The Green Hairy Monsters to the rescue

Alex left his friends to settle down in his daddy’s garden for a day or two. Then one day at breakfast time just as he thought he ought to go and play with them, daddy suddenly spoke.

“I do wish I could find a way of stopping the squirrels from eating the nuts from our grove of hazel nut trees!”

Alex had always supposed that not very many nuts ever grew on his dad’s trees. He was rather surprised to hear that the squirrels in the garden were eating nearly all of them.

The idea popped into his head that his friends were used to living out of doors and might be able to frighten away any squirrels that came into the garden to eat the nuts when they ripened.

There was only one way to find out and he’d just decided it was time to see his friends again anyway, so off he went.

All three of his friends were waiting for him eagerly. “We were wondering when you were coming out to see us. What adventures are we going to have today?”

Alex explained that he wanted to help his daddy keep the nuts that grew on his trees for Xmas time.

To his surprise the little men told him that there was no problem. “We’ll just have a word with the squirrels and ask them to stop eating them all.”

“Can you really talk to the squirrels?” asked Alex.

“Of course we can,” said Hercules, “we live out of doors all the year round and have to learn to talk to all the animals, otherwise they wouldn’t know that we don’t want to eat them or be eaten ourselves.”

“Crumbs that must be fun,” said Alex, “what else do you talk about?”

“None of the animals are very clever,” replied the little men, “so we don’t talk about anything complicated. We sometimes chat about where the best sort of food they want can be found. Sometimes they tell us when there’s a fox about so that we can stay out of his way. It’s not really talking like we do together, more how to help each other live safer and more comfortable lives.”

Alex asked if he could come and listen when they spoke to the squirrels.

“We’ll have to ask the squirrels first if they mind you being there. Come and see us again tomorrow and we’ll give you their answer.”

Alex couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come. So the next day together with his three friends he walked to the back of the garden where daddy had planted a small grove of hazel nut trees. A squirrel was sitting right at the top of one of the trees and started to chatter as soon as Alex,Hercules, Hector and Lysander came onto sight.

“It’s alright,” said Hercules “he’ll talk to you but he prefers to sit at the top of the tree.”

Of course Alex didn’t understand a word the squirrel was saying, so he had to be patient while Hercules translated his questions and interpreted the squirrel’s answers. So I’ll just tell you what was said and you’ll have to imagine the squirrel noises for yourselves.

“My daddy says would you please stop eating all the nuts from these trees,” said Alex.

“No,” said the squirrel “they’re very nice nuts and they’re ours to eat, it’s what we do!”

Alex thought for a moment. “Daddy planted the trees and wants to eat some of the nuts, can’t we share them?”

“That’s fine,” said the squirrel we’ll eat the ones we want and your dad can have the rest.”

“How about if you eat half the nuts and leave the rest?”

“Don’t understand that,” said the squirrel, “what would your daddy want half a nut for?”

Oh dear this was going to be difficult. Alex’s three friends were laughing their heads off.

Alex had another think. “There are ten trees, how about eating all the nuts from the first five then leaving the rest.”

“Squirrels can’t count beyond one nut,” said Hercules, “after that it’s lots of nuts; they don’t even bother to count trees.”

There was a long quiet spell while Alex tried to think of a way for the squirrel not to eat more than half the nuts without counting.

“Suppose all the nuts were taken from the first tree, can you make him understand not to eat any of the nuts on the next tree? Then he can leave that tree with the nuts on it and go and eat the nuts on the next tree and so on. Then half the nuts will be for the squirrels and the rest for my daddy.”

To Alex amazement the squirrel came down the tree onto the ground. “You want me to eat all the nuts on this tree?” Alex nodded. The squirrel walked to the next tree, “then leave this tree alone,” he said “and go to the next one and eat all the nuts on that one?”

The squirrel continued walking along the grove of trees pointing out the trees where he could eat the nuts and saying that he wouldn’t eat the nuts on the others.

Alex was delighted. It seemed that he’d made the squirrel agree to leave half the nuts in a way that he could understand.

“Can you make all the other squirrels agree to leave out some of the trees in the way you’ve just said? asked Alex.

“I’ll try,” said the squirrel, “but some of my friends are a bit slow you know.”

The squirrel ran back up the nearest nut tree. Alex was jolly pleased that he seemed to understand and hoped that next Xmas daddy would find that he had a lot of nice ripe nuts in his garden.