The Chipmunk who Smiled at Me

 I woke early that morning and wandered downstairs.  I was six years old.  As I walked outside I saw Bitsy, our beloved mackerel-striped tabby, walking about the yard with a little furry creature in its mouth.  Horrified, I ran down the back stairs and caught Bitsy and gently pulled the poor critter from its certain doom.

It was very cute, and as I walked back upstairs noticed him smiling at me for saving him.  He was brown with a tail sort of like a squirrel, only smaller.  And it had a pair of beautiful stripes on its back. I smiled back.

"It's all right," I said.  "I'll take good care of you."

"Gosh, six-year-old I, thought.  It's actually smiling at me."

"Yes, you're safe now," I told it.  "See? Everything's all right."

I brought it inside with the intention of showing my prize and act of kindness when it bit the shit out of my finger.  What I'd thought was a smile was a warning:  "Don't mess with me."

I screamed and dropped it.  It ran off to wherever wild animals run off to when they're inside a house.

I ran up to my parents' bedroom.  I shook Mother's shoulder and said, "Mother, wake up.  It bit me."

I'd never seen her sit up so fast from a deep sleep in my life.  "What bit you? Where?"

"I don't know," I bawled.  It was kind of like a squirrel.  Bitsy had it in his mouth and I saved him, but he bit me."

Panic rising in her voice, she asked, "Where?  Where did it bite you?"

I held out my bloody finger for her to see.  "But it was smiling at me.  I save him from Bitsy."

"Oh, God, she said.  "Howard.  Wake up.  Something bit Elodie.

I thought I'd get some Bactine and a band-aid and that would be it.  But no.  It was imperative we find this creature.  Mother told our maid, Augustine, what had happened, and told her if she found anything dead in the house to save it.  "Whatever you do, don't throw it away.  It might have rabies.  

I'd never heard of rabies before.  She made an appointment with Dr. Calhoun to come in and start a series of rabies shots.  At that time, the shots were given in the stomach or abdomen area.

We entered Dr. Calhoun's office to the familiar alcohol-infused air that always smelled like spotless, clean pain.

"Baby," said Mother, "We've got to give you a shot or you might get really sick.

I was a skinny child without an ounce of fat on me.  It took three nurses and my mother to hold me down as I screamed while I was injected with a huge needle right in the abdomen, in which every muscle was tightened.  I'd never felt such pain in my short little life.  It was unimaginable pain.

Then Mother informed me that I'd have to have 13 more shots in the stomach every day until it was finished.  I could catch rabies and that could kill me.  Maybe dying would be better.

Mother sent me off to school the next morning, but all I could think about was that next shot.  It was akin to torture.  By the time school let out, I was trembling with fear.  I got into the car.

"I've got good news," said Mother.  "I asked Augustine today if she'd found anything strange in the house while cleaning.

"Found something.  It looked like a roach, so I threw it away," she replied.  It had hidden behind the drapes in one of the rooms of the house and died.  

Mother rushed out of the back door and down to the alley where the trash was kept.  Luckily the trash hadn't been collected, and there, lying amid old coffee grounds, egg shells and garbage, lay a dead chipmunk.

"They sent the head off to Jackson to be tested for rabies, and it came back negative.  That means you don't have to get any more shots."

Relief washed over me like water. I felt like a German being freed from a concentration camp.  Then I got mad.

Why had she let me sit there all day at school when she could've called the school to let them and me know.  Honestly?  I still don't understand it.  She HAD to know the dread and fear I'd experienced the whole day, imagining another of those horrible shots in the stomach.

This was before I finally realized that my mother was self-centered; it wouldn't have even dawned on her to let me know earlier.  She let me sit there all day awaiting torments that rivaled the Spanish inquisition.

I had learned a valuable lesson that day.  Don't take a chipmunk's smile at face value.  Those little bastards can be mean.  

Eventually, Bitsy moved down the alley to my great aunt's house, who was more attentive to the needs of pets than we were.  In fact, a lot of our pets moved to Annet's.  She was the magical lady in the Disney story of The Three Lives of Thomasina, the cat.  Animals just knew a better place to be.

Bitsy on the sidewalk in front of Annet's house.  He was 20 years old.  The last time my aunt saw him, he was being carried down the street by a pack of dogs.  Sad story all around.  Photo by Neil Varnell