Fables for Grown-Up Children

3. Squirrel

Squirrel was bored. And lonely. His best friends Frog and Hedgehog were on trips, and taking much longer than expected to return.

"I just want to talk with someone," he grumbled to himself.

Pigeon happened to be passing by. "Do you want me to carry a message to someone, Squirrel?"

Squirrel perked up at the thought. "You can do that?"

"Sure. As long as it's a short message."

"How short?"

Pigeon appeared to raise one eyebrow at Squirrel, but pigeons don't have eyebrows. "Like a chirp." Pigeon knew that squirrels chirped, just as birds did.

Squirrel scratched out a message on a leaf right away, and handed it to Pigeon.

"To whom am I delivering this Chirp?" Pigeon asked.

"To anyone that will have it," Squirrel said decisively.

And Pigeon was off.

Squirrel was pleased. "At least I'm talking to someone now," he thought.

Squirrel meandered over to his favorite brook, the one with the good mud. An idea seized Squirrel. He stuck his smiling face in the mud, then pulled his head away to survey his work. "Perfect," he announced to no one. Squirrel grabbed a stick and scrawled I am so happy. Just look at me! under the impression.

He went home after that, but wasn't there very long before he felt compelled to return to the brook. There were little paw prints all around his impression! Squirrel was tickled to see all the traffic he had created. So he made another impression of his face. He winked this time. Hi friends, he wrote, his tongue sticking out in concentration. I am having nuts 4 dinner. How bout u?

Squirrel ran home. Oh, he wanted to go right back to the brook, to be honest, but Pigeon was coming in for a landing.

"Someone chirped back at you," Pigeon announced.

"Really?! Who?" cried Squirrel.

Pigeon shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"I guess not." Squirrel read the message. It was almost incomprehensible. He looked up with bright eyes. "Pigeon, bring more of your friends next time. I want to send many Chirps, not this one-at-a-time business."

"Alright," said Pigeon.

"But for now, carry this Chirp along to someone else. I think it's important. I mean, I can't be sure, but it probably is."

So Pigeon left and re-chirped the near-senseless bit of communication.

"This is my life now," Squirrel declared aloud.

And from the next morning on, Squirrel was busy from dawn to dark with chirping and tending to the Brook of Faces. He felt very important. His friends had started leaving their prints of approval in a tidier fashion around his impressions. He could see when Crow had stopped by, and Rabbit, and Fox. (He suspected Possum of coming round to look, but Possum withheld any intentional prints. Some creatures are just that way.)

Then it seemed the whole forest started to make impressions of their own faces, so Squirrel had to leave his prints to be polite...even though he privately thought his own impressions were better.

He no longer had time to miss his friends Hedgehog and Frog. There were games of tic-tac-toe to win, both within Chirps and at the Brook of Faces. Everywhere you looked, it was # # # and Squirrel had to keep up with being as clever as everyone else when faced with a #. Luckily, Squirrel had the brains necessary for this task.

So why, bit by bit, did Squirrel start to feel run down and lonelier than ever before? He communicated all day long, and had mastered the # game. His unrest was a mystery, one he wanted to talk over with Frog and Hedgehog. Where were they? It had been a month now.

He tried Chirping at them, but nothing came back. Squirrel doubled down, putting more effort into the Brook of Faces, sometimes re-wetting the mud to make better impressions if they weren't just so. Sometimes he did that 10 or 53 times until just the right face was captured.

Still, his despair grew by the day. And one evening, Squirrel made a sad face in the mud with no written explanation to accompany it, and decided to find his friends.

Squirrel found Frog at his home. "Frog!" he cried as he hugged his friend and kissed his cheek. It was more gray than green now, for some reason. "I'm so glad to see you!" Squirrel was happy to see Frog's face--a real face!--but didn't say that aloud. "When did you get back from Downstream?"

"And I'm happy to see you, Squirrel," croaked Frog. His chin trembled and he coughed. "Excuse me, I seem to have a ...well, I'm not sure what...stuck in my throat," Frog explained. He coughed some more. "Quack, that's annoying," he muttered.

Squirrel fidgeted.

"I returned weeks ago," Frog continued at last. "But I needed some time to myself to reflect ."

Squirrel wasn't sure what reflection was, but it sounded boring.

"Surely you are ready for company now, Frog. Do you want to find Hedgehog with me?" asked Squirrel.

"Sure."

As they trudged to Hedgehog's place, Squirrel told Frog all about the Brook of Faces and # and Chirping.

Turns out, Hedgehog was at home, reflecting as well.

"Friends!" she exclaimed when she opened her door. "You two are just who I wanted to see!"

"You could have chirped," said Squirrel, testily.

Hedgehog blinked. "Come in, come in. Would you two like to climb The Mountain with me? I plan to take it slower this time. It may take weeks and--"

"Yes!" shouted Squirrel. He didn't want to be without his friend for that long. And climbing a mountain sounded like less work than chirping and keeping up with the Brook of Faces, for some reason.

Frog nodded. "Shall we go home and pack?"

"No!" said Hedgehog, quills standing on end. "We aren't carrying anything. Not knapsacks and certainly not rocks. Let's trust that we will find what we need as we go along. And we will not be speaking to any goats."

"I don't know much about goats," announced Squirrel. "Are they dangerous? Perhaps we could use walking staffs, and just sharpen one end so--"

"No!" exclaimed Frog. He splayed the webbing between his fingers out as far it would go to block the notion. "Let's not even go down that stream."

"We aren't going down any stream, Frog," Hedgehog corrected gently. "We are going up The Mountain."

"I understand that, Hedgehog."

Frog turned to Squirrel. "Should we chirp this before we go? Announce our mission at the Brook of Faces?"

"No!" said Squirrel sharply. His friends peered at him curiously. "It seems I have enough energy to do, or to talk about doing, but not both. I'll save my strength for the trip."

"Then let's go," said Hedgehog. "We'll see how far we can get, and we will enjoy ourselves."

So the three friends set out together, somehow in possession of everything they truly needed.

Pigeon passed by overhead. They waved at him, and then they smiled at each other's cheerful faces.

The view was spectacular.