Squirrel in the House Read Online Free PDF

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.
    â€œHey, 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?”
    â€œOutside,” 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,