There are security guards, children, teachers, and museum workers crowded into the staff lounge room—all searching for me. Most of the people are running around, looking behind things, looking under things, looking on top of things, looking behind/under/on top of things they’ve already looked behind/under/on top of. Those who aren’t running around are shouting advice about where to look.

“Look in the cabinet under the sink.”

“Did you move the cushions on the chair?”

“What about behind the refrigerator?”

“What about in the refrigerator?”

All that activity makes me want to run back and forth, too.

Especially when I see that the person who picked the spilled food off the floor didn’t notice one of those small tomatoes. Nobody else notices, either.

My empty tummy tells me how very good that tomato would taste. I imagine my teeth pressing into the firm skin, then the sudden pop! and the squirt of juice in my mouth. Mmmm! It’s not very far from where I’m hiding under the bookcase.

But then someone’s foot kicks it away. And somebody else’s foot kicks it in a different direction, still away. It bounces off the table leg and goes spinning toward one of the chairs. But yet another foot kicks it before it rolls underneath, and now it’s within a quick dash-and-grab of me.

The boy in the movable chair sees me watching the tomato and he raises a hand the way the crossing guards at school do to signal Stop.

Someone else kicks the tomato and now it’s farther from me than before. I’d better go for it before it gets too far away.

But then, before I move, I hear Security Guard ask, “Did anyone look under the bookcase?”

Uh-oh!

I back up, but there isn’t far to go. The sides and back of the bookcase go all the way down to the floor, so there’s no way out but through the front—where I can see the feet of Security Guard coming toward me.

The boy in the movable chair wheels himself between me and Security Guard and asks, “What about the lockers? Shouldn’t you search those?”

Security Guard stops walking toward me. “How would he get in?” he asks. “They’re all closed.”

“But they don’t have locks,” the boy says. “He might have. You don’t know he didn’t. Squirrels have hands, and that’s one smart squirrel.”

I am, I think. I’m a very smart squirrel.

Security Guard growls, “That’s one dead squirrel if I get my hands on him. I plan to wring his neck.”

Oooo, so not a pet after all. I wonder if he could be a wolf.

A little girl starts crying. She’d want me as a pet.

The museum worker who was in here eating all that glorious food tells Security Guard, “That’s no way to talk.” She tells the little girl, the children, everybody, “Don’t worry. I’m the director of the museum, and what I say goes. We will capture the squirrel live and release it unharmed outside.”

If I get to choose, that definitely sounds better than neck-wringing.

The museum worker-director says to Security Guard, “Why don’t you check the lockers?”

Grumbling, he turns away from the bookcase. He opens a locker, slams it shut, opens another locker, slams it shut…The boy in the movable chair looks at me and pats next to himself, the seat of the chair.

I think he’s trying to help, but I’m not sure.

Everybody else is facing the lockers.

I decide now is the time to catch that traveling tomato.

I dart out from under the bookcase, and—oops!—it turns out not everyone is watching Security Guard open and close lockers. “There he is!” calls out the girl who was crying before. Then she adds, “You meant that about not hurting him, didn’t you?”

A little late to check now!

I run to hide back under the bookcase, but everybody’s watching, so that’s no good. I change direction as quickly as that tomato bouncing off someone’s toe. I go under the table. Too open. The food that spilled has made the floor slippery, and I skid when I try to change directions. I slide away from the chair close to the door and find myself near the couch instead. I climb up onto the couch and run along the back.

“Run, squirrel, run!” calls out the boy in the movable chair.

Security Guard is closer than I thought. He swings his net—just as one of his big feet lands on my beautiful tomato, squishing it. His leg slips sideways in all that juicy juice, and I fling myself off the couch and at the row of lockers behind.

The lockers turn out to be metal (I never knew that!), and that means nothing for my nails to dig into. There are slits near the top that would make a great place to hold on, but between them and me is smooth slippery metal. Despite my scratching and scraping, I slide down the face of the locker until I get to the handle, which stops my slide. I manage to get my back feet and my front feet onto the handle, and I can jump onto the counter once I have my footing.

But before I can jump, there’s a click! and the locker door swings open. Wheee! I twist around to the other side of the door—the side that’s usually inside—and leap into the locker and catch hold of a coat that’s hanging from a hook (not the coat Ponytail has been throwing at me and children). I climb up the coat and onto a little shelf that’s in the locker. It’s crowded on the shelf because there’s a plastic bag like some of the students carry their lunches in to keep their food cold. I sniff the bag, but I don’t smell food.

From this higher spot, I can jump up and across to the top of the thing they called refrigerator. Then I can climb down the back of that, run behind the chair that’s close to the door, and run out of this staff lounge.

The only thing stopping me is that bag, which takes up too much room. I can make a better jump if I start from a level spot. So I push the bag off the shelf. It hits the floor with a thud.

Then there’s a second thud.

Which is Security Guard slamming the locker door shut with me trapped inside.