One fine summer day in the hollow of a big oak tree, Bob the squirrel was lounging about on his nut couch. “Bob, why don’t you go looking for some nuts to eat for supper?” said Mrs. Bushy Tail in her high squeaky voice.
“No, I am going to sit here,” he replied lazily.
“All your siblings are out there looking; why can’t you?”
Bob groaned and sat up. He trudged over to the hollow opening and promptly fell out. Bob landed on his tail and hurried over to where his twenty-three brothers and sisters were gathering acorns.
“Why do you always have to fall out of the tree when you go outside?” said his little brother Frank. The rest of his siblings screeched in agreement.
“It’s fun,” Bob said frankly.
“Hey, stop using my name as an adverb,” Frank said, annoyed. “It’s a proper noun!”
Bob sighed, “I’ve explained this before Frank: I didn’t actually say frankly out loud, I said it in my head!”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
As the day progressed, Bob started to get board. He decided to start a game. He would see how many acorns he could sneakily eat without getting caught. No one was looking, so he stuffed forty-two acorns in his mouth, chewed quickly, and swallowed. Bob had won the family competition for quickest eating of four-hundred acorns. Bob had done it in twelve point three two seconds. Soon Bob was very full and the acorn supply started to noticeably dwindle.
“What happened to all the nuts we spent hours collecting?” Meg said concerned and angry.
“I am going to take a walk over to the road and see if I can find more acorns over there.” Bob said, inching away from his suspicious siblings.
“You know you’re not allowed to go near the road!” Ted squeaked, “Mother doesn’t trust all those cars to slow down for us!”
“I’ll be fine, don’t boss me around!” And off went Bob, skipping along. His mother would never venture to find him there, she feared the road. So Bob got out of a punishment once again, or so he thought. He reached the road with many cars zooming past. Bob looked back to see Frank scurrying toward him.
“Bob, wait for me!” Frank called, “can you teach me to eat so quickly? If I knew, I could have more free time with you while the others eat! Let me come! Why are you running away? I want to come!”
Bob ran. There was no way he was going to let Frank tag along everywhere. Into the
road Bob went. He dodged a car as it zoomed past. He was almost to the other side when an agonizing pain in his rear made him stop. He turned around. There on the ground behind him was his beautiful tail. Tears flooded Bobs eyes. Here came another car. He dashed to the other side just in time. The pain was overwhelming. Bob limped back to the other side of the road and back home.
“Mom!” Bob hefted himself into the tree hollow he called his home. Bob’s mother rushed over to him,
“What happened to your tail!!!” She asked in a high frightened way,
“A car bit it off!”
“Are you okay? Does it hurt? I told you not to go over to the road!”
“I’m sorry. I ate a lot of the nuts everyone collected, and they were all getting suspicious of me, so I left.” Bob explained after he was nicely settled in his nut couch with an acorn top blanket
“Why to the road?” She asked confused,
“I knew you wouldn’t permit anyone to follow me there, so there I was safe.”
“You’re still in big trouble. You will be on nut duty for the rest of the year.”
“THE REST OF THE YEAR!”
“Yes. Maybe next time you will think twice before you eat up all of our nuts.”

Bob fell out of the tree. But this time he didn’t have his tail, and he fell face flat on the ground.
“Seriously? Ug.” Bob ran away, he went to his secret stash of nuts and gave himself a treat. Then Bob had an idea. “I’ll make Frank do it and I’ll tell Frank how to eat nuts quickly!” Bob giggled and went over to Frank who was running around with Tom, Frank and Bob’s younger brother.
“Frank! Come over here!”
“Coming!” Frank rushed over to Bob, “What do you want?”
“Do you want to learn how to eat nuts quickly?”
“YES! I have been waiting for this moment for a long time!”
“For just a small price you can learn.”
“What price?” Frank asked skeptically.
“Just gather the nuts we will need.”
“I’ll do it Bob.” Frank said in a determined voice, “When do we start?”
“Today, start gathering all the nuts you can find,
“Okay!” And Frank rushed off to do as his brother had asked.
“Wonderful! Now all I have to endure is ten minutes a day of Frank stuffing food in his mouth. Just give him a few pointers, and, tada! Lesson complete!” Bob skipped off to have another snack.

Two hours later, Frank had come to Bob’s room in the big oak tree carrying twenty bulging sacks of nuts. “Help me!” Frank gasped for breath as Frank lifted two of the bags off of Frank.
“Good, you found the nuts!”
“Yeah, I found a big acorn tree over that way!” Frank pointed south, “Can we get started?”
“Sure, let’s put the nuts over here.” Bob gestured to a huge barrel by his bed.
“Okay. What do we do first?” Frank heaved the bags into the barrel.
“Let’s do a test to see how fast you are.”
“Okay!” And Frank stuffed two nuts in his mouth and chewed, crumbs flying, and swallowed, then he grabbed two more and continued.
“Hold on!” Bob projected, Frank stopped, hands halfway to his mouth.
“What?” Frank whispered, mouth full.
“You have to chew quietly and eat fast! Lesson complete.”
“What?”
“You may leave now.”
“Oh,” Frank shrugged and walked out of the room.

“Bob? Where are my nuts?” Bob’s mother called from the kitchen,
“In here.” Bob called back. His mother walked into the his room,
“Bob, I told you to find me nuts for supper.” Her eyes scanned the room, “Oh! You did!”
“Yep.”
“Where’s you find them all!”
“They were found by big acorn tree that way.” He pointed south,
“But I saw you inside all for the past few hours!”
“I never said I found them.” Bob said hastily, regretting it a second later,
“You didn’t find the?”
“No.”
“Who did then?”
“Frank,” Bob confessed, “I told him I would give him lessons on how to eat fast.”
“As a punishment for trying to weasel out of a job, you will have to find me nuts, and give Frank as many lessons as he wants. It would do you good to spend more time with your little brother.”
“Okay.”