Forest

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  The aliens climbed a fence and marched across another clearing. They disappeared with Brown Nut into a large ground nest on the other side. At this, a wave of outrage broke out among the squirrels. Some surged forward as if to attack the nest. Others hung back and screeched fiercely.

  “Do you think she is still alive?” a voice whispered by his side. Woodbine turned to find Laurel. She had seen him through the trees and come to perch near him. From the wild look of her coat, it was evident that she had experienced some violence herself. Woodbine stared at her in fright.

  “Who can say! Who can say! My sister does not look very well.”

  Laurel’s whiskers quivered angrily. “Brown Nut’s eyes were open, but they, saw no light, I think. It hardly matters, anyway. No mink-tail survives long in an alien den. Killers, they are. Our most ancient tales have told us. The Elders were stupid. They should have attacked this invader the minute she was discovered. A youngster she may be, but she is crafty and dangerous.”

  Woodbine nodded. He could not recall such tales about the aliens, but he was young himself, just two summers in age. Was it possible that he also had been fooled by the invader? Perhaps her strange eyes masked a treacherous mind.

  Woodbine turned again toward Laurel. He felt a great friendship for her suddenly, and wanted to ask if she would risk sneaking closer to the alien den with him. If they got near enough, maybe they could look inside to see what was happening. Then they could make a plan to rescue Brown Nut. Woodbine was in the middle of saying these things, and Laurel was already beginning to bend her ears, yes, when—

  A tremendous explosion went off. Across the way, a branch loaded with mink-tails snapped and crashed down out of a tree. Screeches broke out among the fallen, some of whom began to writhe on the ground.

  Shocking as this was, there was hardly time for Woodbine and Laurel to do more than gasp before another explosion ripped through the air.

  And another, shredding leaves.

  And then, while scores of mink-tails toppled to the ground, and others ran for cover, two more tree-shattering blasts smashed into the rising heat of the summer morning. The first blew Woodbine and Laurel off their perch, but not before Woodbine caught sight of something.

  The biggest alien had quietly returned. It was crouched around the corner of the human nest. In front of its face it held a…what was that thing? Woodbine searched his mind and could not find a word. But as he fell, his sharp eyes saw fire flash from a long black snout, and his ears received the crack of yet another explosion. A streak of fire seemed to rush past his cheek. Then, for Woodbine, the world darkened and went dead.

  LOWER FOREST

  “HE’S HIT ABOUT FIVE squirrels so far. There’s an awful scramble going on,” Wendell reported from the window, which was opened to its screen.

  Behind him, Amber sat on the bed pressing her hands against her ears. Her face was pale. The two were upstairs in her bedroom. Outside in the yard, the gun went off again.

  “There go two more. I don’t know if they’re hit, though,” Wendell said. A corner of the screen had come loose at the edges. He raised the flap for a better look. “Some squirrels are getting knocked to the ground by other squirrels. They’re all trying to run away. Can’t you stop him? It’s getting pretty bad.”

  “What can I do?” Amber replied in a tight voice. “Throw myself, screaming, out the window? That wouldn’t stop him. Nothing will.”

  Another gunshot sounded from the yard, then another.

  “Well, that’s the last shell,” Wendell said. “Unless he decides to reload.”

  They waited tensely for what seemed a long time.

  “What’s happening now?” Amber whispered.

  “He’s walking around looking at stuff. Now he’s picking up dead squirrels. He’s throwing them over the fence.”

  “How many?”

  “Six. But there might be more.”

  Amber took her hands off her ears and gazed down into the cardboard box on the bed in front of her. “This squirrel’s a girl,” she said quietly.

  Wendell glanced around. “How’s she doing?”

  “I don’t know. She’s still knocked out. But she’s breathing. It’s strange: her eyes are open but you can tell she can’t see. If she makes it, we’re not keeping her for a pet.”

  “How come?”

  “We’re taking her back where she came from.”

  “How come?” Wendell said again, coming over to sit on the bed. He looked at his sister with grave admiration. Amber always knew the right thing to do.

  Downstairs, they heard the back door to the kitchen open and their father come in. They heard him speaking to their mother, but the words weren’t clear.

  “Wendell,” Amber said. She moved closer to him in just the way he loved. Conspiratorially. Her eyes sought his.

  “I want to tell you what happened when I was out in the forest,” she said. “You won’t believe it.”

  “What!” breathed Wendell.

  “There’s a whole other civilization out there,” Amber said. “A whole world we could never even imagine because it’s so different. The squirrels have made it. They’ve been there for a long time, I think. Much longer than we have. There are ancient paths through the trees, and lookout points, and gathering places. There are hundreds of squirrels, old ones and young ones. They’re organized. I mean, they understand who they are. One of them came right up and stared me in the eye. He was studying me, trying to find out why I was there. We would have talked to each other if we could.”

  “Wow!” said Wendell.

  “And listen to this!” Amber went on. “They’ve got this troop of silver-haired squirrels that makes all the big decisions. Like our president, you know, except there’s a whole bunch of them, and they move together and talk in one voice. It’s the queerest thing to see. They came to look at me, too. And then they said something in some language, kind of chittery-sounding, and the other squirrels listened and did what they said.”

  “What did they say to do?” Wendell asked with glowing eyes. If anyone else had told him such things, he probably would have laughed.

  “Well, I think they said to try to make me leave, because pretty soon a group of squirrels came back and started badgering me—in a playful sort of way. They’re peaceful animals at heart. I could see it right away. They just wanted to let me know I was trespassing on their territory.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I talked to them, and told them how lucky they were to live in such a beautiful place. Of course, they couldn’t understand me. Finally most of them went away. Everything was so quiet and green in their trees. When it got dark, the moon came and shone through the leaves. I wish I could spend every night up there.”

  “Wow!” said Wendell. “Nobody’s ever going to believe this about the squirrels.”

  “That’s right, they won’t, so don’t tell anyone,” Amber ordered, her voice turning angry again. “People wouldn’t understand. These are not ordinary squirrels. We’re going to find out more about them. I’ve decided to do research.”

  “You mean you’re going back up?”

  “Right, and so are you. We need two of us. That way we’ll be able to back each other up if we find something important. And we’re going to keep notes.”

  “Oh, wow!” Wendell more or less screamed. “How did you get that idea?”

  “Sh-sh!”

  He clapped his hand over his mouth.

  “I read a book about it,” Amber whispered. “See? Here it is: Woodland Animals and Their Habitats, by A.B. Spark. I found it in the library. The author is a professor at the university in Randomville. He traveled to all kinds of forests, all over the world, and took notes. It’s not hard. We could do it.

  “But first…” Amber went on, even more quietly, because someone was coming upstairs. They could hear the footsteps mounting. “First we’ve got to make this squirrel we brought home get better. That’s the most important thing. Because the other squirrels a
re not going to want us coming into their trees again after the terrible thing Dad did unless…”

  “Unless we do something that shows we’re friends,” Wendell finished excitedly.

  “Right.”

  “Like taking this little squirrel back to her family?”

  “Exactly.”

  Wendell reached out and, with the lightest fingers, stroked the little squirrel’s furry side. He couldn’t ever remember touching anything so soft.

  “What about the ones that already got shot?” he asked in a low voice.

  Amber frowned. “We’ll bury them. Then the squirrels will know we’re on their side.”

  “But will they really understand? Squirrels are squirrels, you know. How can they ever—”

  “Wendell! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. These squirrels are different. They’ve got different tails and different eyes. They know what they’re doing. Did you see how they followed us through the woods when we took this squirrel away? They care about each other.”

  At this, the door of Amber’s bedroom burst open and Mrs. Padgett looked in with a smile.

  “Anyone want some breakfast? What is all this whispering I hear?” she asked, in the kind of stage whisper mothers use when they know they are butting in. She came across and sat between them on Amber’s bed, and looked sadly at the little squirrel. Then she told Amber that no one was angry with her this time for running away, and that she hoped it wouldn’t have to happen again.

  “I’ve spoken to your father,” Mrs. Padgett added, by way of explanation. “He wants to apologize to you for losing his temper the other night. But he had to rush off to work, so he’ll do it this evening at dinner. All this business with the squirrels has upset him, I think. He doesn’t really like to shoot things, you know.”

  There was an uncomfortable moment of silence during which Amber’s jaw tightened and they all stared down at the little squirrel. Wendell wondered if his father had told his mother about almost shooting Amber in the tree. It appeared he had not.

  “So I guess that’s that,” Mrs. Padgett plowed on brightly. “Everything is cleared up. Thank goodness! Now we can all get back to normal life.”

  Normal life! Amber glared at Wendell.

  “Um, Mom,” she said. “We have some plans we have to work out and a lot of stuff to think about. This has been an upsetting morning for us, too, and we’re not very hungry. No offense, but would you mind leaving now so we can talk?”

  Mrs. Padgett looked somewhat startled by this, but she got right up. Wendell watched her nervously.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” their mother said. “And I understand.” She gave Amber a pat on the shoulder and ruffled Wendell’s hair. “Just let me know if I can be of any help.” She went out, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Wendell turned awestruck eyes on his sister.

  “How did you do that?” he demanded. Nobody he knew and nobody he’d heard of had ever gotten away with telling their own mother to get lost.

  “She even closed the door!” Wendell exclaimed in amazement. But Amber wasn’t listening. She was leaning over the box.

  “Look!” she said. “I think the little squirrel is beginning to wake up.”

  Nearly an hour later, Amber and Wendell came downstairs and, passing their mother in the kitchen entry, went out the back door into the yard.

  “Everything all right?” Mrs. Padgett called, after the screen door had slammed practically on her nose. “Where is the squirrel? Still up in your room?”

  She tried to sound unconcerned, but was not very successful. Wild things brought into the house always made her nervous. She remembered a crow Amber had caught one time and imprisoned in the upstairs bathroom. (The shower curtain had been clawed and pecked to pieces.) And a large turtle with a nasty smell that had tried to bite her. Or was it a tortoise? The trouble with wild things was you never knew exactly what they were or what they might do.

  Amber’s face appeared in the door. “Don’t worry, Mom. We put the squirrel in the old hamster cage.”

  “Oh! Has it woken up, then?”

  There was no answer. The children had already walked away into the yard. Mrs. Padgett felt a sudden need to investigate for herself.

  She found the little squirrel crouched groggily in a corner of the cage, which had been home to a much loved hamster of Wendell’s that had escaped into a closet two months before. Unfortunately, it had never been seen again—though sometimes, late at night, Mrs. Padgett awoke and was certain she. heard pattering in the walls. In fact, there seemed to be a loud, multi-pawed scuffling at times, which had led her to wonder if Wendell’s hamster had somehow met up with another hamster, and…

  Mrs. Padgett shivered. The idea that swarms of wild hamsters might be nesting just inches away from her own pillow had given her some bad moments in the middle of the night. Thank goodness morning always came to put an end to such thoughts. Nevertheless:

  “Squirrels are much larger than hamsters, aren’t they,” Mrs. Padgett couldn’t help remarking as she hovered over the cage in Amber’s room.

  She went to the window to observe her children. They had climbed the back fence and were wandering around in the field. Looking for arrowheads, probably. Or playing Scouts and Indians. She remembered doing these things as a child. The world had been a cozy place then. So new. So innocent. So full of wonder and fantasy. Mrs. Padgett sighed.

  “Well, we all grow up soon enough,” she murmured. “Real life takes over with its hardness and truth. Let children have their games and silly bits of make-believe while they can.”

  On the way out of Amber’s room, she noticed that the captured squirrel was watching her with dark eyes. Was it her imagination, or had the creature’s face taken on a strangely intelligent look? Mrs. Padgett’s hand rose to her throat. She walked quickly out the door.

  “Amber? Here’s one,” Wendell said.

  She came over and looked. The body was lying in the long grass, small and gray. The eyes were closed. There was a wound under the chin. A trickle of dried blood ran down the chest. Amber stared at it.

  “The thing to do is lay it under a heap of leaves in the bushes,” she said finally, in such an odd voice that Wendell glanced up at her. “At least, I think that would be the most natural, squirrel way of burying it, don’t you?” she added, keeping her eyes down.

  “I guess so.”

  They picked up the body, which was already slightly stiff, and carried it to a bush growing near the fence. They tucked it down among the roots so that no one would know it was there.

  “Crows and hawks like to eat dead squirrels—when they can find them,” Amber said. “They peck out their eyes.”

  “Ugh! Look, there’s another body.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think you’re looking very hard. You’re mad at Dad, right?” Wendell asked. “He didn’t have to shoot a bunch of dumb squirrels who couldn’t even fight back. He’s a creep, right?”

  “Sure I’m mad at him, but it’s not that simple,” Amber said. “And these squirrels aren’t dumb.”

  Wendell found three more dead bodies. They buried them respectfully, giving each a bush of its own. The squirrels had died in different ways, wearing different faces. The eyes of one were popped wide open, surprised. It was shot in the neck. Another, with a wound in the chest, was squinting and baring its teeth. The third showed no wound but was curled up, its cute little paws covering its nose.

  “Well, I’m mad at Dad,” Wendell said. “I’m never going squirrel hunting with him again—even if he orders me to. He almost killed you and he never even told Mom. He never even said he was sorry.”

  “He was sorry,” Amber said. “And scared. That’s why he didn’t tell her. That’s why he went and shot all these other squirrels, too.”

  Wendell looked at her. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “Think of it this way. When people do dumb things, they are sorry and scared. And angry at themselves. But it isn’t so
great being angry at yourself. You have to live with yourself, right? So then you look around for something else to be mad at. Dad was mad at himself for almost killing me, so he took it out on these squirrels. If you asked him, I bet he’d say: They made me do it!”

  “But that’s crazy! He’s the one who did it, all by himself.”

  Amber shrugged. “Who ever said human beings weren’t crazy?” she asked.

  A half hour more of looking produced nothing, so they called off the hunt. But on the way back to the house, they caught sight of a squirrel lying half-hidden in the grass inside the yard. One of the squirrel’s ears had been shot. It was bloody and rather shredded.

  “Poor thing,” said Amber, turning the body over. The fur was still warm.

  “I think it’s alive!” she whispered to Wendell. “I can feel its heart beating.”

  They bent over the new squirrel at once, and were starting to lift it when the little animal suddenly leapt up and sat quite still on their joined hands. Perhaps it was too dazed to know where it was, though its eyes looked quick and bright. The squirrel stared at them curiously and cocked its head. Then it went down on all fours and sniffed around their palms and wrists.

  “What is he doing!” Wendell whispered in delight. He couldn’t help giggling because its whiskers were so tickly.

  “Sh-sh!” ordered Amber, but it was too late. The squirrel jumped off their hands, bounded to the fence, and from there up a tree. As they watched, it paused and looked back at them. Then a second squirrel appeared, almost as if it had been waiting up there, and the two darted away into a green swirl of leaves.

  “What a great squirrel!” Wendell crowed. “He wasn’t even afraid of us. It looked like he wanted to see who we were. Is that one of the smart ones we’ll be studying?”

  Amber nodded.

  “You know,” she said, “that squirrel looked exactly like the one in the tree that came up to me and…” She trailed off, thoughtfully.

  “Come on!” cried Wendell, pulling her along. “We’ve got to go see how our other squirrel is.”