Tag Archives: children

Squirrel Art

One summer day, Curly and Twirly waddled up to the school. They flatterned their round bodies, took a deep breath, and inched their way under the art room door.

“What a wonderful place to live!” exclaimed Curly. A large bookshelf held piles of colored paper. The faucet over the wide, deep sink dripped drops of water.

Using his tail, Curly opened a cupboard door. Stacked on the bottom shelf were bags of beans and flour. Using his strong teeth and paws, he dragged a sack of beans off the shelf and tore it open. Twirly kicked a bag of flour. It teetered over the edge and fell onto the floor. The cupboard’s latch tore a whole in the side.

Flour, flour, flour flew everywhere. It dusted the chairs and low table like a frosting of snow. The squirrels nibbled some flour. They cracked some beans in their jaws. They jumped up to the chairs and slid across the table. As they hurried back and forth, their paws made prints in the flour.

Curly noticed the footprints first. He stood up on his hind legs and turned all around for a better look. “Look, Twirly, our footprints make a design!” he said.

Curly stepped into the flour with both feet and made a four leaf clover. Twirly used his big toe to trace a footprint daisy. They drew straight lines and wiggly lines. They outlined pictures of all the animals that lived in the forest beside the school. They danced, they pounced, they skated all over the floor. Finally, they grew tied and fell asleep under the table.

The next morning, Curly and Twirly awoke; their back were stiff from lying on the hard floor.

“We need beds,” said Curly.

“Let’s make pretty beds, said Twirly. They chose green construction paperr that reminded them of unripe nuts in the spring. They ripped up yellow paper that looked like buttercups. The red paper was as deep as the poppies they had seen in the fields. The blue paper looked like the summer sky. Soon, inside the corner of the cupboard, they each had a rainbow-colored bed of construction paper.

The squirrels spent every day exploring the art room. One morning, Twirly reached for the handle of another cupboard and swung on it until it opened. On the top shelves, he saw row of colored liquid in jars. Inside them was the most beautiful thick dew Twirly had ever seen.

“Look Curly, delicious dew!” said Twirly. Twirly crawled onto the bottom shelf, pulled himself up onto boxes until he reached the jars of dew. His paws were too small to turn the wide, white covers. He squirmed in behind a bottle and pushed it with his two feet. It landed on the floor with a crack. Thick, yellow dew oozed from its side.

Curly climbed up and inched his body behind a red bottle and pushed. Twirly squirmed behind a green bottle and pushed. The green bottle hit the side of the table on its way to the floor and splattered green-colored dew from one end of the room to the other.

The squirrels climbed down to taste. Twirly dipped his paw into green dew, stuck it into his mouth, and slurped. “Yuck, it tastes like dirt!”

“It makes the sides of my mouth stick together,” grimaced Curly, who was trying to wipe paint off his tongue. He waved his paws in the air, flicking it off his furry paws. A pattern of dots settle all over the floor.

“Whee!” exclaimed Curly. “Wow!” yelled Twirly when they saw the dots on the floor. Curly thought hard for a minute. “The children don’t drink this dew,” he said. “They decorate with it.”

“Let’s do that, too,” replied Twirly.

Curly and Twirly spent the rest of the summer decorating their new home with colored dew, paper, and flour. Curly painted dots on the cupboard doors. Twirly created a carpet of patterns with flour and footprints. They had never been happier.

One morning, when the squirrels were still fast asleep inside their bedroom cupboard, a key turned in the lock.

“What happened here?” a lady’s voice exclaimed. Curly and Twirly rubbed their eyes and knelt behind a crack in the cupboard door to see who it was. A woman, wearing an artist’s apron, stood in the doorway. A group of children ran in behind her.

“Are you teaching us art today?” one child asked, her eyes bright and shining.

The woman didn’t answer. Her eyes opened wide as she gazed around the room. The children’s eyes glistened as they, too, noticed all of Curly’s and Twirly’s art work.

“It must have taken someone all summer,” said another little girl, “to make the art room look so beautiful.”

Curly and Twirly smiled, then hid behind a cardboard box until everyone left.

The squirrels knew they ahd to leave their comfortable home now that the children were back. They had to find new beds and more food.

As Curly and Twirly slipped under the art room door, they grinned at each other. This time, they didn’t have to leave everything behind. Curly now knew how to paint dots anywhere he lived. Twirly would always remember how to make a footprint carpet.

“I’ll paint lines on our pillow,” said Curly.

“I’ll draw zigzags on our blankets,” Twirly exclaimed.

By the time they reach the flagpole, they had thought of dozens of new ways to decorate their new home. What a beautiful home it would be.

A Belly of Snow

Where I live it never snows.  Hardly ever rains.  Winter starts and finishes with fog huddling close to the ground like a damp layer of dust coating a glass tabletop.  The one day it did snow, I was stuck inside.

“You have to stay in the house, Carlota,” said Mama, tucking the blanket around me in my wheelchair.  She was always so careful with me.  “The ramp to the yard is icy and dangerous.” 

Usually I liked Mama’s special attention, but sometimes it got in the way.  Like now.  I wanted to feel that snow, ball it up in my hands to see if it stuck.  It would be fun to make a snowman.  I thought about how I’d carve the cheekbones and eyebrows on the head.  Javier, my little brother, would help find bark and sticks for the eyes, nose, and happy mouth.  I’d wrap my red scarf around its neck.

I pressed my face against the window, the glass feeling like a jar of chilis just taken from the refrigerator.   The yard was all white, the trees draped with snow lace doilies.  I watched Arnoldo, my older brother, Maria, my sister, and Javier playing in the yard.  They were lying back in the snow, swooshing their arms up and down to make angels.

Mama carried baby Jessie to his bedroom.  As soon as she was down the hall, I wheeled myself over to the door, opened it, and rolled out onto the patio.   The air gripped me like the draft from the freezer, chilling and exciting. 

“Carlota, what are you doing out here?” Maria asked.  “Mama told you to stay inside.”

“I’m just coming out for a little while, to see what it’s like. Mama won’t mind.”  I turned to the ramp and stopped at the top.   The cement looked slick and glossy like a mirror, reflecting the snaking branches of the mulberry tree.

With my hands gripping the rims of the wheels, I inched down the ramp, braking, almost going nowhere.

“Careful, Carlota. It’s really slippery there,” Arnoldo said.  He dropped a fistful of snow.  Javier gawked at me.  Maria’s mouth opened.  I couldn’t tell if their faces showed fear or admiration.

The chair twisted on the ice, and I lost hold of the other wheel.  The chair slid across the glassy surface, crashing into the rail, thrusting my chest and head over the side like I a floppy, rag doll.  My rib muscles throbbed. 

Maria, screeching, ran to me, grabbed my collar, and folded me back into the chair.  Arnoldo gripped the wheelchair’s handles, braced himself against the opposite rail, and pushed me back up to the patio.

“Are you all right?” Maria asked, hunching down and peering into my face.

“My chest hurts .  .  .  where I hit the rail,” I said, breathing hard.  I rubbed where the wood had stopped me, feeling to see if my ribs were broken.  “I’m O.K.”

“You almost killed yourself, you fool!” Maria said.  “Does Mama know you’re out here?”

I didn’t answer.  I looked down at my legs and noticed that my shoes were jammed behind the footpads.  Javier lifted my feet and placed them on the pads.

“Let’s cart you back in there before Mama finds out what you did,” Maria said.       Javier held open the screen door as Arnoldo drove me back into the house.  Long before Mama came out of baby Jessie’s bedroom, I was back, looking out the window.

I leaned my arms on the sill and breathed mouthfuls of fog onto the glass.  Arnoldo was shaking his head as Maria squawked at him and flapped her arms. 

After a while when she calmed down, Maria walked out into the yard under the naked walnut trees with Arnoldo and Javier following behind.  As I looked at the sky through the craggy branches of those trees, a tear drizzled down my cheek onto my lips.

Stupid wheelchair!   I wanted to be outside.   I wanted to play in the snow with everyone else.   It wasn’t fun being cooped up in here with nothing to do.

I was surprised Maria didn’t tell Mama what I’d done.  Instead, she told Arnoldo to get the red wagon from the patio and pull it out under the trees where the snow was smooth and thick.      

My brothers and sister filled the wagon with a mountain of snow.  I watched as they packed it in, patting it with the palms of their mittens, building it higher than even the wooden slats on the wagon’s sides.  Arnoldo dragged the wagon up the yard to the side of the house out of my view, everyone trailing behind him.

I sighed, turned my chair away from the window, and rolled over to the desk where I laid my head on my folded arms.  I had nothing to do, and, now,  couldn’t even watch Maria and the others playing.   Was Maria still mad at me for scaring her?   Is that why they went to play where I couldn’t see them?

“Carlota, go to the garage. Maria is asking for you,” Mama said from the kitchen.  I could hear the chopping of her knife on the cutting board. 

As I turned my chair around towards the garage door, I felt a flutter in my chest, a lump in my throat.  Would Maria tell Mama what I had done?

I opened the door and rolled down the ramp.  Maria, Arnoldo, and Javier stood in the middle of the garage floor, next to the snow-filled wagon.  They were all smiling with big, toothy grins.  Arnoldo patted the snow like it was a big belly.  Javier laughed so big that I could see the spaces where his two teeth were missing.

I squeezed my eyes shut.  Something good was about to happen.  Something warm and comfortable and happy just the way I liked it.  Like when I woke up in the morning and smelled fresh tortillas.  Like when Mama gave me her ribbons and sewing kit to decorate my doll clothes, or when Daddy wrote poems to me on the back of my birthday cards.  This something would be like that. 

“Now you can have snow, too,” Maria said. 

I wheeled over and braked abruptly in front of the wagon. “Help me build a snowman!” I shouted as I dug a hand into the cold, white mound.

Outside the garage window, sunshine peeked through a gray cloud.  The snow would be melting soon.  Daffodils would poke their heads through the dirt liked it hadn’t been cold at all.

It never snows where I live. It hardly ever even rains.