LILY, Chapter 2
The war with the squirrels
Chapter 2/ Mr. Simpson’s War with the Squirrels
The girls, Lily and June Mae, were sitting on the steps in front of Lily’s house watching the moving men move furniture into Mr. Simpson’s empty house.
Lily picked at a scab on her knee. “Have you seen them yet, the new people? Think they have any kids?”
June Mae said she was pretty sure Mr. Simpson’s house was probably haunted by Mr. Simpson’s ghost. She would never live there, not in that house, not if you paid her a million dollars. June Mae claimed she saw the dead body of Mr. Simpson before the ambulance came and hauled it away. It was a horrible thing to see.
Lily had not been home when the whole thing happened and had never seen a dead body in her entire life. Who wants to see a dead body anyway?
June Mae said Mr. Simpson declared war on squirrels, so it was his own fault he fell off the roof like that. When somebody dies like that, falling off a roof, a quick violent death, lots of times their ghost will linger around the place where they died. Because when a death happens super-fast like that, the person’s soul gets confused. It can’t figure out what happened. One second it was inside Mr. Simpson, up on top of the roof plugging up holes, and the next second it was floating around free because Mr. Simpson’s body was lying dead on the ground of a broken neck.
“My daddy said that is why it took so long to sell his house. Because people know what happened and how it’s probably haunted.”
Lily felt that June Mae put great faith in the dumb stuff her father told her. She personally did not believe in ghosts but did not like to get into arguments with the older girl, so she kept her opinion to herself.
The movers were carrying large items of furniture that belonged to the new owner into Mr. Simpson’s house.
June Mae said she already knew the new person moving in was a man, a professor who worked at the college up on the hill, which was why the moving men had to carry in box after box of books. Heavy books. She said her parents would never have that many books. “Why would you want to?”
Lily liked books. She had read almost all the Harry Potters and especially loved the character Hermione.
June Mae said she had heard workmen had come to Mr. Simpsons house and removed the carpet in the living room, pulled it up, and then they’d sanded and varnished the wooden floor that had been hidden underneath the carpet.
“Why would you even do something like that? A perfectly good carpet. So stupid. Who wants a wood floor when you can have a warm carpet, especially in the winter?”
Lily thought she might like a wooden floor.
June Mae said a carpenter had come a week ago and made bookshelves for the house, for the new owner, to contain all his stupid books. The new owner was a science teacher so that was probably what his books were about. Science.
The movers were maneuvering a long leather sofa into the house.
Mr. Simpson, the man who had lived in the house next to Joe’s, had been a certified public accountant. What happened was that one fall, squirrels had invaded his soffits. Probably they were seeking a sheltered place to spend the winter out of the cold. Mr. Simpson had soon discovered invaders were living in his roof because when he was in bed in his bedroom on the second floor, he could hear them scrambling around. So far as the squirrels were concerned, Mr. Simpson’s soffits were now their playground.
Mr. Simpson did not appreciate having squirrels living in his soffits, making a racket all night. In his opinion, when squirrels invade a man’s roof, when they ruin a man’s sleep, they have gone too far. The homeowner has a right, even a duty, to declare war. The accountant declared war on the invaders. He bought an extension ladder and a metal trap with a spring door. He climbed the ladder until he was high enough to hammer small nails into the slope of his roof. He balanced the trap on the nails, not far from a hole in the soffits, and baited it with peanut butter.
Soon, a squirrel emerged from a hole in one of his soffits. It sniffed around the trap, caught the scent of the peanut butter, invaded the trap, and licked up the peanut butter. Unfortunately for the squirrel, this action triggered the trap and caused its metal door to spring shut. This occurrence so startled the squirrel, it jumped up, crashed into the metal roof of the cage, and knocked the entire cage loose from the nails. The trap, still containing the rodent, slid off the roof and crashed down onto Mr. Simpson’s driveway, where it sprang open. The squirrel vanished at high speed.
Lily knew this story because she had been sitting on Joe’s porch swing beside Joe when Mr. Simpson came over and told Joe why he was climbing up on top of his roof and why all squirrels who dare to invade a man’s roof deserve death.
The next time Mr. Simpson caught a squirrel, the trap was better secured. He had already prepared one of his garbage cans by filling it with water; he called it The Garbage Can of Death.
Lily decided she did not like Mr. Simpson, she preferred the squirrels. She admired their long fluffy tails.
Mr. Simpson continued his war with the squirrels all winter until, so far as he could tell, his soffits were completely free of varmints. He declared victory. On a mild and sunny spring afternoon, he climbed on top of his roof with a pail of wet plaster and a roll of wire mesh, planning to seal all the holes the squirrels had created.
An hour later, Joe took Otway out for a walk, but they didn’t get far. As soon as they got out the front door, Otway got all excited, refused to go on their normal walk, barked and complained and pulled Joe over to the side of his house, and there he was, Mr. Simpson, lying on the ground at the foot of his extension ladder with a broken neck.
The movers were having trouble maneuvering a king size mattress into the front door of the new neighbor’s house.
June Mae said because the mattress was so big, it meant the professor who was moving in must have a wife. “My mom and dad have one of those too.”
Lily scratched a mosquito bite on her ankle. “Did you know some people are allergic to pets? Larry is.” Larry was the dentist who was going to marry Lily’s mother at the end of the summer. “Like if Larry is even in the same room as a dog or a cat, his eyes start watering.”
“I’ve heard of that sort of trouble. One of my aunts is like that.” June Mae had a great many relatives living nearby. “My cousin Billy Boy is the same way. If he even sees a cat, he starts sneezing.”
When Lily’s mother had become engaged to Larry, she had given away Lily’s cat. Lily still grieved the loss of her tabby.
The next morning, Lily woke up and got dressed. She sat at the kitchen table and consumed a bowl of Cheerios.
Her mom looked at her for a moment. “Did you look across the street yet?”
“Why would I?”
“The new neighbors are all moved in.”
“Who cares?”
Lily was not the sort of girl who got into a happy mood before she had finished her bowl of Cheerios.
“It’s a man and his daughter. He’s kind of cute for a professor. I went over and said hi to him. His name is Steve. He’s an expert on yeast.”
Lily spooned out the final Cheerio and then tilted the bowl so she could drink all the remaining milk.
“He has a daughter just about your age. You ought to go over there and introduce yourself. Her name is Raven.”
Lily was staring down into the damp interior of her empty bowl as if she saw something surprisingly interesting in there. Was it possible? Could it be true that one of her three wishes was coming true? Already?