When Chet reached the end of the canvas, there was another tightrope that he had to cross but he could see the food at the end. He came this far he told himself, he’s not going to stop now. It was time to start showing off, (something that Chet never could resist). He used his nimble tree squirrel talents and swung his body in circles around the rope till he reached the end. At the platform, he turned to where Avery had been watching, and gave a gentlemen’s bow.
Chet very gingerly reached over and picked up a large piece of corn that was still on the cob and ate it, directly looking again, at Avery. Something in the corner of his eye moved and caught his attention. It was the man and woman standing in the window, watching him. They were laughing and taking photos of his pride in reaching the end of the course. Chet spun around, and ran behind the tent.
He ran back to where Avery was but didn’t tell him about seeing the people inside the house. He thought it would be funny to have Avery finish the course and turn to see them snapping photos at him too. Avery was such a little scaredy cat, he probably wouldn’t even try it anyway. The first thing when Chet ran over, Avery reached for a kernel of the corn. ‘No, if you want some, you have to go earn it like I had to.’
The corn was still moist from the man rinsing it off. It looked delectable but just As Chet suspected; Avery wouldn’t go try the ‘fun run.’ ‘I know, let’s go get my little sister, Amee, and get her to do it.’
‘I bet she’d go right off, and I’ll go too, I just think it would be funny to send her down first.’ ‘Yea, right, Avery, make your little sister go first, so you have that double safety net. What a guy.’
Avery and Chet were such good buddies, that whenever Chet teased him like that, Avery never took it badly. Avery turned his nose up to the sky, and sauntered off the other way to get his sister. ‘Ameeeeeeeee, Amee where are you?’ Right as Avery got to the alley and called for Amee, his other sister Prissy pounced over and tapped Avery on the shoulder. ‘O.K., you’re it’ and she was so fast in getting out of his sight that he ended up playing that silly game of ‘You’re it.’ Not a sound was heard when Avery shouted, ‘I don’t want to play, I want my sister Amee.’
He was stuck in having to play with two bumbly little chippies. He thought he saw a movement behind the large tree near the pond, ‘Aha, who do we have here’, as he grabbed someone from behind a large stump in the soft mossy mound. Struggling hard to break loose of his grip was Amee. ‘That’s not fair, Avery, I didn’t have time to hide well.’ Avery spoke very fast and urgent, ‘You gotta see this, our man on the hill made a real fun contraption.
Chet and I have already gone through it so many times, because at the end of it, he has some delectable food. Get Prissy, you gotta try it.’ Amee’s eyes grew large, and a gasp let out of her muzzle. ‘Prissy, Prissy, come on, Avery says that there’s fun behind the house on the hill!’ Prissy stumbled out of a bush nearby. Her brother Raney jumped out from behind a large rock. “Can I go too, I wanna see.’ Uh, oh, Avery didn’t plan on Prissy and her brother coming. Raney was always looking for a reason to fight, and he was so protective of his sister. He just acted like he didn’t hear Raney, and scampered off towards the hill once again. As he made his way back to Chet, he saw that Chet must have went through the fun house again, because he had a new piece of food that he was munching on.
‘This is the best bark. I haven’t had walnuts in such a long time. I wonder what other tasty morsels are at the end of that fun tunnel.’ ‘My sister’s gonna find out right now. Where did she go?’ said Avery as he squinted in the sun to try to spot Amee scurrying up the hill. ‘Here I am,’ said Amee as she dangled out of a tree right next to Avery’s side. Even Chet got a chuckle out of the reaction of Avery jumping and being caught off guard by his sister.
They were all very excited about the fun that was about to be had. Raney and Prissy climbed down a different tree, giggling all the way. Raney had scabs on his nose from a previous encounter with another chipmunk. He also had bald patches on his back. ‘You’d think he’d learn’, thought Chet, but he supposed that if a chipmunk has to have a mouth like Raney, he deserves whatever comes to him!
‘I hope Mama doesn’t catch us Raney’ said little Miss Prissy. ‘We won’t get our dinner for a month; you heard her say that last time we just took off & didn’t tell her where we were going.’ ‘Aww, shut up, you’re such a baby, go home if you want to. I’m staying where all the fun is. Besides, she had so much going on; she probably wouldn’t miss us anyway.’ They followed Chet and Avery up the rest of the hill in to the back part of the house where the land had the food contraption.
‘Shhh, everyone’ as Avery pointed to where it was. ‘Who’s going first?’ asked Amee with her eyes squinting, and nose crinkled, as she was facing the hot sun. ‘I want to, can I, can I?’
Just as Avery suspected, Amee always wanted to do everything first, before anyone else. ‘Chet being the more responsible one was very serious when he made direct eye contact with Amee and said ‘I mean it Amee, if you hear our warning call you better jump off that thing and come over here right away, promise? ‘O.K, I promise.’
With her bright eyes flashing, she dashed to the contraption. At first, she cautiously made her way around the entire device, which was very clever for such a young chipmunk to do. She jumped up onto the platform, and started the course. After sliding down the clear plastic tube, she tumbled onto the little platform that stood just before the flat tent dais, and the grin on her face was beaming! She dove through the flattened tent part, and her body flew through that tunnel. At the end, she got to eat the food that was on the very last plank, her reward for being so brave and adventurous.
She jumped off of the plank, and ran back over to where the others were watching. She had a corn cob in one hand, and some seed mixed with bark in the other. Her cheeks were bulging with more seed too. ‘That was fun; I wanna go again, can I, can I?’ ‘Wait, my sister wants to go too, and after her, I do too,’ said Raney very eagerly. ‘Go ahead Priss, you’re next.’ Prissy was already jumping up and down, and impatiently waiting for her turn to come. Chet turned to Avery, with his paw covering his mouth so no one else could hear. ‘Good, maybe now she’ll stop that whining.’ Avery leaned back into Chet, ‘Sure, that’s when it’s Raney’s turn to whine!’ Both boys quietly snickered. Raney overheard only what Avery said about him, and he turned towards him, and threw his body into him.
They both tumbled down the hill, growling with a mix between snarls and pants. Prissy was already on her way to the course, and turned back to smile at the others. She saw Raney and Avery tumbling down the hill, fighting and scratching. She started running back to where all the commotion was. ‘Oh no, Raney please, someone’s gonna get hurt.’
Right at that moment, one of the Red Tail Hawks swooped down and with his mighty claws, and snatched her. ‘Prissy, Prissy, come back.’ Amee started to dart towards the open area calling for Prissy as Chet grabbed her. ‘What are you doing, do you want another one to come and swallow you up in the sky as well?’ They hugged each other, as they ran back to the safety of the bushes. Both Chet and Amee ran down the hill after the other two, tears streaming down Amee’s little cheeks.
‘Now you’ve done it, because you can’t control yourself Raney, your sister came back and was running to try to help you.’ ‘A hawk snatched and carried her away. Now what do we do?’ Raney’s face was scraped by rolling down the hill, but also looked so stunned from what Chet just told him. ‘My sister, my sister’, and he buried his head in his paws. Even though he had been trying to hurt Avery, Avery felt sorry for him –but only for a moment. His head started throbbing, after hitting it on a large jagged rock that he tumbled into. Blood ran down the side of his face. Raney’s Mama came skipping over, ‘What gorgeous weather and everyone’s having so much fun. Where’s