Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

A white-tailed doe was discovered one morning disemboweled on the banks of the stream, and the residents of the forest went crazy with fear-“freaked out” was how the sparrow put it. A few days later, a skunk was found, no more than a gnawed-upon skull attached to a short leash of spine. Personality-wise, he’d been no great shakes. Neither was he particularly good-looking, but still! Then a squirrel disappeared, and it was decided that something had to be done. A meeting was convened in the clearing near the big oak, and the hawk, who often flew great distances in search of food, proposed that they build a gate. “I’ve seen one where the humans live, and it seems to work fairly well.”

“Work how?” asked a muskrat.

The hawk explained that once the gate was erected, anyone entering the forest would have to stop and identify himself. “It keeps out the riffraff,” he said, adding that when bad things happened, that was usually who was responsible-riffraff.

For the second time that day, the muskrat raised his hand. “And what if this riffraff can’t be stopped?”

“Then you sound an alarm,” the hawk suggested. “It could be anything, really, just so long as it’s loud.”

The building of the gate was left to the beaver, who had a slight problem with the hinges but eventually got them right. Just to the side of them he hung a gong fashioned from an old NO TRESPASSING sign. “I figured I could hit it with my tail,” he said, and he gave it a whack for good measure.

When the noise had stopped echoing off the surrounding hills, the rabbit stepped forward. “Who elected you to man the gate?” he asked, adding that anyone could hit a sheet of rusted metal, even someone without an oversize tail. At that he picked up a heavy stick and went at it, creating a racket as loud as the beaver’s. “I’ve also got the better hearing,” he boasted. “I’m slimmer, I’m faster, and I’m more safety conscious, vigilant, you might say.”

All eyes turned to the beaver, who said simply, “Whatever,” and waddled back to his lodge.

On the rabbit’s first morning as chief of security, he stopped an approaching snake, who looked up at him and laughed until he cried.

“Something funny?” asked the rabbit.

The snake used his tail to wipe a tear from his face. “You idiots,” he said. “What good is a gate without a wall?”

“What good is a huh?”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” continued the snake. “If an animal doesn’t want to enter here, what’s to stop him from moving down a few dozen yards and crawling in beside the fallen pine?”

“What’s to stop him?” asked the rabbit, and he picked up his heavy stick and bashed the snake’s head in. Then he kicked some dirt over the body and wrote NO LAUGHING on the NO TRESPASSING sign.

A short while later a magpie stopped by and pecked at the bits of brain left scattered on the ground in front of the gate. “Not to nitpick,” he said between mouthfuls, “but what’s to prevent someone from entering by air? You and your friends initiate a no-fly zone?”

“What’s to keep you from flying in?” asked the rabbit, and once again he brought down his heavy stick. Then he dug up the snake and hung both it and the dead magpie from the top of his gate. There they could act as visual warnings, proof that he was a force to be reckoned with. When that was done, he added to his sign, which now read, NO TRESPASSING. NO LAUGHING. AND NO STUPID QUESTIONS EITHER. THIS MEANS YOU.

It was a hot, windless day, and within an hour blowflies arrived and settled on the faces of the two dead animals. Their buzzing attracted a frog, who jumped over from the nearby stream, flicked out his tongue, and dined upon them until he was full. Only then did he read the sign and turn to address the rabbit. “Seeing as you don’t want jokes or questions, I guess I’ll phrase this as a comment,” he said. “In order to enter through your gate, I’ll have to stop and go through your tiresome rigmarole. That kind of BS doesn’t interest me much, so instead I’m going to return to my stream and swim into your third-rate, beetle-infested forest.”

He turned to leave, and the rabbit, who was nothing if not quick, reached for his heavy stick. Then he hung the frog upon his gate and added NO CURSING to his NO TRESPASSING sign.

It wasn’t long before an otter came along and went for the crushed frog. Then a badger stopped by, attracted by the smell of the dead otter. As the bodies were heaped upon the gate, it began to tilt. The rabbit propped it up with a fallen branch and then turned his attention to the sign. NO DIRTY LOOKS, he wrote. NO QUESTIONING MY INTEGRITY. NO INSULTING REMARKS ABOUT MY EARS OR MY TEETH. He was just wondering how to spell “insolence” when a shadow fell, and he looked up to see a magnificent white unicorn. His silky mane curled about his neck in waves the color of buttercups. Equally brilliant was his horn, which looked to be made of gold. At his approach, the rabbit put down his pencil. “State your name and your business.”

“I’m a unicorn,” said the unicorn, “and I come to bring joy to all the forest creatures.”

“Not with that horn you don’t,” said the rabbit.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, lose the weapon.”

“The horn is what makes me who I am!”

“Which is unwelcome,” said the rabbit. “Now do as I say or beat it.”

“But happiness follows wherever I go!” the unicorn protested. “I can make a rainbow just by flicking my tail.”

The rabbit reached for his stick.

“If you won’t let me through the gate, I’ll just jump over it,” said the unicorn. And because he was taller than the rabbit and much more powerful, he did just that. “Sorry,” he said as he headed into the forest, “but you didn’t leave me any choice.”

“We’ll see about that,” muttered the rabbit, and he spat onto the blood-soaked ground.

The unicorn spent the late afternoon making rainbows for all the woodland creatures. Then he caused the wildflowers to bloom and conjured up some berries for a hungry box turtle. As the sun set over the treetops, he settled upon a bed of fragrant moss and fell into a deep sleep.

The following morning, the songbirds woke him. The unicorn yawned and was just about to stand when he noticed the pile of golden shavings scattered across the moss. Then he felt his forehead and galloped to the gate piled high with rotting carcasses. “Who chewed off my horn?” he wailed.

The rabbit answered calmly that rules were rules. “If I let you trot around with a weapon on your head, I’d have to let everyone do it.”

“But it had magic powers!”

“I said, scram,” said the rabbit.

The unicorn, just a common everyday horse now, slunk off toward a field of tall grasses. The rabbit watched him go and then turned back to his sign. “Magic powers indeed,” he muttered. “I didn’t taste anything special.” Again he spat, only this time, a diamond came out and landed on the ground beside him. That’s what he was staring at when the wolves arrived.

The Judicious Brown Chicken

It was hot that afternoon, so after the chicken and her sister had walked the yard a few times, they wandered into the henhouse for a little shade. Had it been crowded they probably wouldn’t have said much, but there was no one around, and so the two spoke intimately, the way they had when they were young. “I don’t know if it’s normal or what,” the sister said. “But sometimes… and this is just between the two of us, okay?”

The chicken nodded.

“Sometimes, when I’m with the rooster, I wonder what it would be like if he, you know, wasn’t a rooster.”

“You mean, like, if he was a duck or a goose?” The thought was ridiculous, and the chicken had to bite the inside of her beak to keep a straight face. “Or how about a turkey?” At this she lost her composure and whooped until her eyes teared. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“Never mind,” her sister said. “It wasn’t important.”