The Bravest Squirrel Ever Page 3
Chapter 3
HUMAN NOISES
Enjoying another perfect afternoon of hide-and-seek, Pippi huddled under the insulation while Max counted.
“Daddy, I hear something in the ceiling. Listen,” a person said from underneath the floor.
If she hadn’t been hiding, Pippi would have dashed up the pipe and out of the nest. But already out of sight, she felt safer not moving at all.
“I don’t hear anything,” a deeper human voice said. Even though he didn’t yell, his voice sounded like it could become loud and mean at any moment.
“But—” the nicer, smaller voice started.
“Not now. Your mother and I have a lot of unpacking to do from vacation.” His heavy footsteps moved away.
Pippi shivered. She did not want to meet the scary person.
“Ready or not, here I come,” Max shouted, not letting the noises below interrupt their game. “I see you, Pippi.”
Drat! Her tail stuck out and gave her away every time. She dashed out from her hiding place before he could tag her. As they scampered toward the big metal tube they used as home base, his breath brushed her back paws. She ran faster.
Unable to stop, she crashed against home base, making the tube boom long and deep like thunder. Trying not to slip off, she dug her claws against the metal, where they screeched across the surface.
“Dean, did you hear that?” a new human yelled, the voice so shrill it hurt Pippi’s ears.
She and Max froze. Lana popped her head up from her hiding spot, her black eyes wide with fear and her nose quivering. For a second, no one moved a muscle.
Max recovered first and dashed after Lana.
Pippi kept one paw on the base, shaking from ears to tail. Now the humans would come with their traps and make all three of them flop.
“Are you hearing noises too, Honey?” the deeper voice from before asked. One human had called him Daddy, and other one called him Dean, so maybe his name was Daddy-Dean.
“I heard a big clunk and then an awful scraping sound from the vent fan over the stove,” Honey explained.
“Turn it on,” Daddy-Dean said. “If something’s inside, maybe it will blow out.”
A huge whoosh swelled from underneath where Pippi stood all the way up the metal tube, vibrating her paw. She shrieked and scampered away.
She jumped over a board and wedged her head under the insulation, then counted her paws. One, two, three, four. Yes, she had them all and could still feel her tail. The sound had scared her out of her mind but hadn’t hurt her.
Max flicked her with his tail. “Got you. You’re It.”
The whooshing from the vent stopped. Silence filled the dark nest. Pippi pulled her head out of the foam and glared at him. “That’s not fair. Didn’t you hear what the humans did?”
“Scaredy-rat,” he teased.
Pippi hated that name. “Fine, I’ll count.”
“How could a human make that noise?” Lana asked from the corner, lifting a seed to her mouth and nibbling.
“Hey,” Max shouted. “Put my food down.”
She spat the seed in her paw and looked up. “Sorry. Talking about people makes me nervous. When I’m nervous, I eat.”
“Eat your own seeds. I’m saving mine for winter. Both of you can stop worrying about the humans. They’re too big to fit through the pipe in the roof, so they can’t get in.”
Pippi relaxed. Max was right. They had run along every board, sniffed every corner, and clawed at every place where light got in. If there had been another hole, they would have found it.
She didn’t need to be scared. Even though she could hear the people and they could hear her, they couldn’t get her.
Over the next few days, the humans became more active. They talked about ‘the creatures in the attic.’ They argued over whether Pippi and her siblings were mice or birds or raccoons. Max found it funny to act like whatever animal they were talking about.
Lana didn’t think he was funny. She especially didn’t like how every time they bumped into the metal tube, the humans turned on the whooshing noise. She spent less and less time in the nest. Whenever she did visit, she worried about every sound and ate Max’s food, making him mad.
“I have a new game,” he announced one afternoon after he and Lana argued and she ran outside.
“What?” Tired of tag and hide-and-seek, Pippi wanted to do something different. All the good games needed more than two squirrels to be fun.
“Whenever we hear a girl voice, we make noise on purpose.” He shot her his troublemaking grin.
“Even the shrill Mother-Honey voice that hurts my ears?”
He nodded. “Scratch and claw and yip. Then when Daddy-Dean talks, stay as quiet as possible until he walks away.”
She gulped. Her heart thudded in her ears. This didn’t sound fun. It sounded scary. Even though the humans couldn’t get her, they still freaked her out. But she didn’t want Max to know. She hated when he made fun of her. “Okay.”
They ran along the boards, and soon Mother-Honey yelled, “Dean, they’re at it again.”
Max grinned, scratched the wood, and chattered his teeth.
“Dean!” She screeched so loud Pippi covered her ears with her paws.
“Come on. Help me,” Max said.
With her ears covered, she didn’t have a free front paw to scratch with. Slowly, she uncovered one ear and reached toward the floor.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Daddy-Dean grumbled. “Where do you hear it this time?”
Pippi snatched up her paw.
“Right above your head,” Mother-Honey said.
Pippi and Max stared at each other. His ears and tail twitched as he tried not to laugh. The silence stretched for so long she could hardly stand it. Eyes bulging, Max held his breath.
“You’re hearing things. There’s nothing up there,” Daddy-Dean muttered.
Holding her tail over her mouth, Pippi tried not to laugh out loud.
“Something’s in our attic. Natalie heard it too. You have to check it out,” Mother-Honey insisted.
“You’re crazy, both you and Natalie.” His voice faded away.
Max let out his breath and shouted his loudest whoop. He held out his paw and high-fived Pippi. They jumped into the insulation, laughing and wrestling until they were too tired to move.
No longer freaked out by the humans, Pippi played the game every day. She and Max had the most fun ever.
Lana didn’t share in their fun. She still thought the people would trap them and make them flop.