The Incident of The Rapid Squirrel

After church on Mother's Day, Claire and Randall Nathan's son-in-law, Hubert, whose mother named him for the Presbyterian pastor's dog, took the whole family to dinner at The Human Lodge's wild game buffet. The women of The Royal Order of Gazelles took over the old Chinese restaurant when they outgrew their old lodge building. The sign-painter had misspelled Hunan and Mr. Wing Hot, a frugal man, left it as it was, clear up until he retired and moved to Roswell in the hopes the aliens would abduct Mrs. Wing Hot. The Gazelles have been too busy shooting wild game to change the sign yet, so folks have taken to calling them The Human Lodge.

The wild game buffet was a fund-raiser for BP, because of all the money lost because of the spill. Bert Pratt, known as BP, took a spill on the ice while shoveling Old Lady Moffit's walk and hasn't been able to work since. The insurance company won't pay for an operation because it was a pre-existing condition: the ice was already on the ground when he slipped on it.

The wild game buffet featured venison, of course, and also chipmunk, bear, possum, raccoon, porcupine, woodchuck, fox, coyote, groundhog, something that people suspected was Dr. Hyland's dog that used to bark all night until it disappeared, and Thelma Sobriquet's famous "Squirll melts." [sick]

So there was Randall Nathan, who is opposed to eating strange stuff, munching on squirrel melts [He refused to refer to them as squirll], which, when you got past the name, weren't all bad, so he had a second helping, topped off by persimmon pudding.

Then Johnny Kendy's friend, Zeke, wanted Johnny to ride bikes with him to Smitty Park, named for Theduzq Drjpzkkl, the local blacksmith. It is clear why the park's name is not eponymous. Since Randall Nathan usually walks in Smitty Park each afternoon anyway, and since he really needed to walk off those squirrel melts, and since he does not trust fourth graders to have good sense while riding bikes, he decided he would walk in the park while his grandson and Zeke were riding there.

He had been all over the park and his aging legs were moving quite slowly when he finally came across them on one of the dirt trails. They were off their bikes and walking gingerly toward a tree. A small gray squirrel was eyeing them from the tree as it slowly worked its way down the trunk. It was muttering something that Randall Nathan, an amateur linguist, thought sounded like Hebrew. Slowly it advanced on the boys, who, true to Randall's estimation of their good sense, picked up sticks and poked at it.

"Don't get that thing riled up," he said. "It's not acting right."

At the sound of his voice, the squirrel turned its evil glare upon the old man. It sniffed. A light of recognition came on in its beedy little eyes. "OMG," thought Randall, "it can smell squirrel melt on me." The squirrel charged and leaped. With a twirl he had not used since playing third base for The Fossil Remains in The Old Time Baseball League, a game he gave up when he turned 70, twirling in a "Veronica" that would make any matador jealous, he narrowly avoided the squirrel's bared and vicious snap.

"Jump on your bikes and ride for your lives," he yelled at Johnny and Zeke. "It's rabid."

He is now the most famous grandfather in the fourth grade, where all the students and even the teacher have been taught to imitate his remarkable pirouette as he avoided what Johnny and Zeke explained to their classmates was a vengeful rapid squirrel.