THE SQUIRREL AND THE EASTER EGG
by Nick Edinger
Alice had seen several ovals around the
garden before, but never one like this. This one emitted a rapid, shrill noise
that made Alice cover her ears with tiny claws.
She scurried over to it anyway. Rapidly,
she stroked a bushy tail over the egg; it was smooth like the rest, and this
wasn’t the first bright-orange oval she had seen. She tried to pick it up, yet
each attempt lasted only a few seconds and ended in panting. The giant, purple
duck statue, frozen mid-walk, kept watch between the towering ferns and hostas.
Alice scratched her pale underside furiously, staring at what looked like an eye
on the oval. It reminded her of her own beady eyes.
To the east, the Gate Wall swung open with
a shriek. Alice leapt on top of the egg, covering it with her brown fur,
blending it in with the nearby evergreen trunk. This only muffled the beeping,
so Alice began to shake and sweat. She heard another strange sound- an
irregular clicking- before hearing the old stomping. She couldn’t close her
eyes.
A white and leathery foot with a maze of grimy
strings on it, as big as Alice herself, stepped above the cracks in the stone
walk. Each foot was connected to a thick, blue trunk that didn’t look like any
skin Alice had ever seen. She was too close to the ground to see more of the
beast, but she lay frozen at the thought of its wide, lumpy face and long
claws. The stompers stopped moving and turned to face Alice. She was frozen for
a long time. Then, they turned back and began walking towards the grapevine crawling
up the side of The Cube Nest.
Once the thumps grew distant, Alice didn’t
even look both ways before rolling the egg across the bumpy pathway, pushing it
along with her little nose. At the other side was her cache, which was where
she stored food. Already, she could smell the berries, acorns, seeds, walnuts, tree
bark, and stolen bird feed from the hole underneath the wide oak tree. Placing
the egg over the hole, she began to dig, hoping to find some way to fit it
inside.
Descending from the tree came her good
friend Eugene. “Alice, what is that?” he asked.
“It’s mine,” replied Alice, still digging
around her cache.
“Are you crazy?” Eugene squeaked. “You
can’t take things from the ancient ones! They have diseases! Didn’t you pay
attention to those after-school specials?”
“C’mon, there’s gotta be something good
inside. Besides, you were ok with me taking that sweet-tasting bar they
dropped.”
“This is different!” Eugene’s own long,
bushy tail began to wiggle nervously. “The ancient ones are very protective of
their Easters! We could get it trouble!”
“I know!”
The hole began to cave in, and the egg fell
inside; Alice’s digging had finally done it. She jumped into the dark and wet
cavern where she stored her food, and took a pause to sniff in the wonderful
scent.
Eugene climbed further down the tree and
peered his small head into the cache. “I wish we could do one of our usual
adventures.”
“Sure! I just need to cover this noisy… you
called it an Easter, right?”
“Right.” Eugene carefully climbed inside
the hole lit only by a grey sky. “I saw a sign inside The Cube Nest that said,
‘Happy Easter.’ They put it out every year they put out those ovals. I think
the big bully ones hide the little one’s Easters, and when they find it,
they’re happy.”
Alice smiled. “That sounds fun. Let’s do it
with your history books!”
“No!” cried Eugene, but they were both
laughing about it soon anyway.
They stopped laughing once they heard the
irregular clicking. Both of them dove into Alice’s pile of half-eaten food and
looked up. Minutes of stomping later, the ancient one came into view. It was
shaved like a newborn squirrel, and wore clothes as bright as the Easter. Most
ancients moved with their eyes open, but this one did not. It had a metal
branch she kept tapping in front of her; Eugene and Alice could see that this
was what caused the clicking.
“Is that- is it blind?” Alice asked in a
raspy voice.
“I think so,” replied Eugene in an equally
low voice. “I think we should give back the Easter.”
“But they have so much already!”
“Maybe,” said Eugene. “But that doesn’t
mean we can just take it. We don’t know what it means to them.”
Alice looked up to the sky, and she could
see glazed tears on the ancient one’s monstrous cheeks. It brightened up,
however, after turning towards the sound of the beeping eggs and smiling.
The squirrels began to panic and chatter
among their pool of food. The pale hand with mighty fingers and a dirty palm
began to close in on the hole.
“Do something! Quick!” Alice whispered to
Eugene.
While tightly closing his eyes, Eugene
scuttled underneath the egg and pushed it up. Two of the ancient one’s five
fingers snatched the egg, and the squirrels heard a joyous cry erupt from the
egg’s owner. The stomping began again at a faster pace this time, for the giant
creature began to skip off.
No one broke the silence for a long time,
save some birds. After a while, Eugene turned to Alice and said, “Sorry about
losing your Easter.”
“Sorry!” exclaimed Alice. “That was the
best part! We’ve gotta do it again!”
Alice started a bounding stride out of the
hole and into the garden of trumpet vines and stinging nettles. Eugene soon
followed, glad to be on a good adventure for once.
Copyright (C) 2013 by Nick Edinger
This was an enjoyably whimsical story with very nice descriptive details. I like the relationship between Alice and Eugene and the way that they handle being around humans. The only parts I didn't quite like are the bits about squirrels being able to read English and having their own history books; I actually stopped reading the story to ponder exactly how squirrels could do that (perhaps I overthink these things). Other than that, great story.
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