Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2020 finalist, Maggie Liu! Maggie finished 6th grade this past school year. The story she submitted is called “An Ever-Turning Cycle.”  Our judges said they were “captivated by the narrator’s sense of humor from the start, and it grew stronger as the story went on.” Enjoy!

---

 

AN EVER-TURNING CYCLE
By Maggie Liu

Just as I was getting ready to go into hibernation mode, those pesky squirrels and their irritating bird friends (though I prefer to think of them as partners-in-crime) were wreaking havoc again. It had been the third time this month that my cave got pelted with acorns and bird poop. The first time, I had gotten covered in poop and then covered in acorns. I never knew acorns could hurt so much. The second time, it took me nearly the whole day to scrub off the cave. This time, I managed to make it inside unharmed, and the thick layer of snow shielded my cave from the worst of it, but a few smidges of crap and one or two acorns got on anyways. Oh, well, no time for that.

If you’re asking who I am, don’t worry, I’ll get to that soon.

As the rising sun came over the horizon, the cave became suddenly, inexplicably warm. The snow almost melted right off the roof, along with most of the dung and acorns. I yawned a big, hairy yawn and went to sleep. Ta-ta to those pesky squirrels for another six months.

…

As I slept, though I didn’t know it, those squirrels were formulating another pesky prank, this time involving more than just some simple poop and nuts. This time, though it was still on me, the prank was sudden, surprising and altogether nasty. I, on the other hand, an unsuspecting and one hundred percent innocent bear, had no idea that I was going to get myself into a nasty, messy, furry, poopy mess due to those squirrels.

In case I haven’t already told you about them, the squirrels are the worst pranksters within a hundred leagues. Their ringleader, April, is the worst of them all. Although she’s the youngest, she’s the real alpha of the pack. She’s got three older sisters, May, June (who’s her second-in-command and best friend) and July and one older brother, August. I feel bad for them. Their mom must’ve been horrible at thinking up names. They’ve also allied with the crows, Polly, Ana, and Marie. Aside from the squirrels, they’re the most annoying creatures—alive or dead—around.

Be as it may, I woke up too early to a shining sun, snowless mountains in the distance, lush green fields and flowers in full bloom. It was heaven on Earth. I ran outside, not noticing that it was still rather cold in the cave, when I ran through something that went ripppp very noisily. I stopped in my tracks. My first thought was, Wait… what? My second was, THOSE STUPID SQUIRRELS! The ground was still covered in a thick white blanket of snow. I looked up. The squirrels sat giggling in a tree. I shook my head and glared at them. It had been a trick, a cleverly painted image of a sunset on a spring day. It was February.

I was so spitting mad, I was ready to bust out the rather colorful language I had found on page 257 of A Guide to Cursing, which I had found in the dustiest corner of the Restricted Section of the town library. Believe me, it was restricted for a very good reason.

I wanted revenge. Those squirrels would never know what had hit them. They weren’t used to the new landscape, since August and July had been born on the equinox, May and June had been born a month later, and as of now, April was only just barely 5 months old. But I was, and I was going to use that to my advantage. I was no stranger to vicious snowball fights– I had two sisters. And since they woke me up in February, I only had one more month to go anyways, it’s not like I had any chance of going back to sleep anyways, so I decided to get started.

I created an arsenal of snowballs worthy of the Queen of England and waited for the perfect moment. They were perfectly round, covered with a thin layer of frozen water, which held them together and created a more satisfying impact. Just as August, who was a bit of a dunce, was walking by my cave, smiling dazedly, half a snowball sprouted out of his neck.

His smile faded slowly as he muttered,” Huh?” As I said before, he’s got some kind of not-so-rare brain disease that makes him seem stupid and dazed all the time. It’s called stupifyia. Also known as being dumb.

July rushed to his aid, and I aimed a snowball at her back with such force it shattered on impact. A crisp, clean impact that must’ve been pretty painful, since she shrieked for help. Being unwaveringly loyal (but still very annoying, nevertheless) the rest of them rushed over, right into a pile of exploded snowballs and then promptly fell on their faces. And then I lobbed snowballs at their backs too. I had a feeling that made them very, very mad. Evidently, I was right, because when they stood up, April was giving me a withering look and all five of them were holding their own snowballs. And then they threw them.

It was pandemonium. Despite the fact that these squirrels were young, they, nonetheless, had a notorious reputation for being tough. However, I had never known that they threw that hard. Some of April and June’s actually hurt, but mostly, they glanced off me as if I had an invisible barrier around me.

April screamed, “I’ll get you back for this!” I couldn’t say anything back, as just then, I got a mouthful of snow, covered with – you guessed it—bird poop. Then they scrambled through the trees, up and away through the dense forest.

I expected April to take her threat seriously, so I was surprised when February turned into March, and still the pranksters didn’t act up. I should’ve known better. On the first of April, also known as April Fool’s Day, I woke up to find everything in my cave glued upside down, including myself and my bed. At least I thought so. I was glued to my bed, with no way of getting down. Except… I hated to consider it, but I took out the Swiss Army knife in my back pocket, and with one quick chop, half my back fur came off and I fell with a loud thump onto the hard dirt floor. I looked around. I had been wrong. I had been the only thing attached to the ceiling. Everything else had been carefully painted to look like it was on the ceiling.

Somewhere behind me, a voice shouted, “April Fool’s!” I whipped around, and saw the No-Good, Way-Too-Clever, Bird-Poop-And-Acorn-Gang sitting in my pantry, pigging out on my ginger cookies. That did it. I chased them across the room, but they were smaller and nimbler, and—I hated to admit this – I was big and clunky. They escaped through the narrow air vents in the ceiling, and I gave up on pursuing them, and instead turned to the problem of cleaning up.

I’m going to introduce you to my friends now. You, meet Blanche and Blaise. Blanche and Blaise, meet this person right here.

Hiya, dudes. I’m Blaise. This is my younger sister Blanche.

I’m Blanche. No matter what my pesky younger brother says, I’m older than he is.

Maybe, by, like, two minutes. Plus, I’m way more mature.

Are not!

Are too!

Are not!

Are too!

GUYS, GET OFF MY KEYBOARD!

Sorry. The foxes bicker a lot. (Don’t tell them I said this, but neither of them are one bit mature.) Anyways, they love ginger cookie crumbs, and they’re really quick at everything, and I figured I could use a hand with cleaning up. With the three of us cleaning, the cave was back to its original state before you could say “those annoying squirrels”. Okay, maybe not literally, but we got it done pretty darn fast. After that, there really wasn’t anything else to do. So I took a nap. The end? Obviously not.

I slept through the afternoon, and woke up at around dinnertime. Oh, how I longed for some nice, thick, yummy squirrel soup! Especially with those squirrels inside… pie would be good too. But those squirrels– they would be difficult to catch. So I had to settle for PB&J and more ginger cookies.

The next morning, I was ready for revenge. The squirrels hate one thing more than me: toilet paper. Something I had a lot of.

And there was one thing they really liked. The spooky old oak tree by the river. I think you know what I was getting at by now: toilet papering their favorite tree.

It was quick, easy work. Blanche and Blaise were competing to see who could throw the most paper on the tree, and there was quite a lot. I, on the other hand, was gluing together strips of toilet paper together to spell out the words “Our Treat”. In cursive. It’s a lot easier said than done. I couldn’t wait to see the look on April’s face, especially once she registered the words. I got my wish soon enough. The squirrels just happened to walk by the tree right as we ducked under a mulberry bush to hide. April’s face turned pale, then red. They all wore identical expressions that were somewhere between angry and confused. If the situation hadn’t been so secretive, I would have applauded and howled with laughter. Maybe even beated the ground with my fists. In this case, Blanche and Blaise were doing the lion’s share of both.

April—clever squirrel – immediately saw us and started cursing. Gosh, those were some very rude and/or impressive curses for someone who wasn’t even a whole year old yet. She didn’t even need to say it out loud. I could practically read her face: it screamed “I will have revenge.” I didn’t think she would take it out on the foxes, though.

The next morning, I awoke before dawn to a frantic pounding on my door and windows. “You’ve gotta help us!” screamed Blanche.

“What’s the matter?” I asked groggily.

“April’s smashed our tree with her giant rock catapult, and we can’t get anywhere near it without having our feet nearly blown off by June’s landmines.” said Blaise, a little irritably.

“Why don’t you just build a new one then?”

“That’s the problem! April’s sent her siblings, plus the birds, plus the lizards, plus…well, a bunch of her cronies to guard all the trees!”

“Well, find some other trees! There’s one right outside here!”

“Oh, right. Forgot about that.” So I had to help them build a new tree house in my front yard. And go grocery shopping with them. And go to the hardware store. And run errands. Basically, I spent the whole day building a treehouse, because of those darn squirrels. It was clever of them, wrecking something then making it virtually irreparable. Emphasis on virtually. But it was worth it; I finally had my two personal assistants, or rather henchfoxes, right outside my front door.

The following months passed more or less normally, with only minor incidents. June, however, was an entirely different matter. The sudden start of summer, with soaring temperatures and little rain, seemed to have reawakened their sense of malicious humor, and brought a fresh bout of new pranks. My cave, and the foxes’ tree, ended up egged, toilet-papered, acorn-ed, and many more nasty things ending in -ed. There seemed to be no end to their pranks, mostly harmless, but some of them were actually quite nasty.

As the sun hung like a bright and unrelenting ceiling light in the sky, the seasons slowly turned by like an ever-spinning Ferris wheel. Before I knew it, it was time for hibernation again. This time, I hoped not to be disturbed again. Thankfully, I wasn’t.

But the ephemeral wheel will never stop turning, and soon, spring began. And more pranks. More eggs, more acorns, more dung, more TP. Mostly harmless, except for one. One that brought me and April onto the same team.

On the last day of spring, as the roller coaster perched precariously at the top, almost ready to begin its rapid descent back to the starting point, the whole forest’s supply of water suddenly disappeared. Everyone knew who was to blame: the squirrels. So I was beyond surprised, flabbergasted, astounded and altogether shocked and suspicious when April turned up at my door in the middle of the night and asked if she could lodge with me.

“My siblings kicked me out,” she explained, “because I was threatening to tell the whole forest they did the thing with the water.”

“Well, they didn’t need to. Everyone knows already.”

“They think they know,” she said bitterly. “They think I started it, right? They think, April’s causing nasty problems again! But, no, that June had to stop the whole supply WITHOUT MY PERMISSION and then KICK ME OUT!” She was shouting by now. This was very surprising news. I had always thought of April as their leader, and they followed her unquestioningly, depending on her to cook up their mischief. After a lengthy internal debate, I took her in. Blaise and Blanche were more than happy to have a fellow prankster on their side (even if it was the one who had destroyed their former house) and sleeping with them, and started chattering away. At least April was complaining to someone else, not me.

It took a lot to get used to April. For one thing, she was complaining about her “dratted sister” and her “stupid sidekicks”. Also, she, Blaise and Blanche were slowly eating away at my supply of ginger cookies. That in itself was a crime worthy of a death sentence.

We were slowly plotting revenge, which we planned to time for midwinter, which meant no big long nap for me. Blanche wanted something involving pinecones, Blaise was all for the Grand Snowball Fight all over again, but it was April’s idea we decided upon: Her idea was to pull all the pranks they had pulled on us on them, only with a slight twist. We took a vote, and everybody was all for it except Blanche, who insisted that it was too much trouble to find all the bajillion things we needed, including bird poop, Sticki-Stucki wood glue, and paint. She thought it would be impossible for us to get ahold of the poop, since the crows were still sticking to the larger group, but we never knew that April had had a secret trio of sparrows to take revenge in case this scenario ever happened. Which it did. I’m going to let them introduce themselves.

Ready? Gas masks on? Safety goggles on? Titanium 3X00 Kevlar-Armored Lab Coat on? Surgical Precise-Cut Diamond and Steel Razor-Laser Combo loaded? Here goes….

What’s up dudes! Teejay is here!

Please, Tee, why don’t you ever stop talking like you’re in a rap battle? There are much more interesting things to care about, you know. Like fashion!

Both of you, stop! We don’t need to get into all of this again. Remember what I said last time? Take a deep breath and calm down.

Aww, c’mon, Hess, you’re so boring!

Yeah, Hestia, Tina’s right!

It’s Evaleigh!

Okay guys, that’s enough, thanks. Maybe I should introduce them instead. The rap battle “dude” is Teejay. The fashionista’s real name is Tina, but she thinks that’s “boh-ring” so she changed it to Evaleigh as soon as she could. The last one, she’s Hestia. She’s really quiet most of the time, but she’s got a brain to rival April’s and the best judgement of anyone I’ve met.

Anyway, we split into four groups to shop for supplies: me, April, the sparrows and the foxes. It made perfect sense: nobody’s ever seen the sparrows before, so they’d assume they were grocery shopping, Blanche and Blaise had a special way with bribery and persuasion, April was a known prankster, and me? Well, I was everything.

Our “shopping trip” to the mall went smoothly, with only one problem–actually two. The first was that May saw April walking out of Zamboni’s, the trick shop, with two bulging bags as she went in. She immediately turned tail and went to tell July. So we knew they were planning something, and they knew we were. I could only hope against hope that it was something minor. I would turn out to be very, very wrong. And secondly, and perhaps equally importantly, I didn’t find ginger cookies, so I settled for oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip.

Since the treehouse was much too small for April, Blanche, Blaise (who’s rather fat, although he would never admit it), Evaleigh, Hestia and Teejay, we teamed up to build a birdhouse for the sparrows. After that, I know it’s the millionth time I’ve said this phrase, but we didn’t really have anything to do, so we ordered a pizza from Luigi’s and watched movies. The end, happily ever after, etcetera? Not quite.

The pranksters strike again. June’s group tore down the foxes’ treehouse and the birdhouse overnight, and in a couple of minutes, all of our hard work was wrecked. So I had to let all six of them into my house for the night. Phooey. Good-bye to my cookies.

The next day they rebuilt the houses, quickly, and notice I said they. They sent me on another shopping trip, to get groceries and hardware. On the same trip. Isn’t that just the weirdest idea you ever heard? All went well, except for the fact that everyone was giving me a weird look for bringing groceries in a hardware store. I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been the other way around.

When I got back, the houses were nearly done. They were just painting them to blend in with the trees—an equally ingenious and stupid idea. Apparently, it worked, because even I could barely see it. Teejay, who insists on wearing his black sunglasses, once tried to enter the treehouse but crashed into the trunk instead. Honestly, it was pretty funny. Over the course of the next week, everyone except Hestia and April crashed at least three times each into it.

The seasonal wheel kept turning, around and around. As summer melted into fall and fall into winter, I was ready to hibernate, and a housing change had to be made. April and her sparrows were in the treehouse, and the foxes and I were in the cave. But, wait! Remember April’s plan? She reminded us at the last moment that we weren’t supposed to hibernate this winter, and good thing too, because the sparrows, who we sent to snoop on June’s troop because they were relatively unknown and nondescript, said that June was planning another bout of nasty pranks. We had to act fast, and since we had all our supplies ready, we set our revenge for the day after Christmas.

Christmas morning dawned, bright and chilly, with Evaleigh pecking at my face and screeching for me to get up. There was a boatload of presents under the tree, six for everyone. We had a small party, lunch and dinner, and went to bed. It was one of the most uneventful Christmases I ever had. But since we were all nervous for tomorrow, I let it slip.

The next day (if you could call it that), we were all up by midnight. We dragged out the enormous drapery I had my old Auntie Crystal sew for us. It was the same picture the squirrels had used to fool me two winters ago, only bigger. Since squirrels hibernate too, we decided to Stucki-Glue it there and come back and pound on the door in January. Meanwhile, we went to work on the birds.

As I said before, if the squirrels and the foxes suddenly disappeared, the flower crown of the biggest prankster would go to the crows. We planned to give them the nut ‘n’ poop treatment, and we had both: April’s enormous acorn collection she had saved during the summer, and who could forget the sparrows?

We decided to do it during the morning, since of course we were already up, and the crows were asleep. Their snores were so obnoxiously loud I’m surprised they never woke up the dead or each other.

It was quick work. I had a band of six animals to order around, so I sent the birds on poop and everyone else on acorns. And I took the sensible course of action, sat under a tree and took a nap.

When I woke up, everyone else had already gone home. It was the crack of dawn, so I staggered back to the cave and took another nap. Everyone slept until noon, when April barged in and shouted, “Get up, you furry lumps!” Not exactly the best way to officially start my day.

Blanche and Hestia banged around the kitchen, cooking brunch. If I haven’t told you already, they’re the two best cooks I know. By twelve thirty, there was a feast consisting of egg soufflé, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit salad, regular salad, orange juice, and an apple pie for dessert. It was the best meal I had in weeks.

We were all in a good mood after seeing, out of the window, Ana walking the store to get more cleaning supplies in a huffy mood. So good of a mood, actually, that two things happened. The first was that we decided to go to Sushi Palace for dinner. The second was that we were starting Phase Two of the plan three weeks early: upside-downing the squirrel’s treehouse.

Since the squirrels were hibernating, it was easy to get in, Stucki-Glue all the furniture to the ceiling, then cover the ceiling with glue, and get out again. When the squirrels woke up, they’d think they were on the ceiling, then climb down (up actually) and get stuck on the ceiling. If you’re wondering how we got in, isn’t it obvious? April used to live in this place. She had a house key around her neck on a solid platinum chain. Yes, she was that rich.

The last day of December, we had a ginormous New Year’s Eve party, with food provided by Blanche and Hestia. We were waking June’s group up on the second, so I said, hey, party now, do business later, right? Isn’t that a famous quote from, I dunno, Aristotle or somebody?

The morning of the second, it was Blanche banging around making toast that woke me up. We had to be at the squirrel home by dawn for our plan to work. Since they were easily the smallest ones, we sent Eva and Hestia to do all the work, with Teejay on the camera.

When they got back, the sun was properly up already, and April and Hestia had won all of the five rounds of Mafia we played. Once they got in, they started chattering at once about their film. And then Teejay showed us what he got.

It was absolutely hilarious. The squirrels’ look on their faces when they found that it was a tapestry was worth the front page of the Forest Paper. They especially seemed mad that their own prank had happened on them. And when they got stuck on the ceiling, near the middle of the video, they still hadn’t gotten unstuck by the end! The funny thing was, they didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that all this had been done by their little sister.

Over the course of the next month, we pulled the rest of the pranks on the squirrels and the crows. Some of them were easy, like the toilet paper and the destroying, but some were a tad difficult, like the one where we blocked up the water supply of their tree and freed up the rest of the forest’s water in the process. The rest of the wildlife had been getting annoyed, and once threatened to force open the water supply, but not before they burned down our patch of the woods. But all went well, and the pranksters seemed to have lost their nerve. We couldn’t know for sure, though, until, one morning, they turned up at our door.

“Guys, we’re sorry for everything we’ve ever done to you,” sniffled June, “and we see why you didn’t appreciate our water gig. But can you please give us back our water? We promise not to prank you anymore.”

April said stubbornly, “No.”

But Hestia said, ”Sure, why not? We can form like the Supreme Union of Pranksters or something.” But it took a lot of convincing to get April to agree to taking them in. But in the end, we decided to build a new multicomplex for the squirrels, the foxes, the crows and the sparrows in a sweet cave I found just over the hill.

We got there early the next day, and completely redid the place. There was a master room, four smaller bedrooms, three bathrooms, a dining room and kitchen, a rec room and an enormous backyard with a pool. It was sweet, just like I said. The only thing was, April insisted on bunking with Blanche and Blaise. She wasn’t quite ready to forgive her siblings yet.

After a few weeks, after we were all moved and settled in, the place actually started to feel like a home. It was definitely cozy, and Blanche and Hestia taught May, June and July (April, naturally, refused) how to cook too, so there was always a buffet ready at every meal.

Slowly, life went back to normal. The pranksters were no longer so malicious, and their pranks were few and far between. And April? She still was a little miffed about her siblings kicking her out, but she’s starting to soften.

As the days got shorter and the nights longer, with the Christmas spirit in the air, the urge not to hibernate became irresistible. It was then that everyone made the decision not to follow our natural biorhythms and skip hibernation, only hibernating once every five years. If we lived that long. Which we did.

That year, for only the second time in my life, I celebrated Christmas. Even though she can barely scramble an egg, April’s a genius when it comes to decorations and hardware work. She wired up her own Christmas lights circuit in parallel, sent us to work on paper chains and clay ornaments, made Blanche and Hestia fire the oven (she still wasn’t ready to trust her siblings) and lugged a giant Christmas tree home. All in the space of an hour.

By December the twenty-fourth, the condo was full of the sounds of Christmas carols, the smell of the turkey and the feast Blanche, Hestia, May, June and July had cooked up, and the tree was twinkling cheerfully with all its presents in the corner. We ate a hearty dinner that night, but not the turkey, and went to bed. The next morning, according to tradition, Blanche and April woke up at dawn and went around the house yelling for everyone to wake up. We all did, and opened our presents. It was the best Christmas I ever had. But since I’ve only had two, that’s not saying much.

That night, as I watched the stars twinkle just like the lights on the tree in the living room, I realized that these years have been just one ever-turning wheel, going around and around and around again, controlling everything that happens to us. It turns, and turns, and turns, and turns. And it never stops.

And there’s nothing I would ever do to change that.