David Sedaris: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

The turkey didn’t know that he would be killed on Christmas Eve; no one knew except the cow. That’s why she’d specifically chosen his name for the secret Santa program-it got her off the hook and made tolerable his constant, fidgety enthusiasm.

“You’ll never in a million years guess what I got you,” she said to him a day after the names were drawn.

“Is it a bath mat?” the turkey asked. He’d seen one hanging on the farmer’s clothesline and was promptly, senselessly, taken by it. “It’s a towel for the floor! ” he kept telling everyone. “I mean, really, isn’t that just the greatest idea you’ve ever heard in your life?”

“Oh, this is a lot better than a bath mat,” the cow said, beaming as the turkey sputtered, “No way!” and “What could possibly be better than a bath mat?”

“You’ll see come Christmas morning,” she told him.

Most of the animals were giving food as their secret Santa gift. No one came out and actually said it, but the cow had noticed them setting a little aside, not just scraps but the best parts-the horse her oats, the pig his thick crusts of bread. Even the rooster, who was the biggest glutton of all, had managed to sacrifice and had stockpiled a fistful of grain behind an empty gas can in the far corner of the barn. He and the others were surely hungry, yet none of them complained about it. And this bothered the cow more than anything. Which of you is sacrificing for me? she wondered, her mouth watering at the thought of a treat. She looked at the pig, who sat smiling in his pen, and then at the turkey, who’d hung a sprig of mistletoe from the end of his wattle and was waltzing from one animal to the next, saying, “Any takers?” Even to other guys.

Oh, how his cheerfulness grated on her. Waiting for Christmas Eve was murder, but wait the cow did, and when the time was right-just shortly after breakfast-she sidled up beside him. “You do know they’ll be cutting your head off, don’t you?” she whispered.

The turkey offered his strange half smile, the one that said both “You’re kidding” and “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“If it’s not the farmer, it’ll be one of his children,” the cow confided. “The middle one, probably, the boy with the earring. There were some jokes about doing it with a chain saw, but if I know them they’ll stick to the ax. It’s more traditional, and we all know how they love a tradition.”

The turkey laughed, deciding it was a joke, but then he saw the pleasure in the cow’s face and knew that she was telling the truth.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“A few weeks,” the cow told him. “I meant to tell you earlier, but with all the excitement, I guess I forgot.”

“Kill me and eat me?”

The cow nodded.

The turkey pulled the mistletoe from the end of his wattle. “Well, golly,” he said. “Don’t I feel stupid.”

Not wanting to spoil anyone’s Christmas, the turkey announced that he would be spending the holiday with relatives. “The wild side of the family,” he said. “Just flew in last night from Kentucky.” Noon arrived, and when the farmer and his middle son appeared in the barnyard, the turkey went to them without a fuss, saying, “So long everyone” and “See you in a few days.”

They all waved good-bye except for the cow, who lowered her head toward her empty trough. She was just thinking that a little extra food might be nice, when something horrible occurred to her. The rooster was standing in the doorway, and she almost trampled him on her way outside, shouting, “Wait! Come back. Whose name did you draw?”

“Say what?” the turkey said.

“I said, whose name did you get? Who’s supposed to receive your secret Santa present?”

The turkey answered a thin, “You’ll see,” his voice a little song that hung in the air long after he’d disappeared.

A white-tailed doe was discovered one morning disemboweled on the banks of the stream, and the residents of the forest went crazy with fear-“freaked out” was how the sparrow put it. A few days later, a skunk was found, no more than a gnawed-upon skull attached to a short leash of spine. Personality-wise, he’d been no great shakes. Neither was he particularly good-looking, but still! Then a squirrel disappeared, and it was decided that something had to be done. A meeting was convened in the clearing near the big oak, and the hawk, who often flew great distances in search of food, proposed that they build a gate. “I’ve seen one where the humans live, and it seems to work fairly well.”

“Work how?” asked a muskrat.

The hawk explained that once the gate was erected, anyone entering the forest would have to stop and identify himself. “It keeps out the riffraff,” he said, adding that when bad things happened, that was usually who was responsible-riffraff.

For the second time that day, the muskrat raised his hand. “And what if this riffraff can’t be stopped?”

“Then you sound an alarm,” the hawk suggested. “It could be anything, really, just so long as it’s loud.”

The building of the gate was left to the beaver, who had a slight problem with the hinges but eventually got them right. Just to the side of them he hung a gong fashioned from an old NO TRESPASSING sign. “I figured I could hit it with my tail,” he said, and he gave it a whack for good measure.

When the noise had stopped echoing off the surrounding hills, the rabbit stepped forward. “Who elected you to man the gate?” he asked, adding that anyone could hit a sheet of rusted metal, even someone without an oversize tail. At that he picked up a heavy stick and went at it, creating a racket as loud as the beaver’s. “I’ve also got the better hearing,” he boasted. “I’m slimmer, I’m faster, and I’m more safety conscious, vigilant, you might say.”

All eyes turned to the beaver, who said simply, “Whatever,” and waddled back to his lodge.

On the rabbit’s first morning as chief of security, he stopped an approaching snake, who looked up at him and laughed until he cried.

“Something funny?” asked the rabbit.

The snake used his tail to wipe a tear from his face. “You idiots,” he said. “What good is a gate without a wall?”

“What good is a huh? ”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” continued the snake. “If an animal doesn’t want to enter here, what’s to stop him from moving down a few dozen yards and crawling in beside the fallen pine?”

“What’s to stop him?” asked the rabbit, and he picked up his heavy stick and bashed the snake’s head in. Then he kicked some dirt over the body and wrote NO LAUGHING on the NO TRESPASSING sign.

A short while later a magpie stopped by and pecked at the bits of brain left scattered on the ground in front of the gate. “Not to nitpick,” he said between mouthfuls, “but what’s to prevent someone from entering by air? You and your friends initiate a no-fly zone?”

“What’s to keep you from flying in?” asked the rabbit, and once again he brought down his heavy stick. Then he dug up the snake and hung both it and the dead magpie from the top of his gate. There they could act as visual warnings, proof that he was a force to be reckoned with. When that was done, he added to his sign, which now read, NO TRESPASSING. NO LAUGHING. AND NO STUPID QUESTIONS EITHER. THIS MEANS YOU.

It was a hot, windless day, and within an hour blowflies arrived and settled on the faces of the two dead animals. Their buzzing attracted a frog, who jumped over from the nearby stream, flicked out his tongue, and dined upon them until he was full. Only then did he read the sign and turn to address the rabbit. “Seeing as you don’t want jokes or questions, I guess I’ll phrase this as a comment,” he said. “In order to enter through your gate, I’ll have to stop and go through your tiresome rigmarole. That kind of BS doesn’t interest me much, so instead I’m going to return to my stream and swim into your third-rate, beetle-infested forest.”