The Squirrel

Once upon a time there was a little squirrel, his name was Jim.  Jim loved acorns.  They were his life. Until one day, his friend Bucky was eating an acorn. He heard a bang, and then Bucky wasn’t eating the acorn anymore.  From that day forward, Jim never ate an acorn.  Soon Jim found that  little bugs are quite a satisfying meal.  Jim was a great bug hunter.  He would run around like a mad squirrel until he saw a bug running away.  Then he would pounce.  The poor bugs never had a chance, although there was a day when Jim was hunting, and found a whole colony of ants.  He thought he had hit the jackpot but the ants were red ants and they had stingers.  Jim never got over that, so he decided to go on a hunger strike.  It didn’t last long after that Jim just stuck to eating plain old walnuts.

Besides what Jim ate he also had to worry about predators like coyotes, bears, cats and people. Jim always thought that cats were pretty dumb.  Every time a cat would try to attack Jim’s family one of the members of his family would make a warning call that was sort of like a bark, and every squirrel would hide. One night though a cat so sneaky and athletic was able to infiltrate Jim’s nest.  The cat very gently picked Jim up by the head and walked away.  Jim later woke up and was unaware of his surroundings.  He had no idea that he was in a cat’s mouth, he yawned then he scratched his hind end, then looked around he had to take a double take before he was able to comprehend what was going on.  

When he came to his senses he squirmed like it was the end of the world.  The cat then promptly dropped the bewildered squirrel and put a single paw on his tail.  When Jim tried to run away he was rudely jerked back by his tail.  When Jim turned around he saw a nice little orange-grey tiger cat sitting there seemingly waiting for something.  Jim also noticed on the cat had a name tag that read: Grace E. Owner: Patrick.  Jim was so confused that he just sat there and sat and sat and sat, until the cat picked him back up and started walking away.

That afternoon Grace took Jim all the way back to her home without a single scratch.  Grace’s owner Patrick was listening to his favorite song on the radio when they arrived, when they came into sight he said “Where have you been Grace you had me worried!” then he saw the squirrel “And what have you got there?” Patrick questioned.  When grace let the squirrel drop to the ground once more Patrick was even more surprised that it was still alive.  Jim was relieved to have been put down but didn’t run away this time he thought that if the cat wanted to hurt him she would have done so earlier.  When the squirrel didn’t run away and was still alive Patrick thought aloud “Dang! your instincts aren’t working are they?” Patrick then washed the unwilling Jim then let him loose in his house.  As Jim was exploring he saw something so familiar that he had to go investigate.  That’s when Jim saw it an old picture taken maybe twelve years ago, of a small boy about nine years old with a deceased squirrel in his hands, and beside the picture stand old Bucky with an acorn once again.     

The End

Image from http://farm2.static.flickr.com

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