Squirrel on Stage Page 2

  Twitch’s expression tells me he may well never have noticed this. Still, he says, “But I can go with you. I can guide you. We can go on an adventure together.”

  This might work! I stand tall and happy. “You could be like my Seeing Eye dog,” I say.

  “Sweetie”—Twitch moves in closer so I can see him better—“it’s me: Twitch the squirrel—not a dog.”

  “I know that,” I say.

  “I’m glad we have that cleared up,” he says.

  I tell him, “It will be a quest for the two of us.”

  “Right,” he says, but he sounds a bit unsure.

  I explain, “A quest is when the heroes of the story are looking for something.”

  “Like acorns!” he exclaims. “My favorite!”

  “Usually something bigger,” I say.

  “Like walnuts!” he exclaims. “My favorite!”

  I step out of my cage and walk to the edge of the bookcase. I climb down while Twitch hovers anxiously, concerned now that he knows I can’t see very well.

  Once I’m down, he jumps from the bookcase to the table to the chair to the floor. “It’s me,” he announces, moving in close and waving his arms, just in case I can’t see him.

  “I know,” I assure him.

  “So how do we get to where the people children will be playing their play?” he asks. But a moment later he catches on. “Right,” he says. “If you knew, you could have gone on your own.”

  I say, “But in any case, it’s more fun to go on a quest with a friend. We can follow the parents who are coming into the school. But they can’t see us.”

  “Are they albinos with white fur and red eyes who can’t see well?” he asks.

  “No,” I explain, “I meant to say we can’t let them see us.”

  Twitch nods. “Because we are so cute they would want to make us into pets,” he agrees.

  I don’t point out that I already am a pet.

  We walk to the door of the library. Twitch gets there in four bounds. I go more slowly, taking little steps and following the wall.

  Twitch peeks out the door and looks both ways. “No people here,” he says. “The people I saw coming in were around that corner there.” He’s facing the direction of the main hall. And in another moment he’s gone. He runs to the corner and looks, then runs back to where I’m waiting. He tells me, “A bunch of people are in the hall by the door they used to get into the school. But they’re not going back outside. They’re going through another door.”

  That must be the auditorium, where the stage is. “Okay,” I say, “we’ll take it one doorway at a time.”

  Clearly Twitch is worried this will take a long while. Squirrels always bound and leap and run, always in a hurry. He asks, “What if the play is over by the time we get there?”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t start until the people in the hallway have all gone in.”

  Twitch tells me, “You’re very smart and know these things, so I won’t worry.”

  I’m about to tell him that a little bit of worry is a good thing, but by then he’s already bouncing down the hall.

  And he doesn’t stop at every door.

  Twitch:

  The Audy-Toy-Room

  I dash and bounce down the first hallway, then around the corner toward the door where the people are clustered like pigeons after someone has thrown down bread crumbs for a squirrel and the pigeons think the bread is for them.

  When I’m almost at the door where the play will be played, I turn to ask Sweetie right there behind me, Isn’t this fun?

  Except Sweetie isn’t right there behind me.

  Or even far back behind me.

  I check both walls and finally spot him way back, peeking his head around the corner of the hall where the library is. He hasn’t gotten far at all. He waves his tiny pink paw at me.

  I wave back.

  He waves a second time, and I realize he isn’t so much waving as gesturing come back.

  I dash and bounce back to where he is waiting.

  “We don’t want the people to see us,” he tells me.

  “Of course not,” I agree.

  We stay where we are, just outside the library, peeking out and waiting until everybody has gone through the doors into what Sweetie calls the audy-toy-room, which is where the people have assemblies (whatever they are) and plays (which I’ve just learned everything there is to know about).

  Finally, everyone has gone in, except for the children who have been handing everyone sheets of paper.

  Sweetie is nervous about showing ourselves while the way is mostly, but not totally, clear. But he also says we must hurry because the doors will be closed soon and that will make it difficult for us to get in to watch the play.

  Once more I dash and bounce down the hall, trying to remember to stay close to the wall and to hide for a moment in each doorway—well, most doorways…well, some doorways—to check to make sure no one is looking our way, which Sweetie has asked me to do.

  I get to the doors just as the two handing-out-papers children are closing them.

  “What was that?” I hear one of them ask as I take the quickest route, which is over his foot.

  The lights are dim in the audy-toy-room, and the second child asks, “What was what?”

  Luckily, this gives Sweetie the chance to catch up because I forgot to wait for him, and he doesn’t so much dash and bounce as scurry and scamper. But now we’re both in, and the children haven’t seen us, and they close the doors. Without the light from the hall, the audy-toy-room seems dark, but squirrels have excellent vision in the dark.

  Still, I don’t see any toys in this audy-toy-room.

  What I see is that we are in back of rows and rows of chairs all facing a wall. The people are sitting looking at the wall, and nobody is talking.

  I don’t know exactly what Sweetie can see, but he scurries under the nearest chair and motions for me to join him quickly. “Out of the aisle,” he tells me.

  I balance on my back legs to look around, and I ask, “What’s an aisle?”

  He doesn’t answer but only motions again, and I go under the chair.

  Except it isn’t a chair. There’s a back, but no seat. Is everyone in this room not actually sitting but balancing on seatless chairs? Are these chairs the toys?

  In another moment the children who were at the door move to where we are. They pull down the seats, which were there all along, just somehow up against the backs. They sit down in the chair Sweetie and I are crouched under and the one next to it. Luckily, we are far enough back that they don’t step on us.

  “Now what?” I ask Sweetie, but before I even finish asking, music starts playing, and the people clap. I have heard children play music before. Their teacher doesn’t usually clap. He usually says, “Someone has not been practicing.” I don’t know if he means himself or the child, or if by someone he means somebody else entirely. You’d think a teacher would be clearer about something like that.

  Sweetie leans out from the side of the chair we’re under and into the path that he called the aisle. “That’s the stage,” he tells me, pointing in the direction all the people have been facing. “Where the play is acted out.”

  I, too, peek out from under the chair, and I see that the wall way up in front is rising into the ceiling. Most walls don’t do that. Lights from all over the audy-toy-room are pointing there, showing there is a whole other room that we can only see now because that one wall went up. In that room, a bunch of the people children start to walk around and sing.

  Sweetie:

  Cinderella!

  In the auditorium, Twitch and I are sitting under the chairs of the children who were handing out the programs that tell about the play and the actors. I know all the children who come to the library. The girl is Delaney, and she likes spooky books, and the boy is Cyrus, who likes poetry.

  The lights dim, which means people are less likely to see us.

  The orchestra starts playing, which means people are less likely to hear us.

  And the curtain goes up, which means the play is beginning.

  But closer to me I hear a crinkly sound that I recognize. Delaney is opening a food wrapper.

  Twitch says, “I haven’t eaten since you shared your yogurt drop with me forever ago,” and I hear his tummy rumble.

  My own tummy lets me know now might be a nice time for a snack.

  I sniff but can’t smell what food is being unwrapped.

  Twitch’s nose expectantly tests the air, too.

  “What do they have?” he asks me.

  “Hard to say,” I whisper. “I don’t think she’s gotten the bag open yet.”

  The chair above us moves a bit as Delaney struggles with the bag.

  Twitch’s jaw moves and he clenches a paw. I know him well enough to know he is thinking that teeth and claws are more useful than fingers, and that he could get the bag open. I put my small, bare paw on his bigger, furry one, and I shake my head to let him know he shouldn’t offer to help her.

  One more jerk of the chair, and we hear Delaney whisper, “Oops!” just as we get the whiff of salt and butter and—

  “Popcorn!” Twitch says. “My favorite food ever!” As several pieces rain down on our heads, he tells me, “How kind of the girl to share!”

  Twitch and I grab up the pieces from the floor. Delicious!

  Around the popcorn in his mouth, Twitch tells me, “I love this play!”

  I tell him, “The food isn’t part of the play.”

  “Oh yes it is!” he answers. “The food is a very tasty part of the play.”

  I consider. “Well, it’s part of the play, but the play is more about what is said and done onstage.”

  “Nobody is saying anything,” Twitch complains. “They can’t. Those people children won’t stop singing.”

  “That’s part of the play,” I tell him. “Listen to the words. Those are townspeople, and they’re saying through their song how sad it is that Cinderella’s mother died. Then her father found someone else who was supposed to be a mother to Cinderella. Her name is Stepmother, because she’s one step away from being Cinderella’s mother. But Stepmother already had two daughters, called the stepsisters, and they were mean to Cinderella. Then the father died, and then Stepmother started to be mean to Cinderella, too, and now Stepmother and the stepsisters force her to do all the work and to sleep by the fireplace.”

  “Wow, we missed a lot of the play while we were enjoying that popcorn,” Twitch says.

  “No,” I explain, “they’re talking about things that already happened before the play began.”

  “Okay,” Twitch says doubtfully. But then he says, “Oh, like in my story, the one about finding acorns, then burying them, then not being able to remember where I buried them, and then finally finding them again. When you were acting my story out, you didn’t include the parts about finding the acorns or burying them. You just started by running around in your cage and asking, ‘Where have I put my acorns?’ So this is like that.”

  Sometimes following what Twitch is saying can make me dizzy. “Yes,” I say once I’ve worked it out.

  I’m watching the play, but we’re too far away for me to be able to make out the faces of the children I know. We’re so far away, I can’t make out that there are children on the stage. Just blob shapes. Moving. And singing.

  “Can you see?” Twitch asks.

  “I can hear,” I say. “That’s good enough.”

  “No.” His voice is forceful. “It’s not good enough. Let’s move closer.”

  “We have to be careful,” I warn him.

  “Of course,” he tells me. “We’ll be so careful no one will even know we’re here.”

  I’m thinking: Can Twitch be that careful?

  But he’s already dashed away.

  Twitch:

  The Cinderella Play

  Of course I’m worried about Sweetie. I want him to be able to see the play.

  But I’m also thinking that the girl and the boy in the seats above us haven’t dropped any popcorn in a while. Maybe there is no more popcorn in their bag. Maybe somebody closer to the stage will have some different food.

  We start moving, keeping under the chairs, as we make for what he calls the stage, which is downhill from where we started.

  There isn’t any more popcorn on the floor, but there is a piece of gum. It’s been there for a while, so it’s gotten stepped on, but I can still smell some flavor on it. I’m not sure what the flavor is, but it smells delicious. I stop moving forward and pick at the gum. It’s really stuck. I pull harder and some of it comes up, in a long sticky string that’s still attached to the floor. I pull harder. Thwack! The string snaps, and the end of the gum smacks me between the eyes.

  And sticks there.

  I pull the gum, but it just stretches. And meanwhile I lose my balance—just a little bit—and I brush against the ankle of the person sitting in the seat above me. The man yelps as though I’ve bitten him. I haven’t. But that’s what he sounds like.

  The woman next to him whispers, “What is it, dear?”

  The man has the paper those children handed him when he came in, and he swats at his ankle. I’ve moved away, so he can’t see me, but that doesn’t stop him from swatting away.

  I remain motionless like a tree root, which is good squirrel strategy if you are upwind from a fox, or if you’re not wanting to be seen while you’re under a chair in an audy-toy-room, clutching one end of a piece of gum while the other end is stuck to your face.

  “Something’s there,” the man tells the woman, not exactly out loud, but not as quiet as she was. “Do you have your phone handy?”

  She leans down to look, and she has one of those things that people have that can shine a light, but Sweetie and I have moved to beneath the seat in front of the one in front of them, with another set of feet between us and them, and she doesn’t shine the light that far; she’s only shining it at his feet. “I don’t see anything,” she tells him.

  “Shh,” other people tell the two of them.

  “Be careful,” Sweetie tells me as we start moving again.

  “I am,” I tell him. My tail flicks in annoyance at his unnecessary instruction, and the person whose chair we’re passing under gives a shrill “Whoop!”

  The gum I have scraped up from the floor is sticky as I continue to try to pick it off my face, and now it’s stuck to my paws, too. Meanwhile my tail might—maybe—brush against another ankle. The foot attached to the ankle kicks out. I know this is accidental. I know that the person I might have maybe brushed against doesn’t know he’s kicked a squirrel—because everyone loves squirrels.

  And I’m not hurt. But I go rolling on the slick floor—downhill, toward the stage, the string of gum wrapping itself around me. My tail flips this way and that as I try to regain stability.

  There are more whoops! as well as yips! and yikes! from the people whose chairs I’ve slid beneath. More feet are lashing out, and I’m trying to avoid them before I’ve quite caught my balance, all the while staggering forward.

  Behind me, I hear Sweetie panting as he tries to keep up so that he doesn’t lose me, and he’s saying things like “Oops!” and “Sorry!” and “Beg pardon!” because he’s a polite rat, even though people can’t understand him. They probably hear his squeaks. I’m guessing this by their squeals and by the sound of chair seats going sproing! smack! as they flip back up because the people in them have jumped to their feet.

  People in the back loudly whisper, “Down in front!”

  I suddenly find that there is no chair above me. I have ended up in the space between the chairs where the parents are sitting and other chairs where the children who are making music are sitting.

  A girl who is blowing into a silver tube sees me. Her eyes get big, and the tube makes a skritch! noise. Mr. Ziegler, the music teacher, has not seen me. He has his back to me as he stands directing the music, just as he does in class. Except in class he would have stopped everybody and told the girl to try again, and now he just gives a slight shudder as though the skritch! hurt his ears. He looks over his shoulder to glare at the parents fussing and not paying attention. Paying attention is an important rule in his class. With his hand he motions for the girl to continue playing. By now, I’ve backed under the chair, and the girl once more puts the tube to her mouth.

  I work at picking gum off my tail, but by now I’ve lost interest in eating it as it has bits of my fur all over it. I spit pieces of furry gum onto the floor.

  I’m almost pushed out from under the chair as Sweetie runs into my back end.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” he says. But he sounds more relieved to have found me than sorry that he’s run into me.

  “Well,” I tell him, “now we’re closer. But now we can’t see the play at all, because the children making music are in the way.”

  Even sitting, they’re too tall to see over, at least from where we are, down here at the bottom of the hill in the audy-toy-room.

  “That’s fine,” Sweetie assures me. “We can listen.”

  I can see that the stage is up higher than the rest of the floor. Probably the people sitting on the chairs uphill can see what’s going on much better than the squirrel and the rat sitting underneath the chairs.

  But from here I can see something I didn’t notice before. There are three steps. Squirrels can count to three, because three is an important number: Mother, Father, me. You, me, other. Good to eat, better to eat, best to eat. So I can count to three, and I see there are three steps leading from the floor where we are—one, two, three—up to the stage where the play is being played.