Fiends and Familiars - Debra Dunbar Page 0,5

bones out into the yard in case the dog-thing came back and set a bowl of clean water out for him. The whole time I was eating I kept hearing a scurrying noise in the attic. By the time I started streaming the movie, the scurrying noise was in my kitchen.

Well, I had been complaining about how lonely I was. I didn’t expect the universe to send me four squirrels, though. I looked over at Drake and he shrugged. That’s when a furry little head peeked around the corner of my sofa at me.

They were pretty darned cute, even if they refused to listen to me and had taken up residence in my house without even saying please. Three other heads looked around the sofa and I stared back at them. I had a choice—I could spend the evening chasing these guys down, putting them in a cage and shoving them into the garage, or I could give up and resign myself to the fact that I might have some roommates throughout the winter—in addition to Drake, that is. Just as I’d been too tired to go hunt down the dog-thing, I was too tired to repeat my earlier Keystone Cops performance of running around after squirrels, so I popped an extra bag of popcorn, set a few bowls on the floor, then grabbed the larger bowl for Drake and myself on the couch. It didn’t take my new roommates long to come out of hiding and dig into the popcorn. Once they realized I wasn’t going to snatch them up and stick them in a crate, they relaxed and actually sat down to watch the movie with us.

They were all four gray squirrels, but it was clear that the larger one was the leader of the bunch. The others looked to him frequently, following his lead. He was a little over twenty inches long and looked to be close to two pounds in weight. His bushy tail held more white than the others, and his ears had little black tufts of fur on them. Every now and then he shot me a wary glance, but I didn’t blame him given that we’d all gotten off to a rocky start.

Once the movie was over, I hit pause and addressed my new roommates. “Okay guys, here’s the deal. You can stay and I’ll provide an assortment of nuts and other food for you, but you can’t go trashing my house or getting into the garbage.”

They all chattered in excitement, once again looking toward the big guy for guidance. He turned to me and asked where they were to sleep.

Heck if I knew. There was a spare bedroom, but I liked to keep that available in case one of my friends or family from Accident came to visit and decided to stay the night.

“How about the attic?” I asked, knowing that’s where squirrels tended to make their home. “I can put some old towels up there for you all to nest in.”

The others seemed on board with that, but Big Guy shook his head. It seemed the idea of sleeping in the attic made him nervous. He wanted to sleep in my bedroom.

Great. Drake had already claimed the footboard of my bed as his. I’d tried to kick him out but gave up when I awoke every morning to see the giant vulture perched there. But four squirrels and a vulture?

What the heck. It’s not like I had a sex life to speak of. “Okay, but no running around in the middle of the night. I need to get my sleep, and if you all wake me up, you’re out of the bedroom. Got it?”

Big Guy nodded.

“So…what do I call you?”

The other three squirrels tilted their heads. I wasn’t surprised. Animals often didn’t understand our need to give them names. They seemed to communicate just fine without them, and in all honesty I could speak to them so they knew which one I was talking to. But I liked names. It showed that I respected these animals. And they were my roommates, after all.

“Oak, Maple, and Pine.” I pointed to each of the squirrels in turn.

Big Guy held up his little paws and chattered, saying he already had a name but that it could not be spoken.

Huh. Poor guy to be saddled with some unpronounceable name. “So what should I call you? Sequoia?” He was the biggest, after all.

He flicked his tail and squeaked indignantly, but didn’t offer up any further suggestions.