11

“Shave Rebber!” someone screamed through a mouthful of food.

“What?!”

“He said, SAVE REVVER!” he heard someone else answer.

“Oh, brother!”

Bounce, Sprite, and Farty jumped into action in the branches below Revver. None of them were big enough or strong enough to catch him. All they could do was try to slow him down, break his fall, and hope for the best. There was no time for anything else.

Suddenly a brown blur came bouncing up, speeding toward Revver, pushing him and pausing his fall for a moment. The blur shoved into his stomach HARD. Revver coughed and gasped. Now he was coming back down again, but more slowly.

“Your turn!” Revver heard.

Another, much smaller brown blur swung from a branch and pushed at him. Again, Revver stopped falling for a tiny moment. He started falling back down again, even more slowly.

And then a very big, very heavy, thick blur pushed into him, hard. And again, the first blur. And then the littler, second blur again.

Each time, Revver stopped falling for a split second, and then he continued down more slowly. Each hit was slowing his fall.

“Now ALL TOGETHER!”

Finally, Revver was knocked sideways, with three brown blurs bouncing and pushing at him with full force, all at once.

Revver came to rest on his back with a boom! in a thick tangle of leafy branches, just a few feet from the ground. His binoculars bounced off him as Bounce, Sprite, and Farty landed around him, all weary and panting. They had worked together, jumping and pushing at him, to save him from the fall.

“Revver! Are you COMPLETELY nuts?!” Bounce gulped for air.

Farty sniffed the air. “Nuts?” he asked. “Where?!” Somehow, through all of it, he was still chewing.

“Revver!” Sprite squealed. “You almost killed yourself!”

“And we all could have died trying to save you!”

Revver did not hear a word. He was filled with a kind of excitement he had never felt before. His heart was pounding. His paws were shaking. He jumped to his feet. “Did you SEE that?! Did you SEEEEE?! Did you notice how fast I was going?! SO fast! WOW! That was AMAZING!”

“Oh, BROTHER!!! Did you hit your head on the way down, because I’M SURE what you meant to say was, ‘Thank you all for saving my life’!” Sprite boomed. She was NOT pleased.

“Don’t worry, Sprite. It was an accident—I promise! I was just watching the race, and I leaned out a little too far, and . . . ​Oh! The race! I need to see what happened!”

Revver started searching around for his binoculars.

“Oh, Revver! How will you ever survive in the wilderness?!”

Not even bothering to look up, Revver said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about this. I’m not very interested in the wilderness. I’ve decided that I’m going to live at the track.” Revver spoke matter-of-factly. But if Revver was being honest, he would have to admit that he hadn’t been thinking about it. Revver did not really plan anything. This wonderful idea had occurred to him that very second, inspired by the incredible feeling of SPEED that still had him tingling.

His siblings were so shocked by the very idea that they froze in place with their mouths hanging open. Then they all started talking at once:

“Oh, brother! Are you kidding?!”

Bounce jumped up and began hopping wildly. “The TRACK?! You’re a SQUIRREL! What can you possibly do there, around all those DANGEROUS CARS?!”

“Cars!” Farty gulped as he swallowed. Cars were a scary thought.

All together, his three siblings chanted, “If you get near THAT, you’ll end up FLAT!”

“What WILL you do there? How will you survive without any Essential Skills? What EXACTLY is your plan, little brother?!” asked Sprite.

Ugh! He really hated when she called him that. Revver said nothing. He tried to hide the fact that he was getting very annoyed and just kept searching for his binoculars. Sprite knew darn well that he had no plan, ever.

“I have skills,” Revver said simply.

“Watching cars and wanting everything fast and making that horrible sound are NOT valuable skills.”

“They are valuable to me. And maybe they would be valuable to someone. Maybe I have different skills. Maybe I just need to find someone who understands.” And somehow, Revver just knew, if that someone existed, the track would be the place to find them.

They all felt scared and worried. All except one.

“Aha! Here they are!” Revver untangled his binoculars from around a nearby twig, thankful they were not broken. “I have to get back to the race to see what happened!” he said as he hurried up toward the nest. “Oh yeah, and thanks for saving my life and everything . . . ,” Revver’s voice trailed off as he scurried away.

Sprite’s stomach was in knots. She was pretty sure that, as much as she loved her brother, she would never, could never, understand him. Would Revver ever get the chance to leave the nest at all? Even if he could prove to Mama that he had mastered his skills, Sprite had already helped save Revver’s life TWICE in the last two days. Skills? DID Revver have a single useful skill? Sprite knew him better than anyone, and even she doubted it.

Sprite feared that, one way or another, Revver was doomed.