The Squirrels’ Missing Nuts
By Briea Jaeger
This story starts off with an ancient waterfall. It’s located deep, deep in a forest. It’s about a family, a family of squirrels.
The squirrel family likes to eat. They eat many things including bark, twigs and leaves, but most of all they like nuts! The squirrels love all types of nuts. They love walnuts, acorns, hazelnuts, anything they can find.
However, the squirrels seem to have a little problem. Every winter, they either dig a hole to bury their nuts or hide them in a tree. But every spring they can’t find them. They kept getting stolen!
The squirrels were getting sick of it. The family decides to come up with a new plan this winter. Now, there are lots of spots in the forest to put their nuts, but every time they found a new spot, someone else beat them to it.
They decided they needed a new plan. They went to the oldest and wisest squirrel in the forest. The wise old squirrel said, “You will seek, and you will find what you’ve been looking for all this time.”
The squirrels were really confused. So, they decided to look everywhere. They looked under bushes, deep inside trees, and even right by the old waterfall. The sun was setting, and the squirrels were exhausted. They took a rest by the old waterfall. Before they drifted off to sleep, the little squirrel had an idea.
He said, “I seek nothing but the waterfall. The waterfall! That’s it! It would be a perfect place to store nuts.”
All the squirrels agreed, however, they had a problem. They couldn’t swim across the lake. So, they decided to sleep on it.
The next day, the little squirrel woke up first. He was walking around and noticed lots of fallen trees on the ground! He called to all the squirrels, waking them up. They found vines and discovered they could tie the vines around the logs and make a boat. The boat could float!
They used their arms and paddled across the lake. Once they got to the waterfall, they discovered a little opening. It was the perfect place to store nuts for the winter! They gathered up all their nuts and put them behind the waterfall. In the spring, they feasted on all the nuts!