Lexi's Tale Read Online Free PDF Page B

policeman. “I found this wallet. It wasn’t stolen from anyone.” Of course, just as the hungry stranger couldn’t understand English, the policeman couldn’t understand anything I said to him.
    â€œAll right. All right,” the policeman said, totally ignoring me. “We’re going to clear this up. Get in the car and we’ll take down a statement at the police station.”
    â€œListen, I’ve got an appointment,” the bald man said, looking at his watch.
    â€œIt won’t take long,” the policeman promised.
    I hoped it would take forever. It would serve that bald man right. But what about the innocentstranger? What was going to happen to him?
    I had an idea. “Surround the car!” I shouted to the squirrels. Perhaps we could prevent the police from leaving the park.
    At once thirty-seven squirrels formed a circle around the police car. I watched as the four men got inside. Thomas Boomsma and the two policemen didn’t pay any attention to us, but the bearded stranger looked around in awe. It was hard to tell because of his mustache and beard, but I thought I saw his lips turn up in a smile.
    The driver of the police car started the motor. He began moving slowly.
    â€œJump on the hood of the car,” I shouted to my relatives.
    Instantly the hood and roof of the car werecovered with squirrels. I jumped on the front window and moved my tail back and forth, hoping to block the driver’s view. But suddenly water squirted in my face and two sharp sticks began moving back and forth across the window, causing me to lose my balance. The siren blared and the car began picking up speed. One by one each of us jumped or were thrown off the car. We may have slowed it down a few seconds, but no more than that. The police car drove out of sight.
    At that moment I understood the wisdom of what my mother had tried to teach me when she said,
Stick out your tail and you’re bound to fail
. Uncle Ninety-nine had been right too. I had meant to do good, but all I had done was send PeeWee’s rescuer off to jail.
    PeeWee would never forgive me.

CHAPTER SEVEN
I Go for a Ride

    PeeWee was waiting in his hole. His furry head was peeking out as he watched for me. Reluctantly I broke the news to him.
    â€œWhat?” he squeaked. “The man was taken away in a police car?”
    â€œLook at it this way,” I said, trying to calm my friend, “now he won’t be homeless. The police will give him a good meal and a place to sleep.”
    â€œThey’ll put him in a cage,” said PeeWee.
    â€œYou sound like my old uncle Ninety-nine. A cage can’t be as bad as all that.”
    â€œYou say that because you’ve never lived in one,” PeeWee responded. “You’ve seen the animals in the zoo. They’re fed. They’re protected. But they don’t have any freedom. They are trapped in one space for all their lives. Here in the park I’ve been free. I wouldn’t wish a cage on anyone.”
    â€œCalm down. Calm down,” I told PeeWee, who by now was running around in circles outside his home, nervously digging little holes in the ground. “Maybe there’s still something we can do to help the hungry stranger.”
    â€œWhat? What can we possibly do?”
    I didn’t have an idea in the world, but I wasn’t going to tell that to PeeWee. I stalled for time, saying I needed my afternoon nap.
    â€œHow can you sleep at a time like this?” he asked me.
    â€œEasy,” I replied.
    And easy it should have been. Between digging up nuts for the stranger and then lugging the wallet out of my hole for him, I was exhausted. But when I curled up to rest, I found that sleep wouldn’t come easily at all. I kept trying to figure out what I could possibly do to help the stranger. If I hadn’t thrown that wallet to him, he’d still be sitting on the bench near my tree.
    Gradually I formed a plan. But I