Squirrel in the Museum Read online

  Text copyright © 2019 by Vivian Vande Velde

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Steve Björkman

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 9780823441679

  Ebook ISBN 9780823442218

  v5.4

  a

  To the members of my writers’ groups, who keep me going: Judy Bradbury, Alice DeLaCroix, and Marsha Hayles;

  Tedd Arnold, MJ Auch, Patience Brewster, Bruce and Kathy Coville, Cynthia DeFelice, Robin Pulver, and Ellen Stoll Walsh;

  and to Dr. Carol Johmann—honorary cousin—who explained (patiently) how an airplane flying is science, not magic—V. V. V.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Twitch, the Schoolyard Squirrel

  Science

  Traveling the Scientific Way

  Dinosaurs

  The Gift Shop

  The Hall of the Planets

  Mars Rover

  Science Stuff

  Dioramas

  Staff Lounge

  Caught!

  Life Lessons

  Galileo and Newton: A Brief Explanation of Everything

  I am a very highly educated squirrel.

  I always paid attention to my mother’s life lessons.

  Some of my mother’s life lessons:

  Don’t let an owl eat you.

  Don’t let a weasel eat you.

  Don’t let a fox eat you.

  Don’t let a wolf eat you.

  Because I have an inquisitive mind, I asked my mother, “What are wolves?”

  She said, “I don’t know. But my mother told me not to let wolves eat me. And her mother told her, and her mother told her, and her mother, and hers, on back as far as any squirrel could remember.”

  “Maybe there used to be wolves,” I said, “but there aren’t anymore.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But it would be a very bad thing for a squirrel to let a wolf eat him because his mother hadn’t warned him not to.”

  It is always better not to get eaten.

  My mother taught me other life lessons, too.

  She taught me to be quick to get the food that people leave out for us, since birds think the people have put out the food for them, even though birds aren’t nearly as cute as squirrels.

  She taught me not to tell the birds that they aren’t cute (even though it’s easy to see) because it’s a useful thing to get along with other animals—not counting the owls, weasels, foxes, and wolves that would eat us.

  A life lesson I learned on my own, which I pass on to younger squirrels, is that while it’s good to look cute, a squirrel should try not to look so cute that people try to catch you and keep you as a pet.

  Besides the life lessons I learned from my mother, I am also highly educated because I live in a schoolyard. School is where people children learn their life lessons, since—for some reason—people mothers don’t teach their own young.

  I like to sit on the windowsills at school and watch through the glass as the children get taught—even though a lot of the lessons they learn are not nearly as useful as the ones squirrels learn. My favorite window is by the library where my cousin, Sweetie the rat, lives in a cage he is smart enough to get out of—but he usually chooses not to. Both of us like to listen to the library teacher read stories to the people children.

  I have other cousins who live at the school. There’s a hamster, and also a rabbit. Rabbits are very distant cousins to squirrels. There are also a couple of geckos who live in the science lab. I’m not at all related to them, but they are interesting, so they are honorary cousins even though it’s hard to get a word in and the way they talk gives my head the wibble-wobbles.

  Sometimes, one of the teachers will forget to close a window when everyone leaves school at the end of their day. (Which, by the way, is not even close to sundown, so I don’t know why they call it the end of the day. People get confused so easily!) Even if the window is open only a crack, I can get through because I am very fluffy. I am able to squeeze and wriggle my way in to visit my cousins and my honorary cousins.

  At the end of the school day, after all the big yellow buses that take the people children away from school leave, and after all those people children who walk or ride bikes leave, and after all the teachers leave, I jump from branch to branch in the schoolyard and check the windows. One teacher has not closed one of the windows tight. This is the room where my cousins the geckos live.

  I pause to think: Does my head feel clear enough to take on my cousins?

  No wibble-wobbles at all, so I will risk it.

  I suck in my stomach, scrunch down my fur, and wriggle through the opening the teacher has left for me—either by forgetting or by wanting me to come in and share my knowledge with the geckos.

  The geckos start talking even before I get halfway in.

  One says, “I’m Galileo,” at the same time the other one says, “I’m Newton.”

  They introduce themselves every single time I come into their room, so maybe they can’t remember that they’ve told me this before. Or maybe they don’t remember who I am. Or maybe they don’t trust my memory—or my ability to tell one of them from the other. I admit this takes concentration, seeing as they have no fur, just like newborn squirrel babies.

  I say, “Hi, cousins.”

  They start talking in the way that I know will eventually give my head the wibble-wobbles.

  GALILEO: We’re not actually cousins, you know.

  NEWTON: We’re geckos, and you’re—

  GALILEO: —a squirrel.

  TWITCH: Well, yes, but—

  NEWTON: That means we’re reptiles.

  GALILEO: While you’re a mammal. Not the same thing at all.

  NEWTON: Not at all.

  TWITCH: I—

  GALILEO: Our scientific name—

  NEWTON: —is Phelsuma Gekkonidae.

  GALILEO: And you’re from the genus—

  NEWTON: Sciurus.

  TWITCH: By cousins, I meant—

  GALILEO: The closest we are to being family members is that we’re both members of the animal kingdom—

  NEWTON: —as opposed to being in the plant or fungi kingdom.

  GALILEO: Which is such an obvious observation, it’s silly.

  NEWTON: It’s not nice to call a fellow scientist silly.

  TWITCH: He didn’t—

  GALILEO: I didn’t call you silly, I called your observation silly.

  NEWTON: You always think you know better.

  GALILEO: That’s because I’m the older brother.

  NEWTON: No, I’m the older brother. I was born first.

  GALILEO: Mother laid the egg with you in it first, but I hatched first. That makes me older.

  TWITCH: Speaking of brothers, I have—

  NEWTON: Me.

  GALILEO: Me!

  NEWTON: ME!

  TWITCH: Why don’t we change the subject?

  GALILEO: I’m named after Galileo Galilei.

  NEWTON: I’m named after Sir Isaac Newton.

  TWITCH: I’m named after—

  GALILEO: Galileo Galilei was born before Isaac Newton, just the way I was born before my brother Newton.


  NEWTON: Yes to the scientist Galileo being born first. No to the gecko Galileo being born first.

  GALILEO: And everybody likes Galileo better. He has a museum named after him: the Galileo Museum and Science Center. The children are taking a field trip there tomorrow.

  TWITCH: What’s a field trip?

  NEWTON: A field trip is when the children take an educational trip away from the school.

  GALILEO: But they don’t go to a field.

  NEWTON: Except in October, when the kindergarten children go to a pumpkin field—

  GALILEO: Patch. Pumpkins grow in a pumpkin patch, not a pumpkin field. Silly younger brother.

  NEWTON: A pumpkin patch is just another name for a pumpkin field. You’re the silly younger brother.

  GALILEO: Anyway, this is not October. And the children who use the science lab are not kindergarten children.

  NEWTON: I didn’t say they were.

  GALILEO: So I don’t even know why you brought it up.

  NEWTON: To explain about field trips.

  TWITCH: Thank you.

  GALILEO: The science museum sounds like a wondrous place.

  NEWTON: Wondrous.

  GALILEO: Sort of like a science fair…

  NEWTON: But without anyone trying to demonstrate how to make a stink bomb.

  GALILEO: Or how to shoot potatoes out of a potato cannon.

  NEWTON: Or how to tame a feral cat and make it into a pet.

  TWITCH: Nobody ever tries to make a squirrel into a pet, do they?

  GALILEO: We wish we could go to the science museum. The children get on a special bus and are gone for most of the day.

  NEWTON: When they return, they are full of stories of all the scientific marvels they have seen.

  TWITCH: Can’t you go to the science museum with the children?

  GALILEO: Oh, no.

  NEWTON: Definitely not.

  GALILEO: We need our heat lamp.

  NEWTON: We need the safety of our vivarium.

  GALILEO: Outside, there are snakes.

  NEWTON: And hawks.

  TWITCH: And owls. Still…

  GALILEO: To go on a field trip, we would need to sneak onto the bus and not be seen.

  NEWTON: Then get off the bus at the museum and not be seen.

  GALILEO: Then get back on the bus and still not be seen.

  NEWTON: To return to school.

  GALILEO: To the science lab.

  NEWTON: To our vivarium.

  GALILEO: We wish we could go, but we cannot.

  NEWTON: We cannot.

  GALILEO: Definitely not.

  NEWTON: Even though the science museum—

  GALILEO: —the Galileo Museum and Science Center—

  NEWTON: —is the place to go to have all your scientific questions answered.

  Finally the geckos have run out of words and stop talking.

  I’m remembering the wolves my mother has warned me about, but which nobody in my family has ever seen.

  I tell the geckos, “I have scientific questions I want answered!”

  The next morning I sit in a tree and watch as the yellow school buses leave one after the other.

  And, because I’m such a good thinker, I think: Why are the buses called yellow? They are definitely not the color of daffodils or dandelions or forsythia blossoms or any other yellow flowers I can think of. The closest I can come to that color is marigolds, which can be yellow or orange, and if you look at a patch of them all together and squint your eyes, that’s the color of school buses. So why aren’t buses called something-sort-of-but-not-exactly-like-marigolds?

  My honorary cousins the geckos like to be accurate about everything they say—they tell me that’s the scientific way. I resolve to be more scientific, too. From now on, I will call buses something-sort-of-but-not-exactly-like-marigolds-colored, and I will encourage others to be accurate that way also.

  I’m so busy thinking these deep thoughts, I almost don’t notice that all of the buses except for one have left. The geckos told me that this was what would happen, and that the one remaining bus would be the field trip bus. The children have gone from all of their various buses into the school to be counted, and soon they will come out and board this one bus to ride to the museum and science center that’s named after my cousin the gecko.

  One thing that both my gecko cousins agreed on is that I must not be seen getting on the bus, even though I explained to them that everybody loves squirrels, and that I would be welcomed. But they told me that—loved or not—nobody is allowed on the buses besides the driver and the children. A special exception is made for field trips, when select parents and teachers will be named as chaperones. Chaperones are those in charge of keeping the children from wandering off and getting lost, since people children do not stick close to the nest, the way well-behaved squirrel children do.

  I will trust that the geckos are right when they say I should not let myself get seen.

  They also advised against simply climbing to the top of the bus and riding there. They talked about crosswinds and wind blasts and wind shears and wind gusts, not to mention lift and drag and aerodynamics, until my head was ready to wibble-wobble right off my shoulders.

  “No riding on top,” I promised them.

  So now I’m watching the bus driver, who is sitting in his seat and has the bus door open. He’s reading a book and probably would not notice me going up the same stairs the children do, because people tend to not notice quite a bit of what goes on around them.

  But several of the windows are open, so I decide it’s just as easy to go in that way.

  I jump from the branch that’s closest to the bus (I’m an excellent jumper) and land on the roof of the bus (I’m an excellent lander). From here I can see into the window of the room in the school where the geckos live. I stand up and wave at them. They must think I have not listened to their advice and plan to ride here, because I see one of them lift his little foot with its tiny padded toes—not to wave back, but to clap against his forehead.

  So that they won’t worry, I don’t linger but go to the edge of the roof of the bus. Holding on to the edge, I swing down and in through the open window.

  I land on one of the seats.

  The bus has many seats, and they all face toward the front. That’s the same arrangement as in the classrooms in the school, except that in the classrooms, the teacher faces the children, and on the bus, the driver faces away from them. I stand on the seat where I’ve landed and look where everyone will be facing. It is just another window. If they want to see outside, they should go outside, where they’d have a clearer view.

  The driver puts down his book, but not because he’s seen me. He’s seen the children who are to go on the field trip, who are bursting out of the front door of the school. The geckos were certainly right that the children seem excited about their field trip. They are talking and laughing and running—even though the teacher chaperones call out, “Walk!”

  One of the children is neither running nor walking. He is riding in a metal chair with two big wheels in back and two small wheels in front. I have seen this child before. Sometimes he turns the big wheels with his hands to make his chair roll; other times one of the teachers pushes his chair to make it go. I have heard other children offer to push the chair, but the teacher always says no because they will push it too fast. I have seen the boy go pretty fast on his own.

  The driver and the teacher work to get the chair onto the bus, which gives me a little time, but not enough to explore the bus or to search out the perfect hiding place. So I simply jump down to the floor and hide under one of the seats.

  Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! The children’s feet make the floor shake, but I know nobody can step on me where I am.

  Oops! I realize maybe I
’m not as safe as I thought as a boy throws himself into the seat where I was and swings his feet to where I am. I dodge, moving closer to the wall of the bus.

  “The sooner you find seats, the sooner we can get going,” the adult people tell the people children.

  It would be hard for the children not to find seats, since the bus is made up almost entirely of seats.

  Still laughing and talking and stomping, the children find seats.

  There’s a loud noise as the bus starts. I’ve heard buses start before, but it sounds louder from the inside.

  And the children sound even louder than they do on the playground at recess.

  Probably the geckos have a scientific reason for this to be so.

  Then the bus moves, and I unexpectedly find myself sliding backward. I look up and I’m no longer seeing the bottom of the seat under which I was hiding. I’m seeing the boy with the big feet. Luckily, he’s too busy poking the boy next to him and neither one of them sees me.

  I scramble back to under the seat ahead of the two boys and dig my nails into the floor.

  But every time the bus stops or starts or turns a corner, I have to fight to hold on. Having to hold on is like when I play on the squirrel playgrounds people put in their yards around the food they set out for us. There are slides and swings and sometimes it’s a real challenge to get to the actual squirrel feeder with its yummy snacks.

  I wonder if this is what the geckos meant by aerodynamics.

  Speaking of snacks, something besides me that is sliding around on the floor is half a peanut butter sandwich. I wonder if one of the children has seen me and is sharing, or if the sandwich got left behind by accident. People can be careless with their food that way. In any case, offered or forgotten, I munch the sandwich, between sliding and holding on.

  Finally the bus stops. I have been concentrating on not sliding backward or to the sides, but this time I slide forward. I slide between a pair of pink sparkly sneakers and the only thing that stops me from sliding forward even more is a pink sparkly bag—the kind people call a backpack.