Chubby
By Kharis Park
Gasoline mingled with the scent of fresh-cut grass as I rumbled over the concrete. My knuckles were white from gripping the vibrating handles; my teeth clattered against each other under a wide smile. Nothing was more exhilarating than hitting top speed at 35 miles per hour. The wind’s long fingers ruffled my hair through the slots of my brightly colored helmet. Dad led in front; the dimensions of his scooter disproportionate, the tires too large like the man on top. My muscled, Korean father teetered on the metal board as he hit the gas on the blacktop of the basketball court. The sunlight reflected off of his scalp through the black spikes in his hair. My brother trailed behind on my old electric scooter, a big, dumb smile consuming his face. Dad came to a halt near the playground where some kids and a man had gathered.
“The poor thing is so little,” I heard the man say. “It just ran up and sat on my foot. The kids were chasing it around.”
They were looking down through the large storm drain occupying the space between the playground and soccer field. Curious, I dismounted from my scooter to join. My eyes strained to make out the details of the figure in the pit. A squirrel, no bigger than my fist, sniffed the ground below. It barely moved, fatigued from whatever cruelties nature had inflicted upon it. My heart fell when my father dismissed the bystanders, assuring them animal control would take care of it. I stared at the helpless creature, longing to comfort and care for it. When the crowd left, my father winked and gripped the bars of the grate with both hands, emitting a pained groan as lifted it from its place.
“Whoo!” He leapt into the drain and scooped the tiny creature up with one hand, lifting himself out with the other. I smiled. The Park family would never let an animal suffer.
Homeschooling had its perks. There was much more potential when it came to class pets. Sugar was the first. Rabbits aren’t a common sight in California, so when we moved to Colorado and discovered a baby in the window well, my parents couldn’t help but nurse the thing back to health to release it into the wild that was our backyard. When we moved to Highlands Ranch there were two baby robins, Chewy and Dewy, who were knocked from their nest. Their necks were twisted at an odd angle, but they were still breathing, so mom took them in and brought them back to life. Though we had taken in quite a few critters, I had never had a pet of my own. Eleven was a lonely year, and I spent most of it watching Animal Planet and dreaming of acquiring a fiercely fuzzy companion. Steve Irwin had taught me to find beauty in all of God’s creatures and admire even the scaliest.
The frail bundle in the cardboard box before me was the most charming thing I had ever laid eyes on. My family sat in the garage that Easter Sunday, staring at the little thing whose eyes were barely open. After some extensive online research, my mother reported that the squirrel wasn’t old enough for solid food and congratulated us on our new, female addition. My father dropped everything to make an emergency trip to the pet store, returning with a syringe and formula while my mom constructed a bed out of torn bits of sheet that rested atop a heating pad. When the night ended, we set her up in my room and hoped for the best.
“She probably won’t make it through the night,” my dad said. How could I sleep knowing this precious little thing could die any second? I checked on her every hour to make sure she was comfortable; those sleepy little eyes looked up at me with such innocence, my heart could hardly bear it.
I named her Chubby after her insatiable appetite. She learned her name quickly after countless hours of calling to her as she scampered from person to person on the living room floor. Fox squirrels, like Chubby, are equipped with needle-like claws that allow them to scour trees and allude predators. Maybe Chubby confused the bright green of my Aeropostale hoodie for the leafy foliage of a tree, as she certainly treated me like one. She’d climb up my arm and shove her head underneath the neck of my jacket, burrowing towards my hand. I’d hold almonds at the entrance of my sleeve and watch her twitching nose emerge from the fabric, gently grasp it between her paws and munch with content. Did you know squirrels purr? They chitter in the back of their throats as a sign of content. When my hands were occupied and my sleeves unavailable, Chubby would curl up in my hood or pocket and emit a soft rumble as I stroked her delicate form.
As Chubby grew older, her energy became less manageable. She wasn’t happy with the size of her cage or the time she spent alone and would lash out at my mother, whipping her tail and chirping at her angrily. It was clear that the time to reintroduce her to the great outdoors had come. I loaded up the laundry basket with thick branches to give her something to climb on and placed it on the deck. She struggled against me as I set her in the basket. I turned around to admire the trees and daydream about the normal squirrel life Chubby would soon have. I glanced at the laundry basket just in time to see Chubby’s little body hurtling through the air towards me, landing on my shoulder with a thud. She dove towards my pocket and snuggled up against my stomach as I tried to subdue the resulting panic of the assault. Okay, so, not ready for the outside world yet. Noted.
We were fortunate to find a tall, metal cage at Goodwill that we set up outside by the big tree in our yard. She adapted quicker than I thought and ran off on her own within a few days of introducing her back into “the wild.” My 12-year-old heart could barely stand the stress of leaving my baby outside in the dark all by herself. But there she was the next morning, hanging upside down on our screen door, begging for food. Squirrels are incredibly intelligent, and Chubby was no exception. The screen door only hung from the top, so when she was hungry, she would climb onto the screen, pull back and slam it against the glass to alert us of the absence of organic almonds in her feeder.
Fox squirrels mate twice throughout the year, once in December and once in June. I was unprepared for the swarm of squirrels that smacked the roof in smitten pursuit of what must have been the only girl in the neighborhood. The displeasure of the situation sunk in my stomach with nauseating unease. No wonder my parents were so against dating. Chubby was preoccupied for a season. Her flirtatious tail flicks attracted lots of attention, some unpleasant. The biggest of the squirrels chased her around the yard, stole her food and was overall just a big bully. He infuriated me. This was Chubby’s yard and he thinks he can come in and take over because of the size of his balls? No. I had had enough.
I was too proud of my simple contraption of mangled wire and string. Laced with organic almonds, the cage stood unstirred. I watched from my hiding spot behind the barbeque grill, hand at the ready. I waited for what felt like hours to the twelve-year-old brain. A flicker caught the edge of my eye as a fluffy tail wiggled in appraisal. My heart rate quickened as Big Balls cautiously entered the cage. Wack! I yanked the wire, slamming the door. The squirrel responded with immediate rage, ricocheting off the walls of the cage, screaming its demonic squirrel song. My hands reached towards the sky in triumphant exaltation.
“I caught him! I caught him!” I screamed, bursting into the house. My father leapt into action. The squirrel hissed and chirped as dad and his friend loaded the cage into the back of the truck. I hope the grass was greener in the lot behind church because that’s where my dad took him, never to be seen again.
There was a period of a couple of months where we didn’t see Chubby at all. Food was left out in hopes of her return though it was often in vain. Maybe Chubby’s domestic ways left her vulnerable to the cruelties of people, cars and predators. Perhaps she moved on to another neighborhood; Fox Squirrels aren’t very territorial, after all.
Suddenly there were four. A group of tiny bodies descended onto the squirrel feeder months after Chubby’s disappearance. My baby had returned with grandchildren, and I could not have been happier or more proud. She taught them to trust me, to eat from my hand and demand food. We moved shortly after her return. I always knew I’d have to let her go. Squirrels aren’t meant to be indoor pets and we couldn’t just take her with us. I look back on those times fondly and with much pride. She adapted so quickly and learned to live well while teaching me a basic form of motherhood.
Our neighbors from the old house contacted us a month after we moved.
“I think your squirrel adopted us,” the message said. A familiar Fox squirrel stood on the screen with a nut between its paws. She sure was living up to her name! My first pet. My darling. My Chubby.