Cricket Alley

          Now it was the dry time that could still be hot. When turning a sharp corner, or making a maneuver on the grass, the squirrels would slip, and not because the grass was wet. It was dry. The locusts squealed in the upper branches, using the analogue amplification that people borrowed much later. (Locusts can be snuck up on, and are quite tasty, albeit cartilaginous.) Things get hotter before they turn colder, and Sparky knew that, but mostly through instinct. And, the squirrels also knew this somewhat: Sparky and Cly were exactly a year old now.

            Sparky climbed the ash tree, burdened with half, more than half, of a soft oatmeal cookie that had a bit of a bus transfer slip stuck to it. He’d found it amongst litter back near the weird just-grass field, and had carried it across the avenue using the wires. A car had even honked at him while he achieved that bit of equilibrics, but he was glad he’d found it. He had to bring something back to the nest, and it had to be big.

            He could tell he was getting to the hole, since he’d come to what he knew would be the most difficult part of the maneuver; a lip ten-degrees back where the branch had been long ago. He pushed the cookie into the hole before himself, but it met some resistance. He barked through the cookie, and heard voices.

            “Sparky! That you?”

            And- “Stop!”

            Sparky didn’t know if someone was telling him to stop, or telling whoever to stop pushing him back, but he kept pushing the cookie through the hole. Then, he could see that it wasn’t a someone pushing back, but some plant matter.

            Just my luck, he thought. I showed up when they’re cleaning the nest. The plug gave, and he pushed the cookie into the nest. Then, he could see that what had been stopping him was the old sunflower blossom that had been along the back wall.

            “See!” His mother cried, “All it took was for you to try to get rid of his flower, and he came back.”

            Sparky’s father and sister were also in the nest, and they preened him a bit, and then they all set upon the cookie.

            “They out-voted me,” Sandy told Sparky. “To me, it was like you were there in the corner, and that’s all I needed.”

            “It’s getting moldy,” his father said, through cookie. He had taken the bit with what was left of the bus transfer on it.

            “I had a half-vote, since I’m here half the time,” Clytemnestra said, munching. “It wasn’t fair, really. I basically decided. But, now you’re here! It’s your flower. Whaddya think?”

            “It can stay here at least today,” Sparky decided, after thinking. Sandy clicked at Jake, who was munching on cookie and paper.

            “It has a kind of savory taste,” he told her. “I’m not proud.”

            All munched, and the rest of the scurry gave Sparky an update on what had happened those past weeks. What it came down to was that, although the parents thought it would be better for Cly to build another nest in the elm lacing with the tree they were in, she hadn’t. They also felt that she should find a boar and go about making kits.

            Well. Cly’s nest nearby was something.

            Then they went out to the branches and aired themselves out. Got rid of some fleas, as Sparky gave everyone a general idea of what he’d been doing. Cly was waiting half-patiently to show him her nest.

            “Did you remember where things were, though?”

            An important question that Jake asked Sparky.

            “A pigeon warned me when I was passing through, and I saw it for myself,” he told his father. “There are many cars that are half dead, jammed together just over there.”

            All three looked with him at low, square buildings which could be barely seen to the north, and were impressed.

            “They fix the cars, and they take care of cats.”

            The three listened silently. Aghast.

            “They’re only half-wild, so they’re healthy, and they know that area like the back of their paw.”

            “The lines,” his mother said.

            Sparky nodded.

            “When anyone’s in that neighborhood, they should stay well up.”

            They were silent awhile.

            “You did good, son,” Jake told him.

            “But,” Sparky told them, “knowing that, one day I got in a tree right above this calico who was sunning himself on the hood of a car. I scolded him ‘till the sun moved.”

            Cly looked at him with glee. Sparky smiled, although he knew he was throwing out one of his best tales early.

            “And, he scowled!”

            Cly had been working her way up a branch to her nest, and, with that, Sparky followed her, knowing that she was busting to show the changes to him. And, changes there were. Cly turned at the back of the nest, and looked over at a wall, showing Sparky a ‘Buried Cable’ flag marker.

            “Where’d that come from?”

            “As far as I know,” Cly said, “a guy mowed over a territory marker he’d put down, and it was thrown further this way.”

            “Odd.”

            “I use the stick to hold the place together. I’m today’s urban squirrel. And…” Cly stepped aside revealing a small marquee letter ‘N’.

            They both pondered the mystery.

            “That shows them the pattern to make on the ground when eluding an angry bee,” Sparky said.

            “Really?”

            “I don’t know!”

            They laughed. Then Cly hopped up, and over, to reveal that she’d been standing on a couple of the flat, shiny seeds that people carried around. Sparky said:

            “Shiny.”

            “Mine.”

            “Shiny.”

            “Mine.”

             “How’s mom doing? Really.”

            “Doing fine. She has her opinions.”

            “And dad?”

            “Well, two weeks ago, he scolded a weedeater.”

            “He always does that.”

            “Oh. Yeah. You’re right. So, how did your urban adventure go? Was there peanut butter? Were there females? Tell me everything.

            “That first night, I got stuck in a building! I thought I was invited. The rolling door was wide open, and there were intriguing smells. Then, someone sauntered out, and the door closed.”

            “You were trapped? Oh, Sparky!”

            “I found the Little Debbie, but then pigeons came down.”

            “How many were there?”

            “Three. Then I went back to the door to see if it opened. It was closed. So, I tried again. It was closed. I tried again…”

            Cly rolled a paw at the end of her arm.

            “Over and over again. What kind of Little Debbie was it?”

            “Apple Danish.”

            “Ooh.”

            “Then I asked a pigeon how the door opens. That scared him. He told me that the door doesn’t open at night because there are cats out there.”

            “You got out somehow.”

            “I did. I figured things out when he said that the door opens when the sun rises. I asked him if it opened because of the light. He didn’t know what that meant, but eventually he said that it might as well. We laughed.”

            “Culture-clash.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Did he have a bit of bright, shiny violet at the neck?”

            “Of course.”

            “And he went- ‘hrrrm! hrrrm!”

            “Yes.”

            Cly jerked.

            “People opened the door.”

            “That’s how it transpired.”

            “When did that happen?”

            “Much later.”

            Cly laughed.

            “Much later! Haw! And there was no one to play ‘Whose Foot Is This’ with!”

            “Sure there was.”

           Of course, to understand the issue, one has to understand the game. “Whose Foot Is This” is both a game and a way of life. The tale is told about when Grandpaw Jake found himself cornered on a porch by a letter carrier, and used his ‘Whose Foot Is This’ skills to convince the guy that he wasn’t a squirrel, but a badger. In the broad daylight. The letter carrier was said to have said: “Okay. You’re a badger.” and continued to put letters in the box. It was mystical and it happened and the story has been told again and again throughout the years.

            Cly thought. Then, she brightened.

            “The pigeon!”

            Sparky nodded.

            “I didn’t know they played it!”

            “Well, I had to start with ‘Whose Foot Is This Junior,” Sparky told her.

            Sparky and Cly grabbed each other by the foot and recited:

            “Yes, this foot is mine.

            But not in the game.

            And that foot is yours.

            Concede to your shame.

            The wiles a good player makes,

            always are bound to convince.

            Play well for all of our sakes.

            I’ll ask you now: ‘Whose Foot Is This?’.”

           “And what did he do?”

            “He thought a while, and then he said- “That’s my foot, and I’m about to topple over, so I’d like it back if you don’t mind.”

            Cly laughed, and then pricked up her ears. From the avenue, both heard a ‘thunk’, and a ‘whoosh’.

            “Fries!” they cried in unison, beat it out of the nest, and joined their parents in a sprint down the tree. And, as they did, Cly chuckled, and said,

            “‘That’s my foot.’ Hoo! Pigeons are quite literal…”

            Sparky and Cly joined their parents on the sidewalk. Sandy was looking for a chance to venture out onto the road to grab a paper bag that had been jettisoned from a passing car, with the ‘thunk’ of it meeting the road, and the ‘whoosh’ of it sliding to a rest. She darted back and forth in the twilight at the edge of the road, exhibiting her stop/start skill, and the other three went-

            “Oooo!”

            Then Sandy tugged the bag back onto the sidewalk, and they all set upon it to dig up the ‘bonus fries’. People don’t know what they have, and they usually throw the bag away without eating the bonus fries. Bonus fries are the fries that fall out of the box and wind up in the bottom of the sack, and more often than not, they’re the tiny, crispy, super-salty ones.

            Indeed, the bag contained bonus fries, and all four ran up the tree to the main nest with them in their mouths, looking like they had fry mustaches.