Teeky Nuts Squirrel, or Teeky N. for short, liked living at the Jordan Pines campground. Friendly people always gave him little tastes of crackers and apples. Babies and children left the best crumbs under the table. Finding Cheerios or cookies or raisins underneath a high chair made him happy for at least an hour. He even remembered a kind Great Grandpa Jones who liked to feed him cantelope seeds from his hand. As scary as people smells were, the sweet taste of those seeds made the threat of those stinky fingers worth the heart pounding fear.

Teeky's mom let him know that eating human food would make him weak and hungry during the long winter months, but Teeky didn't care. He had learned a special trick to make the campers want to feed him even more food. Next to the tables was an old tree stump. Teeky would jump up on the stump and stand very still with his long, bushy tail curled over his back like a beautiful feather. When the sunlight hit his soft fur it shined with such a beautiful rainbow of browns and reds that most of the campers ran for their cameras to take his picture. Chattering with delight, Teeky ran under the tables, over the coolers, and around their feet to gather more tasty bites.

On July 23rd, the best picnic ever happened. Because it was such a hot day, many cars arrived in the parking lot with windows rolled down. One car owner liked nuts as much as Teeky did, and he had a whole can of peanuts right by his driver's seat. Looking around carefully, Teeky ran up the tire, over the hood and in the open window. Sniff, sniff, sniff. What was that delightful smell? His wiggling nose led him right to a blue can with a yellow lid. All he had to do was nibble on the side of the plastic and then the lid slid right off. Teeky had never seen so mamy peanuts in one place. He began stuffing nuts in his cheeks, chewing nuts, swallowing nuts. Oh, my! This must be heaven.

Now Teeky wanted to just keep eating nuts, but he heard a noise. A camper named Steve looked through the window and started to laugh. He told Teeky to go home and his voice sounded tough. Teeky ran. Not even looking back, he sadly ran to his burrow to sleep for night and dream of the endless can of peanuts. But sleep did not come. Oh, no. The smell and flavor of those nuts made him wish for more and more and more and more. In the light of the moon he crept back to the car only to find the windows closed. Just before Teeky started to cry, (Do you think squirrels cry?) Teeky noticed another miracle: a pile of peanuts lay on the ground next to the tire. Teeky's wish had come true. Once again he ate and ate and ate until all that was left was a little pile of white salt on the brown dirt.

Teeky licked a few dew covered leaves for a drink, ran back to his burrow and went to sleep. Grandpa Jones looked for the squirrel touched peanuts that he had dumped out of the can on the ground, and he wondered if the tricky little squirrel had come back to finish his peanuts. Teeky never did say thank you, he simply hid away with a full tummy and a smile on his face.

Teeky stayed away from the campground for two days. He just couldn't eat any more food. When he finally went back, the campers were gone. Maybe next year the Joneses would bring some children called Tehya and Jacob and Jack and Savannah who liked to look at pretty squirrels and leave cookie crumbs under the table. And maybe, just maybe, their Grandpa would leave his window down so Teeky could share his peanuts again.

Thank you for reading my stories. I love you all,
Grandma