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, and she accepts. He plans on going into a house at night. Read the first part of this story here , the second part of her story here, and the third part of her story here!

“Stringy,” I moaned. “Not tonight. Please don’t go in tonight.”

“I just want to see,” he explained patiently. “It’s not like I’m going to chew through their sofa. Just look around, see how they live. Shelby, can you and Maple get through that open window? I’m taking Footprint to help me chew through this screen door.”

“Good luck,” Shelby muttered. “Footprint doesn’t have good chewing teeth.”

It was a quiet night–still and hot. The house I was somehow enlisted to raid was small, one story, with a little porch and a screen door. Its pale yellow paint was dull in the night. I sighed and started towards the open window. Around the corner of the house I heard Stringy start to patiently pick the screen to pieces. I crawled up the wall, found the windowsill, hauled myself up and pressed against the edge of the window. I waited for Shelby to catch up. She came up beside me and stuck her nose through the window, which was open just a crack. I heard her sniff. “Smells like human,” she said. “Not a good smell.”

“Shelby, can you be real quiet?” I asked. I didn’t know. Not being nocturnal made me miss out on a lot of things.

“I can be quiet,” she assured me, squeezing through the window into the house. Her tail silently slithered after her, and when it went through I crept in after her. There was a little table by the window and I used it to get onto the floor. I heard nothing except quite breathing. I looked up, and there was a bed. A lump on the bed was making the breathing. Through the room with the bed was a door, half-open, and a hall with its light on. I could see Shelby’s silhouette against the light of the hall, and hurried towards it. When I caught with her I looked down the hall. More bedrooms, and a room with a table and more rooms beyond that which I couldn’t see. I could get lost in a place like this. And I worried for Shelby. And I remembered how she walked the fences, over and over, every night.

I pointed down the hall towards the room with the table. I started towards it and heard Shelby coming behind me. I got to a place with cabinets all over, and great things looming over the counter. It was terrifying. I turned to run but Shelby’s muscular tail blocked my way. I turned in fear and indignation but only saw the old possum press her nose against the floor. Her front paw came down. She lifted it, and I heard the faint sound of a floor that isn’t completely clean. “Sticky,” she said. And then, wonderingly, “Candy.”

Suddenly I knew that there was good things here. Bravely, I crawled up the cabinets, onto the counter, and eased open another cabinet above me. It creaked. Loud.

“No!” Shelby cried.

No!

I curled into a ball and sat frozen. I expected it any moment–the footsteps, creeping into the room–the screams–the terror of a squirrel in the house where I don’t belong and shouldn’t be here anyways–what was I doing? Why did I do it–

I waited. It didn’t happen. So slowly I uncurled myself. I looked around. I looked up into the cabinet. And I gasped. This tiny cabinet in the kitchen held everything I had ever wanted, plus more. Cheese puffs in distracting packages. Cereal. Cookies. And candy.

I knew what I was going to do. I would eat all I could, then carry the rest home. I would bury it so it would last forever and I could eat it whenever I wanted. I reached up to the packaged of cheese puffs and stopped, paw raised. Did I hear something? It must be Stringy making a racket–but it sounded like something else. Something bigger.

A voice. “Mamma?”

That definitely wasn’t Stringy and I knew what it was. I didn’t want to meet it. I needed to get out.

“Shelby!” I yelled. This wasn’t a time for whispers. I started towards the hallway to get away but turned before I left. Why wasn’t Shelby coming? I looked at her–oh, no.

Her black eyes were blank. Her limbs were stiff. Her mouth was slightly open. The noise from the cabinet must have made her play dead. She needed to wake up. Why didn’t she wake up? “Shelby!”

Suddenly she jerked up. “What?”

“You need to run,” I told her frantically. “Run!”

“Why?” she asked confusedly.

“There’s a–”

I heard the voice again, closer. “Mamma?”

“A human?” Shelby asked. “No–” And mouth opened again and her limbs extended. Not again.

I ran through the kitchen and turned into the hall, dodged two small feet, and scrambled into the bedroom, yelling. “Everybody out!” I shouted. I shot up the wall, through the window, and onto the grass. I lay there, still. Safe.

But Shelby wasn’t.

Stringy and Footprint came up behind me. “What happened?”

I sat up. “I’ve left Shelby inside!”

“Where is she?”

“In the kitchen. She was playing dead and I couldn’t get her to wake up.”

“Well, if that’s all,” started Footprint as he went back towards the window to get her.

“But that isn’t all!” I said, distressed. “There’s a human in there. A young one.”

“Well,” continued Footprint. “We’ll just leave her in there. No problem.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“What other way is there? It’s no big deal. She’s old, Maple. If the human finds her, it won’t matter much whatever happens to her. You know how she walks the fences at night–some of them are just kind of crazy. Don’t worry about it. Let her be, then have a nice rest.”

I looked back at the house. I couldn’t hear whatever was going on in there. Footprint and Stringy started to walk away, expecting me to follow. They were laughing about their adventure. But I had ruined the adventure for myself, because I did something I thought I had to do.

And I knew I had to do something now. So I did.

To be continued!