“The coast is clear!” Michael said. He called out, “Merle? Pearl?”
“Over here!” came a whisper from behind the stack of tables in the corner. The boys headed over to see Merle and Pearl standing on a large black garbage bag wedged between two tables.
“We need your help getting this home!” Pearl said, pointing to the stuffed-full bag under her paws.
“What is it?” asked Michael.
“Treasure!” Pearl responded with a giddy smile. “Look!” She opened the top of the bag to reveal its contents.
“Ewwww,” Justin said. “That’s disgusting.”
“I beg your pardon,” Pearl replied. “This is enough food for a whole year! Do you know how long it normally takes us to find this much food?”
“A whole year,” Merle responded. “Obviously.”
“I was asking the boy,” Pearl said.
“All that food will be completely rotten in no time,” Justin said. “There’s no way it’ll last a year, right, Michael?” Justin looked over to see Michael deep in thought. “Michael?” he asked again.
“Hold my backpack, please,” Michael said to Justin. “I got it!”
“You’ve got what, exactly?” Pearl asked as Michael grabbed the bag and hoisted it up in his arms with a grunt.
Michael headed for the door, straining under the weight of the leftovers. “Let’s get this treasure home!”
CHAPTER 16
“What’s in the bag?” Sadie asked as she joined Michael, Justin, and the squirrels on their walk home.
“The missing part of my plan!” Michael said.
“Your plan?” Sadie asked.
“He spent all afternoon on it,” Justin said.
Michael nodded at his backpack, hanging from Justin’s shoulder. “It’s in the front pocket of my backpack. Check it out.”
Justin pulled the sheets of paper out of Michael’s backpack.
THE PLAN!
SUPPLIES
Long rope
Slimy goo
Big trash can
Large tree
Long board
Duct tape
Gravity
LOCATION
Walnut Creek Elementary School bus drop-off
TIME
Setup time: 7 a.m.
STEPS
1. Arrive at school at 7 a.m. with all the supplies.
2. Toss rope over big tree branch next to bus stop.
3. Tie trash can full of slimy goo to one end of rope.
4. Hoist trash can full of slimy goo up into tree.
5. Balance slimy goo on branch above bus drop-off area.
6. Duct tape top end of long board to trash can.
7. Position bottom end of long board to be hit by bus door.
8. Bus arrives at 8 a.m.
9. Bus door opens and hits board.
10. Trash can full of slimy goo tips.
11. Edgar exits bus.
12. Slimy goo pours out of trash can and all over Edgar’s head!
“Wait. How do you know Edgar will be the first one off the bus?” Sadie asked.
“Edgar’s ALWAYS the first one off the bus. Anyone who has ridden the bus with Edgar knows that,” Michael said.
“And what’s the missing part?” she asked as they arrived at Michael’s house.
“The slimy goo!” Michael dumped the contents of the plastic bag into an empty garbage can in the driveway.
“Hey!” Pearl protested.
“Don’t worry, Pearl,” Michael said, removing a few leftover items for her and Merle. “You won’t be able to eat the rest of all this before it spoils.” He then grabbed the garden hose and filled up the trash can with water, creating a cold, mucky leftover soup. “By morning, this will have turned into the slimy goo we’ve been looking for!” He placed a lid on the trash can.
“Stop saying we!” Sadie and Justin said.
CHAPTER 17
As the sun rose over Walnut Creek Elementary School, so too did a trash can full of sludge.
Justin inched forward slowly on the ground below with one end of a rope slung over his shoulder, struggling to lift the huge weight and not let the rope slip. “Hrggggg.”
“Almost there!” Michael called down to Justin from where he sat on one of the tree’s branches, guiding the trash can tied to the other end of the rope. “Just a few more inches!”
Merle and Pearl watched the action from a couple of branches up, concerned.
“Perfect!” Michael said as he wrestled the trash can into position on the branch next to him. After duct-taping the board on as the trigger, the trap was set. “All we have to do now is wait!”
The boys found a comfortable spot in the bushes next to the school with a clear line of sight to the bus drop-off. Michael did not want to miss any of the action.
“You’re sure you want to go through with this, huh?” Merle questioned.
“It’s not too late,” Pearl added.
Michael squirmed. He had thought about Pearl’s words quite a bit last night. “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.” He knew that what he was about to do to Edgar was definitely not what he would like to be done to him.
“Michael!” Justin said. “Look!”
A second grader who had been dropped off early by his mom was poking at the board hanging down from the tree with a stick. “Yikes!” Michael shouted. He ran out of the bushes. “Hold on, kid! Don’t go near that!”
“Why not?” the kid asked. “What’s it for?”
Michael considered shooing the kid off without an explanation, but looking like a cool fifth grader seemed like a much better idea. “You have to promise not to tell anyone, but I’m going to slime Edgar when he gets off the bus!”
“Wow!” the kid said. “That’ll be awesome.”
“Yep! It’s payback for messing with fifth graders.”
“So you’re Edgar’s bully?” the second grader said.
“What?” Michael asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Edgar bullies a lot of kids—so you’re the one who bullies him!” the kid said.
Michael’s heart sank. I’m no bully, he thought. I don’t like being bullied, so why would I want to bully someone else?
GRRRRRURRRGGG! The sound of a bus engine interrupted Michael’s thoughts. He turned to see Edgar’s bus pulling into the school.
“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you . . . ,” Michael said to himself as the bus rolled into the drop-off area. He saw Edgar staring at him through the glass door of the bus—first in line, as always, with his two minions behind him.
“Fourth graders rule!” Edgar shouted.
I can’t do this, Michael decided. “Wait! Stop!” he shouted. He waved his arms above his head to signal the bus driver. “Don’t open the door!” Unfortunately for Michael, his hand whacked against the trigger board.
SPLURRRRRSHHHHH!!!!! Down came the slimy sludge all over Michael, soaking him from head to toe.
Edgar and his pals had never laughed so hard in their lives.
CHAPTER 18
“You made the right choice,” Pearl said from Michael’s backpack, which was on the seat next to him at the fifth-grade lunch table.
“I’m still soggy,” Michael complained.
“And you smell like old chicken nuggets,” Merle added, munching on a newly fried nugget.
“I’m proud of you, Michael,” Sadie said. “You didn’t become a bully yourself by getting back at Edgar.”
Edgar happened to be walking by at that moment. “What?” he said, hearing his name. “Does someone want more garbage dumped on their head?”
“Hahahahaha!” Edgar’s friends laughed.
“Nobody’s dumping garbage on anyone’s head,” Justin said firmly, standing up.
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” Edgar threatened.
“He’s right.” Sadie stood up next to Justin. “Nobody’s messing with anybody.” Michael stood up too, followed by a number of
other fifth graders.
Edgar slunk back to the fourth-grade table. “Yeah, never mind,” he mumbled, trying to still sound tough. Bullies have a hard time bullying when they are stood up to.
“Merle and Pearl,” Sadie said, taking a book out of her backpack, “I found something interesting.” She opened the book and put her finger on the page. “‘Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you,’” she read. “I knew I had heard those words before. Jesus said them.”
“That’s right!” Merle said.
“How did you know that?” Pearl asked.
“These words are written in the Bible,” Sadie said, showing Merle and Pearl the book.
“Wasn’t that written a long time ago?” Michael asked.
“Yeah. Like 2,000 years ago.”
“Hold on,” said Merle slowly as the truth began to dawn on him. “That must mean we were in that cave for . . . for . . . for . . .”
BOOF! Merle fainted, dropping his half-eaten nugget.
“Oh, my . . . ,” Pearl said.
MICHAEL GOMEZ is an adventurous and active 10-year-old boy. He is kindhearted but often acts before he thinks. He’s friendly and talkative and blissfully unaware that most of his classmates think he’s a bit geeky. Michael is super excited to be in fifth grade, which, in his mind, makes him “grade school royalty!”
MERLE SQUIRREL may be thousands of years old, but he never really grew up. He has endless enthusiasm for anything new and interesting—especially this strange modern world he finds himself in. He marvels at the self-refilling bowl of fresh drinking water (otherwise known as a toilet) and supplements his regular diet of tree nuts with what he believes might be the world’s most perfect food: chicken nuggets. He’s old enough to know better, but he often finds it hard to do better. Good thing he’s got his wife, Pearl, to help him make wise choices.
PEARL SQUIRREL is wise beyond her many, many, many years, with enough common sense for both her and Merle. When Michael’s in a bind, she loves to share a lesson or bit of wisdom from Bible events she witnessed in her youth. Pearl’s biggest quirk is that she is a nut hoarder. Having come from a world where food is scarce, her instinct is to grab whatever she can. The abundance and variety of nuts in present-day Tennessee can lead to distraction and storage issues.
JUSTIN KESSLER is Michael’s best friend. Justin is quieter and has better judgment than Michael, and he is super smart. He’s a rule follower and is obsessed with being on time. He’ll usually give in to what Michael wants to do after warning him of the likely consequences.
SADIE HENDERSON is Michael and Justin’s other best friend. She enjoys video games and bowling just as much as cheerleading and pajama parties. She gets mad respect from her classmates as the only kid at Walnut Creek Elementary who’s not afraid of school bully Edgar. Though Sadie’s in a different homeroom than her two best friends, the three always sit together at lunch and hang out after class.
DR. GOMEZ, a professor of anthropology, is not thrilled when he finds out that his son, Michael, smuggled two ancient squirrels home from their summer trip to the Dead Sea, but he ends up seeing great value in having them around as original sources for his research. Dad loves his son’s adventurous spirit but wishes Michael would look (or at least peek) before he leaps.
MRS. GOMEZ teaches part-time at her daughter’s preschool and is a full-time mom to Michael and Jane. She feels sorry for the fish-out-of-water squirrels and looks for ways to help them feel at home, including constructing and decorating an over-the-top hamster mansion for Merle and Pearl in Michael’s room. She also can’t help but call Michael by her favorite (and his least favorite) nickname, Cookies.
MR. NEMESIS is the Gomez family cat who becomes Merle and Pearl’s true nemesis. Jealous of the time and attention given to the squirrels by his family, Mr. Nemesis is continuously coming up with brilliant and creative ways to get rid of them. He hides his ability to talk from the family, but not the squirrels.
JANE GOMEZ is Michael’s little sister. She’s super adorable but delights in getting her brother busted so she can be known as the “good child.” She thinks Merle and Pearl are the cutest things she has ever seen in her whole life (next to Mr. Nemesis) and is fond of dressing them up in her doll clothes.
So now you’ve heard of the Dead Sea Squirrels, but what about the DEAD SEA Scrolls?
Way back in 1946, just after the end of World War II, in a cave along the banks of the Dead Sea, a 15-year-old boy came across some jars containing ancient scrolls while looking after his goats. When scholars and archaeologists found out about his discovery, the hunt for more scrolls was on! Over the next 10 years, many more scrolls and pieces of scrolls were found in 11 different caves.
There are different theories about exactly who wrote on the scrolls and hid them in the caves. One of the most popular ideas is that they belonged to a group of Jewish priests called Essenes, who lived in the desert because they had been thrown out of Jerusalem. One thing is for sure—the scrolls are very, very old! They were placed in the caves between the years 300 BC and AD 100!
Forty percent of the words on the scrolls come from the Bible. Parts of every Old Testament book except for the book of Esther have been discovered.
Of the remaining 60 percent, half are religious texts not found in the Bible, and half are historical records about the way people lived 2,000 years ago.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is one of the most important archaeological finds in history!
About the Author
As co-creator of VeggieTales, co-founder of Big Idea Entertainment, and the voice of the beloved Larry the Cucumber, MIKE NAWROCKI has been dedicated to helping parents pass on biblical values to their kids through storytelling for over two decades. Mike currently serves as Assistant Professor of Film and Animation at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, and makes his home in nearby Franklin with his wife, Lisa, and their two children. The Dead Sea Squirrels is Mike’s first children’s book series.
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