Written by Elfen Sciuridae
– Moving Day –
Several moving trucks rolled into town, signifying new neighbors are joining the community. They move down the block from Edward and Edna, where several foreclosed homes were. The children of the area gathered or passed by on their bicycles, to see who the new kids were. Edna and Cynthia roller skated to the middle of the street, noticing the two girls on the opposite trucks entering houses across the street from each other- both were squirrels, a black one and an extremely pale and blonde one. They saw no children coming out of the third truck or helping out with the moving.
“A family without children?”, Edna asks.
“Maybe it’s a newly wed couple.”, Cynthia answers.
The front door slams open out of the third house, with a girl (a grey squirrel) with long black hair in a ponytail with a red ribbon tied in a tiny bow at the base of her head. She was pulling on the arm of an older squirrel boy, who looked slightly different from the others. In fact he looked sickly, though that was because he was a flying squirrel and not a regular ground squirrel. The most striking feature he has was his glasses- pitch black as coal.
“RACHEL! CUT THAT OUT! I HAVE NOT STEP COUNTED THE AREA YET!”, the boy shouted at his female companion. He trips on the bottom step, and dives across the walkway to the house. His glasses flies off and bounces 1/2 way across the yard in front of him. Rachel lets him go and goes after the glasses.
“Ouch…”, both Edna and Cynthia say to themselves as if they were feeling his pain. They continued looking at the scene as it unravels itself in front of them.
The squirrel boy sits up, covering his eyes with the inside of his elbow. Rachel walks up to him, handing his glasses to his free hand, apologizing profusely as she could. “I’m sorry Fernando! I Really Am! Please!”
“Fernando…?”, Edna says to herself.
“At least he has a name.”, Cynthia says for her.
A second squirrel boy runs out of the house, shoving Rachel out of the way. He looks more natural and healthier than the first boy as he was a true grey squirrel. “OUT THE WAY SHIT HEADS!”, he yells as he goes past them.
“JORGE! YOU’RE DEAD MEAT!”, Rachel yells at him. He runs into the moving truck and pulls out a 10 speed racing bicycle, and rides down the street, picking up speed as he went away.
“There goes your newly wed theory.”, Edna stated.
“Well, 2 boys and 1 girl in that house… bet she gets her own room.”, Cynthia says.
Fernando finally gets up the floor with a bit of Rachel’s help. She bends over and picks up a stick from the floor and give is to Fernando. He feels it for a moment, and taking it at one end, giving it a hard flick, it extends to 5 times it length. He holds it out in front of him, feeling the floor with the extended end in a circle about him. Edna and Cynthia drop their jaws and eyes pop out of their sockets.
“He’s blind!”, they both say together. They did not notice the pale blonde girl squirrel walk up to them. “So he is…”, she says behind them.
They both almost jump up out of their skins a mile high, slowly turning to her as they calm down.
“You’re the new girl- right?”, Edna asks.
“One of three.”, she says.
“Three? You got 2 sisters?”, Edna asks.
As she points out the houses, “That’s Rachel- 1, across the street is Juanita- 2, and I’m Cathy- 3.”, Cathy explains.
“You all know each other?”, Cynthia asks.
“We all went to the same school together. Then things started to go bad- guns, gangs, drug dealings, rapes… it was not safe anymore so we all found a place to move to, and by luck or coincidence, it was in the same area.”, Cathy answers. “Anyways, I got to go help my boyfriend before his adopted sister takes him to some secluded place and tries to have her way with him.”
She leaves, half trotting to house where Fernando was with Rachel.
“She’s his girlfriend?”, Edna asks.
“The sister is adopted?”, Cynthia asks.
“Adopted brother fetish?”, Edna asks.
“It happens more often then one would think.”, Cynthia answers.
Edna blushes for a second.
They watch as the three of them walked down the block, oddly, counting off the steps as they walked. The girls follow them as they walked down the block, stopping with them as they stopped at every intersection. Fernando seems to look at every corner of the intersection before walking onward. After the 4th block, he breaks away from the girls, turns 180 degrees and walk towards Edna and Cynthia. He stands in front of them, taking his seeing cane up into his hands and folds it up, before holding it with both hands in front of him.
“Why are you two girls following us?”, he asks of them. Cathy and Rachel walk up to behind him.
“They’re neighborhood girls checking out the new kids- us.”, Cathy explains to him.
“Didn’t I tell you two to wait for me at the corner?”, he says.
“We’re just backing you up…”, Rachel says.
“Lets not and say that we did…”, Cathy started to say. “Good thing he don’t hit girls.”
“I said for you two to wait at the corner…”, Fernando tells them more sternly.
“Fernando, calm down. They were just checking us out.”, Cathy tells him just as sternly.
“Then maybe they should check this out…”, Fernando says as he pulls the shirt loose from his pants.
“Don’t you dare!”, Cathy almost yells at him.
Without saying a word, Fernando takes a couple of backwards steps, and then turns about taking a couple of running steps before diving to the floor. Instead of crashing with a loud thud, he seemed to glide a few inches off it, before pulling up spiraling to the left and zooms away in flight.
“Fernando! You Better Come Back Here!!!” Cathy yells at him as she runs after him.
“He’s…”, Cynthia begins to say.
“Flying?”, Edna finishes the sentence.
“Of course he’s flying. He’s a flying squirrel!”, Rachel answers them.
“But he’s blind…”, Edna almost asks.
“Pigeons can only see 3ft in front and around them, yet they fly almost 50 miles per hour without problems.”, Rachel explains.
“But…”, Cynthia begins.
“But what?”, Rachel asks.
The gust of wind comes in front of them (behind Rachel), and in that gust was Fernando flying back up the street. Not far behind, running was Cathy, who was cursing out her boyfriend’s existence.
“I better catch up with them before something happens.”, Rachel says before she squeezes in between them and runs back up the block after them.
“A bunch of squirrels in the neighborhood…”, Edna says.
“You’re the fox… aren’t squirrels in your diet?”, Cynthia jokingly says.
“Only if I can catch them. Besides you ever tried to catch something that flies?”, Edna explains.
“And that blonde one- pale white is more like it.”, Cynthia says.
“It must be some kind of condition or specific to her species.”, Edna started to say.
“No, I meant, she seems to be over protective of him. Not even trusting his own sister with him!”, Cynthia added.
“Well… some girls do fall in love with their brothers, if they are cute enough…”, Edna says.
“School is not for another 5 weeks. Lets enjoy what’s left of this summer vacation.”, Cynthia tells her before skating away back up the block.
“HEY!”, Edna yells before skating after her.
-End of Moving Day –