Squirrel in the House (7 page)

But before I can cram more than one crust inside my cheek, the dog runs at the container/furniture and knocks it over. Everything spills out—including me.

I race across the slippery floor, my feet going faster than the rest of me does. My plan is to go through the long room with the stairs and all the other doorways and to go through the doorway that leads to the room where I came in. I will go up the curtain and talk to the dog from there. I don't think he has the proper attitude to listen while he's chasing me. He's doing that no-words bark and I doubt my words would sink in.

But a bunch of the other guests are standing in the doorway's room. One of them is crying about the lost smaller boy, and the others are trying to comfort her—and there are just too many feet in my way.

I skid around a turn and change direction: I go up the stairs.

I know that the dog can't climb trees, and I'm hoping he can't climb stairs, either.

But no, I hear him thudding his way up after me.

I run into the first room I get to. Inside is a long, low, wide piece of furniture where I can see that the guests have laid their Outside clothes, like snakes who have shed their skins. I jump onto that, thinking I can burrow.

But the dog has either seen me or smelled me. He barks, “No pets in Master's mother's room! No pets on Master's mother's bed!”

The dog doesn't listen to his own rule. He jumps up there with me and starts digging through the clothes, trying to find me.

I wiggle out and jump to a higher piece of furniture. This one has a ledge—which I figure the dog can get to—but also a tall mirror attached to the back. A mirror is like a window at night—you can't see through it; it shows what's on this side. There are mirrors at the school in what are called the restrooms. (I haven't a clue about why they're called that, so don't even ask.) Anyway, this mirror has a wooden frame around it, and I can climb that if I need to go higher.

Meanwhile, the dog has still not discovered that I am not underneath the pile of people's Outside clothes, even though he's knocked most of them onto the floor.

We are wasting time.

“Hey, dog!” I call.

But he's too intent on barking and digging through the clothes, and he doesn't hear me.

On the ledge where I'm standing are all sorts of shiny things and containers. One of the containers has powder in it that smells—sort of—like Tropical Sunset for Dogs with Sensitive Skin.

I push the container to the edge of where I'm standing.

I shove.

The container goes flying, a blizzard of powder landing on the floor, on Master's mother's bed, on the Outside clothes and on the dog.

The dog coughs and sneezes and finally—finally!—for a moment isn't barking.

I shout at him, “The smaller boy is outside! He's hurt his leg! He has no Outside clothing on! It's cold and windy and snowy, and the other guests are looking for him, but they don't know where he is!”

The dog bites at an itch. He doesn't agree to help me, but he doesn't start barking again, either.

I say, “The boy is all alone in the snow. The people keep looking Inside, not Out.”

The dog looks frustrated. He wants to keep chasing me—he is, after all, a dog—but he asks, “The boy is Outside? Hurt?”

“Outside,” I repeat. “Hurt.”

My words reach the dog. He tells me, “It's too cold for people to be Outside without their coats and hats and mittens.”

I say, “I think that's what I just said.”

The dog says, “Someone needs to fetch him.”

I say, “That
is
what I just said!” And I jump down to the floor. I will lead the dog out the door, downstairs, Outside, and to the boy.

But suddenly the man who lives here is standing in the door to Mother's room. He says, “What in the world—?” But he must decide he knows the answer to his question after all, because he stops asking and moves to block the whole doorway. He says, “Good work, Cuddles!”

I assume he means about finding me, not about all the clothing on the floor, or the powder on everything. Not to mention the eggshells-and-coffee-grounds trail the dog has left.

The man has a big net, like the children in the school yard sometimes use to try to catch butterflies.

Is there a butterfly in here? Usually they all go away for the winter.

I look around but can't see one.

Then I realize: I am the butterfly.

With the man blocking the way out, I stand on the floor looking up at him. I can't go to the left, and I can't go to the right. It will do no good to go back and climb onto the mirror because the man's net has a long handle.

So I go up.

I launch myself at the man's knee, and then, before he can react, I climb the rest of the way up his leg, over his belly, across his chest, and up to his shoulder. From there, I leap over and behind him.

The man screams. He is just as loud and shrill as the little girls in the school yard, even though I'm already off and running toward the stairs.

“Come on!” I yell to the dog.

The man is still blocking the door. He has dropped the net, though, and he's patting his body as though to make sure I'm not still on him.

The dog runs between the man's legs.

Oh. I guess I could have gone that way, too.

As the dog runs by me, I jump onto his back and grab hold of his collar. I'm a faster runner than he is, but I'd only have to wait for him to catch up. Besides, riding is more fun.

The dog lets out a high-pitched yip, which I guess means his coat isn't as thick as my claws are long, but he doesn't bark at me to get off.

Together we race down the stairs.

The cluster of guests hears the dog coming, and they get out of our way fast.

“How do we get out?” I ask the dog as we run to the front door. “Can you climb up the squirrel entryway?”

“The what?” the dog asks. “There's no entry for squirrels.”

I can tell that he doesn't want to admit there's a door for me but not for him. “The long brick entryway from the roof,” I explain.

He shakes his head, which makes me—holding on to his collar—bounce alarmingly.

I say, “That ends in the pile of wood the man built to remind me of the trees Outside? So that I would feel at home? In the room with the floor like snow, except not cold?”

The dog doesn't seem to be catching on at all.

I once more revise my estimate about how not-smart he is. “Where you were digging when you were trying to find me, before the man put you in the basement.”

“The chimney?” the dog asks.

Obviously, he's just making up words to hide the fact that there's a squirrel door.

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “The chimbly.”

“No,” the dog says. “I can't climb up there.”

I'd been hoping, since he did better with the stairs than I'd have thought.

The dog says, “But I know how to get out.”

He sits in front of the door to Outside and howls: “I gotta pee! I gotta pee! I gotta pee! Oh, boy, do I ever gotta pee! Somebody better let me out 'cause I gotta pee now!” He scratches at the door.