Maple, the gray squirrel, has returned for another adventure. Read her first story here. Maple’s friend, Stringy, has requested Maple’s help on an adventure. He plans on going into a house at night. Read the first part of this story here! 

I gaped at my friend. “You look like a rat,” I repeated.

He nodded sadly. “It’s my tail. I look like a rat. You know how humans feel about rats.”

I gave up on the fruit. I wasn’t going to get anything, not while this annoying squirrel was bothering me. “I’m sure they feel the same way about squirrels, too. And anyways, I’m not helping you!” I dashed down the fence, knowing he’d follow. I found a flimsy tree branch and grabbed hold of it and swung myself onto the tree. Stringy caught the branch as it snapped backward and vaulted up on my branch. I galloped away, laughing, grabbed a telephone pole and ran up it, circling and climbing, while Stringy followed. It was a tall pole and the sky swirled in dizzying circles as I spiraled, until there was nothing but cloudy blue spinning and the telephone pole, and me, reaching and pulling, working towards the top. And I finally got there, and looked out at my neighborhood, and at the rooftops and tree branches reaching towards the sun like a thousand green watchmen with arms raised. 

“I need your help, Maple,” Stringy said, and I realized that he had come up behind me. 

I frowned, thinking. “If I agreed to help you, what would I be doing?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stringy dismissively. “Keeping watch. Chewing wood. Maybe stealing cheese puffs. You know, Shelby said that humans hoard whole bags of cheese puffs in their houses.” Shelby is an ancient possum who traveled the fences of the neighborhood deep into the night. She always walked the same route every midnight and seldom spoke to anybody. It was the popular opinion of the local nocturnal creatures that Shelby was crazy.

“Let me get this straight. You’re planning to go into a human’s house.”

“Yes,” he affirmed.

“In the night.” 

“Yes.”

“With a possum,” I continued.

“Yes. And Footprint, too.” Footprint is a raccoon. He comes to the same yard every night and steals figs from a tree, when the tree is producing. When the tree doesn’t produce, he stands in front of it and stares at it. Like Shelby, it was obvious that Footprint had his own story.

So. Stringy was going into a house, which is occupied by humans who will do who knows what to him. He will do this with a possum who everybody thinks is crazy, and a raccoon who stares at a tree. Three crazy animals–Shelby, Footprint, and Stringy. Any crazy animal needs a sensible squirrel to come along. 

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll help.”