Squirrel Pride

By

Dean Scurlock

 

Setting: A park in Wales – two squirrels, Jeff and Sally, are busy collecting nuts for the winter but Jeff decides to divert them both from the task in hand. The action resembles some of the British soap operas of which most of us are justly ashamed.

 

Jeff: Right, that’s me done for the day and no mistake.

Sally: But you’ve only collected a few dozen today.

Jeff: (nonchalantly) and?

Sally: And you’ll have to collect a lot more than that if you’re going to get through to next Spring.

Jeff: Why do you care?

Sally: I don’t. I’m just worried you won’t make your allowance in time.

Jeff: It’s always the same with you. Winter allowance; nut collection quotas. Don’t you ever want to just, you know, lean back on your tail and enjoy life?

Sally: Like you, you mean?

Jeff: Well...yes, since you ask. Like me.

Sally: (paws on hips) so running around the park half the day, staring at humans, and trying out various bushes for one to do your business in; that’s fun to you, is it?

Jeff: (insulted, eyes downcast) You of all squirrels should know that there’s more to me than that. At least, you used to know (looks at her with a forlorn expression)

Sally: Don’t go there Nutface! Not when I’ve got a handful of nuts.

Jeff: I will go there Sal! I will! I love you and I know you loved me too once, and I bet you still do, but you’re just too hairy, stubborn and proud to admit it!

Sally: Too proud? Are you calling me a...snob?!

Jeff: (mocking her voice) ‘Ew, I couldn’t possibly mate with a squirrel that grew up in the forestry like a badger. I want a nice, park reared squirrel like Alan. Alan’s lovely. He can stuff four nuts into his mouth in one go, the hunk! I’d love to take...’

Sally: Just STOP IT, will you?! You’re being too mean. Alan’s been good to me. He...he loves me, loves me like no other squirrel ever has.

Jeff: (looking away heartbroken) except maybe one.

Sally: I’m sorry? What was that?

Jeff: Nothing darling, I mean Sally. I was just counting my nuts. There seems to be one missing.

Sally: Ah yes, I’m afraid I ate it earlier.

Jeff: When I was in the bush?

Sally: (holding hands up) Afraid so. I’m sorry.

 

They both laugh hysterically for a few moments then stop suddenly.

 

Jeff: I really should work on my laugh.

Sally: Yes, me too. I don’t know what came over me.

Jeff: Perhaps you were just happy for once.

Sally: And what is that supposed to mean?

Jeff: Nothing.

Sally: (angrily) No, come on. You’ve got a big furry gob so use it!

Jeff: Ok, I will. I...think Alan is wrong for you and...he’s a cad; yes I said it, a cad, of the highest order. Now the two of you can just...oh, be damned!

Sally: (tearfully) Please Jeff, don’t be like that. You’re the only squirrel in this park that I...

Jeff: (hopefully) yes?!

Sally: That I call a friend.

Jeff: (crestfallen) A friend? I see. Great. Let’s do brunch and listen to the Manics together.

Sally: How exactly is Alan a ‘cad’? Have you seen something?

Jeff: (bites his knuckles on one hand over-dramatically) yes! I was...in a bush yesterday, you know, attending to business, I’d just finished a large nut cutlet at my sister’s tree so I needed to...make some space if you know what I mean. Anyway, I’d just raised my tail and settled down to it when I saw your Alan and...no, it’s too awful!

Sally: Don’t worry Jeff. You don’t have to tell me. I can guess. It was that little furry...squirrel with the white tip on her tail, wasn’t it? It was Cheryl, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?

 

Sally breaks down in sobbing moans as Jeff scratches his head awkwardly

 

Jeff: It wasn’t Cheryl I’m afraid.

Sally: Then who was it Jeff? Not Gwen, the red fur from the monkey tree?

Jeff: No.

Sally: Velma from the large oak?

Jeff: No, it wasn’t Velma.

Sally puts her paw to her mouth and gasps in shock.

 

Sally: It was Amy, wasn’t it?! Keith’s daughter from the Yew Tree Alley. That little furry bi...

Jeff: No Sally. Please, brace yourself old girl. I saw Alan and he was with...Keith.

 

Sally faints. Jeff gently pokes her with a stick but no reaction. He takes off a shoe, then sock, and holds the sock under her unconscious nose. She splutters ‘back to life’.

 

Sally: Who...who died?

Jeff: You did, for a while anyway. (He puts his sock and shoe back on)

Sally: I had this awful dream. Alan was there and so was Keith and they were...

Jeff: Yes, I saw what they were doing.

Sally: Then it wasn’t a dream? Alan and Keith are...having an affair?!

Jeff: Be fair Sally. Keith’s an attractive squirrel when he brushes his tail up.

Sally: But he’s got a foot missing!

Jeff: Oh, here we go! Typical of your lot. Liberal on the outside, tory on the inside. Just because he’s disabled you think he doesn’t have the same needs as some squirrels. What’s wrong with two grown squirrels getting a bit of...tail action?

Sally: When it’s with my Alan, then there’s a lot bloody wrong with it!

Jeff: Look Sal, you’ve just got to face the fact that Alan isn’t the squirrel you thought he was. He leaps from a different tree now.

Sally: And what, might I ask, am I going to tell the children?

Jeff: What ‘children’? You haven’t got any children.

 

Sally looks away and walks to the front of the ‘stage’

 

Sally: But that’s the thing Jeff. You see I’m...I’m pregnant.

Jeff: Squirrel Nutkin’s ghost!

Sally: (hand to her stomach) Please don’t swear Jeff. There’s a pregnant squirrel present remember?

 

Jeff starts pacing up and down, gesticulating wildly and silently as he does so.

 

Jeff: Not with him! Why him?

Sally: And why not him? He is my mate after all.

Jeff: But the squirrel’s an arse.

Sally: (defiantly) Well that’s as maybe but I love him. (To herself, less defiantly) At least, I did.

Jeff: How far are you gone? At least tell me that.

Sally: About three months I think.

Jeff: Three months! My best friend is pregnant by Alan for three months and I find out now. I could kill...Wait a moment. Three months did you say?

Sally: That’s right. Three months.

Jeff: Three months?

Sally; Yes! Three bloody months! What are you not getting here, sunshine?!

Jeff: Sally, dear heart, three months ago, if you care to remember, we went to that Nut Preservation conference in the Eastern Wood together.

Sally: So? We went to a conference together, so what? It’s not as if we...ah...I remember now. Bugger.

 

Jeff crosses his arms, leans back and laughs cynically. He is, momentarily, the living embodiment of Leonard Rossiter’s ‘Rupert Rigsby’.

 

Jeff: Bugger indeed, m’dear. Bugger indeed.

Sally: Jeff, we...

Jeff: I was there. I know.

Sally: But we were both out of furry heads on Alco-nuts that night.

Jeff: And we ended up on that owl’s branch, and kept quiet in case we woke him.

Sally: I think we did wake him.

Jeff: Really? Well, that would explain his attitude at the Park council meeting the week after. He tried looking away from me but his head just kept swivelling all the way around to face me again. God, did he get frustrated!

Sally: I don’t want to think about that night. We swore we’d never speak of it again.

Jeff: (pointing to her stomach) things change.

Sally: Please Jeff; let’s not drag this up again.

Jeff: Why not? I’m not ashamed of what we did. You were beautiful that night.

Sally: (blushing) Oh, thanks, I...what do you mean ‘that night’? How do I usually look then?

Jeff: (backtracking) Please, don’t get me wrong. You look beautiful every night, every day even when you’re busy screaming and shouting at me.

Sally: When exactly do I ‘scream’?

Jeff: You screamed when you woke up next to me on that owl’s branch.

 

Sally sits down, dejected and lets out a long, loud pitiful sigh.

 

Jeff: A dad, ay? Who’d have thought it? I could teach it to leap and scamper, to stare at humans and then run away, to pack nuts in his...

Sally: ‘His’? So you want a son?

Jeff: I’d be happy if it was a girl, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always wanted a son. Someone to teach, someone to pass on the family name.

Sally: Nutface?

Jeff: No! Jeffington. It’s been passed down through my family, father to son, for generations.

Sally: Never thought of passing it to the bin men and getting rid? (smacks her forehead) No, look, wait a minute! I don’t care what we did at the conference, Alan will be the father and we shall live happily ever after in a tree made for three.

Jeff: You’ll have to fight off Keith first.

Sally: He’s no threat to me (wiggles body) I have a certain seductive allure.

Jeff: You what?

Sally: Allure. You should know.

Jeff: To be honest after 15 Alco-nuts even Keith starts to have some allure.

 

Sally screams and grabs Jeff by the neck, Jeff returns the gesture, and they shake each other’s heads back and forth ridiculously

 

Jeff: I...Love...You...Sally!

Sally: I...Hate...You...Jeffington...Nutface!

Jeff: Perfect! love and...hate. The...main ingredients...for a...perfect...marriage!

 

Sally suddenly let’s go off his neck and Jeff does the same. While he rubs his neck, Sally bites her index finger and turns away.

 

Sally: Marriage? Did you say ‘marriage’?

Jeff: (rubbing painful neck) No, I said ‘Police!’

Sally: Alan never wanted to get married. He said he wasn’t that sort of squirrel.

Jeff: I think we all know what sort of squirrel he is now.

Sally: (over-acting) Oh, this is all too awful!

Jeff: (offended) what’s awful? That the father of your baby squirrel wants to marry you or that the pater squirrel familias is yours truly?

Sally: What will my parents say? Their only daughter, married to a forestry squirrel.

Jeff: You’ve stopped listening to me, haven’t you?

Sally: Father will go mad. Oh, poor daddy.

Jeff: Poor daddy’s been mad for the past two years.

Sally: That’s a lie! He’s as sane as you or I.

Jeff: He thinks he’s a fox, Sally. I had to rescue him from the duck pond last week after he fell in trying to eat Sir Duckman McQuakers. And boy was that duck peed off!

Sally: It’s his breeding, that’s all. I think my grandparents were brother and sister.

Jeff: (shaking head critically) Park life. You can’t beat it.

Sally: But wait! You saved daddy?

Jeff: (straightening up, trying to look modest) for my sins.

Sally: Then mother should be a pushover. She’ll love you just as much as...

Jeff: As you do?

Sally: As any mother-in-law should.

Jeff: You were going to tell me you loved me.

Sally: No I...I love Alan...I...Keith...bush...McQuakers!

Jeff: Get a grip Sally Acorn! You’re a grown squirrel, damn it!

Sally: (Shouting) Alright! Leave it out face ache! I love you, ok?

Jeff: (sarcastic) what, you love a squirrel ‘from the forestry? A Nutface who was raised with ‘Badgers’? Who’s not ‘half the squirrel Alan is’ as you so loving said that awkward morning on the owl’s branch?

Sally: (holds his face in her paws) that’s just it! I love you in spite of your failings!

Jeff: You’ll never be more of a wife to me than you are right now. Kiss me!

Sally: (turns face away) No! Not yet. Not while Alan and I are still...

Jeff: Hording nuts?

Sally: You’ve got it in one. I must talk to him.

Jeff: And I must talk to my father. It’s the tradition in our family when a son takes on a squirrel.

Sally: Yes, I’ve um been meaning to have a word with you about your father. He’s been seen licking himself in the Park Council meetings. Could you speak to him about it please?

Jeff: Don’t you think I’ve tried? He says that after surviving the war against the gulls he deserves the right to lick whatever whenever and in front of whomever he likes.

Sally: Even Aldersquirrel Fitzpatrick?

Jeff: Aldersquirrel Fitzpatrick is a prig!

 

Sally sits down and is joined by Jeff.

 

Sally: Jeff darling?

Jeff: ‘Darling’. I like that. say it again.

Sally: Jeff Darling, do you miss the war?

Jeff: The war? No. The comrades in arms, the laughs, the fights to the death. Maybe. The lads were good squirrels. Tough, but good.

Sally: It was so much simpler then, wasn’t it? Fighting it out against the squirrels all by ourselves until the cats joined us. If it wasn’t for the dog attack on Catnip Palais we would have had to have fought the seagulls alone.

Jeff: Alan didn’t fight.

Sally: (defensively) He was...an essential worker in the nut rationing department. The gulls were building their nests in our trees and nuts were hard to come by. Alan kept us going.

Jeff: Keith fought. Keith’s a war hero. He took down General Tweety single pawed. I can see him now, leaping from the highest branch screaming as he hurtled towards that seagull’s feathery neck. Tweety didn’t stand a chance. But why drag up the past, Sally? We’ve got a little squirrel on the way. We’ve a future to look to. The past is just littered with ghosts. Blinkey, Scratchy, Fidgets and Stares-a-lot. Good lads. Seagull bait in another rodent’s war.

Sally: If we have a boy I’ll name him Scratchy Fidgets-a-lot, you know, after ‘the lads.’

Jeff: No, better not Sal. Squirrel school can be a nightmare. With a name like that the other kids will knock his nuts off...

Sally: No!

Jeff: ...his school desk. Why did you say ‘No?’

Sally: Oh, nothing. Jeff, hold my paw. Please?

Jeff: (sarcastic) holding a forestry squirrel’s hand! What would the owls say?

Sally: In a way I think I’ve always loved you, in my own way and, apart from the smell, it’s only been my feelings for Alan that have kept me from your paws all this time.

Jeff: Sally! My Sally! You mean the world to...Hey, what smell?!

Sally: Nothing my darling. No smell!

Jeff: You said ‘apart from the smell’. WHAT S-M-E-L-L?

Sally: (apologetically) there’s just this strange cat-like muskiness about you sometimes. You know about my sense of smell. But what does it matter, Jeff? After we’re married I can groom you all day long...

Jeff: (gasping) Good God!

Sally: Day and night, all over until we collapse in a licked-clean mess.

Jeff: STOP IT! I can’t go on!

Sally: When shall we set the wedding for? After hibernation? Next summer? Before or after the baby comes? We could have more children, you know.

 

She takes his paw and swings his arm playfully. He pulls his hand away and walks to the front of the stage, not daring to look at her.

 

Sally: Is something wrong, Jeff?

Jeff: Nothing. It’s just that, when you mentioned next summer. I’ll...be away.

Sally: What do you mean, my darling?

Jeff: I’m going away to...change.

Sally: Change? Change in what way?

Jeff: (turns to look at her) Sally, I want to become a cat.

Sally: What?!

Jeff: You heard me. I fought with them in the war, side by side against the dogs and seagulls. They treated me like a brother, well, maybe not Tiddles McScratch, he tried to eat me but the rest were my comrades and I want to be just like them.

Sally: If it’s a role play issue, I’ll understand. We can get a cat flap for the tree and you can play kitty on the weekends.

Jeff: Don’t you understand Sally? I don’t want to play at being a cat; I want to become a cat!

Sally: Oh God. You’re trans-species.

Jeff: But that shouldn’t change you and me Sally. We can still be happy; we can still raise our child together.

Sally: With a cat as a father? How? How would it work? I don’t want to live with a cat, real or created.

Jeff: Sally, what are you saying?

Sally: It’s me and the baby or becoming a cat.

Jeff: But my dreams?

Sally: We’ll make it work somehow. You’ll not regret choosing us.

Jeff: (on his knees) Very well. I’ll do it for you, Sally. I’ll do it for that little ball of fur growing in your huge, hairy belly. I swear on all six of your nipples that I will be the best father, the best husband and the best...squirrel a wonderful squirrel like you deserves. (Stands) Come Sally, we shall be married before the day is out. Let’s run to the Western Wood and be married by moonlight.

Sally: (affronted) are you having a laugh?

Jeff: (confused) my love?

Sally: You want me, Sally Acorn, born and raised in this municipal park, to marry amongst the damp and the pine needles of the Western Wood? Who’s going to be my bridesmaid; an inbred badger with a foot chewing fetish? Who’ll marry us? Some slack jawed wood squirrel with worse toilet habits than a seagull?

Jeff: (insulted) if you don’t mind, my cousin Jeb does not have bad toileting habits.

Sally: He ruined the last squirrel picnic by...

Jeff: Yes, yes. We both know what he did but he’s had a tough time of it recently, what with the research lab having closed. Homeless, no food, no pointless experiments to test the latest perfume or lipstick before the Christmas rush. He’s in bits most of the time.

Sally: (defiant) I don’t care.

Jeff: Sally!

Sally: Don’t Sally me, Jeffington Nutface. This squirrel is not getting married in a wood with half-wits and yokels.

Jeff: Madam, you are a snob and a bigot and I will have no more to do with you.

Sally: You’re dumping me!

Jeff: (speaks angrily and quickly) that’s right honey. You’ve got a one way ticket to dumpsville, you’re being handed the tail end, the short shrift, the big heave-ho, kick to the kerb girlfriend. I’ve had enough of you furry liberals who only show your true colours when you think things are going your way. Oh yes, you’ll come to our tree meetings on Marx, or the self-emancipation of the nut-hunting class. You’ll smoke your rolled tree leaf cigarettes when the humans aren’t looking, nod your head as we talk over Alco-nuts in the monkey tree but underneath you’re this seething mass of NIMBY hatred, hatred for all things nut-hunting class, for all things different, that don’t or won’t conform.

Sally: (hands to her ears) STOP IT! ENOUGH! It’s my father, it’s Alan. I just wanted to fit in. I’m not really like this, you know. How could I be? How could I be this monster you make me out to be if you love me? Could a dog love a badger or a squirrel love a cat? (Jeff gasps) I’m sorry Jeff, I didn’t think. Say you love me like the first day we met, leaping through the park on your first day here.

Jeff: I do love you Sally, but I have my pride.

Sally: Oh, you and your damned pride! Pride is the world’s curse Jeff. It’s pride that’s kept me from leaving Alan all these years. Don’t look at me like that. Yes, I’ve thought about leaving him. In a way I’ve always known about his ‘ways’. All those late evening creative writing classes he claimed him and Keith were going to and we all know the two of them are about as literate as a pine cone. (With disgust) Pride! It’s bloody pride that’s stopped me from being truly happy because I’m too bloody afraid to upset mummy and daddy. Oh, I’m pathetic! (Covers eyes with arm and sobs)

Jeff: (consoling) you’re not pathetic. If you were, then you wouldn’t be the only one around here. I hate this park, I really do. (Defiantly) Come on, let’s go face them all! ‘Mummy’, ‘Daddy’, Keith, Alan and tell them that I’m for you and that you’re for me, and if they don’t like it then they can all be damned. I love you Sally and I never want to let you go!

Sally: That’s a bit possessive Jeff, if you don’t mind me saying.

Jeff: Please don’t spoil it.

Sally: Sorry Jeff.

Jeff: Let’s go. The nuts can wait.

Sally: (takes his arm) It’s going to be a long winter.

 

Exit Jeff and Sally

 

The End

 

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