North Park
from Red Wall with an Attitude:
A Collection of Critter Stories, page 10
Petaluma, 2003
Mr. Shrew escapes prison! He hurries away
when all of a sudden… a human woman with snow white skin and black
hair and black lipstick steps on him.
“You’re bad,” Mr. Shrew
says.
She captures all critter people in a bag,
puts them in a truck and drives to a laboratory. She puts them in cages.
“Who are you?” Chipper asks.
“I am Dr. Margaret Ferret,”
she says.
“What do you want with us?”
he responds.
“I want to put you all in a freak
show and get lots of money,” she tells them.
“Ferret’s got a big butt,”
Chipper says.
“Hey! Bad chipmunk!” Ferret
responds. She leaves.
“Go Chipper,” Mayor Skunk tells
him.
Chipper gets out of his cage and frees them.
They run outside. They see a human park ranger lady with her pet raccoon
sitting against a tree. Chipper comes near.
She stares.
“A chipmunk with hair and clothes!”
She starts.
“I’m Chipper — we need
—”
“A talking chipmunk?” she says
in disbelief.
“Help us get away from Ferret,”
he tells her.
“I’m Sylvia Forester. This is
Japser. We call all this North Park.”
Ferret returns.
Soon the critters are in Sylvia’s
truck being chased by Ferret in her pickup. Sylvia leaps her truck over
a cliff to the other side. Ferret tries to leap but falls and is not heard
or seen from again.
