Fairy-tale for 21st century children.

Белка и лес. Squirrelina and the forest.

Анна Сахновская. Anna Sakhnovskaya.

Original Russian text: http://samlib.ru/editors/s/sahnowskaja_a_o/belka_i_les.shtml

Once upon a time, there lived Squirrelina. She had a friend, Squirrel. They lived in a forest where nobody else ever went because of the entrance fee that was charged.

Squirrelina’s ancestors had set the fee such a long time ago that nobody remembered why they did it and what the real reason was. The charge was so high that no one out of all forest inhabitants even tried to pass along the cherished border. How did Squirrel get in there?, you may ask. Squirrelina simply liked him. When, being bored, she was looking at the security footage, she saw that someone was hanging around the entrance. She looked closer and… maybe she fell in love, and maybe she didn’t, but Squirrel was handsome and she lodged him in her hollow. By the way, Squirrel was happy because Squirrelina’s hollow was completely renovated.

So, they were sitting side by side, looking at the camera monitors. Squirrelina said:

“Why did you decide to live with me? Weren’t you afraid?”

“No, you‘re just a squirrel; what can you do with me?”

“But you don’t know what to expect from me.”

“I don’t know, but I can assume”, said Squirrel and moved closer.

“Weren’t you scared in the forest?” Squirrelina couldn’t calm down.

“Nope.” Squirrel was very close.

“But it’s so frightful out there!”

“Not any more than with me”, smiled Squirrel.

And suddenly Squirrelina felt afraid. Squirrel didn’t look like that nice and sweet guy from the monitor anymore – two of his teeth turned into fangs, Squirrel was a vampire!

Squirrelina thought: I must call for help.

But there was a problem. She didn’t know anybody in the area, and she never went outside the border of her forest. However, she realized that it was better to leave the forest and call for help than to be eaten by a vampire.

After running out of the chargeable zone, Squirrelina bawled: “Vampire invasion! Help!” Hedgehog was passing by. Squirrelina was extremely afraid of him – he was so thorny, strange and looked like E.T. (poor Squirrelina had never seen a single hedgehog).

            “Keep away!” cried Squirrelina.

            “Mmmm”, mumbled Hedgehog “wasn’t that you who called for help?”

            “It was me,” said Squirrelina, “but I expected to see other Squirrels; who are you?”

            “I’m Hedgehog, vampire hunter. I’ve got silver needles and I kill vampires with one stab”.

            “I don’t believe you”, answered Squirrelina. “There are no hedgehogs; there are only squirrels”.

            “That’s not true. Squirrels and hedgehogs – there are many of us both. Hey, the vampire is flying towards us!” shouted Hedgehog and darted his needle somewhere behind Squirrelina.

            Squirrelina fell in a dead faint being overwhelmed by emotions. She came to herself and... dropped her jaw. There were so many weird creatures that she even couldn’t imagine that all of them were living here, out of the chargeable zone. And why did they stare at her?

            “She’s alive!” screamed creatures. Squirrelina looked at them suspiciously. What if they are also vampires?

            “Who are you all? I hope nobody crossed the chargeable zone?”

            “Nobody,” said Hedgehog, touchy. “Is it all you want to say?”

            “Well, yeah,” mumbled Squirrelina. “And are you that Hedgehog? What happened to the vampire?”

           “Nothing,” answered Hedgehog and went away. Other creatures turned away too and soon everyone disappeared. Squirrelina was left alone; moldering vampire corpse was lonely resting behind her back.

So Squirrelina went again into her fee-frozen forest. Back to watching monitors to prevent penetrating, she thought. So everything became the same as it had been before the meeting with the vampire. Every day Squirrelina was looking at the monitors sharp-sightedly safeguarding her forest. She saw weird creatures who were passing by but nobody tried to penetrate, nobody needed Squirrelina, nobody was interested in her.

Squirrelina fell into a funk. She started to think, These creatures don’t seem to be vampires. And Hedgehog is a good fellow even though he is not a squirrel.

I need to abolish the entrance fee! she thought and took away the price banner. “Now they will come into my forest!” But nobody came. Nobody even noticed that there was no price banner.

Squirrelina was grief-stricken to the bone. She couldn’t sleep at night, she was sick in the day, and she wasted away in her completely renovated hollow. She was wasting away for quite a long time; even her tears stopped. Eventually, Squirrelina was fed up with crying, so she stood up and decided to leave the forest.

She went out, and it was so frightening! But she couldn’t go back home – her legs wouldn’t obey her. So Squirrelina kept on going despite everything. While she was going along the forest, she saw Hedgehog who was coming towards her. He must recognize me! thought Squirrelina and her heart beat merrily. Hedgehog recognized her, but he decided to pass her by. He forgot me, thought Squirrelina and couldn’t hold back her tears. Hedgehog heard her sobbing and stopped.

“Any vampires again?” he asked.

“No,” Squirrelina shook her head.

“Okay,” said Hedgehog and continued his way.

“Don’t go away,” Squirrelina asked him pitifully.

Hedgehog stopped, turned back and took pity on Squirrelina.

“I abolished entrance fee in my forest,” she said crying her eyes.

“Why do you cry? Aren’t you happy about it?”

“I don’t know,” answered Squirrelina. “Nobody came in even though there’s no fee anymore. Do you know why?”

“Did you invite anyone?”

“No, do I need to do that? Vampire was hanging around near the entrance without invitation…”

“Ah, that’s a vampire, and we’re forest inhabitants. We are decent, humble animals and we visit only our friends and only in case of invitation. And you are not our friend and you didn’t invite us…”

Squirrelina cried even more than before.

“Please, forgive me for not thanking you for the help, let’s be friends,” suggested Squirrelina blushing and wiping her nose.

Hedgehog smiled and flushed.

“Don’t cry, killing vampires is my job. Anybody else would do the same in my place. Let’s be friends,” and he extended his paw. After a pawshake, Squirrelina invited Hedgehog in her hollow and asked him to introduce her to his friends. Hedgehog happily agreed, and soon Squirrelina’s hollow was full of noise and joy that the forest had never seen before.

            The complete hollow renovation quickly went to waste, but the path to Squirrelina’s house never overgrew.

Moscow, 2011.

Squirrelina and the forest by Anna Sakhnovskaya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://stopka-knig.blogspot.ru/.