain forest in Olympic National Park.

  But not Professor Albert. Not Kona and Gwendolyn. Not Stumpy and Murray and Top and Bottom and Sparrow. Not Herman.

  This was their home. They loved it here. They couldn’t imagine being anywhere else or with anyone else. They wanted to stay.

  And Morton.

  Morton had been a wanderer for almost all of his life, and he had never known what it is to remain in place and watch the seasons come and go year after year, to watch children grow up, to watch old houses weather and fade, to watch saplings grow into maple trees.

  Morton had been Murray’s long-lost brother in more ways than one. Because Morton had actually, at times, felt lost. As if he did not know where he belonged. And belonging is so important for anyone. If someone ever asked Gwendolyn what the grayest time of her life was, she always said it was the two months she spent in a bowl in the pet shop. This was because, she said, she belonged to no one. Gwendolyn said that it was a good experience, though, because ever after, she understood everyone who felt lost, and she could promise that one day, if they were patient and trusting in Life, they would find where they belonged.

  And so the drought, and all of the hardship and worry it had brought to everyone in Gooseberry Park, turned out to have what is called a silver lining for a certain long-lost brother who had grown weary of fancy thoughts and fancy language about how to achieve a successful life.

  What Morton really wanted, he discovered, was someone nice to eat dinner with every day. So he found a little birch tree near Stumpy and Murray’s sugar maple.

  And he unpacked his Zen cookbook.

  And he stayed.

  CYNTHIA RYLANT & ARTHUR HOWARD have made twenty-five books together, including the Mr. Putter & Tabby early reader series and Gooseberry Park, the first novel about Stumpy the squirrel and her fine friends.

  Cynthia lives among many old trees and busy squirrels in Portland, Oregon, and Arthur lives not too far from the trees and squirrels of Central Park in New York City.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Cynthia Rylant

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Arthur Howard

  Jacket design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2015 by Arthur Howard

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian

  The text for this book is set in Guardi LT Std.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in pencil, India ink, and wash.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rylant, Cynthia.

  Gooseberry Park and the Master Plan / Cynthia Rylant ; illustrated by Arthur Howard.—First edition.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Stumpy, Murray, Gwendolyn, and Kona recruit Herman the crow and two hundred owls to help with their Master Plan to assist the animals of Gooseberry Park that are in trouble because of a months-long drought.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-0449-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-0451-8 (eBook)

  [1. Droughts—Fiction. 2. Animals—Fiction. 3. Cooperativeness—Fiction.] I. Howard, Arthur, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.R982Gp 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2013046528