Gimme Shelter, Page 2

  “I think you’re forgetting something, Dirt,” said Sugar.

  “What’s that?”

  “Unicorns,” said Sugar.

  “Unicorns aren’t extinct,” Dirt explained. “They never existed.”

  “Then how do we know what they looked like?” asked Sugar.

  “Well . . . because . . . ,” Dirt began. “Um, that’s not really a fair question. . . .”

  “Sounds like something we should vote on,” said Sugar.

  “You can’t vote unicorns into existence!” declared Dirt.

  “As I was saying,” Sugar announced, ignoring Dirt’s protest and turning back to Poppy and Sweetie. “The shelter is now also an important scientific-discovery site, and the spoons are no longer the proper tools for excavation.”

  “That much I agree with,” said Dirt.

  “So,” continued Sugar, “we’re going to need the power tools and the blowtorch from the Connolly’s garage—”

  “Sugar,” said Dirt, “for starters, we do not have permission to go into the Connolly’s garage.”

  “If I remember, avoiding the Connolly’s garage is what cost you the vote last time,” said Sugar. “You might want to reconsider.”

  “Sugar, we need to treat the bone carefully,” said Dirt.

  “Dirt has a point,” agreed Sugar. “Grab all the brushes you can find in the house—paintbrushes, toothbrushes, hairbrushes,” said Sugar. “But NOT the round yellow brush in the bathroom!”

  “Will it damage the bone?” asked Poppy.

  “No, I use that one for volume after I shampoo,” replied Sugar.

  “I’ve always wondered how you got your feathers so fluffy,” Poppy exclaimed.

  “I find a little hair spray at the roots really helps too,” Sugar said with a wink.

  “I love Sugarology!” said Poppy.

  “How do we get into the house?” asked Sweetie.

  “Just move the pot of chrysanthemums next to the hose,” explained Sugar.

  “Why?” asked Poppy.

  “Because then you can remove the loose brick that doesn’t look like a loose brick, because I put it back so carefully after I removed it,” Sugar replied.

  “Ooh, how did you do that?” asked Poppy.

  “With some power tools and a blowtorch I borrowed from the Connolly’s garage—”

  “What?!” cried Dirt.

  “Sugarology is fun!” said Sweetie as she and Poppy ran toward the chrysanthemums. “I’m learning so much!”

  Chapter 5

  A few minutes later, Sweetie arrived back at the hole with a canful of paintbrushes.

  “Where’s Poppy?” asked Sugar.

  “I’m not sure,” answered Sweetie, alarmed. “I thought he was right behind me!”

  A minute later, Poppy strolled out of the house with a handful of brushes. Sweetie gasped. Poppy’s head was the size of a cantaloupe.

  “Poppy, your feathers are very, very . . . big,” said Sweetie.

  “I think you mean voluminous,” he answered.

  “That too,” said Sugar. “You didn’t happen to use the yellow hairbrush while you were in there?”

  “Nope,” Poppy answered.

  “I see,” said Sugar, maintaining steady eye contact.

  “I used the green one,” Poppy admitted.

  “Interesting choice,” said Sugar.

  An acorn ricocheted off Poppy’s face. He didn’t flinch.

  “And the hair spray?” asked Sugar.

  “A little,” Poppy admitted.

  “Just the roots, kid,” whispered Sugar. “Just the roots.”

  “Too much?” asked Poppy, embarrassed.

  “Rookie mistake,” said Sugar. “We’ll try to scrape it off later. But in the meantime, you’re highly flammable, so stay away from the blowtorch.”

  “Ahem,” Dirt interrupted. “Before we get back to the bone, I’d like to show you something I showed Sugar while you were in the house. I think it will help you understand what’s in the hole and what it might—or might not—be.” Dirt held up her timeline.

  Poppy and Sweetie studied it for a moment.

  “I think you’re forgetting something, Dirt,” said Sweetie.

  “What’s that?” asked Dirt, tapping her pencil.

  “Unicorns,” answered Poppy.

  “Dirt says unicorns never existed,” said Sugar with an eye roll.

  “Then how do we know what they looked like?” asked Poppy.

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to reply.

  Dirt had no reply.

  “So it could be a unicorn bone?” asked Sweetie.

  “Absolutely not,” said Dirt.

  “Who thinks it could be a unicorn bone?” asked Sugar.

  “I do,” said Poppy, raising his wing.

  “I do,” said Sweetie, raising her wing.

  “I do,” said Sugar, raising her wing.

  “You can’t vote unicorns into existence!!” declared Dirt for the second time.

  “Okay, kid,” said Sugar. “But you can’t complain about the outcome if you don’t vote.”

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to reply.

  “Fine.” Dirt let out a heavy sigh. “I vote that it is not a unicorn bone.”

  “Sorry, kid,” said Sugar, counting wings in the air. “You lost again. You’re not very good at this voting thing, are you?”

  “Or at Sugarology,” added Sweetie.

  “That’s enough Dirtology for today,” said Sugar. “Everybody, back in the hole!”

  “Wait,” said Dirt. “We have to organize this the right way so we can keep track of our discoveries.” Dirt held out a box of wooden stakes. “We’ll place these in the ground to create a rectangle at the bottom of the hole. Then we’ll run string from one stake to another to create a grid, labeling it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and A, B, C, D, E.

  “We found the bone, here, at C2, extending into D3,” Dirt continued. “So that’s how we record it on the grid.”

  Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie nodded in agreement.

  “If you find something new, we’ll enter that on the grid too,” Dirt continued.

  Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie nodded in agreement again.

  “Sugar, you’ll take D5. Sweetie, you’ll take D4. And Poppy, why don’t you take C1?”

  “BINGO!” yelled Sugar.

  Dirt glared at her sister.

  “Just a little T. rex–grid humor, kid,” said Sugar.

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to laugh.

  Dirt did not laugh.

  “To the shelter!” cried Sugar. Poppy, Sweetie, and Dirt returned to the bone as Sugar set up stakes and roped off the area around the perimeter of the hole. Then she hung a sign: RESTRICTED AREA, before jumping into the dig with the rest of the squad.

  SWISH!

  Sugar used a toothbrush to gently clear an area in D5.

  SWISH!

  Sweetie used a paintbrush to gently clear away an area in D4.

  SWISH.

  Dirt used her own wing to gently brush an area in A2.

  SWISH.

  Poppy used a vegetable brush to gently clear an area in C1.

  “What are you kids doing down there?” asked Moosh, appearing at the edge of the hole.

  “Digging up a female T. rex leg bone from one hundred years ago,” said Sugar, not looking up.

  “Where did you get all those brushes?” asked Moosh, stepping even closer to the hole, momentarily losing her balance as she tipped too close to the edge. She steadied herself and then repeated the question. “The brushes?”

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to reply.

  Dirt had no reply.

  BOINK!

  BOINK!

  Two acorns landed at Moosh’s feet, and she immediately spun around and spotted a group of squirrels across the yard. “Hey!” yelled Sugar. “You can’t throw acorns at my mom!”

  Moosh took slow, deliberate steps toward the squirrels as they huddled closer and closer together, each pointing a finge
r at the squirrel next to them. Sugar followed at her side. “I’ll take it from here, Sugar,” said Moosh. “You go dig up that female T. rex leg bone while I have a little chat about backyard etiquette with our friends here.”

  “Close call!” said Sugar, leaping back into the hole. “We almost got busted with the brushes!”

  “I can’t believe they threw acorns at Mom,” said Sweetie. “I mean that is just . . . unconstitutional!”

  “The Constitution doesn’t actually cover throwing things at someone’s mom,” said Dirt.

  “It should!” declared Poppy.

  “I threw the acorns, kid,” Sugar admitted.

  “What??” Dirt shrieked.

  “You threw acorns at your own mother????” gasped Poppy. “That is definitely unconstitutional, right, Dirt???”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Dirt.

  “I did what had to be done, kid. You want to uncover a one-hundred-year-old female T. rex leg bone, or do you want be grounded for the rest of the month?”

  “But you were in the hole with us! How did you do that?” asked Sweetie.

  “When I originally planned the shelter, I dug an emergency tunnel that runs from here to the coop. I just ducked out for a second while Mom was focusing on her balance. I scurried behind the squirrels, lobbed the acorns, and then predicted that they would turn on one another when they realized Mom was headed their way.”

  “Advanced Sugarology,” said Sweetie. “It’s so hard to keep up!!”

  Dirt let out a heavy sigh.

  The squad went back to work.

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  “I found something!” Poppy screeched. “I found something!”

  “What is it?” asked Sweetie.

  “I’m not sure,” said Poppy, “but it’s round!”

  “OOH!” said Sweetie, leaning in closer.

  “It’s blue!” marveled Poppy.

  “OOH!” said Sweetie, leaning in closer still.

  “And it’s so pretty!” said Poppy.

  “That’s an eyeball!” shrieked Sweetie, taking a giant step away from their discovery.

  “Let’s mark it on the grid,” said Dirt, jotting the new find down in her notebook grid.

  “Do you see what I see?” asked Sweetie.

  “I’m not sure,” said Poppy, still considering the diagram. “What do you see?”

  “The bone is not a female T. rex leg bone, it’s a horn!” She borrowed Dirt’s pencil.

  “OH MY GOSH!” declared Poppy. “It’s a prehistoric blue-eyed unicorn!”

  “What we have here,” said Sugar, “is now the world’s first meteor-storm-prehistoric-unicorn–preserving shelter. It’s unprecedented.”

  SHING!!

  FLOOSH!

  A spoonful of dirt rained down into the hole.

  PLOP!

  Quickly followed by two more.

  PLOP!

  PLOP!

  Sugar stuck her head up out of the hole. The squirrels were digging a hole of their own in the shade of the oak tree.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Sugar as she scrambled out of the hole and ran across the yard. Gray Squirrel held up her hand and pointed to the sign: RESTRICTED AREA—SQUIRRELS ONLY.

  “What does it look like we’re doing?” asked Gray Squirrel from the other side of the rope.

  “It looks like you’re digging,” Sugar said calmly. “But you can’t dig here, buddy. We’ve unearthed a rare scientific find. It’s a prehistoric unicorn. And we don’t know what area we may need to dig up next. Got me?”

  “Unicorns don’t exist, chicken. But nice try,” answered the squirrel. “We know you’re digging a chickens-only shelter. So we’re digging one for the squirrels.”

  “Wrong again, squirrel,” said Sugar. “We were digging a chickens-only shelter, but now it’s a meteor-storm-prehistoric-unicorn–preserving shelter.”

  SHING!

  FLOOSH!

  PLOP.

  “Where did you get those spoons?” asked Sugar, eyeballing the collection in the squirrel hole.

  “Over there,” said the squirrel, pointing in no particular direction.

  “Over where?” demanded Sugar.

  “Garage sale,” said a squirrel, knee-deep in the hole.

  “Huh?” said Sugar.

  “Garbage,” said another squirrel, knee-deep in the hole.

  “What?” asked Sugar.

  “Santa,” said another squirrel, knee-deep in the hole.

  Sugar leaned in for a closer look and gasped. “Everybody knows you don’t dig holes with a teaspoon!” she yelled. “HAVE YOU NO CIVILITY??”

  The squirrels ignored Sugar’s outburst and the digging continued.

  SHOOSH!

  FOOSH!

  PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!

  “What is the hole for?” asked Dirt when she arrived. Poppy and Sweetie were right behind her.

  “Protection,” answered Gray Squirrel from the other side of the rope.

  “From a meteor?” guessed Dirt. “Meteor strikes are pretty rare, you know.”

  “Nope,” replied the squirrel.

  “Hurricane?” guessed Sweetie. “Meteorologists are actually very good at tracking them.”

  “Nope,” replied the squirrel.

  “Then what? What are you afraid of?” asked Poppy.

  “Your mom,” answered the squirrels in the hole. “She’s really scary when she’s mad.”

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to respond.

  But Sugar broke the silence.

  “You’re going to need some kind of door,” said Sugar.

  “Big one,” added Dirt.

  Chapter 6

  Back at their own hole, the chickens were now deep in discussion.

  “I vote that we order them to stop their dig,” announced Sugar. “We don’t know what else is buried under here, and we can’t risk anybody else damaging things we haven’t found yet! What if there is an entire unicorn village under our feet??”

  “We can’t stop their dig,” said Dirt. “It’s their yard too.”

  “But they restricted an area—you can’t just go ahead and restrict an area. Chickens need to roam!”

  “We restricted this area,” Dirt pointed out.

  “That’s different! We found a prehistoric unicorn village!!” said Sweetie.

  “We actually don’t know what we’ve found . . . yet,” said Dirt.

  “You know what?? Let them dig,” said Sugar. “They’re using teaspoons! At that rate, they’ll still be knee-deep come Christmas. Back to the hole!”

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  SWISH.

  “I found something!” Sweetie screeched. “I found something!”

  “What is it?” asked Dirt.

  “It’s long,” said Sweetie. The squad moved in closer.

  “OOOH, and it’s sharp!” marveled Sweetie. The squad moved in closer.

  “And it’s so shiny!” added Sweetie.

  “That’s a claw!” shrieked Poppy.

  “That’s impossible!” remarked Sweetie.

  “Why?” asked Poppy.

  “Because unicorns don’t have claws!” said Sweetie.

  “Let’s put it on the grid,” said Dirt.

  “Interesting,” remarked Dirt.

  “I found something too!” said Sugar.

  “What is it?” the squad said at the same time.

  “It’s round and it’s green,” announced Sugar.

  “It’s . . . another eye!” announced Sweetie.

  Dirt plotted it on the grid.

  “I don’t think that’s a unicorn,” said Poppy.

  “What is it?” asked Sweetie.

  “Allow me,” said Sugar, taking the pencil from above Dirt’s ear.

  “It’s a T. rex!” declared Poppy. “With a unicorn’s eyeball in its stomach!”

  “The dinosaurs ate all the unicorns??” asked Sweetie, al
l the yellow draining from her face.

  “Mystery solved, kid,” announced Sugar, looking a bit queasy herself.

  Poppy and Sweetie waited for Dirt to respond.

  “I don’t think we have the whole picture yet,” Dirt said.

  “We have plenty!” said Sugar. “I mean, just look at the grid! It couldn’t be more clear!”

  “Well, it is a little small for a T. rex,” said Sweetie.

  “We’ve discovered a miniature T. rex!” announced Sugar. “It’s like the miniature poodle of dinosaurs!”

  “Or it’s not a T. rex or a unicorn,” said Poppy, borrowing the pencil from Sugar.

  “It’s a new kind of creature that no one has even seen before!”

  “Could be,” said Dirt.

  “Really??” said Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie.

  “Let’s put it on the list of possibilities and keep working.”

  T. rex

  Unicorn

  Miniature T. rex who ate a unicorn

  Unknown mono-clawed creature with multiple eyes

  SHING!

  FOOSH!

  A shower of dirt rained down into the hole.

  PLIP.

  PLIP.

  PLIP.

  Chapter 7

  A crew of chipmunks was now digging in the corner by the vegetable garden. They had hung their own sign too: RESTRICTED AREA—CHIPMUNKS ONLY.

  SHOOSH!

  FOOSH!

  PLIP!

  “What do you guys think you’re doing?” Sugar demanded.

  “Digging a shelter. Chipmunks only,” replied the chipmunk in charge.

  “Why?” asked Dirt. “What are you afraid of?”

  “We don’t know. But you’re digging, and the squirrels are digging, so clearly there’s something to be afraid of, so we are digging our own, just in case.”

  “Just in case . . . what?” asked Dirt.

  “Just in case the thing that we don’t know about happens,” said the chipmunk, suddenly trembling. A low grumble began to fill the air around them. “And I think it’s happening right now!!”

  “What is that sound?” asked Sugar. “Are you flatulating?!!”