Every creaking floorboard, every sneeze, any sound at all that was out of the ordinary sent my mother screaming in from the other room.
"What?! What was that?! Was that the squirrel?!"
I doubt we would have told her if it was Peter, or a bloodbath would have ensued. As it was, Peter was now a marked squirrel; Mom had issued forth a warrant on the bug-eyed invader, and had sent several search parties out in effort to ensure his apprehension. Little brother #2 had already been deployed to the attic to make sure "Peter" wasn't a "Petra" with lots of little babies scurrying above our heads. No offspring were ever found, yet the search continued.
It was while Mom slept that Peter returned to watch his opponent. One night in particular, he sat on a potted plant outside of my parents' open bedroom door. He sat at the very top of the plant, little paws together and those big eyes, just watching mom sleep. Dad and I almost had a fit trying not to laugh. Why didn't we catch it? You can't catch those things with your bare hands, or so we had leaned. No, he was either going to be adopted as a permanant part of the household, or we would have to employ weapons.
Which was exactly what Mom had in mind. Although she desperately wanted the immediate termination of Peter, she begrudgingly conceded to use a "Have-A-Heart" trap. These traps are designed to lure the animal inside a metal box. Once the trigger is released, the door shuts and you can safely and humanely relocate the animal. Sounds nice, right? Mom researched what flying squirrels like to eat, and baited the trap. For days we waited....nothing. Well, perhaps he was too clever to take food from a large metal box sitting in the living room, so we disguised it with pillows and blankets. A few more days passed....nothing. He wasn't even interested.
Mom was livid, and at her wits end. She didn't sleep for nights, certain that she would wake to find Peter sitting on her chest, watching her sleep. In addition to his nightly vigils outside her bedroom, the squirrel had now taken to slamming into the walls at night. It sounded like he was playing bumper cars, ramming full force into walls and knocking things over. Of course, that made Mom assume he was rabid, but disease wasn't the reason for Peter's sudden lack of coordination. One morning, I awoke to this mess as I went to make my coffee.
Apparently, Peter did not care for the bait we had left him. He preferred Folger's Caramel Drizzle Keurig Cups. Eating raw coffee grounds made the little squirrel overdose on caffiene, which is what made him slam into the walls as he ran. As if that wasn't bad enough, he had also got into Mom's favorite chocolate pizzelle cookies...the ones she eats with her coffee ice cream. It was as if he had just signed his own death certificate. No one (and I mean no one) messes with Mom's pizzelles. Inspired, she made a trail of coffee (or a Caramel Drizzle, if you prefer) to the trap, but we all know Peter was too smart for that. Again, there was no success.
"That's it!" she declared with a fury. "No more playing nice, no more 'Have-a-Heart' crap. He's going down. I want him dead!"
It was a little like something from the Godfather, honestly. I knew Peter's days were now numbered. The next day, I came home from work to find Mom setting rat traps. Not mousetraps, mind you; rat traps. As big as a shoe, these traps deliver an absurd amount of "THWACK" and usually don't fail. One should do the job; we had two and a backup in the cupboard. To bait each trap was a little bit of pizzelle and peanut butter. Even I would have crossed the room for that; the little fella didn't stand a chance.
The next day, I came home to find a new woman....and a dead squirrel. To the sorrow of all (except one), Peter was dead. Vanquished by his own gluttony, and the vengeful determination of a terrorized and sleep-deprived woman with a hatred for rodents, he was no more. I was glad to be spared the gory details, but did have to see the pictures Mom had taken. Little Brother #1 is pre-med, so Mom had insisted he do an examination of dead Peter, to be sure that he was, in fact, a Peter...not a mommy. I can assure you that he did not suffer. His broken little body disposed of without much ceremony, we returned to our daily routine, forever to remember the two weeks of terror that ensued because a squirrel came to visit on my mother's birthday.
So ends the saga of Peter the Flying Squirrel. If you are just reading this for the first time and are completely and utterly confused, read these, The Peter Saga: part 1 and The Peter Saga: part 2, then come back.
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