Lexi's Tale by Johanna Hurwitz

CHAPTER ONE
Breakfast in the Park

    What’s better than being a squirrel: running, leaping, soaring, and flying through the air? Being a squirrel means eating delicious seeds and nuts, fruits and flowers, mushrooms and plant buds, and all sorts of leftovers from humans. Being a squirrel means wearing a warm and handsome coat of fur and waving a magnificent tail. What’s better than being a squirrel? Nothing!
    My name is Lexington, but those who know me best save time by calling me Lexi. Lexington is also the name of a big street in New York City where I live. Most of my squirrel relatives are named after streets too. Perhaps that’s why I and all my family are so street-smart. There’s my brother Madison and my cousins Amsterdam and Columbus, for example. But just as most city streets are named by numbers, so most of my relatives are called by those numbers too. I have sisters named Sixty-one, Sixty-two, and Sixty-three, to mention just a few.
    From my home, in a hole high in a maple tree in Central Park, I can see just about everything. I watch the birds flying about and I check out the morning as the park begins to fill with human visitors. At dawn today, Ilooked out and saw a lone man with a dark beard walking back and forth, back and forth, on a nearby path. He wasn’t wearing running clothes or running shoes, like most early-morning visitors to the park. He had a cap on his head, but it wasn’t a baseball cap. On his feet, instead of sneakers, he wore a pair of leather sandals with socks. I’ve noticed that when people wear sandals, they generally let their bare toes stick out. And, the man seemed to be talking to himself. Silly, I thought.

    â€œLexi,” a voice called to me. “How many squirrels are in this park?”
    I looked down from my perch. Below me stooda fat, tailless creature. It was PeeWee, my guinea pig friend. Many weeks ago, at the time of the full flower moon, he was abandoned in the park by his former owner.

    â€œWho can count? And who cares?” I raced down the tree and landed on the ground next to PeeWee.
    â€œEverywhere I look, I see squirrels.” PeeWee said. “There must be hundreds of squirrels around here.”
    â€œI know that years ago a scientist, with nothing better to do with his time, came and spent many weeks trying to count,” I said. “My old uncle Ninety-nine heard the fellow say that there were more than thirteen thousand eight hundred squirrels here in the park. My unclelaughs when he talks about it because he knows there are loads more squirrels than that.”
    What my guinea pig friend didn’t know was that back when he first arrived in the park, Uncle Ninety-nine warned me to keep away from him.
    â€œSquirrels don’t need other animals,” he had reminded me. “That fat funny fellow won’t be any use to you. In fact, he might get you into trouble.”
    â€œHe’s interesting,” I had told my uncle. “He may not be able to climb to the top of a tree, but he’s seen other parts of the world. He’s lived in a pet shop and inside a human home.”
    â€œIf you don’t watch out, you’ll find yourself in one of the those places too,” old Uncle Ninety-nine had warned me as he dug in the ground. Luckily he had found a large nut and become so busy eating it that he had forgotten what hewas saying. My uncle is enormous. All squirrels love food and we eat our own body weight each week, but Uncle Ninety-nine seems to eat enough for two squirrels. As a result, he’s almost as big as some of the dogs that come walking in our park.
    â€œIt must be great fun to have such a huge family,” PeeWee said to me, as he has more than once, referring to the large number of squirrels and not the large size of my uncle.
    â€œSquirrels don’t care very much about family,” I told him. “We don’t mate for life like many other animals do. Father squirrels