frightened,â whispered Plush. âI was living in a cage. And now Iâm here. What am I going to do?â
âDonât worry,â PeeWee told her. âThis is Central Park. Itâs bigger and better than a hundred cages, and Iâll take care of you.â As if to prove his point, he began to groom his new friend. âLook,â he told her, pointing to his hole. âThis is where youâll live now.â
I looked into his dark, damp hole andthought of something. âIâll be right back,â I shouted as I raced up my tree. From my nest hole I pulled out the woolen muffler that Iâd been saving for myself. My hole looked pretty empty without the muffler or the mitten or the wallet, but I knew it wouldnât take long for me to find new treasures to stuff inside in their place.
I ran down the tree with the muffler in my mouth. âHere,â I called to the two guinea pigs. âPut this in your hole. It will keep it warmer and drier.â
PeeWee took the muffler from me and began to push it into his hole.
âThank you,â said Plush softly. âI can see you are going to be a good friend to us.â
âPlush,â PeeWee said, âLexi is the best squirrel in the park. In fact Iâm certain that heâs the best in the world. Weâre lucky to know him.â
I looked at the two guinea pigs in front of me. PeeWeeâs praise made me feel better than all the applause of my fellow squirrels that Iâd received after my balancing act. And, I thought, what is a somersault or even a triple somersault compared with a good friend?
My mother and Uncle Ninety-nine might insist,
Stick out your tail and youâre bound to fail
, but I think theyâre wrong about this. Iâve decided that life is much more than leaping and eating and waving a tail. PeeWee doesnât even have a tail worth speaking about, and yet heâs taught me to stick mine out. Itâs been a good lesson.
âPlush,â I said to the new guinea pig, âitâs late now, and dark. Time for all of us to get a good nightâs rest. But tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come, weâll go hunting for delicious things to eat and beautiful flowers to sniff and admire. Youâre going to be very happy in this park. I promise you that.â
âHeâs right,â PeeWee told Plush. âWe will be very happy here together.â
Iâd have my work cut out for me: lookingafter
two
guinea pigs. But I knew weâd have fun together too.
âGood night,â I called to them both as they crawled into PeeWeeâs home. Then I ran up my tree to my hole. It was time for me to go to sleep as well. Tomorrow would bring us all new adventures.
Johanna Hurwitz is the award-winning author of many popular books for young readers, including
PeeWeeâs Tale, Class Clown
, and
Rip-Roaring Russell
. Ms. Hurwitz lives in Great Neck, New York, and Wilmington, Vermont.
Patience Brewster has illustrated more than thirty books for children, including
PeeWeeâs Tale
. She lives in Skaneateles, New York.