The Great Nut Job

Frank, the flying squirrel, was not having a very good morning.

It was raining, his mating dance practice was not coming along nearly as well as he hoped, and his nut cache had been stolen. To top things off, his buddy, Fred, was being less than sympathetic.

“Dude,” said Fred. “You need to stop trying so hard. Just grab yourself a couple of pine nuts, find a lady friend for the evening, and worry about everything tomorrow. Works for me.”

“I don't have any lady friends,” said Frank morosely.

Fred shrugged. “You can have one of mine.”

“Some of us actually like to solve our own problems.”

“And I can never figure out why when it's just so much easier to ignore them. Oh well, sounds like you need a wish granter.”

“A what?”

“A wish granter. Like the one on Mount Kamoogie.”

Frank paused and washed his ears for a moment as he contemplated this. Then, “There's no such thing.”

“Sure there is,” Fred insisted. “The all-knowing hamster wish granter who lives on top of the mountain. Everyone knows about him. Though, I suppose it doesn't really matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, no one who has gone to find him has ever returned. You don't stand a chance. Sorry.”

“Sure I do!” Insisted Frank, who suddenly found himself desperate to prove himself. “I'll be the first one ever to make it to that wish granter!”

“Nah, you need a wish granter just to make it there.”

“Maybe you would, but I'll make it up there and back down by this time tomorrow, I'll bet you my remaining stash of acorns!”

And without even waiting for Fred's reply to his bet, Frank turned tail and was off in the direction of Mount Kamoogie.

Fred sat down on his haunches and scratched his face with one paw as he watched his friend wander off.

“I can't believe he fell for that,” he said to himself.

Above his head, another squirrel popped her head out from a knot in the tree trunk. One of Fred's lady friends who had been listening in on the conversation. She also thought that Frank was rather cute in his own clueless sort of way, and had been secretly hoping that he would take his friend up on the earlier offer.

“Should someone go chase after him?” she asked.

“Nah,” Fred replied. “Knowing Frank, he'll probably get turned around soon enough and wind up wandering back here without meaning to. I'm sure we will see him again shortly.”

*

“Need to wish myself to the top?” Frank muttered to himself as he scampered along a branch. “Ha! I'll show him!”

Frank continued on this way for quite awhile, flitting from tree to tree and cursing under his breath, perfectly unaware of the pair of eyes that had begun to follow him. Soon enough however, he began to notice that the forest had grown eerily quiet. The fur on the back of his neck stood up and slowly he turned around to find himself face to face with a mass of scales.

“Snake!” Frank screeched and darted up the tree as fast as he could. The mass unfurled itself and slithered up after him. Frank felt that he was surely doomed. Behind him the creature's mouth opened and poisonous fangs reached closer to him every moment.

Luckily, being a flying squirrel, Frank had one last ditch possibility at safety. He leapt from the tree, stretching out the membranes between his legs so they filled with air and allowed him to glide away. The snake launched after him, snapping, but the jaws closed down around air. Frank was free. He could hear the dismayed hissing from behind him as an updraft helped carry him up the mountain.

But Frank's mode of rescue was also the cause of his next possible demise, for he was not the only one gliding through the air that day. A hawk, circling high overhead spotted its next target and immediately dove down.

Unlike snakes though, hawks are proud and egotistical beings and have a habit of announcing their victory before they actually claim it. Thus Frank heard the triumphant cry and looked up in time to spot the approaching danger.

Before the claws, so reminiscent of the snake's fangs, could close in around him, Frank collapsed and plummeted out of the air to safety below.

Unfortunately, safety was painful.

“Oomph!” said Frank as he landed in a heap.

Carefully he stood up, aching and battered, and bitterly thinking that this wish granter had better be worth all the trouble.

“The trees have snakes, the air has hawks,” Frank grumbled to himself. “I guess I'm on the ground now until I run into a colony of killer ants.”

His belly rumbled in answer.

Continuing onward by foot, he idly wondered if he could find food rather than being food for a change.  But he had never been this high up the mountain before, and everything here was new to him. Would those tasty looking purple berries replenish his energy or simply poison him?

Bruised, hungry, and tired, Frank finally struggled his way to the top. Albeit, at a crawl, but he had no strength left for pride.

A lone woodchuck sat at the peak.

“Excuse me!” Frank gasped. “Are you the wish granter?”

“What nonsense is this?” replied the woodchuck, clearly annoyed at being disturbed.

“Are you the wish granting hamster of Mount Kamoogie?”

“Do I look like a hamster to you?” the stranger snapped.

Frank paused. Considering that he didn't actually know what a hamster looked like, he wanted to answer 'yes' but he decided against it.

“Besides,” the woodchuck continued. “You're not even on the mountain.”

“What?”

He pointed behind Frank.

“That's Mount Kamoogie.”

Frank turned to face the towering rock face he had somehow not noticed before. He quailed. In comparison, the slope he just battled his way up was a mere hill.

“Besides there's no such thing a wish granters. You should just go home.”

With a resigned sigh, Frank agreed. It was time to head back down to reality.