A Squirrel for Christmas

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m running a mid winter fundraiser for the blog. You know why.

There’s a Give Send Go for the Winter Fundraiser and well, if you need anything else including a snail mail address, please go here.

But I don’t like to ask for money without giving something back. Yes, I know, the blog. But I mean something else. I’ve been ill, and just writing this took the stuffing out of me. BUT here’s a Christmas story. Now I rattle the tin cup.

Whether you donate or not, whether you’ve donated or not, I hope you enjoy the story. – SAH

Of all the times and places to get stuck in, late Christmas eve in Goldport, Colorado had to be the pits.

Alger Monday had been headed to Denver: Denver, where there were hotels near the airport, and there were connections to other airports. But instead, they were told that Denver and Colorado Springs were both under blinding snow and attempting a landing was impossible. And so, here he was about to land in … Goldport Colorado.

A place no one had ever heard of. As his plane circled, he caught a scattered handful of lights on a mountain side. It looked like the sort of place that had maybe a hotel, perhaps two taxis, and had never heard of Uber. If he were very lucky, he’d spend the night sitting in uncomfortable seats in the airport. If he weren’t very lucky… Well, some of these small airports closed for the night. And he’d spend the night sitting on a park bench, or something. If the place had parks and benches.

If he were just your normal business traveler, Alger would have been upset enough. But the truth was that Alger had a condition that made it difficult to fly at the best of times, to stay in hotels for the best of occasions. And to interact with strangers even under the most normal circumstances.

If he became too stressed, or put under any unusual kind of pressure; if he, in fact, lost control of his temper at all, Alger would turn into a small, furry menace to society. Oh, no, not a werewolf. The romance bookshelves were full of stories about sexy werewolves. Some of the more daring ones had stories of sexy dragons or sexy lions or something. But poor Alger had found at 12 that he’d turn into a distinctly non-sexy, completely non-seductive … squirrel.

The first few times he’s woken up naked, draped over the tree branch outside his bedroom, he’d thought he was crazy. His parents certainly thought he was crazy. The number of counseling sessions he had to endure, before he got used enough to the process that he had a perfect recollection of his time as a squirrel. He’d even managed enough control to take a selfie on his phone.

After that, he’d started closing any hole that would allow escape from his room. Which was hard because squirrels could get through very small apertures.

And what sense did that even make. How could a boy become a squirrel? Someone should resurrect Lavoisier and tell him his conservation of mass thing was hokum. If Lavoisier hadn’t been dead — the coward — Alger would have kicked him five ways from… Monday.

At any rate, most of the time, he’d managed to keep himself in his room and out of trouble after that. Or at least, come scurrying back into the room after his nightly adventures. Sure there had been the thing with the neighbor’s cat taking a bite out of his tail, that had kept Alger from sitting down for a week.

But considering his problem, Alger had navigated his teenage years well enough, and much to his parents displeasure, had opted to study computer programing online. Mostly because the idea of being in a college made him so nervous it was hard not to shift just at the thought. He’d researched of course, and knew computer programmers often could work remote, which was perfect. And as soon as he had a job and some savings, he’d bought himself an isolated house, which he’d squirrel proofed as well as possible.

Of course, dating was out of the question, and marrying was not even on his life map. How do you explain to your significant other that at any moment of strife, you’re likely to chitter and twitch your tail at her? Or worse, that you’d had an affair and had another family in burrow in the yard?

Lonely? Of course he was lonely. But he was alive, and had a good job, and could make a living. It could be much worse.

And then his company had been bought by Germans, who, for reasons probably having to do with a ski vacation, had insisted all employees come to Denver for a meeting… On Christmas eve.

It was probably meant to be a treat. The email said, if they wished they could stay over at the company’s expense for up to two weeks, and the company would pick up lift tickets and such.

But Alger had just wanted to stay home. However, his job was very good, and the economy wasn’t. So he’d tried to relax and face the inevitable. And so far the flight had been a success. And then this….

By the time the plane touched down on what seemed to be one of two runways, Alger’s hands were clasping the arms of the seat so hard they probably left indentations. The only thing keeping him from chittering was warm, jovial thoughts of setting fire to Germany. All of it.

“It is very unpleasant, isn’t it?” said a throaty female voice from beside him.

Alger turned to see his seat mate in this puddle-hopper. He’d been concentrating so much on staying calm when he came into the plane he’d not even noticed he had a seat mate. Despite the femme fatale voice, she looked to be around 25 or so. Alger’s age. And she was wearing a t-shirt, and strategically ripped jeans. She’d just pulled a pink backpack from under her seat. And she favored him with a dazzling smile. Her hair was dark brown, her eyes were leaf-green, and she smiled at him, a friendly smile full of comradery.

He mumbled something that could be taken for agreement and sighed, and tried not to let his pulse speed up at all.

“Very small town, Goldport?” he said. “Right?” He had no idea what he was saying, to be fair, only that it must not be in the slightest sexy or encouraging.

“So, so,” she said. “I lived here for college. I just moved to Denver a couple of years ago.” She looked him over and seemed to see something. Alger couldn’t imagine what. But her voice became sympathetic as she added. “Don’t worry. Goldport is very welcoming to strangers. Particularly those– Well, it’s just welcoming, that’s all.”

But it didn’t seem welcoming at all, as they landed in an airport where all the lights were dimmed, the lone coffee stand closed, and a sign said that the airport would close at 10 pm. That was in less than an hour.

Alger took deep deep breaths all the way the luggage claim, where he got his sole overnight bag. He looked up hotels on his phone, but what came up was Leather and Lace twice, one a large hotel, the other a B & B and both full. Lovely.

Park bench it was.

As he got out of the airport, he saw his seat mate get in a car — probably someone she knew — and drive away. He was momentarily upset, before telling himself that he really wasn’t shopping for a relationship. What was he supposed to tell her “I change into a squirrel, but I’m really good at gathering nuts?”

He flagged down a taxi asked if there was some place to eat. The cabbie had looked at him, his expression on the rear view mirror wondering what asylum Alger had escaped from, then said, “Lots of places. What kind of food you want?”

“Chinese,” Alger said, and didn’t even know why. He didn’t like Chinese food that much, but it was the first one to come to his mind.

Which was how he found himself, twenty minutes late, at the edge of town, being let out in a deserted parking lot, where the blinking in and out sign said “Three Luck Dragon.”

The place looked dingy, the neighborhood non-existent and the chances of a taxi coming by here looking for fares was about zero, but by the time Alger thought all this, he was already standing under light snow, in the empty parking lot.

He went in, half expecting it to be empty. But in fact, there was an Asian man, behind the reception desk, watching some kind of sports match on the TV. Alger only had to clear his throat once, before the man turned around and asked “Table for one?”

Alger sat down to a meal of fried rice with “One is the loneliest number” playing in his head. He was so busy in his misery, eating as slowly as possible, while looking out the window at the increasing snow that he didn’t realize two more people had come in.

The first he heard was “Ragnarok business!” shouted very loudly. Startled, he looked up. There were a man and a woman standing in front of the reception desk. They were maybe in their fifties, and looked very upset.

He was almost sure he’d misheard, when the guy who’d brought him to his table sighed and said, in a low, menacing tone, “Are you out of your ever living minds? Do you think the Great Sky Dragon will tolerate this?”

Alger blinked. No. What was this about Ragnarok and great sky dragon? He must have fallen asleep on his dinner, and was dreaming this.

“Well, in time of Ragnarok, there’s time for changes,” the man yelled.

In the next second he knew for sure he was dreaming. As he watched, all three people started coughing. Before he could fully recognize the cough as the one that he suffered from before shifting, the couple had become hyenas and the Asian man had become a dragon. They flung themselves at him, snarling, he– he flamed first one and then the other.

By that time all Alger could think was chitter, chitter, chitter.

As he forced himself to be aware of his surroundings, in was on a high shelf, chittering down and flicking his tail.

He had enough control to know what had happened. The Asian man shifted back to human. He grumbled and got a broom and dustpan to clean the remains of erstwhile hyenas. Then he looked over at the table, and his eyes widened to see Alger’s clothes over the chair.

Then he saw Alger on the shelf, amid some very odd figurines of dragons, and his eyes widened more. As he strode out towards Alger, Alger knew he had only one chance at survival.

Presumably the dragon couldn’t flame his own nose. Alger launched himself at the Asian man’s face, chittering.

He woke up in a dark room, with a splitting headache. And naked. His first thought was that he had died, but that was ridiculous, because he was patently alive.

“Feels pretty gross, doesn’t it, when you’re killed?” the voice of the woman from the plane said from his left side.

He about jumped up a mile in the air, which considering he was completely naked must have been an interesting sight. He landed somehow standing up and covering his privates with his hands. “What– what– what?”

“I wouldn’t be too upset,” the girl said. She was sitting on an armchair, and had been reading something on her phone. Alger realized he’d been lying on a cot and she’d obviously been… watching him? nursing him? “Wan Lee kind of lost his mind, when you bit his nose. But he didn’t kill you seriously.”

“What?” Fine. He’d gone insane. It was the only explanation. “Are you saying someone killed me, but that’s all right, because he only killed me a little?”

The girl’s green eyes opened very wide. “Oh, my,” she said. You don’t have any idea how shifters work, do you?”

“Sh– Sh– shifters?” Alger managed. “I’m not a werewolf.”

“No,” she said. “You’re a were squirrel.” She smiled. “Like I am.”

Unaccountably Alger’s heart sped up and his throat closed and the weird thing was that he didn’t feel in the least like changing. “You are?”

“Oh yes. Here in Goldport… well, there are reasons. There are a lot of us.”

“Do you have any idea what happens to our mass when we get that small?” he asked. And he had no idea why, except he’d always wanted to ask that of someone. And she was definitely someone.

“No. Not all squirrel and rat shifters change mass. The Rodent Liberation front doesn’t. But some do. And no, we don’t know how it works.”

She talked a bunch more. Apparently Goldport was where the Great Sky Dragon, the master of all shifters lived. And she had smelled that Alger was a shifter, which was why she’d been so friendly on the plane. And then Wan Lee had called the Great Sky Dragon and asked for help, and Rachel — the nice girl from the plane — had been in the Great Sky Dragon’s diner, and had–

“Wait! The master of all shifters has a diner? Not a palace or something?”

She hesitated. “There is a palace too, but it was from the last Great Sky Dragon. Tom doesn’t go in much for places. He and his wife own a diner in downtown Goldport.” She perked up. “They have an adorable little boy!”

Among other things she’d told him that most shifters could come back from death, provided they weren’t beheaded of burned to cinders. So while Wan Lee, in a panic, had broken Alger’s squirrel neck, it wasn’t enough to stay dead. “It just means you won’t shift for three days after. It’s kind of the thing.”

She’d waited till he could walk, and she’d helped him dress. Once he was on his unsteady feet, shaking, she’d smiled up at him, “Do you want to go to the diner, and meet everyone else?”

He’d been afraid. After all loneliness had kept him safe. But he liked her. And he liked being able to talk about being a shifter. And he had so much to learn.

In her car — which she said she had borrowed from the Great Sky Dragon — she told him, “Everyone at the diner tonight is a shifter, because it’s Christmas eve and pretty late. So we can all be at ease.”

She was right. The diner was filled with people who all seemed to have heard of his adventure and introduced themselves, and shook his hand. No one was that upset about the hyenas, because, they said, the hyenas were always a bit high strung, and it was a time of Ragnarok.

Alger had no idea what they were talking about, but he didn’t care. Everyone was very friendly, and he was offered three different places to sleep: at the home of a policeman who was also a lion shifter; at the home of the Chinese man who sang some lovely Christmas carols, and at the home of the Great Sky Dragon himself.

Then he chose to stay where Rachel was staying, “It’s a friend’s place, but they’re away for Christmas and gave me their lock code. It’s a two bedroom,” she said.

“I feel,” he told Rachel after dinner. “As though I could move to Goldport, and maybe have a normal life and friends and everything.”

She grinned at him. “Why don’t you? I was thinking of moving back anyway, since my company is going to remote work.”

And like that Alger realized that his flight getting deviated to Goldport was not bad at all. It might turn out to be the best Christmas gift he’d ever gotten.

78 thoughts on “A Squirrel for Christmas”

  1. With all this squirrel stuff, I woke up in the middle of the other night and wrote one paragraph. These usually don’t go anywhere, but who knows.

    ++++++++

    The squirrel regarded the raven, both tilting their heads in unison.  The raven, however, was giving her human a look indicating a request for guidance.  None came, as the woman was engrossed in both a distant drama unfolding through the morning mists, and and internal conflict draped in the mists of distant memory.  She then adjusted her sights.  The squirrel took this cue and dove deep in the folds of her coat, and the raven lazily fluttered off a respectable distance to not draw attention.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. When all was aligned as desired, a steady trigger pressure released the bolt which reached its destination, the left orbit, with barely a wisp of sound.  The padded bow released only it’s missile, no sound.  The target jerked, then fell.  A languid motion of simultaneous collapse of the weapon, stowing it beneath cloak, and unhurried withdrawal followed as the squirrel resumed it’s position on her left shoulder, and the raven on the right.  She strode down the country lane to town.

        Like

        1. Shunning coyote. -That- dude is tricky.

          Oh, so very yes!

          Once upon a time a pair of coyotes took up brief residence in a thick stand of bushes in my back yard. The local coyotes are all too tolerant of people, and they simply adore cats and small dogs.

          I stepped out the back door one morning and there he was, about 30 feet away, looking right at me, standing his ground unperturbed. Channeling Mowgli staring down his littermates, I held eye contact. (“Don’t start nuthin’, won’t nuthin’ start.”)

          Coyotes don’t read much Kipling. He stared back, and, feigning respectful curiosity, slowly slunk toward me, holding eye contact all the while. (“I’m a dog. Pet me. Like a dog. Pet me, with your tender, meaty hand…”)

          It was almost hypnotic. I had to tell myself explicitly that it wasn’t a dog; that The Jungle Book had no useful lesson whatsoever; that this was a “Truce of the Bear” situation.

          So I abruptly embiggened and screamed “GTFO!!!” in Kzinti. He did.

          I ate a big steak and saved up the next few pees, to which I added a generous squirt of bear spray, and sluiced it to the very top of their bushy lair. (“A huge carnivore claims this spot, and you don’t even want to imagine the fiery things it eats!”)

          They moved away, leaving no forwarding address. I haven’t seen any more of their ilk. I guess they posted a one-star Yelp.

          I blush to admit it: I still feel guilty, as if I’d abused a puppy. Coyotes, man… the Injuns are right.

          Like

          1. “Love puppies”.

            OTOH aunt and uncle woke to find a young puppy in their fenced, gated backyard, down in Arizona. They’d heard coyotes the night before. A coyote had jumped the fence with the puppy and left it there.

            Not the norm. But it happens.

            Like

              1. Wasn’t a coyote pup, or cross. But coyotes had grabbed a puppy from somewhere, and rather than kill it, brought it over the fence and left it.

                Wouldn’t put coyotes past leaving a coyote pup, or coyote pup cross, for people to raise, like cuckoos do. Clever animals that they are.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. “Domestic” animals are the ones that are most tolerant of, or adapted to, living in close proximity to humans. Sometimes humans domesticate them by weeding out the critters with Bad Attitudes (like that Russian fox experiment); sometimes the critters “domesticate” themselves (like mice and rats and cats) and more of their grandcritters survive.

                  It looks like the coyotes these days are well adapted to human environments and to human psychology.

                  That coyote in my yard approached in a tucked-tail slink, and it had me reacting to it as though it were a shy, nervous dog that wanted to make friends but feared a kick. I actually was preparing to let it sniff my hand! Better sense came to me just barely in time.

                  Maybe I’m blackguarding its good intentions, and it really was going for some sort of non-predatory social interaction. Or maybe it really was suckering me in, and doing a scary good job of it.

                  So, no, I wouldn’t write off the idea that coyotes are putting Anchor Babies in people’s yards.

                  Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s a cute story indeed. My (occasionally) misspent 1980s reared its head when I read this passage, though:

      “And then his company had been bought by Germans, who, for reasons probably having to do with a ski vacation, had insisted all employees come to Denver for a meeting… On Christmas eve.”

      My first thought was, “As long as they don’t make everyone play broom-ball.”

      Liked by 1 person

  4. I read this to my wife after dinner. When I reached the end and asked if she wanted to leave a comment, she exclaimed “It’s over? I just got a refill and was waiting to hear how it worked out for him! She’s a tease!”

    I think she liked it about as much as I did. Jim_R

    Liked by 2 people

      3. Goody. Love the series.

        I just read Lights Out and realized that I must have missed something, so had to go back and get Bowl of Red. Now that classes are over, I can actually read for fun.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. (Alger! Don’t meet many Algers nowadays. It’s very nice not to be confused with three other people with the same name; it’s hard to find name plates for your bicycle when you’re a kid, though; or key rings and such.)

    She sounds pretty—and very kind. Good luck, Alger.

    Liked by 1 person

          1. No, I didn’t mean a fat squirrel either. I pictured a normal-looking squirrel that weighed 160 pounds so, about 30 times denser than lead. If he ever managed to climb a tree…DEATH FROM ABOVE! THUD!! :-P

            Like

        3. Rodents of Unusual size? I don’t believe they actually exist…

          In truth the dragon shifters going from 65Kg or so to several metric tons (and back) present far more of a mass balance issue than their rodential relatives. Clearly, there are physical laws that we don;t fully understand. To paraphrase Niven’s Corollary to Clarke’s Law “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Add a pair of (rather large) goats, and a pair of cats.

            Why were the Aesir prone to pairs? (Aside from Sleipnir, but polite people ignore that one – “He did what?!?“😉)

            Like

  11. A squirrel scolded him. Slowly, he looked over. It was black.

    Aidan forced his breath out and straightened. He could hardly have expected a white one, in this forest. Red was foolish. The only red-haired one here was him, and he would be wiser to not fret over squirrels where wolves might lurk.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I sometimes see black squirrels in my neighborhood. There is another neighborhood nearby where they are very common, but I’ve never seen one in a rural area.

      Like

          1. Far from the UP, but Olney, IL is known for white squirrels. Apparently some people started raising albino squirrels and dut to state bans on household cirtters (P’nut objects!), they were released and a colony started. They track annually, and about 75 are present. Efforts to keep the colony growing are ongoing. (Not my circus, not my squirrels.) Apparently the first albinos were found in 1902.

            https://www.ci.olney.il.us/visitors/white_squirrels/index.php

            We get pine squirrels at home. Maybe 2/3rds the size of a grey squirrel, brown on the sides with back fur tending black. Less aggressive than the greys. Not sure which type chews the top off my pine trees; the greys might do it for spite.

            Like

      2. My aunt has her place attached to the family lands so 100 acres or so. She feeds the rodentia, and has a few Black from time to time (I think I saw one earlier this year) and a few times over the years has had White ones. Not as many Red, and more Grey than one could shake a tail at.

        Like

      3. We have them here, too. Once saw one backlit by the setting sun, so its back was all rich sable brown and its belly was glowing amber — phenomenally beautiful.

        This squirrel isn’t bad, it’s just that Aidan can’t listen to its sage warning.

        Like

  16. Very nice. One note caught a minor typo in this sentence

    There is a palace too, but it was from the last Great Sky Dragon. Tom doesn’t go in much for places.

    I suspect that last word should be palaces not places. Thought I spotted another one but darned if I can find it again.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I suspect that last word should be palaces not places. Thought I spotted another one but darned if I can find it again.

    Like

Comments are closed.