Skunk and Badger Read online

  The sound rang out. Hastily, Badger clapped a paw over the ukulele’s sound hole. “Shhh!” he whispered.

  Still, he plucked the bottom string one more time: Pliiiinggg.

  Gently, Badger set the ukulele back in its case, latched the latches (c-click, c-click), and slid the case into the back of his closet.

  The pliiiinggg stayed with him as he climbed into bed. Wrapped in the ring of the note, Badger slept.

  The next morning Badger awoke to smells. Eggs . . . onions and . . .

  “Cinnamon,” Badger mumbled.

  A dream, thought Badger. In his kitchen one thing—and one thing only—awaited him: cold cereal in a cold bowl with cold milk. Again.

  He turned over in his bed, took a deep breath, and smelled . . . definitely cinnamon.

  Then he remembered: That fellow! That Skunk! Badger’s eyes popped open.

  He smelled something else. Burning?

  He sniffed again. Burning! Coughing, Badger leapt from his bed. “Fire! Fire!” Badger yelled, as he raced down the stairs.

  Skunk ran out of the kitchen. He held a pepper clamped in tongs over his head. “Fire? Where?” Skunk skittered right and looked. Skunk skidded left. The pepper at the end of Skunk’s tongs trailed a long, thin line of smoke.

  Skunk followed Badger’s gaze. “Ha!” He jabbed the air with his pepper. “This? This is not fire. This is fire-roasted. It is breakfast!”

  “Breakfast?” said Badger, as Skunk and the pepper disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Badger stood stunned at the bottom of the stairs. Breakfast for me too? He listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen: The vent hood whooshed on. (“Should have turned that on sooner,” he heard Skunk say.) Pans and pots clanked. Something hit something else and sizzled. Something was shaken. The faucet turned on and off. Skunk whistled a tune.

  The air around Badger was thick with smells: savory and sweet, buttery, toasty and grilled. If he were a civet, he’d have wanted to roll in the smells while yelling, “Rejoice! Rejoice!” But being a badger, he tip-clawed to the kitchen for a wary peek.

  From the doorway, Badger stared. The kitchen looked cozy, welcoming even. Candlelight flickered on the kitchen table. Two places were set with placemats, cloth napkins in napkin rings, a fork and a knife. Nothing matched. One napkin was purple and dotted, the other a tartan plaid, and the half-finished candle had been stuck into a bulbous bottle covered with wax drippings. But Badger found it delightful.

  Skunk whirred to the stove, the counter, back to the stove, the sink, the kitchen table, and returned to the stove. He spotted Badger in the doorway. “Come in, come in. Come on in!” Skunk jabbed a spatula in the direction of a chair. “Sit. Breakfast soon.” Then Skunk scraped furiously at something in a fry pan.

  Badger sat.

  The scraping stopped, and Skunk marched over to Badger. He put his paws on his hips and said, “I am not a baby cow. You are not a baby cow. I will not insult your palate with baby cow food. Have you ever met a baby cow? Slugs are better conversationalists. But never fear, you will like your breakfast hot chocolate fine without baby cow milk.”

  “Breakfast hot chocolate?” Badger did not think he would have trouble drinking breakfast hot chocolate. He was about to say this, but Skunk was already across the room at the kitchen counter. He tossed something in a bowl with a big spoon. Skunk picked up the bowl, gave it a shake, and a small potato shot across the room.

  “Rocket potato! Watch out!” yelled Skunk.

  “Har-HAR!” Badger laughed. “Ha!” laughed Skunk. Their eyes met, and they grinned at one another.

  Then Skunk nodded seriously. “I will get Rocket Potato later.” The bowl clunked back onto the counter and Skunk continued to cook.

  A few minutes later, Skunk laid a plate of scrambled eggs with fire-roasted peppers in front of Badger.

  Badger knew what to do next. He forked it up and put it in his mouth. “Oh . . . mmmm.”

  Skunk shook out a napkin. “Tuck this under your chin.”

  Badger tucked the napkin under his chin and forked up more eggs. “Mmmm . . . mahMah.”

  Thereafter followed the promised breakfast hot chocolate—yes!—and a basket of strawberry cinnamon muffins. (A basket!) After everything else came roasted fingerling potatoes. Skunk apologized for the potatoes coming last: “I get the eating order wrong sometimes, but with breakfast I do not mind terribly.” Skunk sat down with his own plate of potatoes. “Breakfast is the nicest meal,” he said.

  Badger nodded vigorously.

  Skunk continued: “Because breakfast is the nicest meal, you should have candlelight at breakfast. If at all possible. Sometimes it is not possible. Sometimes you are eating where there is not a candle. Or sometimes there is a candle shortage, and no one has candles. That is sad, particularly for breakfast.”

  Breakfast is the nicest meal.

  “Yes . . . Mahmmm,” said Badger, hiding his mouthful with a paw.

  Skunk clapped his paws. “I knew it. We are so much alike. We will be good roommates.”

  Then—with Skunk at one end of the table and Badger at the other—they turned to their plates and ate.

  Badger was into his fourth muffin (fifth muffin? Sixth?) when he realized that things had gone silent.

  Also, the candle had snuffed out.

  Badger looked up from his plate. Skunk was not at his spot at the kitchen table.

  He surveyed the room. Skunk was not in front of the stove. Bowls, plates, a cutting board, and cooking doodads and gizmos littered the counters. Something oozed off a fry pan onto a burner.

  No one was cleaning up.

  Then an image of a small potato streaking across the kitchen blazed through Badger’s mind. “Rocket potato! Watch out!” Skunk had said. Badger glanced over his shoulder and saw the potato. Rocket Potato was small, yellow, and now claimed the corner. Badger decided he did not like the look of potatoes in corners, even rocket potatoes.

  Rocket Potato

  Badger grabbed a muffin from the basket, and was surprised to find it was the last muffin. How many muffins had he eaten? Badger took a bite and chewed. His chewing sounded loud.

  Where exactly was Skunk?

  Badger swallowed and listened.

  That’s when he heard it—a thumping. The sound came from the second floor.

  Chapter Three

  Thump. Thump.

  Skunk! Badger stuffed the muffin into his mouth, swallowed, and pushed back his kitchen chair.

  Halfway up the stairs, he heard ripping.

  “Flat! Flat! Flat!” came a voice.

  This was followed by: Thump. Thump. Thump.

  A picture came into Badger’s mind. He sprinted down the hallway and tossed open the door.

  My box room! The room was supposed to be filled with boxes: boxes to the ceiling, boxes wall to wall, teetering towers of boxes that shifted when you tip-clawed in and tip-clawed out. Once there had been a box for every need.

  No more. Only a single tower of shoeboxes remained. All of the other boxes lay cut down, flattened, stacked, defeated.

  “What are you doing?”

  Skunk stopped jumping (thump) and grinned at Badger. “I am flattening boxes!”

  He grabbed Badger’s paw and dragged him into the room. “This room is the perfect room for a skunk!” Skunk pointed at a window seat. “At night I will sit there and look at the moon. When there is not a moon, I will name constellations. I am good at naming constellations. We should go on a night hike, okay?”

  Badger nodded, but he was only half listening. He had forgotten what this room looked like before boxes. He did not recall the yellow bed frame. Or the bookcase of books. A green beanbag chair?

  Skunk wheeled around, arms out wide. He stopped with a stomp. “Tonight I will write Aunt Lula and tell her I have found a room on the second floor.”

  Badger knew what Aunt Lula would say: “Good! Skunkhas foundaroom!”

  Alarmed, Badger said, “What about a box room? You never know
when you’ll need a box of a certain size.”

  Skunk turned and stared. “Were you saving these boxes? Oh no. I thought you had not gotten around to emptying this room out, which is why you did not want me to stay on the second floor. I thought, ‘These are only boxes. I will flatten them. I will help out.’ Boxes take up too much room if you do not keep on top of them.” He looked at Badger. “I am sorry.”

  “What about the Special Guest Closet?” said Badger quickly.

  Skunk opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it and said, “I could not stay in the Special Guest Closet for more than one night. Badger, that closet is too small—even for a skunk.” Skunk looked around at the piles of flattened boxes. “Do you need this many boxes? Perhaps for rocks? I did not know rocks required so many boxes.”

  “Of course rocks do not require this many boxes!” Heat rose under Badger’s fur.

  “Good.” Skunk brushed off his paws. “It is time to recycle!” Skunk picked up a stack of flattened boxes and walked them to Badger.

  Badger took the stack of boxes. What else could he do? He had read Aunt Lula’s letters.

  A moment later, Skunk appeared next to him, holding his own stack of flattened boxes. At the top of Skunk’s pile were three unflattened shoeboxes. He gave Badger a serious look. “I will find you another box room. I promise.” As Skunk left the room, he added, “Recycling feels good. Plus, there are always chickens.”

  “Chickens?” said Badger. But Skunk was already down the hallway. Curious, Badger followed.

  The first chicken appeared as Skunk set down his pile of boxes.

  Skunk gave the chicken one of the shoeboxes. “Here you go.”

  “Bock!” said the chicken, taking the box. The chicken strolled on.

  Skunk whispered, “One of the Orpingtons.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, well,” Badger mumbled. He watched the chicken pick its way down the alley, shoebox under wing, and thought, Another chicken!

  Badger was setting his pile of boxes down when the next chicken came along. This chicken came at them in herks and jerks, stretching out long yellow legs. Skunk gave the chicken the second shoebox.

  “Bock-bock-bockety. Bock-bock!” said the chicken.

  Skunk leaned back and howled with laughter. “Good one!”

  Together they watched the chicken zig, then zag, then disappear from sight. Skunk smiled at Badger. “Here today, gone to leghorn. That is what I always say. You know?”

  Badger did not know, but he nodded anyway. Did chickens live in his neighborhood? Yesterday—one chicken. Today? Two chickens. That’s three chickens, Badger thought, as he and Skunk bound the piles of flattened boxes together with string and set them beside the recycle bin.

  “We have done it!” Skunk clapped his paws.

  Badger regarded the piles. No more boxes. No more box room. But then he saw one shoebox on the curb. Badger looked up the alley. He looked down the alley. No chickens.

  “A chicken forgot its shoebox,” he said to Skunk.

  “I saved it,” Skunk replied. “For you! It is the best shoebox.” He picked it up and held it out.

  Badger took it. “Really?” He turned it over in his paws. The lid fit snugly. It had sturdy sides. When you tapped on the box, it sounded pleasingly hollow. “A box like this will hold many things. Thank you!”

  Skunk thought a moment. “Hm. That must be why the chickens like shoeboxes too. What do you think chickens keep in shoeboxes?”

  Badger laughed. “Har! Eggs?”

  “Maybe eggs. Chickens do like to collect though.”

  Eggs reminded Badger of breakfast. Breakfast reminded him of something else: “I’m assuming you will be cleaning the kitchen?”

  “Of course not,” said Skunk, matter-of-factly. “I cook. You clean. It is a Law of Nature. Anyway, I will be busy moving into the Moon Room.”

  You clean? A Law of Nature? Badger thought as he scrubbed, elbow deep in suds. Meanwhile, Skunk raced up and down the stairs, whistling a tune. Badger scrubbed more and listened to the happy scritch-scratchings of a bristle broom on floorboards. He chipped away at a muffin tin barnacled with batter, while upstairs, the trash bin clanged, furniture scraped across the floor, and something plopped with a reverberating, beanbag-like POOF. Skunk’s feet pattered in funny, jig-like patterns, and Badger heard him uttering things like, “Yes!” and “This is such a good room!” Badger pulled his paws out of the soapy water and discovered breakfast (eggs, pepper, wet muffin) matted in his fur. He wrote “rubber gloves” on the grocery list, and thought, Cold cereal in a cold bowl with cold milk has its advantages.

  Meanwhile, a hop-ditty-hop continued upstairs. Was Skunk skipping?

  THUMP! Squeaky-squeaky-squeak.

  A voice called out, “Did you know this bed is bouncy? It is bouncy.”

  Badger dried his forearms on a dish towel, and said nothing. He considered the yellow bed frame, the green beanbag chair, and the window seat for observing the moon.

  Squeak. Squeak-squeak.

  Badger gathered up the smudged, encrusted apron and the moist dish towels and wondered where he would be allowed to keep his boxes. As he tossed the apron and towels into the laundry hamper, he realized he had thanked Skunk for his own shoebox. When Badger had finished cleaning the kitchen, he found himself standing over a small potato lying in the corner. Rocket Potato. Skunk had said he would pick it up later.

  It will be a test, thought Badger.

  He left Rocket Potato in its corner.

  Badger was sitting in a clean kitchen at a clean kitchen table reading (and re-reading) the same page of Rock Hound Weekly when Skunk announced that he’d found a new box room.

  Skunk led Badger into the front hallway. “Voila!” he said, opening the folding door and tugging a chain.

  The light flickered on and hummed.

  “That’s my Special Guest Closet,” said Badger.

  “It is better as a Special Box Closet,” said Skunk. “See? I have already put five boxes of different sizes and your new shoebox inside it.”

  True enough, Skunk had put six boxes, including Badger’s shoebox, inside the closet. It was also true that Badger did not have many Special Guests.

  “Fine. It’s a Special Box Closet,” Badger said.

  Skunk hopped and grinned. “Good!”

  Badger observed Skunk coolly. “Do you like your new room?”

  “I do!”

  “Good.” Badger gave Skunk a stern look. “I am going to do my Important Rock Work now. I am not to be disturbed. Do you understand?”

  Skunk nodded.

  Badger walked into the kitchen. From the kitchen, he walked directly into his rock room. Someone was behind him. He twisted around. “What?”

  Skunk shrugged. “I was seeing where you were going.”

  Scowling, Badger took hold of one of the pocket doors that separated his rock room from the kitchen and pulled it until it stopped halfway across the room.

  Skunk stood, watching him.

  “I will need quiet to do Important Rock Work,” Badger said. “The pocket doors must remain shut.”

  “Okay.” Skunk nodded again.

  Badger walked across the room, took hold of the other pocket door, and pulled it until there was a small gap between the two doors. “Important Rock Work requires concentration and focus.”

  He stepped through the gap, turned around, and put his face in it. “Do not bother me when I am in the rock room. Got it?”

  Skunk’s eyes widened. “Got it.”

  With that, Badger closed the doors.

  Then Badger raced across the rock room and closed the door to the hallway. It shut with a satisfying click.

  Badger leaned against it to catch his breath and heard Skunk whisper, “Shhh. Rock room.” Then he heard click-click-click as Skunk tip-clawed away.

  Chapter Four

  Badger Double-Checked: The Pocket Doors That separated the kitchen from Badger’s rock room were shut. The door to the hallway was shut. S
kunk was out there. He was in here. Badger closed his eyes, leaned against the hallway door, and despaired. How will I ever get my Important Rock Work done? I am finished. His breath came in gulps. His heartbeat ricocheted. Finally he told himself, You are not finished. Open your eyes.

  So he did. Badger opened his eyes and saw his rock room: There were the bookcases of rocks and the fireplace stacked with geodes. (Artistic!) There hung his safety glasses, and over here? His hardness testing kit. Chisels, hammers, saws! Scrapers and tweezers and nailbrushes! Magnifying glasses with wooden handles worn smooth by years of Important Rock Work. And in the center of the room? Badger’s rock table, his rock light, his rock stool.

  The rock room is mine. Badger’s eyes widened with relief. Yes—mine.

  He tip-clawed over to the rock table and switched the rock light on. The light pooled on the table and illuminated an object. The object had pink and gray specks. Some of the specks sparkled.

  He rubbed his paws together, then gently pulled out his rock stool and sat down.

  He picked the object up. It felt weighty. He brought it close, and whispered, “Rock or mineral?”

  “Rock or mineral” was always the first question. Even if Badger thought he knew the answer, he began at the beginning—the very beginning. He asked the first question. There’d be time for tests and prying. Eventually, Badger would scrape and scratch: Did the object leave a streak on the white porcelain tile? A streak of what color? Later, the name would be divulged, uncovered. Sometimes it took a drop of acid. (Fizzing! A carbonate!) Other times the pass of Badger’s paw over the object’s surface caused a sedimentary crumbling. Tools were kept at the ready: magnifying glasses and a microscope, a blowpipe and a Bunsen burner, gloves and safety goggles. There was a bradawl, a tiny spatula, brushes of all sizes, and a fine dust blower (which Badger had nicknamed his “puffer”).

  But first—before any of this—there was the beginning. There was the asking of the first question. Badger liked the beginning. At the beginning, he cleared the clutter of assumptions and guesses from his mind. He opened himself up to any possibility, and asked the question.