…One fateful night a young man named Thomas befriends a magical creature at a bar in Downtown Los Angeles: a silver statue of a squirrel. The statue gains life when surrounded by weed smoke. While the statue cannot speak, Thomas can hear the thoughts of the Silver Squirrel. These are the stories of their adventures…

Silver Squirrel: Quarantine

Part 4

Squirrel looked down at the dispensary. He crouched on the corner of a nearby roof and watched as customers waited patiently outside. They stood exactly six feet apart and entered one at a time.

Psh! This can’t be that hard to pull off, thought Squirrel, and scratched his metallic nose.

He chose the dispensary carefully. The Green Buffalo Collective was the prime location. It wasn’t local and it was in a rich neighborhood. Squirrel didn’t feel bad stealing from the rich. He would be like Robin Hood. The Green Buffalo was in Brentwood which meant that Squirrel had plenty of space to lose them if he was pursued. They never closed the door to the large entryway and most importantly, there was a way out.

The plan was simple: Get in. Get bud. Get out.

Getting in was the easy part. Getting the bud probably wouldn’t be that hard. But getting out was the difficult bit. Squirrel hated doors. He couldn’t open them with ease. He had picked The Green Buffalo because it was in an old building with floor to ceiling windows in the back that were kept open. Squirrel planned on chewing through the window screen and escaping that way.

I hope this works, said Squirrel to himself.

Squirrel turned around and addressed his army on the roof. He had gathered about thirty pigeons — his closest allies in the Rat Wars.

This is a matter of life and death my friends…, said Squirrel. The pigeons ignored Squirrel. They strutted about, cooing and pecking at the gravel on the roof.

Hey! Get in line soldiers! Squirrel jumped on top of a plastic crate so that he stood higher than the pigeons. He tossed a pebble at the pigeons and shouted: ATTENTION!

The pigeons quickly got in line. Some flew into the air but landed in place and faced Squirrel. He waited until the cooing had stopped, then began his speech:

I know many of you! We fought together in our struggle against the rats of downtown. I need you now, brothers! Now more than ever! If we fail…I fear I will not live to see another day. You all know your mission!

The pigeons nodded in unison.

Stay vigilant comrades!

Squirrel looked over his shoulder and noticed the people in line were looking up at him and pointing.

“How cute!” said one stranger, pointing at the roof. “It’s a little squirrel. He’s dancing on the roof.”

“Oh, hell, yeah!” said another. “Living his best life!”

Shit! Squirrel hopped down from the crate and peered over the roof ledge at the stranger. I’ll show you who’s cute, said Squirrel.

Get in position! shouted Squirrel. The pigeons flew to the edge of the roof.

“Oh! Look at all the pigeons,” said the first stranger. “They must be his friends. How cute.”

NOW!

At Squirrel’s command, the army of pigeons spread their wings and soared off the rooftop. Most of them stuck to the mission and entered the dispensary. Other pigeons forgot the mission (a common occurrence in the Rat Wars) and started attacking the people in line. Immediate chaos ensued. The customers in line scattered for their cars.

“Oh my god! They’re attacking!” screamed one stranger. “Run! They probably have the COVID!”

“Are you serious!?” shouted another stranger as he ran for his car. “Worst year ever!”

Squirrel chuckled to himself and ran across a power line to the roof of The Green Buffalo. His plan might just work. He scurried down a pipe and ripped a hole in the screen of the back window. The chaos inside was just as he had planned. The pigeons had the place in an uproar. The humans kept closing the door to stop the pigeons from entering and then opening it again to shoo them out. But every time they opened the door more pigeons would fly in.

You can always count on humans to be stupid, said Squirrel, and tore the hole in the screen a bit bigger.

Squirrel put on a backpack which he had made. The soundtrack to Mission Impossible played in Squirrel’s mind and he sinched the backpack tight. He squeezed through the tear in the screen and crept slowly along the side of the wall. Normally he would move quickly, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He slipped around a corner and found himself in the back room where they kept the weed. Squirrel looked up at a wall of shelves with jars on them. Each jar was labeled with a strain of weed: Laughing Buddha, Sour Tsunami, Blue Dream, Jillybean, Zkittlez…

How’s a Squirrel to choose, thought Squirrel. And then he spotted it — XJ-13. His metallic eyes grew wide and he scurried to the jar and opened it. He sat on the edge of the shelf, took off his backpack, and began stuffing it with bud after bud. He quickly filled his backpack and zipped it up. Squirrel jumped to the ground and slipped the backpack on. He spotted a jar on the ground filled halfway with weed labeled Blue Dream.

Oh! Perfect! thought Squirrel and began to push the jar along the wall toward the rip in the screen.

Thomas will be so surprised, thought Squirrel as he pushed the jar. This is his favorite.

“What…is…that!?”

Squirrel heard the words and knew immediately who they were talking about. He turned to see a cute girl, with big eyes and a pixie cut, pointing directly at him.

“That…that…thing is stealing our weed!”

Shit! Squirrel continued to push the drawer full of weed, but he wasn’t fast enough. The security guard rushed toward him. Squirrel abandoned the drawer filled with Blue Dream and scurried up the wall. The guard grabbed him by his metallic tail and yanked Squirrel from the wall. Instinct took over and Squirrel bit down hard on the guard’s hairy, muscled hand. The guard let go and Squirrel landed on his feet (squirrels always do). He dashed through the rip in the screen and quickly climbed back to the roof of The Green Buffalo. He got to the top and watched as all the pigeons escaped and returned to the roof where he had first assembled them. He gave a salute to the birds for their help.

The guard and other workers in the dispensary were searching the area for Squirrel.

“I saw him go to the roof,” said the security guard. Squirrel didn’t plan on being seen, much less having to bite someone to escape. If there was one thing humans didn’t like, it was getting bitten. They would label him a pest and call Pest Control. Squirrel had seen the men with the cages many times. They would search until they found him.

Squirrel heard a shrill whistle and he instinctively ducked but then immediately recognized it. He looked and saw Thomas across the street in his car. Thomas winked at him. Squirrel smiled and darted across a nearby power line. He scurried down a wooden utility pole and jumped into Thomas’s car through the open window. He sat down in the front passenger seat and took off his backpack.

Phew! That was close, said Squirrel.

Thomas looked back and saw the security guard pointing at his car from a distance.

“Buckle up little buddy,” said Thomas. “Not out of the weeds yet.” Thomas hit the gas and the car zoomed down the street heading toward the sunset.