Squirrel in the House Read Online Free PDF Page A

side of this door?”
    There is a loud thump as the dog throws himself against the door. “Squirrel!” he barks. “Wait until I get my paws on you!” The door rattles in its frame as the dog hurls himself at it again. And again. And again.
    It’s a challenge to work with someone who is so excitable. “Stop barking,” I tell him. “I need you to do something for me.”
    â€œYou,” the dog says in a sputtering kind of bark, “you need me to do something for you?”
    I’m relieved that the dog isn’t as not-smart as I worried, that he can—in fact—grasp the situation.
    â€œYes,” I say.
    â€œOh, well, then,” the dog says. “Sure.”
    I scratch my ear, trying to catch hold of a thought that flitters around in my brain. But it moves too quickly and is gone. “Okay,” I say. “Well, the first thing you have to do is, you have to come out from in the basement.”
    The dog’s voice is a bit strained—I’m guessing because he’s so eager to help me—as he says, “Squirrel. The. Door. Is. Shut.”

    â€œYes, it is,” I agree. “Open it.”
    The dog bounces against the door once more. “IT DOESN’T OPEN!”
    Being a highly educated squirrel, I see the problem. “Back away,” I tell the dog. “There’s a hook latch.” I know about hook latches because some people use them on the sheds where they store their squirrel food—in order to keep out the neighborhood cats. I climb onto the counter, then jump at the door latch. The hook pops up and the door opens. I say, “Ta-dah! Now you can help me.”
    But that same thought that flittered before is hovering again, and there’s something about the look in the dog’s eyes as he stands there face-to-face with me . . . And I realize I never told him what I needed his help for, so—considering that—he agreed to help awfully quickly.

    It suddenly occurs to me that I might want to a little bit ofdistance between me and the dog before I take the time to explain about the smaller boy.
    The dog and I jump at the same time: He jumps at me, and I jump straight up.
    I twist midair—squirrels are very fit and flexible, and we make excellent natural acrobats. So I go up, sideways, and down. The down is into . . . I don’t know what to call it: a container or a piece of furniture. It’s taller than the dog, but not quite half as tall as people. Inside is hollow and there are empty wrapper papers and eggshells and coffee grounds and a wad of used gum and some toast crusts—with peanut butter on them! I love peanut butter! It’s the best thing ever.

    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.

No Pets in Mother’s Room!

    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